Can you spot it?
I still blush a little when I see The Coaching Habit on a shelf, even ten years later. But this … this was a first.
A dear friend of mine, Jenny, sent me this photo ↑ the other day.
There, for the first time (that I know of), was The Coaching Habit … in the remainder tray.
Or better known in my mind as the “we need to get rid of this” tray.
So I have, literally and metaphorically, been marked down.
It’s hard not to take that personally.
You want your work, your status, your name on the spine to stay shiny and admired forever.
But the sun rises and sets, and a book that’s been around ten years has had a longer run than I would have ever guessed.
So rather than putting up a stink and staying upset, I turned this into a lesson …
There’s always an upward swing
In this time of AI, it feels like the world is constantly reminding us that we humans are being marked down with the rise of the machine.
There’s an uncomfortable obsession with handing everything to the algorithm that has a way of making a person feel like a remainder.
But there’s an interesting counter to this …
The Harvard Business Review reported that most companies are seeing no measurable return on AI and the promised productivity miracle, so far, is a no-show. Which was guessable.
There’s a thing called the Gartner Hype Cycle: every technology gets hyped to the heavens, then plummets, then eventually finds its useful groove.
We may simply be at the end of that first peak (fingers crossed), where people start to realize this is costly, and it’s still not quite what they wanted.
And the same is true of a book. As I mark ten years of The Coaching Habit, I like to think we’re on the upward swing of that same cycle. With new readers and returning readers finding their own groove with it, together. (Even those who found it in the remainder tray.)
But the anxious feeling is real. So it’s worth stopping to notice the feelings that come with this.
I work with five core feelings: mad, sad, glad, ashamed, afraid.
With my own book sitting in that tray, four of the five are showing up. (You can probably guess which one isn’t.)
We are not our work
Work can be a gift. It can often offer meaning and healing.
And if you’re lucky, you land on work with both impact (serves the world) and meaning (it lights you up).
But you are not your work.
There’s a truth, even as you find yourself (as I just have) on the remainder pile … underneath all the noise, there’s a bass beat that keeps going.
Whether you can hear it clearly or not, it’s that you’re awesome and you’re doing great.
