Driven to reach a default picture of success, directed by an inner voice that constantly reminds them how they have to focus on results, production and returns… Executives spend days, months and years running on the career hamster’s wheel… overdosed by multiple addictions, a hammer in their hands ready to nail down any adversity, and a constant wish to grow wings and fly higher and higher for a bigger title, a bigger salary, a bigger team, a bigger corporate, a bigger deal.

Many of them succeed to the top, only to become Icarus and see their feathers melt into unhealthy habits, depression, ulcers, dermatitis, panic attacks and a general weakened sense of belonging. They may end up losing their position, relationship and life balance following the incredible task to reach the “real wealth”, literally burn out.

After more than twenty years in investment banking, having spent many years of my career stuck in the result trap, I have literally felt like running out of carrots…. I found myself lost, with as only option to backpedal on my carrier and personal choices.

Almost two years ago I have quit my job in finance.

Now my purpose as a Coach is to support Executives to understand that we all have blind spots, but we also have an inner felt sense of what we need in life. The hunger of fulfilment we sense, may actually be fed by working harmoniously within the system. That if we activate our emotional intelligence while playing the game of thrones, we can actually reach the top being interdependent rather than isolated.

My mission is to support my clients in moving from being uniquely self-aware and focused on self-management to be also social aware and focused on relationship.

Support them in making carrier choices strategizing without limitations, focusing on new possibility rather than old mistakes. Integrating the darker aspects of themselves into a conscious personality, changing the conversation from the inside, talking to their best self and acknowledge emotions. Find their own authentic voice.

Having personally experienced similar situations of many Executives, I have a deep understanding of what it means to face the questioning of the Cheshire cat, and realize that unless you really know where you want to go, it doesn’t really matter which road to take; like Alice in Wonderland we are not crazy, but simply our reality is just different than others.

In addition, if the Pareto principle works, time spent on coaching could be extremely rewarding for any Executive and can allow them to build “wings” on their shoulders lasting way longer than the length of the exercise.

Imagine if we didn’t have a scapula and our shoulder muscles simply attached to our spine.

Pulling back (like opening a door) and pulling down (like doing a pull-up) wouldn't be as distinguishable. Coaching, like the scapula bone, gives grounds to our mental arms and, more specifically, act as the support, elevator and rotator of our thoughts.

In my job, my ultimate aim is to demonstrate, if not to proof, that Executive can reach the top using not only their enduring and unbeatable strength in motion, the unique Leonardo’s engineering skills, and the fuelling power of energy and combustion, but also behaving in a way and form that is compatible with the desire to achieve true wealth, and – as many may believe - grow wings acting as an example of unparalleled conduct and virtue.

Many people, presented with the opportunity of coaching, face the initiative with scepticism and mistrust. Nevertheless, the pressure that we all feel on our shoulders, the impelling need to take an action to solve the situation, may easily lead us to other forms of healthy or un-healthy compensations. Many of us have learned how coping mechanism have a short-lasting effect, and as soon as the stimulus end, the benefit ends. We have also realised how we can’t simply go ahead in this situation like passive drones, since all our professional life has been based on expecting to be innovative, risk taking, creative and ambitious.

The coaching practice that I am proposing is drawn from my background and is based on the application of what I have learned in all my professional life and - if you share my financial background - you would be familiar with the concept of “Present Value Model”.

According to this financial concept, any asset is the value of its future cash flows. To determine it, we analyse all the different components: dividends, capital repayments, and other infrequent collections. Life is not any different, the issue is that often – way more often than we expect – while we calculate our “personal value model” we discharge emotion as a data, even if we know that to develop any efficient market hypothesis, we have to use all the available information, specifically if we are looking for strong efficiency.

Along with the same metaphorical parallelism, we know that we are on the efficient frontier only if no market participant can generate higher expected profits…..and therefore I ask myself, why is it that so many people in the City are truly not feeling to be in this position? Clearly the sector, or the individuals, are not strongly efficient.

Random Walk models or Dynamic Models all point to the same components, you need to be able to take into account the elements of growth and elements of “nonlinear” results. And again, my question is, how much have we focused on forecasting and obtaining material concepts of growth in our personal quest versus personal growth? how much have we assessed the real personal and emotional risk variables in our efficient pricing model?

Well, according to my studies, it turns out that perceived emotions (the Felt Sense) are actually a good forecasting element for future returns, and should not be discharges in the implementation of any professional and personal model aimed to reach the efficient frontier.

In a professional life where we have been trained to be resilient, self-correcting and self-generating we should not modify our attitude while assessing our personal goals and health. We should not settle for being ranked as risk averse, comfortable to receive as return a fixed payment in life. We should aim for a position on the efficient frontier and invest every asset we have without restriction to get to the upper branch of the professional and personal hyperbola.

Coaching allows every individual to achieve a higher position on the capital market line identifying what we can call your “optimal risk position” taking into consideration in the asset allocation, all the variables of the PRO model (personality, role and organisation). With psychodynamic coaching, each individual can assess its current level of risk appetite in life and determine how to act considering all the variances, covariance and correlations in the conscious and – more important - subconscious data available.