Furniture World News Desk on 6/9/2022

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an evolution of how and where people live and work. There has been an increase in home buying as people increasingly have left city apartments for suburban homes. The volume of home improvement projects has also skyrocketed over the last several years, with many people who have been spending more time at home feeling anxious to enhance their environments. Simultaneously, companies are working to freshen up workplace setting as a different mix and cadence of employees return to the office. As people rethink their personal and professional environments, there are many considerations but one constant is the demand for furniture and furnishings to finish these new living and work spaces.

One of the greatest challenges has been supply pressures in the industry to meet this growing demand. With furniture purchase orders up month-over-month by a staggering 7.2% in January of this year alone, furniture providers in the U.S. are struggling to keep up with the pace, with some delivery delays stretching six to eight months, if not longer. As ongoing supply chain issues, combined with labor shortages, add even more pressure to an already strained system, many buyers are growing increasingly discouraged and, consequently, furniture sellers and suppliers are getting creative and international in their sourcing and looking to stock their inventories with beautiful pieces from all over the world.

Enter Brazil: the sixth largest producer of furniture globally. Brazil has taken advantage of the current opportunity where buyers are looking for unique and special pieces in a stressed supply and demand environment. As evidence, Brazilian furniture companies and designers have invested in innovative solutions that speed up production, shipping, and delivery. As a result of these efforts and more, furniture exports grew 50.9% from 2020 to 2021, with 35% of Brazils exports in the furniture industry specifically destined for American stores. Demand continues to go up in 2022, with early estimates showing that exports increased 42% in the first quarter of the year.

Here are three ways Brazil has elevated their furniture offerings and innovations over the past few years, positioning the country as one to watch for design catalogs, inspiration boards, wish lists, and more:

In an era defined by constantly changing interior trends, low-cost materials, and poor workmanship, its often rare to find furniture designers that prioritize sustainability. Brazilian designers, however, are staying true to their craftmanship roots in order to produce high-quality and durable pieces that are more environmentally friendly than their mass-produced alternatives. Whats more, the country as a whole has very strong environmental legislation that provides checks and balances to ensure environmental preservation is always at the forefront in the furniture sector and across other industries.

Native Brazilian designer Natasha Schlobach created the sensory-packed exhibition [RF1]that perfectly captured the high-energy nature of Brazilian culture and design. Over the two weeks, Brazilian furniture designers displayed their innovative takes on flooring, lighting, seating, wallcovering, and textiles with bold structures and unique color patterns purposed to capture the attention of American buyers, distributors, designers, and everyday consumers.

Since the start of the pandemic, furniture buyers around the world have suffered the impact of an industry crippled with shipping delays and supply chain obstacles. In the wake of these disruptions, Brazil has nimbly risen as a global furniture mecca, with sleek and sustainable designs that embody Brasilidade the unique essence of Brazil. This sector has contributed to Brazils overall economic growth, with all goods and services produced in the country increasing 1% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the first quarter of 2021, and the countrys overall economy seeing 1.7% growth in the same timeframes. For individuals and home design businesses looking to obtain furniture pieces that bring extraordinary and meaningful beauty to the rooms they live in, Brazilian design is worth a look.

About Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil)ApexBrasil is the Brazilian governments trade and investment promotion agency. Regarding the investment activity, we support international investors as they analyze the opportunities to establish a plant in Brazil, start a partnership with a Brazilian company, or commit capital in Brazil through funds and companies. Our goal is to satisfy investors needs and generate results as we attract technology, innovation, new companies and generate jobs in Brazil. For more information, visitapexbrasil.com.

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How Brazil Is Meeting Demand to Bring Unique Furniture to the World - Furniture World

A fork in the road of life for the trailblazing Australian obstetrician and gynaecologist Caroline de Costa was the top of Grafton Street in Dublin, back in March 1967.

She had arrived in the city, on the recommendation of a Trinity College arts student she had met in Jerusalem, to try to resume the medical studies she had started in her native Sydney before taking a break to travel. But, having been told at Trinity that no exceptions could be made for missing the cut-off time to be interviewed for a place there, it was suggested she try the medical school at Catholic UCD, then on Earlsfort Terrace, or possibly the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). She walked to the other end of Grafton Street, where she had the choice of veering left to find UCD, hidden from sight on the other side of St Stephens Green, or bearing right to the RCSI that was already in view. She chose the latter.

Fifty-five years later, talking over a cup of coffee in Dn Laoghaire, she reflects on how momentous that decision was. Life would have been very different for this pioneering obstetrician and long-time campaigner for womens rights in reproductive health, who married a fellow RCSI student, if she had turned left instead of right.

Coming from secular Australia and a family that she describes as Protestant areligious, she had no idea of the all-encompassing power the Catholic Church had over womens bodies in Ireland at the time. That eye-opening discovery was to come later.

Caroline de Costa's new book. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

She was accepted into the RCSI, which she found to be an autonomous republic of many nations. There was an initial hiccup of being sent home on day one in October 1967 to swap her trousers for a decent skirt. But, as she recounts in her new book, The Womens Doc True stories from my five decades delivering babies and making history (Allen & Unwin), that dress code for women students soon changed, after the arrival of the mini skirt.

The following year she was relieved there was no question of her having to leave the college when she became a single mother. This might be Ireland but these are not Victorian times, she was told on disclosing her pregnancy.

Yet, with the father of her baby living in London and having little interest in me [and I in him], she writes, there were practical and financial worries. Not that she ever considered giving her son, Jerome, up for adoption, as so many other single pregnant women were pressurised into doing then. I was in a very small minority of women who could keep their child, she acknowledges. I had an advantage that my family was not going to be horrified; [they were] quite supportive from afar I had a brother who was here for a while and I wasnt Catholic.

As she was doing some freelance journalism to help fund her studies, she did go to a Catholic agency for fallen women while pregnant, purely for the purpose of research. After being given a pseudonym of Mary Mulcahy to protect her family, she heard from a nun about how placement in a mother and baby home would work, which gave her insight into the plight of other unmarried mothers and enough material for an English magazine article.

With almost a detached curiosity at the time about what it was going to be like to see through a pregnancy and give birth, she says: I had no doubts but I was also very naive. I didnt know anything about what could go wrong. She does now. Inevitably it is the more challenging births she attended as a clinician that lodged in her memory and are the most interesting in the retelling. (Reading the series of anecdotes in this memoir, I couldnt help but feel relieved that my childbearing years are successfully and safely behind me.)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when contraception in Ireland was illegal and an oft-denounced sin, de Costa played a part in helping women to avoid unwanted pregnancies by regularly smuggling in intrauterine devices (IUDs) from the UK. Her own obstetrician, Dr Rory OHanlon, had enlisted her help. He wanted to provide them for patients but risked deregistration if caught by customs, whereas as a student she was likely just to have the items confiscated.

