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I first heard of Laura Berman Fortgang about 12 years ago, when I worked at Time Warner and enjoyed a perk of working for a large media company: Free magazines. Laura was featured in a business article about a new, emerging practice called career coaching. As a business and career writer, this was an area of interest to me, new ways of doing well at work. I liked that Laura approached business coaching not from the standpoint of how to tactically do one's job better--this is not typically an issue with high-performing Type-A executives on the East Coast--but more how one can perceive one's job differently. By looking at how we prioritize, and shifting misperceptions we've built in our minds about how we must do work, we can perform better AND be happier with our careers.
Later, in 2000, I read another story about coaching that featured Laura, who at this point was THE career coach. Though the story refers to coaching as "the Wild West of HR" Laura was critical to bringing in to the mainstream. She was the first career coach on Oprah. She'd written a book called Take Yourself to the Top, which spoke to this emerging need to make sense of the globalizing business world while still maintaining a sense of sanity. The title suggested, however, that though we might need to re-think our obsession with succeeding, we still couldn't jump off the treadmill. Rather we needed to learn to enjoy it. As a young professional at an emerging Web start-up with no family obligations or hobbies, this was music to my ears.
In 2002 I was introduced to Laura through a consulting partner and wondered how, in a short meeting, I should suck all of her knowledge out of her brain and store it for myself. We were meeting to discuss how we might help Laura, who at this point had forged a path for thousands of newly annointed career and life coaches and was seeking to understand the next step for herself. I was fascinated by her story, not only because I would consult for her, but because I was afforded an early view of her next transformation.
Laura's life had consisted of flying to Fortune 500 companies to speak en masse to employees, building a coaching program for coaches, and writing books. I was convinced that Laura was leading the life I wanted someday. But she seemed, in some small way, over it. I noticed that she worked harder than I'd seen anyone work to fit it all in while still being availble for her husband and three children. She was tired. I saw that, even while she spoke and wrote, and continued to be a force in the personal development world, she was looking for the next big thing. Not the next big trend, but the next personal revelation. She was no longer as passionate about simply succeeding.
Her work began to reflect this soul-searching. She enrolled in the seminary to become an Interfaith minister; something that I only marginally understood and chatted with her about from time to time, thinking her classes were like my semi-weekly meditation stints, which I took up to help me write and ended when I saw that they held no "professional" value. But Laura stayed committed to it, despite securing a contract for a new book that I--and likely most of the people who had been displaced during the downturn of 2000-2002--was dying to read: Now What?: 90 Days to a New Life Direction. Having emerged from my start-up's dissolution and second-guessing what I could bring to the corporate table, she couldn't write the book fast enough for me.
I went back to the corporate world and had to hang up my consultant hat. I'd been in touch with Laura here and there; she's a fiercely loyal holiday card writer. But several months ago we connected on Facebook, and I saw that she had another new book out, The Little Book on Meaning: Why We Crave It, How We Create It. I've got a stack of books on my dresser from PR folks that I intend to get to, but this one I knew I needed to read NOW. I waited a few weeks to bring
