I love metaphors and how they can easily evoke a powerful image of something that is deeply relevant and meaningful to one’s life. Over the past few months, I have been commuting into New York City a couple of days a week for some courses in coaching that I am taking at NYU. As I sat on the 2 hour train ride into Penn Station one early November morning, I found myself deep in thought. As I stared out the window, I wasn’t really thinking about the day ahead in Manhattan, but rather the train ride that was my life journey. Metaphorically speaking, I started to process this image of a train moving down the track of life and all of the opportunities and challenges that come up along the way. I had always loved being around trains ever since I was a young boy growing up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. There’s that distinct whistling sound of an arriving or departing train and the image of people being dropped off for their morning commute and then the evening pickup and the chance to reconnect with family after a long day of meetings and phone calls.
I then let my mind race ahead to some of my own train rides and destinations that have defined my life’s journey — 25 years of taking NJ Transit trains from Princeton into NYC, the countless Amtrak journeys to Boston and Washington DC, and my personal favorite, those high speed Shinkansen trains (the “bullet trains”) that I would take when visiting the car companies in Japan during my years as a Wall Street automotive analyst. I loved those train rides – the morning coffee (always 2 cups), perusing the NYT and WSJ, and just the opportunity to prepare for the day ahead and to decompress on the ride back home. Somehow the delays or even those noisy passengers that sometimes sat next to me never seemed to bother me. For me, the train ride symbolized forward motion, progress, looking ahead, with each journey taking you to a clear destination.
As I continued gazing out my window, I realized there were other images of the train that were relevant to my own journey, especially some of the challenges that I have faced over the last few years and my move into professional coaching as my encore career. You see, trains don’t always run on schedule, jeopardizing our arrival time in the same way that life doesn’t always run according to our plan. And, sometimes the train may even come to a complete stop, even derail or go off course, taking us further away from our intended destination. And so as all of these images of the train began to crystallize in my mind that November morning, I began to see how several life challenges had impacted my own train ride – the loss of my Dad and all of the emotions that come with saying goodbye to a parent; a yearning to be closer geographically to my grown children which may not be possible due to the demands of school, career and where their future opportunities may lie; watching loved ones lose some of their independence and faculties due to aging and poor health; and, lots of personal anxiety about the future – what will it bring, where will I be, what will I do with the rest of my life? These challenges are certainly not unique to me but are ones we all deal with at some point in life.
And so as the train finally pulled into New York Penn Station that early November morning, I realized that each of us really is the conductor of our own train ride to fulfillment and purpose in life. Looking back, I realize now that I needed some time and space to process everything that was going on around me. I had the great fortune to be surrounded by an incredibly loving family and some of the best friends and former colleagues you could ever hope to have in life. And then as is so often the case in everyday life, something unexpected happens. For me, it was an email from a former colleague of mine who I had hired many years ago as my first research assistant when I was an auto analyst at Kidder Peabody & Company. We had coffee one afternoon at the Penn Club and we talked about professional coaching and how my career and life experience might be a good fit. Interestingly enough, I had been thinking of going into coaching when I left a management position at Credit Suisse back in 2003 but quickly found myself attracted to some new leadership opportunities in higher education. Does that story resonate with any of you? Was there a point in your career where you had been thinking about transitioning into a new field but something else came up in the interim?
As I left that meeting with my good friend Darren, I noticed a little extra spring in my step as I walked back to Penn Station for the long train ride back to the Jersey shore. In that moment, I felt as if my train began to move again to some exciting new destinations. Shortly thereafter, I began taking professional courses in personal, executive and career coaching at NYU and The Five O’Clock Club. I started to meet this wonderful community of coaches and coaches in training who were incredibly passionate about helping people think through how to move forward in their personal and professional lives. It was as if my family, my friends, and all my new fellow coaches were now sitting on the train with me, ready to cheer me on when my train slowed down or moved too fast. Suddenly, those dreaded self-limiting beliefs, internal saboteurs, and a fear of failure were now being replaced by a feeling of wanting to jump back into the big pond that is life itself and it was just fine with me to take it one stroke at a time. I now see lots of blue sky ahead for my train ride and I can envision many possible destinations, each one filled with adventure and excitement to see where the train may ultimately take me.
I hope you too enjoy the train ride that is your life. All aboard!!
