choice Magazine

Hosted by Garry Schleifer

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Episodes

202

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-US

About the show

choice Magazine is the vehicle that forwards the global conversation about professional coaching by providing: diverse perspectives, thought-provoking commentary, insightful discussion and access to services, tools, resources and practical information.

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September 9, 202630 min

Episode 204: Holding It Together Is Not The Job with guest, Maria Wade

Send us Fan Mail Your best leaders can look calm and still be in trouble. When uncertainty stops being a short-term disruption and becomes the water everyone swims in, “stay strong and push through” turns into isolation, second-guessing, and a constant fight with their own internal signals. That’s the heart of our conversation with executive coach and coaching supervisor Maria Wade, author of “Holding It Together Is Not the Job: Coaching Leaders in Prolonged Organizational Chaos.” We dig into what changes when the world moves from complicated to complex to chaotic and why senior leadership challenges stop being technical problems you can solve with more expertise. Maria shares how coaches can use presence and interoception, the felt sense of what’s happening inside the body, as real data in a session. We talk about why the goal isn’t to calm a client down, but to help them get accurate information from a system they’ve learned to override, and how neuroscience on constructed emotions informs a more careful, respectful approach. From there, we zoom out to the identity shift leaders face after promotion: more autonomy, fewer guardrails, and often less honest support. We explore vulnerability with boundaries, breaking isolation without oversharing, and bringing the system into the room through psychological safety and accountability. Maria also points listeners to a practical Chaos Guide and explains how her leadership integrity framework connects inner awareness, relationships, and the larger organizational system. If you coach executives, lead teams, or work inside fast-changing organizations, you’ll walk away with language and practical moves for staying grounded while everything shifts. Subscribe, share this with a fellow coach or leader, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Read the full article here . Learn more about Maria here . * Gift – When Holding It Together Stops Working: A Field Guide for Coaching Leaders Through Prolonged Chaos. A free four-page companion to my Choice feature, written for coaches who work with senior leaders when a crisis stops being a moment and becomes the weather. It lays out four moves for those long engagements: reading the body in the room before you trust the briefing, noticing when a leader is solving the right problems at the wrong level, finding the isolation hiding inside hard-won autonomy, and coaching the identity underneath the performance. It closes with five questions to ask yourself before your next session, because you cannot ask a leader to stop performing composure while you perform it back at them. Download it free at chaosguide.mariawade.us . Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

September 2, 202625 min

Episode 203: Courage, Compassion and Curiosity with guest, Marcia Reynolds

Send us Fan Mail Chaos has a way of shrinking our thinking. One tough email, a headline, a sudden change at work and we grab for the fastest fix, the familiar answer, the script that used to work. Then the brain locks onto worst case scenarios, confidence drops, and even strong leaders start feeling stuck. We sit down with Marcia Reynolds, Master Certified Coach and pioneer in the ICF community, to talk about how a coaching approach can activate resilience when uncertainty is the only constant. Marcia introduces the “murky unknown” and the messy middle of change, where people are transforming but nothing feels stable yet. Her core practice sounds almost too simple until you try it: coach slowly. We unpack how slowing down creates emotional connection first, why clients need to feel safety before they can access insight, and how the real topic often emerges naturally when we invite story instead of rushing to goals. You’ll hear how to listen for repeated phrases and hidden rules, then reflect them back with compassion, even if it sparks frustration, because that emotion often signals a breakthrough. We also dig into why old solutions can be harmful when applied to new problems and why so many leaders burn out trying to be the one who knows. Marcia challenges us to let go of the expert identity and to “give it back” so clients build agency. Finally, she explains the difference between listening and receiving through therapeutic presence, opening head, heart, and gut to create felt trust that goes beyond confidentiality statements and into real connection. If you want practical coaching tools for uncertain times, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more coaches and leaders can find it. What part of coaching slowly would make the biggest difference in your next conversation? Watch the full interview by clicking here. Read the full article here . Learn more about Marcia here. * Gift – Introduction and First Chapter to Coach the Person, Not the Problem 2nd Edition. This document looks at what makes coaching so powerful in these times of chaos and uncertainty, what it takes to impact people and trigger transformation beyond what AI can do, and what are the key elements of a coaching conversation. Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