The 'contraceptive train' featured on the front page of The Irish Times of May 24th, 1971

She was also on the famous contraceptive train of 1971, when members of the Irish Womens Liberation Movement made a very public journey to Belfast to buy condoms and bring them back to Dublin. Theres a photograph in the book to prove it of her and two-year-old Jerome helping customs officers with their inquiries on their return to Connolly station.

It amuses her that, 44 years later, the Rough Magic Theatre Company staged a musical about that trip. She travelled from Australia to attend the premiere of The Train in Limerick in 2015 and was gratified to see it attract young peoples interest in a time so different from theirs.

She has other history-making credits on her CV, not least being the first woman in Australia to become a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, at James Cook University in Cairns. In 2006, she and a colleague in Queensland became the first doctors in Australia to be authorised to import and prescribe the medical abortion drug Mifepristone, also known as RU-486.

De Costas choice of medical specialisation was significantly influenced by a breech birth she witnessed as a student in 1972 at Dublins Coombe hospital. She was in awe at the skill of Dr Jim who safely delivered the baby girl buttocks first that day. When I saw this breech I thought would I ever be able to do this? It was a very important moment, she says. It really turned me on to how exciting this could be.

A magazine cover for a piece Caroline de Costa wrote in February 1971

By the time she had completed her medical studies at the RCSI, she had married a Sri Lankan classmate and had had her second child with him. The new graduates went to Papua New Guinea, then still an Australian colony, for their intern year. There she discovered that, as a married woman, she would receive only half the salary her husband did for doing the same work at Port Moresby General Hospital.

She encountered gender discrimination again after deciding to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology. On seeking a junior registrars job in New South Wales, a professor told her that we never train women in Sydney. This local male stranglehold on the most female-centric possible area of medicine came as a complete surprise to her. When her husband also failed to get a surgical registrar post, almost certainly on the grounds of ethnicity in his case, they returned to Dublin to progress their careers. She worked in both the Rotunda and as assistant master in the Coombe, where she never felt at a disadvantage as a woman. I was incredibly well supported. While junior doctors in Australian talked of bullying and sexual harassment, I never experienced anything like that here.

Its hard to get the balance between women understanding that things can go wrong, that there may need to be a change of plan, and saying the majority of women will have a vaginal birth and a healthy baby

What she likes about obstetrics is that it is very interesting clinically. It also has a very big social component, she says. Youre aiming to produce not only a mother and child who are as healthy as possible, but who are also going back to an environment as good as it can be, and that is just as important.

Its clear the clinical work she found most satisfying in this regard was in remote regions of Queensland and among the large indigenous population there. I didnt enjoy private practice, she admits. She had always hoped to be able to combine academic work and research in Cairns with clinical practice in a public hospital but that wasnt possible, so she ended up seeing private patients.

Since she started out, there have been big improvements in both mortality and morbidity of mothers and infants but childbirth is still a risky business. No expectant parent should be too complacent, she suggests. Its hard to get the balance between women understanding that things can go wrong, that there may need to be a change of plan, and saying the majority of women will have a vaginal birth and a healthy baby. Her advice is to embark on this with an open mind.

Shes not a fan of homebirth, at least not unless there is a very good system supporting it, as things can go pear-shaped so quickly. You need to have proper back-up and good antenatal care. It needs to be completely normal to start with and you need to have a definite plan of when you will opt out of the home birth and move to the hospital.

Australian obstetrician and author Caroline de Costa. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

Criticism about the medicalisation of birth, with the risk of one intervention leading to another, is perfectly valid, she acknowledges. However, she points not only to the reduction of mortality but also that there are some increased risk factors now among women giving birth.

They are having babies later in Ireland the average age of first-time mothers is almost 32. Theyre also heavier, which means they are more likely to have diabetes and hypertension. They are also more likely to have needed medical assistance to conceive. If you are going to do something complex like IVF, you are going to be much more anxious about the pregnancy when you achieve it and, therefore, much more likely to accept intervention, or even ask for it.

Within obstetrics, increasingly there is a view that the baby is going to come out easily vaginally or through an abdominal incision. There is no place for difficult forceps, she argues. If an obstetrician starts off doing a forceps or vacuum [delivery] and it is not going well in the first two or three contractions, you need to stop and take an alternative route.

Many more women are choosing to have a planned Caesarean section and, certainly in private practice in Australia, they are likely to get it, she says. Basically, it is a safe procedure for a first or even a second pregnancy.

Does she back a womans right to an elective Caesarean? I think so. Its not something I would have done myself, but quite a lot of women doctors do and they are pretty well informed. If you are going to try for a vaginal birth, you still have a reasonably high chance of ending up with an emergency Caesarean, which is riskier. That needs to be factored into it as well.

Its time, she believes, to stop talking about normal birth. With medicine now able to compensate for some of the shortcomings when its left entirely to nature, we have many kinds of birth and we should embrace them all, she says. Its not like studying for an exam. You can read as much as you like about it but you cant control what nature is going to do to you. It is not a competition.

No woman should have guilt that she has failed in her birth plan if intervention is required, she says, but rather enormous joy and the feeling that you have accomplished something absolutely amazing, because you have.

De Costa herself has given birth seven times. She thought her family was complete at five children, but, after Jerome died in a car crash when he was aged 17 and she was 39, she made a conscious decision to have another child, with the full support of her husband.

There will be more and more of the expectation that you can demand a perfect child designer babies

It necessitated the reversing of her tubal ligation but that worked immediately. She was 41 when she had the first of their two later children and then 44 when she had her youngest daughter, who is now 30. De Costa and her husband, referred to only as A in the book, have since divorced.

I did prenatal testing because I dont think I would have coped with an abnormality, she says. While the rapid evolution of non-invasive prenatal testing has been one of the big changes, she singles out ultrasound as the most amazing development during her career. Before that, it was pretty much guess work from the outside.

Ultrasound is getting more and more sophisticated, and she predicts there will be a time when parents will be able to get a printout of exactly what your baby is going to look like when it is as big as a grain of rice, just by genome sequencing and turning it into a kind of picture.

