CHAPTER 4 | GETTING STARTED: SETTING UP THE TIME, SPACE, AND TOOLSself about when you will do it, and then put some reminder of that
where you won't miss it. It's critical that your full psychic atten-
tion be available for the work at hand.
Almost without exception, when I sit down to begin coach-
ing people, even though they've blocked out time and committed
significant money to utilize me as a resource for that time, they
still have things they're going to have to do before we quit for the
day, and they haven't arranged for them yet in their own systems.
"Oh, yeah, I've got to call this client back sometime today," they'll
say, or "I have to check in with my spouse to see if he's gotten the
tickets for tonight." It bespeaks a certain lack of awareness and
maturity in our culture, I think, that so many sophisticated people
are ignoring those levels of responsibility to their own psyche, on
an ongoing operational basis.
So have you handled all that? Good. Now it's time to gather
representatives of all of your open loops into one place.