Make better decisions faster and communicate more effectively

There are two areas I really get value from! Firstly, having a co-founder for life who has alternate points of view and can tease out things I’m not consciously aware of – this is SO helpful when solving hard problems. Secondly, I get to practise coaching consistently in a ‘low-stakes environment’, which is phenomenally helpful to me as a developing manager and for supporting more effectively those who I interact with in my work or personal life. I wish I had it a long time ago – it’s a skill everyone can learn and no one is born good at!

One of the main benefits I've experienced is having someone question my assumptions and see problems and opportunities from a different perspective. This has changed how I’ve acted in the company for the better. Our sessions helped us both take ownership of problems and realise that blaming others is unproductive. Accountability is the other key benefit – if I had to write a journal, I would not be as committed (and those commitments compound!). Lastly, sharing with each other simple, practical solutions that we’ve not thought about.

Having conversations with a like-minded individual experiencing similar challenges and being able to communicate impartially has enabled me to think more clearly about my challenges and facilitated a rate of change which I would not have experienced on my own. This has led to changes in the business – I became bolder and braver and accepted less the status quo. It’s resulted in me stepping up to the plate, taking extreme ownership and seizing responsibility. If RunYourself no longer existed, I'd be very disappointed!

As a leader of a remote organisation, it’s important to be a very strong communicator and listener. RunYourself has been one of the best ways to learn and practise foundational coaching techniques in a 'low-stakes' environment with someone I have come to trust and respect. The coaching sessions themselves have been incredibly valuable for creating more clarity and conviction around my thoughts. And practising coaching has helped me understand what good listening truly means, which has benefited both my personal and professional life.

The main benefit to me has been having someone, to whom I’m not connected to in any other way, be a soundboard and provide accountability. They are detached from from the rest of your life, but care about you. Journaling is powerful but it’s a static page, here you have an engaged human who is acting as a mirror. In practical terms, I have a much better understanding of how to solve professional problems, I understand myself a lot better, and I’m in a much better routine in life (the commitments and a 3 week session cadence help with that).

Our peer coaching sessions have helped me most by making better decisions faster – during the sessions I move from 50-60% to 100% conviction. They've also helped me gain a greater understanding of the purpose behind what I'm doing and why it matters to me. This clarity was enabled by having scheduled time to think with impartial questions from someone else. The RunYourself session structure has helped me to be more deliberate in my thinking, and make actionable commitments to build momentum and progress over time.

The main benefit to me has been the clarity I get around what is going on in my life. There’s a lot of things going in my head so it’s helpful to have someone else who is willing to really listen, care and not be upset or react. That’s not normal in everyday life because there’s so much else going on. It’s different than anything else I do. It’s given me a different perspective on things and helped me process my feelings so I can move on and focus on helpful actions – all through listening and questioning rather telling me what to do.

I've highly valued the opportunity to connect with my peer coach on a deep level, to get direct feedback and guidance on certain challenges that I feel unable to get from a lot of people in my life. I respect their opinion, not just business-wise, because we both think in terms of mental models. This was also an opportunity to hone the skill of coaching – it’s an active experience and you feel it when you do it well. The resources provided in the app, the 'cheat sheet' and Mica's actual feedback when she assisted our session were all very helpful!

The peer matching was excellent – there was an instant chemistry, we have sufficient similarities while also having contrasting perspectives. With that in place, we could trust each other to dig deeper into things. I now know that I have someone who would completely understand what I’m going through and offer me a safe space to process my feelings and talk through challenges. Our sessions also force me to take a step back and reflect on what's going well and what could be better – that’s not something easy to do on your own as a startup founder.

The key benefit to me has been getting clarity on how I am personally and thinking through the challenges and issues I'm facing. Because we have this time scheduled, I can't ignore them. Talking out loud adds that extra bit of focus. I also find that being reminded to set actions and next steps is so helpful. And having made those commitments to my peer coach, it means I'm more likely to complete them. Lastly, recording thoughts in the app makes everything easier, otherwise the notes would go into my bank of notes and I'd probably lose them.

Having dedicated reflection time helps me understand better what I'm going through and to deal better with feelings I'm often not aware of. Having my peer coach ask me questions and share experiences helps me deal with challenges in a way that I feel good about. I can also see how practising coaching in the sessions transfers into the rest of my life – in the past I had a bad habit of interrupting when someone was speaking, now I’m mostly listening and asking questions with the intent of understanding rather than responding.

I’ve never had a coach, but I feel that peer coaching is potentially more helpful than coaching. Being the listener is as helpful as being listened to – it reminds me that everyone faces challenges and I can see how helpful it is for someone to be able to speak candidly without being given advice. On the other side, it’s giving me the time to slow down and process things out loud – this makes the issues seem blindingly obvious. I’m doing stuff that I’ve been putting off and moaning to my wife for years. It’s really the discipline to 'run yourself'.

The main benefit to me has been having an outlet for a stream of consciousness and clarity of thought. It’s an affordable way to access a safe space that you’d normally find in working with a professional coach or a therapist. On top of that, there’s a sense of camaraderie that builds up over time. In practical terms, it's helped build more accountability and intentionality into my life. I believe that being intentional about how one is spending their weeks and months requires having a good infrastructure in place – RunYourself helps putting that in place.

I’m amazed at how much value I receive from having someone just listen, not even say that much. For me the value is simply in clarifying my thoughts, with an added layer of accountability. In practical terms, I get more clarity, make more progress, take more action and feel much less uncertain.
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It also just feels good to be a part of RunYourself – I can feel that good stuff is happening and I can see it becoming a broader self-development platform for me beyond peer coaching.