There will be more and more of the expectation that you can demand a perfect child designer babies. It makes her uneasy that technological advancements can happen without any proper discussion on how they are going to be used. Ireland today is completely transformed from her student days and, as it turned out, abortion was legalised here before New South Wales became the final Australian state to introduce it in 2019. The Catholic Church still has an impact on some reproductive health services over there, she says.

We have got big maternity hospitals in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, run by the Catholic Church, where there is public money, [but] no contraception, no sterilisation and no termination of pregnancy, none.

There is still the hypocrisy of the doctors having to say sorry, you have got this severe [foetal] abnormality but we cant do an abortion here. Women have to be directed to another hospital on the other side of the river which is something very familiar to me from my training years, she remarks.

De Costa is totally glad that a chance meeting brought her to Ireland. Her grandfather, who died 12 years before she was born, was Irish but she doesnt think her father, a physicist, grew up with any sense of Irishness. But when I came here, I just loved it. I started to feel Irish.

When her father visited Dublin during her first term at the RCSI, he went to look for his fathers birth certificate. He came back with a copy, having been told that, with an Irish father, he was entitled to Irish citizenship, which, in turn, she was too.

I have been Irish ever since. I have dual citizenship, she says. Living in Cairns but with friends here dating back to the 1960s, she is a frequent visitor, usually finding some conference to attend to make it tax deductible.

This time shes combining seeing friends with a publicity tour for what is her 15th book. Previous publications have included medical text books and several crime novels in recent years. An avid reader of the genre as she waited around in maternity hospitals for patients to labour to the point of delivery, she decided to write some herself.

It was part of her retirement plan, she says, for leaving a field of medicine that has become increasingly female since she entered it. And Prof Caroline de Costa, now a grandmother of three, has been one of the role models for that in Australia, due in no small part to her Irish medical education.

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'I was in a very small minority of women who could keep their child' - The Irish Times

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.We should like to skip the intermediate stages.We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progressthat it is made by passing through some stages of instabilityand that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;your ideas mature graduallylet them grow,let them shape themselves, without undue haste.Dont try to force them on,as though you could be today what time(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spiritgradually forming within you will be.Give Our Lord the benefit of believingthat his hand is leading you,and accept the anxiety of feeling yourselfin suspense and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJexcerpted from Hearts on Fire

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Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin - Ignatian Spirituality

Perhaps youre curious but are unsure of the benefits of life coaching? Or, you might be checking up on the industry as you research the possibility of becoming a life coach.

Whatever motivates you, weve got something for you in this guide. Below you will find a list of 33 features and benefits of life coaching to answer your questions. Browse the various points below and notice how impressed you become!

First, lets understand what life coaching is

What is a life coach?

A life coach is a person that works in partnership with an individual to help them reach their potential across all facets of life.

Just as a professional sports player has a coach to work on the technical and psychological aspects of their performance, everyday people should take a structured and disciplined approach to personal development and betterment.

An accredited life coach plays this role.

What does a life coach do?

A life coach works with coaching client to help them make improvements in their lives and move out of their stuck states. A life coach assumes that the client has the knowledge within themselves to make the improvements and the coach works more as a facilitator than as a counselor.

What are the benefits of life coaching?

There are a variety of reasons may seek out life coaching services. Below are 33 examples that show why life coaching has become so popular and is now a mainstream industry.

A study by the International Coaching Federation (IFC) discovered that 80% of people who hired a life coach reported an improvement in self-confidence.

Weare often consumed by our own opinions, life experiences, and way of thinking.A life coach can provide a new and often helpful perspective on things.

Being fully aware of your impact on others and recognizing your flaws, strengths, and unique personality attributes is an extremely challenging adventure. This is the art of self-awareness.

Self-awareness requires a strong capacity for introspection and reflection, something which a life coach can help you work towards. In fact, one study found that 67.6% of coaching clients experience a higher level of self-awareness.

The concept of life balance is different for everyone, but it often refers to a happy, peaceful, and harmonious relationship between your physical and cognitive being, as well as the major areas of life.

One of the benefits of a life coach is to identify what balance looks like for you and define action steps to achieve more balance in your life.

Relationships are the glue that combines individuals with society and provides shared fulfillment in life. From marriages to friendships and beyond, strong relationships are a critical contributor to happiness.

According to the same ICF study mentioned previously, 73% of people who hired a life coach improved their relationships.

We all have dreams in life, but very few people crystalize these aspirations into tangible goals to systematically accomplish. A major benefit of life coaching is being able to define your life goals and create a concrete, doable plan to achieve them.

True happiness is somewhat of a mystical experience and for most people, its hard to imagine a life that is forever happy. At the end of the day, happiness is intrinsic, its a feeling that is unique to the way you feel inside.

By defining life goals, creating balance, and committing to a better version of yourself with the aid of a life coach, you open up the prospect of finding happiness. Helping others find happiness is one of the main reasons people become a life coach.

Are you clear on what your purpose in life is? Again, this is a very individual and internal fire that burns within. Its your passion, dreams, skills, and weaknesses all bundled into one.

Its your direction in life. Clarity of purpose is vital if you want to pursue your dreams, a life coach can assist you in creating this focus.

Findingthat one thing you love more than anything else and doing it every day is alarge contributor to happiness and satisfaction. Having clarity of purposeunlocks insights into what this may be. This is another one of the many benefits of a life coach in your corner.

Hiringa life coach is about more than just getting advice and guidance, it alsocreates accountability. You will have an ally that holds you to your word andensures those goals get pursued and projects are completed.

Many of us spend too much time comparing ourselves to others and focussing on what we perceive to be our flaws. Discovering your best self is one of the priceless benefits of life coaching.

Alife coach will take an impartial view of your strengths and weaknesses,helping you understand your areas of greatest opportunity.

Tobe open-minded you need to appreciate that there are different ways of doingthings and varying perspectives on life other than your own. A life coach canprovide the perspective and thinking process required to adopt this mindset.

Manyof us have latent potential that is hidden by prejudice or closed-mindedness.Life coaches unlock this potential by opening you up to alternate ways ofthinking and creating clarity for your direction in life.

72% of people who hire a life coach improve their communication skills, according to the IFC study mentioned above. This is no surprise given the best life coaches are accredited NLP practitioners the most advanced set of communication skills ever developed. Better communication is one of the primary benefits of NLP life coaching. (Find out more about what NLP is.)

Everyonehas the same amount of time in the day, but some people use those 24 hours moreefficiently than others. Working with a life coach can help you better manageyour time, set priorities, and get more done.

Aswell as looking at the positive aspects of life, such as your purpose, goals,and potential, life coaches are armed with a series of techniques that can helpyou eliminate or reduce negative thoughts that hold you back.

