To Smart, Hard-Working And Successful Professionals Who Secretly Wonder:
Am I Making My Job Harder Than It Needs To Be?
Dear Friend,
Most successful professionals have figured out the rules of the corporate game.
Rules like:
- Wait until you have more data
- Over-prepare for important meetings
- Build consensus before making decisions
- Stay busy so nobody questions your value
This is the sort of behaviour the Corporate System rewards. Colleagues start to trust you, your boss praises your thoroughness and you develop a reputation for being diligent, dependable and collaborative. If you play the game well enough for long enough, you might even find yourself with a better title, a bigger bonus and a promotion or two.
So far, so sensible.
The only problem?
These habits work brilliantly right up until the point they start getting in your way.
See, the skills that help you rise inside your company are not the skills that matter once your job moves from doing to deciding. But by then, the habits of doing have been drilled so deep you might not even notice them any more.
I like the way the legendary tennis coach Timothy Gallwey put it with his famous formula:
Performance = Potential - Interference
Most professionals assume that better performance comes from more effort, more analysis, more preparation and more thinking. But what I've seen time and time again is that when interference drops, something shifts. People don't become less effective. They become more effective and often start enjoying their work a great deal more too.
This is where my program Trust Me, I Work Here comes in.
This program is for professionals who'd like to:
- Feel lighter, sharper and more energised at work
- Take back bandwidth being burned on overthinking
- Trust themselves more and perform better as a result
- Make cleaner decisions with less stress and mental friction
- Feel calmer in ambiguity instead of wrestling every idea to death
If this sounds like something you might be interested in, here's how Trust Me, I Work Here works:
We'll start with a 3 hour, one-to-one Zoom immersive to take stock of where you're at, where you want to go and what's been getting in the way.
Then we'll meet for an hour on Zoom each fortnight for three months to identify where you're creating unnecessary friction and help you replace it with clearer, lighter ways of working.
Between sessions, you can message me on Whatsapp between Monday and Friday. I'll come back to you within 24 hours (and probably quite a bit sooner).
This isn't a rigid coaching framework or a box-ticking accountability program. This is a personalised space to think clearly, see differently and make meaningful shifts that actually stick.
Your investment in the program is $2,000.
In return, you'll receive one 3-hour immersive, seven 1-hour coaching sessions, unlimited WhatsApp support and the clarity, confidence and calm to perform at a higher level without mentally exhausting yourself in the process.
However, a word of caution:
Please think carefully about this. The last thing I want to do is "talk you into" this program if you're not sure it's for you. I'm really not interested in persuading you to join if you're half-hearted, reluctant or sceptical. Nor do I want you to join this program if you're not committed to the process or the sessions.
But if part of you is thinking "blimey, this sounds like a bit of me", then I'd love to invite you to a free Discovery Call. This way, we can get a sense of what it would be like to work with each other and I can answer any questions you have.
You can book a 25 minute call with me here
Here are a few FAQs to bear in mind too:
Q. Is this coaching?
A. Yes. But probably not the sort of coaching you think it is. A previous client described me as the "anti-coach". That sums it up nicely. I'm not here to fix you because I don't believe you're broken. But I am here to help you remove what's getting in your way.
Q. Why should I trust you Tom?
A. I've spent 15 years working in an environment where overthinking, over-preparation and self-imposed pressure are treated like virtues. So I know exactly what we're up against. I've coached bankers, lawyers, teachers, techies, marketers and various other professionals through exactly these patterns. Most importantly, I've made the shift myself from chronic overthinker to (mostly) clear and calm without losing a jot of my performance in the process. So this isn't theory for me. This is lived experience.
Q. Are you just telling me to care less about my job?
A. No. This is about caring but without the heaviness that usually comes alongside it.
Q. Won't I become sloppy at work if I let go of everything that's got me to this point so far?
A. Imagine you're a brilliant cook. But for some reason, you've convinced yourself you need to wear oven gloves when you're cooking. So you've become really good at chopping vegetables, stirring sauces and plating dishes with your oven gloves on. Then one day someone says "did you know you could take those gloves off?". The suggestion to take off your gloves might feel alarming at first. But clearly you never needed those gloves in the first place. In fact, you'd be an even better cook without them. I'm suggesting it works the same way with our jobs. Most professionals are wearing their own version of "oven gloves" without even realising it. But when you take the gloves off and start to trust yourself without the interference, you get sharper, clearer and lighter. Not sloppier.
Q. I don't think this is for me Tom. I'm just a naturally thorough person.
A. You might well be. You might also be using words like "thorough" and "conscientious" to describe patterns that are really just sophisticated forms of overthinking.
Q. I don't need "mindset" work Tom. I just need help getting through all my work in an environment that's genuinely demanding.
A. I don't doubt your day job is extremely demanding. I know how gloriously absurd corporate life can be and I'm not trying to pretend otherwise. But I know for a fact too that the vast majority of corporate professionals (including me) add unnecessary psychological drag on top of their workload. And while your 5pm deadline might not be optional, that drag is much more optional than you think.
So there we have it.
If you're curious, I'd love to invite you to book a free, no-obligation Discovery Call.
The bottom line for me is that struggle does not need to be the price of high performance.
If part of you suspects you might be making your job harder than it needs to be, I'd love to help you find out what's possible when you stop interfering with your own judgment.