August 26, 202623 min

Episode 202: Coaching At The Threshold with guest, Michael Shoultz

Send us Fan Mail Feeling stuck is not always a sign you’re failing. Sometimes it’s a sign you’re crossing a threshold where the old version of your leadership no longer fits and the next one hasn’t come into focus yet. That space can feel restless, urgent, and confusing, which is exactly why many of us try to force clarity and rush into an action plan. We sit down with leadership coach and organizational consultant Michael Schoultz, author of “Coaching at the Threshold: Supporting Clients in Times of Uncertainty,” from choice Magazine’s Coaching in Chaos issue. Together, we unpack how to tell the difference between avoidance and real transition, what patterns to listen for beneath a client’s words, and why familiar coaching tools like goals and next steps can suddenly feel ineffective when identity is shifting. A central takeaway is simple and surprisingly powerful: regulation before clarity. When anxiety and overwhelm tighten the nervous system, options disappear and decision making becomes reactive. We talk about slowing the conversation down, framing uncertainty as transition rather than failure, holding complexity with steadiness, and helping clients choose aligned action instead of rushed action. We also explore the Goldilocks question of timing so reflection doesn’t become another form of hiding. If you coach leaders through complexity, organizational change, or high-stakes decisions, this conversation will give you language, mindset, and practical moves you can use right away. Subscribe, share this with a coach or leader who needs steadiness, and leave a review with the moment that changed how you’ll handle uncertainty. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Read the full article here . Learn more about Michael here . * A gift for Beyond the Page listeners , free and no sign-up required. A one-page set of "threshold-safe" coaching questions for those moments when a client is between identities — designed to slow the rush to clarity and help them find orientation before outcome. Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

August 19, 202638 min

Episode 201: Confronting Meta-Change with Courage and Compassion with guest, DJ Mitsch

Send us Fan Mail Chaos can feel like whitewater: loud, fast, destabilizing, and impossible to control. That’s why I invited award-winning change agent and master coach DJ Mitsch back to Beyond the Page to talk about what it really takes to find peace amid chaos and lead through meta change with courage and compassion. We explore a practical metaphor that sticks: change as a river, where rapids test us, quiet pools integrate us, and the goal is not perfect control, but conscious navigation. We also go straight at the modern stressors leaders and coaches face every day: emotional contagion, the way negativity multiplies online, and the growing problem of AI-generated content shaping what people believe. DJ shares why what we “hold” in thought and feeling becomes part of our experience, and why leaders can’t ask teams to be calm if they’re bringing frantic energy into the room. From grounding practices like breathing, visualization, Tai Chi, and barefoot grounding, to heart-led courage and intuitive sensing, we outline how coaching presence becomes a leadership advantage. From an ontological and meta-relational leadership lens, we look at the wider field: resources, systems, and uncertainty that no single person can “fix.” The work is to create steadiness, invite contribution, and listen for the second conversation in every room: the underlying energy. If you care about executive coaching, change management, team coaching, and building leader-as-coach cultures, you’ll walk away with language, questions, and next steps you can use immediately. Subscribe, share this with a fellow coach or leader, and leave a review with the one idea you’re taking into your next conversation. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Read the full article here . Learn more about DJ here . **Please note this correction on the book mentioned in the interview.** This book by Gloria D. Karpinski has been a go-to for me over the years. It is a study of the seven levels of consciousness and offers rituals and exercises throughout …the Guided Imagery mentioned in this interview can be found on pages 274-278, but read the entire work before guiding someone through this visualization, so you understand the context and power! Copyright 1990 Ballantine Books, NYC. https://a.co/d/0ciEE1u6 A Gift for our listeners: The meta-relational handout : https://drive.google.com/file/d/100n2LLAvd16RPdMs9nDmvtiAjGuBb3vZ/view?usp=drive_link Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