By minimizing negative thoughts and embracing your strengths you can start to overcome fears that have been restricting your ability to achieve your dreams.

Youcan work with a life coach to brainstorm ideas and unearth creativity that issitting dormant in the depths of your subconscious.

Beingopen-minded, self-aware, and considering a new perspective on life will giveyou a more positive and well-rounded outlook.

The skills you develop while working with a life coach will focus your resources while pursuing career goals or growing your business to new heights. This is one of the key benefits of coaching in a business environment.

When bad habits are embedded in our day-to-day life, they diminish our ability to perform. Working with an impartial third-party will help you determine what these habits may be and learn to eliminate them.

Our values are those deeply held principles that influence our behavior and motivate us to do things both large and small. Given the sheer influence of life values on every action, being aware of what they are can revolutionize the way we live and perform.

A strengths-based approach to personal development focuses on the positive inner resources of an individual make changes. This is in contrast to traditional methods that focus on identifying weaknesses and trying to improve those areas.

Setbacks and roadblocks can derail the best of us. One of the most sought after benefits of life coaching is to sustain the discipline and maximum effort during challenging times. Youll likely discover pockets of inspiration and hunger that you never knew existed.

Despite thinking that we act rationally, most people make decisions based on emotion or entirely subconscious processes. With a deeper understanding of how the mind works, you can reframe the process of decision-making so that it becomes simpler and wiser.

For example, an NLP-trained life coach will be well-versed in the NLP Decision Making Strategy, a theory that incorporates visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (touch) senses and how they influence our decisions.

To be empathetic you need to see and feel the world through the lens of someone else, put yourself in their shoes, and be understanding of their situation. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same capacity to show empathy towards others.

A life coach can help you look beyond your personal needs and provide in-the-moment techniques for showing empathy.

If youve ever been to a job interview its likely that you have been asked how well you take feedback from others. While most people would like to think that they are open and willing to accept feedback or criticism, in the heat of the moment their emotions take over.

An emotional reaction can result in a less than perfect impact on the person providing the feedback, who may just be trying to help you. Learning to accept criticism is a powerful life skill to develop and one of the benefits of life coaching.

Showing appreciation and gratitude is a core component of fostering relationships. It makes people feel good about the impact they have on your life be that in a corporate environment or socially.

A life coach understands the importance of appreciation and has the tools to help you use it more effectively in your day-to-day life.

Rapport is a connection between individuals or a group that enables those people to interact and communicate effectively. For most of us, rapport is seen as an uncontrollable force that we either have with someone or we dont.

However, creating rapport with others can actually be an intentional and structured process that a life coach can assist you with.

Life coaches can offer more than just emotional and psychological support. They can also work with you to create and execute a plan for improving your physical well-being or losing weight. A healthy body often results in a healthy mind too.

Stress is a common occurrence for a large portion of the population. Financial burdens, career-related issues, or personal relationship problems can result in mental instability and stress-related health concerns. Life coaches have access to relaxation techniques, such as NLP, which can reduce the mental habits causing stress in your life.

Depressionand anxiety are a society-wide health problem with a number of complexelements, none of which are an easy fix. However, having an ally in your cornerwho understands your triggers can result in an improved way of dealing with thesymptoms of these mental health issues.

Tobe happy is a different proposition for everyone. But one thing is for sure, ifyou are clear on your purpose, eliminate negativity from your life, and havethe tools and techniques to build meaningful relationships, happiness andfulfillment are achievable.

In fact, they are more than achievable all you need is a framework for determining your direction in life and an ally to help you get there. This is your life coach.

Are you interested in becoming a certified life coach and helping people (and yourself) achieve all of these benefits and more? Check out our Life Coach Certification courses.

Mike Bundrant is a retired psychotherapist, Master NLP trainer, and ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC). He and his wife, Hope, co-founded iNLP Center in 2011.

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Benefits of Life Coaching: 33 Impressive Facts You Need to Know

Last week, the Voice From The Bullpen began a comparison of a cats storied life of nine lives, to that of his own, and got through the first two lives with a promise of continuing the comparison in todays narrative. So here we go

Life Three was Coaching/Officiating Life. I love sports, and had opportunities to expand on that, combining it with my Teaching Life, by coaching baseball, football, and softball at schools and in communities for many years. First, I loved the sports I was teaching to the kids I was coaching. I loved going to clinics to get better at teaching the skills and learning more organizational and motivational skills. I loved practicing, sometimes more than the games, as practicing was where I got to teach the sport. I expected much from players too, and I set those bars high as well, again, with some kids and adults, there were disgruntlements regarding my philosophy, but I always felt integrity, and consistency had to be key components in what we were doing. Coaching also gave me opportunities to take kids to places outside the area to play in tournaments, (Cooperstown, Buffalo (NY), Myrtle Beach (SC), Reading, Scranton (PA), Mentor, East Lake (OH), teaching social skills (behavior responsibilities, manners, respect in hotels, restaurants, etc.), too.

When I wasnt coaching I was umpiring baseball at all levels (youth to college) for many years, too. There were some years I did both. Started umpiring at 15 and umpired on and off (some years while coaching, some not) for 24 years between 1969 and 2018. It kept me near my favorite sport and with coaching, gave me both perspectives and a greater appreciation of the game.

Life Four is Parrothead Life. My retirement gift from Sally in 2008, was two tickets, Row 12, Center Stage, to a Jimmy Buffett concert just outside of Pittsburgh, Pa. Always wanting to go a Buffett concert, this was an unbelievable thrill. Never being to one before, we didnt know about the tailgating experience of a Buffett concert. Walking around before the concert began, we decided we would definitely do it again, and not just be a part of the concert inside the venue, but would become Parrotheads like those who prepared for the concert hours before the music started. Weve now totaled 15 Buffett concerts, and the off-Broadway theater production of Escape to Margaritaville, which we saw last November in Buffalo. Our concerts have included numerous more trips to Burgettstown, Pa., two in Cincinnati (and tickets to Cincy this summer), twice in Virginia Beach, and once each in Detroit, Nashville, and Charlottesville, Va. In those experiences weve met great people of all ages, but have become very close to a couple from the Sandusky, Ohio, area, whom weve now shared numerous Buffett concerts along with a wine tasting weekend in Erie, Pa., a Billy Joel concert in Cleveland and this summer well meet them for Buffett in Cincy and Elton John in Cleveland. All this from a parking lot meeting at a Buffet concert in Burgettstown, Pa.

