This morning I had a session with a really sharp career coach I’ve been working with for four years, and it turned out to be one of the most valuable, most useful sessions so far.
Why?
First, before the session I used Opus 5.5 + the Grill-me SKILL to read through my notes from the last session, while also taking stock of the past two months, asking me about things I couldn’t see on my own — the actual events and the shifts in how I was feeling — and distilling all of it into a prep sheet covering three issues. Each issue had its key points of contention, the factual evidence, and my best guesses.
Second, a good coach doesn’t hand you ideas, she guides you toward them. My coach is genuinely great at this. Roughly 80% of the session was me talking, and she said maybe 20%. But every time she used that 20%, it hit home and showed me a blind spot in my own thinking. Things like: “mission” and “identity” can actually be separated; a “second career” isn’t mandatory; past experience that seems unrelated isn’t necessarily a liability…
I think my coach is basically Fable in human form.
Third, after the session I handed my notes from the whole conversation to Fable 5.1 and asked it to turn everything into a clear set of next actions.
Things have cleared up now, and I can keep moving forward on the work front!