by admin on December 1, 2008
My colleague Kaley Warner Klemp is an organizational consultant who works with high achievers and their partners. When she consults with partners who are losing their identities to the dynamics of ambition and success, she encourages them to set boundaries by beginning with something that isn’t too overwhelming. “I typically work with them on speaking small truths,” Kaley says. “A lot of women have a difficult time both asking for what they want and setting boundaries, particularly in saying no. I work with them on saying no to small things that they can sustain to help build some energy. After a while, that message – ‘I am also important here, therefore, I won’t do that’ - begins to come through in bigger ways.”
We see a lot partners of high achievers who have lost their ability to say no. But you can’t entirely blame an ambitious, driven mate for this decline in a partner’s self-determination. It’s also about slowly deferring to the focused, disciplined energy of someone who knows what they want. Women, especially, have spent so many years fulfilling others’ needs that they often come up blank when they’re asked what they want. They really don’t know. Or they remember what they used to want, but it’s been a long time since they visited that question.
It doesn’t require conflict to regain self-confidence and self-determination; it requires a calm belief that is communicated to others. Like Kaley says, starting with little steps leads to a bigger belief.
Of course, this issue happens with high achievers, too. Either way, commitment to change can start the shift to becoming a more powerful person.
by Carol on April 27, 2008
When people ask me what I do, I have to pause and consider how much time we have to talk about it. Typically, after I give them the short answer - I consult with women who are in relationships with high achievers - their eyes widen and they lean forward, staring intently as if my face had just broken out in stripes or polka dots. “Really?” they ask incredulously. “Give me an example…”
Everyone seems fascinated by how “the other half lives” but it’s not that simple. This work is a little niche subset of relationship coaching, but it’s specific to the dynamics at play between two people when ambition, wealth, power, and all that comes with success, are in the mix. The profile of the woman I work with is usually a high achiever herself, but she’s found that the chaotic, brilliant energy that comes from her significant other has become more than she can handle.
She struggles to hang on to her identity at yet another dinner where she’s become marginalized because everyone there wants something from her husband and they only look at him when they talk. She needs to discuss things with him at the end of the day, but he’s just come from ten hours of intense engagement with his career, and before she gets through her first sentence, she gets that sinking feeling that he isn’t listening again. She’d secretly like to start her own business or return to school to finish her master’s but she knows that it would make things so difficult in an already chaotic life.
She walks on egg shells when he’s putting everything at risk for another “big deal.” She spends a ridiculous amount of money on a pair of shoes and feels guilty that her lifestyle doesn’t make her feel as happy or grateful as she thinks she should be. And unless she has a trusted friend who is either in the same boat or can handle the context without thinking she’s spoiled beyond belief, most of this never gets shared because everyone thinks she “has it made.” How could she possibly complain about anything?
I don’t go into that kind of detail in cocktail party discussions. Unless you’ve lived it, it does sound like a manufactured set of issues. I mean honestly, who would call those real problems?
I would. Because I’ve lived them. Until a woman and her partner really look at the enormous and sometimes toxic energy of money and power, until they can stay grounded when everyone around them is manipulating them with flattery, and until they find their way in the midst of an unbelievable number of choices, it can be overwhelming to live a normal life or enjoy a great relationship.
But when it’s handled with grace and clarity, a woman can utilize these privileges to create some real momentum in her own vision of what life can be. She doesn’t have to follow anyone else’s idea of what she should do to change the world. Good fortune can be carefully considered and enjoyed in a way that leaves a legacy of style and purpose that is uniquely her own. That’s where I come in. I walk with her until she can find her own path.