Life Five is baseball fan life. When I was a kid, Dad would take us to a Cleveland Indians doubleheader against the Yankees for many years, and I carried on that tradition with my kids after we got married. Sally and the girls werent really into it, but humored me, going to a few games a year. After Jon was born and he got older (about two years older) we went to games more frequently. I started buying six-game packages, progressed to 20, and now 40-game packages. Ive attended two World Series, and the All-Star game and four days of activities too. Also, my love for coaching/umpiring baseball, having my car decaled to resemble a baseball, and our living room, and my man cave, looking like a baseball museum, says my baseball life is a huge part of my whole life.

Life Six is Browns Backers, NFL Draft and college football life. Ive been honored to serve a group of Cleveland Browns fans chartered with the Browns Backers Worldwide in Berea, Ohio. We spend a solid four months together cheering for the Cleveland Browns, while also trying to assist groups, causes, and charities in our community with donations made as a result of fundraisers we hold during the season. Those donations have accumulated to the tune of over $32,000, since we began doing it back in 2010. Two out of the last three years weve held an after season dinner welcoming guests who are locals whove make their mark with the NFL, some with the Browns.

I also enjoy college football, especially Ohio State and Notre Dame. I love watching the NFL Draft religiously, each year, and have done so for many years except last, when I was fortunate enough to be at the draft in Cleveland. What a rush that was!

Stay tuned for the last three of the nine lives of the Voice from the Bullpen coming next week.

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The Next Four Lives of the Voice from the Bullpen - Jamestown Post Journal

Coaches tend to focus on a clients future rather than psychoanalyze the past. They stress a more holistic evaluation of the clients life than a business consultant might offer. In theory, if they encounter a client with serious mental health problems, they refer the person to a medical professional, but the line between coaching and therapy is not always distinct, and the industry is essentially unregulated. Professional associations like the International Coaching Federation offer accreditation and oversight. But anyone can call herself a life coach and following the model of yoga studios, which have long drawn significant income from certification courses for new instructors offer a pricey training program to make you a life coach, too. (Life coaching is like any new, unregulated profession, with its share of peddlers of false promises.)

Over the past generation, life coaching has split into a dozen subdisciplines, almost all of them dominated by women. Women account for 75 percent of coach practitioners in North America, according to a 2019 study by the federation. One reason for the demographic imbalance, Ms. Mook speculated, is that early on, many coaches came from the worlds of counseling, nursing and other caring professions that also employ many women. And as gender disparities in pay and professional advancement persist in many fields, women let down by traditional support systems may find the sustenance they need in a coach. This may be a way that women are finding support in their lives, she said. Spiritual coaching seems to feature the starkest gender imbalance of any coaching field.

Typically, spiritual coaches offer a mix of one-on-one counseling and group coaching, as well as certification programs for aspiring coaches. Some people say, Youre just a coach that coaches coaches, Drea Guinto, who runs Soul Flow Co., based in Central California, told me. My response is, maybe coaching is an emerging trade that is filling a true need in the population, and that is the reason why people are saying, I see there is profitability in this. She offers a lifetime-access group coaching program for $3,333, aimed at, according to her website, soul-preneurs who are ambitious yet also spiritual and seeking to launch their own businesses. I see my clients as healers of different modalities, and my premise is that the world needs more healing, she said.

Spiritual coaches face an extra dose of mistrust because they base their claim to transform lives and careers not just on self-taught psychology and dubious certifications but also on supernatural beliefs and rituals that they swear have worked for them. Coaches I interviewed told me that trusting the universe can replace chemotherapy, that healing prayers drive away chronic bladder infections, that a professional clairvoyant can read a clients future in the universes nonphysical, vibrational library," as a recent Goop article put it, of past lives and future events called the Akashic records.

How should a skeptic think about such claims? It would surely be pedantic and overscrupulous for those who can get their savage and primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such experimental ways as this, to give them up at a word of command for more scientific therapeutics, wrote the pragmatist philosopher William James when he considered testimonies of healing through supernatural mind cure more than a century ago. What are we to think of all this? Has science made too wide a claim? Perhaps such experiences show the universe to be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific sect, allows for.

Attention to unseen forces in the universe especially the divine feminine is partly a means for these coaches to counter the machismo that dominates American entrepreneurial culture. Many spiritual coaches target female would-be entrepreneurs with spiritual business accelerator programs that promise to help you find fulfillment while you make money. Part of it is strategy, but I come more from the point of view of consciousness what wants to be birthed through me versus a more capitalistic, masculine approach to business, Ms. Guinto said. Of course we love profit, but the point is unleashing that soul purpose.

In American culture, entrepreneurship is the highest spiritual discipline. A successful start-up requires the self-abnegation that a monastic vocation used to demand: little sleep, coming to terms with your own failure and sacrificing bodily comforts in the service of a higher cause. The gig economy is an ersatz way to open this vocation to lesser souls, but it seems to fail many seekers. Spiritual coaches are responding to this failure. And in a culture where the feeling of truthiness is more important than scientifically verified facts, its natural to embrace a mishmash of spiritual healing practices that just feel right.

Read more:
Opinion | 400 Years Ago, They Would Be Witches. Today, They Can Be Your Coach. - The New York Times

Cheryl Reeve was a 5-year-old New Jersey kid playing baseball with the boys because there was no girls' softball to be found. Such was life on June 23, 1972, the day President Richard Nixon signed Title IX legislation into law.

No one, especially this young righthanded hitter, knew what this new law would bring.

"At 5, 6, you don't know things,'' said Reeve, coach and general manager of the Lynx.

She has coached four WNBA champions and won two Olympic gold medals. Fifty years ago who could have imagined this?

Not Reeve.

"You don't realize it when you're 6, or 10, or even 16,'' Reeve said. "But the opportunities I had. To play basketball at a great institution like La Salle. I was just a lover of sports. Now, as I've gotten older, I've thought about all the other [women] who didn't have the same opportunities. There is no question that, without Title IX, I'm not sitting here as a professional basketball coach.''

As Title IX turns 50, we look at its impact on a grand scale. Participation numbers, financial commitments, growth of high school and college sports. Let's also look at one life.

Reeve, 55, is an example of the first generation of women whose life was changed simply by opportunity. She was able to be a three-sport athlete in high school (by the way, softball was her best sport). She was able to play college basketball (on a partial scholarship at first; change sometimes comes slowly), where she still can be found on several La Salle all-time career lists. She was able to begin her coaching career in college, then move to a fledgling WNBA, a league she has been a part of for 22 of its 26 seasons.

Timing, it seems, is everything.

"I thank God I wasn't born 20 years prior,'' Reeve said. "Because I would have been in jail for the way they treated women, the lack of opportunities.''

If today's young women take some sports opportunities for granted, Reeve is old enough to realize how much things have changed. Plus, when it comes to this issue, Reeve is a historian.

She knows the stories of legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt having to coach, wash the team's uniforms and drive the team bus. She is aware of the journey taken by someone like Lin Dunn, who was born 20 years before Reeve. Dunn's junior high coach used to sneak the team across state lines to Tennessee to play because it was illegal for girls to play in her native Alabama.

All that was starting to change by the time Reeve approached middle school and high school. But Reeve says that it's not just the timing that helped her get where she is. It's the people she met along the way.

"I say that a lot,'' she said. "It's the people I had a chance to work for that led to some great things and opportunities. I do feel fortunate.''

Washington Township High School is in Sewell Township, N.J., just 13 miles from Philadelphia. Reeve thrived in softball and loved tennis but in the early days of Title IX, basketball was one of the first sports to see a funding bump at the college level.

Reeve was gently pushed toward hoops. In those days, players would sit down and write letters to colleges and send them off with some clips.

But that wasn't how Reeve wound up playing college ball. Her high school team had five starters who would play Division I sports. Among them was a young phenom named Karen Healey, who would go on to star at Villanova. Reeve got noticed because college coaches came to watch Healey.

"That's how I got an opportunity to play at La Salle,'' Reeve said.

That started things. Acceding to her father, Reeve studied computer science at La Salle. Her parents wanted her to go to into that field.

But coaching was an idea taking hold. Each summer she would work as a counselor at the Cathy Rush camps, where she got an inkling of the rush that comes with helping someone succeed. She spent two years as a graduate assistant at La Salle while she got her master's degree. From there she went to George Washington, where she was an assistant for Joe McKeown for five years. Then it was on to Indiana State, where she was head coach for five years.

As a season-ticket holder for the brand new Indiana Fever, Reeve felt drawn to the WNBA. One spring she drove up to Chicago for the league's pre-draft combine. There she met Charlotte Sting coach Anne Donovan, who offered her a $5,000 job as a second assistant. She took it, before the 2001 season.

"Can you imagine that call home?'' Reeve said.

Not much was easy about the WNBA's early days. Reeve was in Charlotte when the Hornets skipped town to New Orleans. Worried about the future of the Sting, Reeve went to work with Dan Hughes in Cleveland in 2003. But the Rockers were disbanded a year later. Reeve went back to Charlotte for two seasons, after which the Sting's head coach was fired.

About that time, Reeve's father, Larry, had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

"I was very close to not being in the WNBA anymore,'' Reeve said. "I had to make a decision. Each season was met with, I didn't know if the team would be there, if the league would be there. It's hard, because your family has to hear about your hardships. But I distinctly remember going, 'I'm in this thing. I'm going to go down with the ship if it goes down. Just do it. Obviously, things got better.''

Reeve went to Detroit to be Bill Laimbeer's assistant with the Shock in 2006. Over the next four seasons the Shock made three WNBA finals, winning two. On Dec. 8, 2009, Reeve was named head coach of the Lynx.

There is more to do. Where does she see herself 10 years down the line?

"I hope it means ownership,'' she said. "That's probably what I would set my sights on. That I'm involved, still involved, but on a grander level. Impacting and being a participant in the opportunities that are available.''

It's a big goal. But possible, given talk of eventual WNBA expansion.

What a life arc. From playing baseball with the boys in 1972 to a basketball boss.

"That's what I hope for,'' she said. "We need more teams. Perhaps that will get there by the time I'm 70.''

. . .

An occasional Star Tribune series focused on gender equity in Minnesota sports. Read previous installments of our series at startribune.com/titleix.

Here is the original post:
How Title IX shaped the remarkable sporting life of Cheryl Reeve - Star Tribune

Cheryl Reeve was a 5-year-old New Jersey kid playing baseball with the boys because there was no girls' softball to be found. Such was life on June 23, 1972, the day President Richard Nixon signed Title IX legislation into law.

No one, especially this young righthanded hitter, knew what this new law would bring.

"At 5, 6, you don't know things,'' said Reeve, coach and general manager of the Lynx.

She has coached four WNBA champions and won two Olympic gold medals. Fifty years ago who could have imagined this?

Not Reeve.

"You don't realize it when you're 6, or 10, or even 16,'' Reeve said. "But the opportunities I had. To play basketball at a great institution like La Salle. I was just a lover of sports. Now, as I've gotten older, I've thought about all the other [women] who didn't have the same opportunities. There is no question that, without Title IX, I'm not sitting here as a professional basketball coach.''

As Title IX turns 50, we look at its impact on a grand scale. Participation numbers, financial commitments, growth of high school and college sports. Let's also look at one life.

Reeve, 55, is an example of the first generation of women whose life was changed simply by opportunity. She was able to be a three-sport athlete in high school (by the way, softball was her best sport). She was able to play college basketball (on a partial scholarship at first; change sometimes comes slowly), where she still can be found on several La Salle all-time career lists. She was able to begin her coaching career in college, then move to a fledgling WNBA, a league she has been a part of for 22 of its 26 seasons.

Timing, it seems, is everything.

"I thank God I wasn't born 20 years prior,'' Reeve said. "Because I would have been in jail for the way they treated women, the lack of opportunities.''

Changemakers

If today's young women take some sports opportunities for granted, Reeve is old enough to realize how much things have changed. Plus, when it comes to this issue, Reeve is a historian.

Story continues

She knows the stories of legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt having to coach, wash the team's uniforms and drive the team bus. She is aware of the journey taken by someone like Lin Dunn, who was born 20 years before Reeve. Dunn's junior high coach used to sneak the team across state lines to Tennessee to play because it was illegal for girls to play in her native Alabama.

All that was starting to change by the time Reeve approached middle school and high school. But Reeve says that it's not just the timing that helped her get where she is. It's the people she met along the way.

"I say that a lot,'' she said. "It's the people I had a chance to work for that led to some great things and opportunities. I do feel fortunate.''

A $5,000 salary

Washington Township High School is in Sewell Township, N.J., just 13 miles from Philadelphia. Reeve thrived in softball and loved tennis but in the early days of Title IX, basketball was one of the first sports to see a funding bump at the college level.

Reeve was gently pushed toward hoops. In those days, players would sit down and write letters to colleges and send them off with some clips.

But that wasn't how Reeve wound up playing college ball. Her high school team had five starters who would play Division I sports. Among them was a young phenom named Karen Healey, who would go on to star at Villanova. Reeve got noticed because college coaches came to watch Healey.

"That's how I got an opportunity to play at La Salle,'' Reeve said.

That started things. Acceding to her father, Reeve studied computer science at La Salle. Her parents wanted her to go to into that field.

But coaching was an idea taking hold. Each summer she would work as a counselor at the Cathy Rush camps, where she got an inkling of the rush that comes with helping someone succeed. She spent two years as a graduate assistant at La Salle while she got her master's degree. From there she went to George Washington, where she was an assistant for Joe McKeown for five years. Then it was on to Indiana State, where she was head coach for five years.

As a season-ticket holder for the brand new Indiana Fever, Reeve felt drawn to the WNBA. One spring she drove up to Chicago for the league's pre-draft combine. There she met Charlotte Sting coach Anne Donovan, who offered her a $5,000 job as a second assistant. She took it, before the 2001 season.

"Can you imagine that call home?'' Reeve said.

On the edge

Not much was easy about the WNBA's early days. Reeve was in Charlotte when the Hornets skipped town to New Orleans. Worried about the future of the Sting, Reeve went to work with Dan Hughes in Cleveland in 2003. But the Rockers were disbanded a year later. Reeve went back to Charlotte for two seasons, after which the Sting's head coach was fired.

About that time, Reeve's father, Larry, had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

"I was very close to not being in the WNBA anymore,'' Reeve said. "I had to make a decision. Each season was met with, I didn't know if the team would be there, if the league would be there. It's hard, because your family has to hear about your hardships. But I distinctly remember going, 'I'm in this thing. I'm going to go down with the ship if it goes down. Just do it. Obviously, things got better.''

Reeve went to Detroit to be Bill Laimbeer's assistant with the Shock in 2006. Over the next four seasons the Shock made three WNBA finals, winning two. On Dec. 8, 2009, Reeve was named head coach of the Lynx.

Climbing higher

There is more to do. Where does she see herself 10 years down the line?

"I hope it means ownership,'' she said. "That's probably what I would set my sights on. That I'm involved, still involved, but on a grander level. Impacting and being a participant in the opportunities that are available.''

It's a big goal. But possible, given talk of eventual WNBA expansion.

What a life arc. From playing baseball with the boys in 1972 to a basketball boss.

"That's what I hope for,'' she said. "We need more teams. Perhaps that will get there by the time I'm 70.''

. . .

Title IX at 50

An occasional Star Tribune series focused on gender equity in Minnesota sports. Read previous installments of our series at startribune.com/titleix.

Go here to see the original:
How Title IX shaped the remarkable sporting life of Lynx coach Reeve - Yahoo News

It already has been quite a year for Sean McVay.

In February, the Rams coach completed a boom-or-bust season by guiding the team to victory in Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium and then turned down broadcasting overtures that reportedly would have paid him $10 million annually.

A few weeks later, in the aftermath of Russias invasion of Ukraine, he began navigating with fianc Veronika Khomyn the challenges faced by her family members in her war-torn home country.

In April, McVay purchased and moved into a $14 million home in Hidden Hills. In May, he donned Aviator shades and starred in a commercial for the Tom Cruise sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.

On Saturday, McVay, 36, will experience another personal milestone when he marries Khomyn.

Whats easier for McVay: putting together a Super Bowl game plan? Or whittling down a wedding invite list?

Definitely the first one, McVay said after practice Wednesday. Because I have a boss that can override me on the second one.

But for how long will McVay, only 30 when he was hired in 2017, be wed to the Rams?

Before a new season starts in September, the Rams are expected to announce McVay has signed an extension that will make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the NFL.

McVay is believed to have earned about $8.5 million last season. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick reportedly earned more than $12 million, but he also serves as general manager. Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll reportedly earned $11 million.

McVays regular-season record is 55-26, and twice in his five seasons the Rams reached the Super Bowl.

Former Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula is the NFLs all-time leader in victories. He amassed 328 regular-season wins and won two Super Bowls in 33 seasons before retiring at age 65 after the 1995 season, according to profootballreference.com.

George Halas won 318 games and six NFL championships in 40 seasons with the Chicago Bears. He retired in 1967 at age 72. Belichick, 70, has 290 victories and six Super Bowl titles in 27 seasons, including his first five with the Cleveland Browns.

Former Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry won 250 games and two Super Bowls in 29 seasons before retiring after the 1988 season at age 64. Andy Reid, 64, has won 233 games and a Super Bowl in 23 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs.

Carroll, 70, has won 152 games in 15 seasons with the New York Jets, Patriots and Seahawks. He coached USC for nine seasons before joining the Seahawks in 2010 and leading them to a Super Bowl title in the 2013 season.

Coach Sean McVay holds the Lombardi Trophy after the Rams won Super Bowl LVI.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

If you said, Do I have a desire to try to chase like Belichick or Don Shula in wins? I really dont.

Rams coach Sean McVay, on his longevity in NFL

McVay has averaged 11 victories per season. At that rate, he would need to coach 25 more seasons to match Shulas record.

If you said, Do I have a desire to try to chase like Belichick or Don Shula in wins? I really dont, McVay said in an interview after the NFL owners meetings in March.

What about potentially being voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Hell yeah, McVay said, adding, But if you said, Who is the best of all time, or the most successful of all time in terms of longevity that hasnt ever been something that really has been appealing to me.

Questions about McVays potential longevity as an NFL coach began in February, a few days before the Super Bowl, when McVay hinted he might not be in it for the long haul.

During a news conference, he went back and forth when asked if he could see himself coaching into his 60s, a la Belichick.

No chance, he said initially. I love this. But if Im doing it till 60, I wont make it.

A reporter followed by asking if McVay, an acknowledged football junkie, really could put aside rallying players and coaches?

I love this so much, that its such a passion, he said. But I also know that what Ive seen from some of my closest friends, whether its coaches or even some of our players.

Its a balancing act, he acknowledged.

Im going to be married this summer, he said. Want to have a family.

Speculation about McVays future ramped up immediately after the Super Bowl victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, a win that helped McVay erase the sting felt after Belichick schooled him in Super Bowl LIII.

Asked the next morning by Times columnist Dylan Hernandez whether he would return to coach the Rams this season, McVay was noncommittal.

Well see, he said.

Amid the celebration of the Rams victory parade two days later, McVay and star defensive lineman Aaron Donald attempted to quell rumors that they might not return to the Rams.

From left, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Matthew Stafford and coach Sean McVay celebrate during the Rams victory parade in Los Angeles.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Im genuinely interested in doing that. Now, I also know that the things I love the most are the things that you would miss in coaching. But theres lot ... that I wont miss.

Sean McVay, on potential to become a broadcaster post NFL

There was a part of me thats like, Man, theres never going to be a better time to step away, McVay said after the owners meetings a month later. But when you really think about like all the people that came as a result of it, I wouldnt have had the stomach to leave behind a lot of people that I love and care about, even if there was a [lot of] financial rewards and good things that would have come with that.

Carroll understood.

Its a real grind and the stress of it and the opportunity to leave on top is so intoxicating, he said. I know that real well. It can wear you out, wear you down, so I totally understand that.

McVay was flattered by the possibility of transitioning to broadcasting and did not rule it out in the future. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported after the Super Bowl that ESPN, Fox and Amazon Prime Video were interested in McVay.

McVay watched mentor Jon Gruden transition from coaching to broadcasting, with phenomenal success.

After Gruden was fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the 2008 season McVays first in the NFL the then-45-year-old Gruden began a nine-year run as an analyst on Monday Night Football and became a crossover entertainment personality.

Gruden, who had coached 11 seasons in the NFL with the Raiders and Buccaneers, returned to the league as the Raiders coach in 2018, reportedly signing a 10-year, $100-million contract, at the time the NFLs richest.

Now, former New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton is reportedly set to join Fox as a studio analyst, though it is regarded as a holding pattern until he returns to coaching. Jimmy Johnson, Bill Cowher and Tony Dungy are other Super Bowl champion coaches who work in broadcasting. And analysts such as Tony Romo and Troy Aikman are beneficiaries of skyrocketing compensation for top analyst talent.

McVay has enjoyed his limited TV work.

Its not like Im just doing it to stay engaged Im genuinely interested in doing that, he said. Now, I also know that the things I love the most are the things that you would miss in coaching. But theres lot of [stuff] that I wont miss.

McVay does not want to miss out on starting and enjoying a family.

During the last few months, he has repeatedly lauded Khomyn for the grace and strength with which she has dealt with the situation in Ukraine.

Veronika Khomyn, left, and Sean McVay arrive at the 27th annual Critics Choice Awards in March. They will be married this month.

(Jordan Strauss / Jordan Strauss/invision/ap)

McVay said before the Super Bowl that he always had a dream about being able to be a father and wanted to be able to spend time with his wife and children.

Finding a balance is the challenge for a coach who said his safe space is when he is on the field or in meeting rooms with players and coaches.

Ive reflected enough about it to know myself like this balance thing in the season, that just will never happen for me, he said after the owners meetings. I feel like Id be cheating the game and cheating the way that I know that I have the work capacity. ... And so, its a love/hate thing.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor, 39, worked under McVay with the Rams for two seasons. Taylor, married and the father of four, said that as an NFL coach, for seven months you disappear, and then as my wife likes to call it, you have the reentry phase.

But Taylor said the work-life balance with family can be navigated so that coaches dont miss on those moments with children.

Fortunately, in Cincinnati, he said, Im 12 minutes from my house.

Reid, after nearly a quarter century as a head coach, said that a secret to coaching longevity in the NFL is working with good players, coaches and ownership.

Ownership Ive worked for, both of them, have been phenomenal, so theyve made it as easy on me as they can, he said. So, I do what I love to do.

Carroll said that McVay whom he described as a great ball coach is entering a phase that he called the best life yet off the field, though it is starting in the middle of everything as an NFL coach.

But its always in the middle of everything, Carroll said. So, I wish him the best.

Then he paused.

If he wants to step down, the NFC West rival added with a laugh, thats OK with me.

See the rest here:
As Sean McVay enters marriage, will he be wed to Rams long? - Los Angeles Times

Being conscious of ones identity doesnt just help physicians connect with patients; it also helps them coach the next generation of doctors to professional success.

A textbook published this spring, Coaching in Medical Education: Students, Residents and Faculty, explores how successful medical school coaching programs further learners personal goals. Chapter 8, "Coaching and Ethics, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, looks at how coaches understanding of their own identities can help them fight the inequities facing medical students, residents and fellows from historically excluded racial and ethnic groups.

Separately, the AMA Academic Coaching in Medical Education Video Series features nine short videos that explore academic coaching competencies through hypothetical situations involving both experienced and inexperienced coaches. All of these videos can be accessed for free on the AMA YouTube channel and the AMA Ed Hub.

We are very attached to our stories, our identities of who we are, the chapter authors wrote. But how do we know what those are and how we developed those identities?

Each reader is encouraged to craft a personal story based on those beliefs. This process begins with simply completing the statement, I am which could include being a white woman, an Indian man, a Black surgeon, a middle-aged physician. Think hard about your most important identities, the authors advised, but no more than two of them.

Then, reflect on the following:

By consciously gathering this story in your mind, you can bring honor and awareness to your identity, shining a light on how it may influence how you make decisions. It can also help you reflect on how that identity has shaped your experiences, how it sends unconscious signals to the people around you, and how those signals affect the ways in which you interact with colleagues or direct reports who identify differently.

Academic medicine has a legacy of marginalization and continues to be shaped by structural racism, so it is important to be thoughtful in designing faculty development that is inclusive. This should be an ongoing endeavor, the authors noted, not a one-time activity.

The reflections that physicians gain in this exercise are essentially meant to help us know ourselves better, such that we are more open and mindful about receiving others life experiences and are able to minimize the impact as educators and caregivers, they wrote.

The chapter also includes guidance on ethical principles in the context of coaching, how inequities may exist for learners from racial and ethnic groups historically excluded from medicine, considerations in coaching a diverse group of learners, the ubiquity of bias and its structural basis, and the importance of self-awareness in overcoming bias.

For more insight on the new textbook, read this great Q&A with the lead authors, who are: Maya M. Hammoud, MD, Nicole M. Deiorio, MD, Margaret Moore, and Margaret Wolff, MD, MHPE. The textbook is part of the AMA MedEd Innovation Series, which provides practical guidance for local implementation of the education innovations tested and refined by the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium.

An earlier reference, It Takes Two: A Guide to Being a Good Coachee (PDF) focuses on what medical students, residents and fellows need to know to get the most out of a coaching relationship.

Get more guidance from the AMA on coaching in medical education.

Continued here:
What forms your identity? It's key to coaching diverse med ed learners - American Medical Association