August 12, 202632 min

Episode 200: Regenerative People with guests, Janet Harvey and Silvia Tassarotti

Send us Fan Mail The world does not change because we agree with the idea of change. It changes when we show up differently on an ordinary Tuesday morning, in the meetings we dread, the choices we rush, and the habits we repeat. That is the heart of my conversation with master coaches and authors Janet Harvey and Silvia Tassarotti about their book, Regenerative People, and why regeneration is not a trend but a personal and leadership practice. We draw a clear line between sustainability and regeneration. Sustainability aims to reduce harm through mitigation and adaptation. Regeneration asks something bolder: how do we build living systems, organizations, and cultures that restore and give back more than they take? We talk about the mindset shift many leaders skip, the step where we admit our role as causal agents in extractive norms, and how coaching is uniquely positioned to bridge the “personal versus business” divide. Along the way we explore seven-generation thinking, vision, and real examples of long-horizon decisions, from national policy choices to companies willing to reimagine success. You will leave with practical tools, not just inspiration: a coaching-friendly way to see challenges as living systems, a four-dimension decision lens (inner state, system impact, purpose, and more), and an invitation to inventory the core attributes of being regenerative across self, family, team, and organization. If you have been looking for a grounded approach to regenerative leadership, sustainable growth, well-being at work, and culture change that actually sticks, this conversation is your next step. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Learn more about Janet her e and reach out to Janet at janet.harvey@invitechange.com Learn more about Silvia here and reach out to Silvia at tassarottis@gmail.com Take the 5 question survey here: Go.invitechange.com/regen Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

August 5, 202626 min

Episode 199: How to "Yes and..." Chaos with guest, Carrie Sackett

Send us Fan Mail Chaos has a way of making smart people reach for old tools harder, even when those tools stop working. We sit down with Coach Carrie Sackett, author of “Saying Yes And To Chaos: Building Resilience with Our Clients in Uncertain Times,” to explore a surprisingly practical answer: improv. Not stage improv, but structured, embodied exercises that help coaches and clients get out of their mental loops and back into real-time presence, connection, and creativity. We dig into the heart of “yes, and” as a coaching method. Carrie explains how coaches can treat the client’s words as an “offer,” accept what is true without negating it, and then add something that moves the work forward. You’ll hear why she often uses improv games early, how experiential learning beats long explanations, and what shifts when “no, but” language turns into collaboration. The party planning game makes the contrast instantly felt, not just understood. From there, we zoom out to coaching in uncertainty and the feeling of living in a “poly” world where multiple, conflicting demands hit at once. Carrie shares a we lens grounded in social therapeutic coaching and both-and thinking, plus additional practices like mirroring, collective storytelling, and an emotions chorus that can transform group coaching, couples coaching, and family dynamics. If you want coaching tools for resilience that actually work in modern complexity, press play. Subscribe, share this with a coach friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Find the full article here . Learn more about Carrie here . Visit groupandcouplescoaching.com/practicing-social-therapeutic-coaching to register and receive 20% Weekend Intensive Training in Social Therapeutic Coaching Nov. 7 + 8. ENTER DISCOUNT CODE CHOICE20 Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

July 29, 202618 min

Episode 198: Coaching At The Edge with guest, Scott Drexler

Send us Fan Mail Chaos is no longer a rare event. It is the default setting for leaders who are trying to deliver results while information, technology, and expectations accelerate around them. I sit down with coach Scott Drexler, author of “Coaching on the Edge: Helping Leaders Perform When Chaos is the operating environment,” to get practical about what actually helps when there is no time, no slack, and no margin for error. Scott brings a high reliability organizations lens shaped by years as a U.S. Navy SEAL, firefighter, EMT, emergency manager, and now a federal internal coach. We unpack what a sustained COVID-19 response revealed about rotating teams, leadership fatigue, and why “response” is only half the story. The other half is preparedness: training habits in calm moments so they hold when the pressure spikes. We also dig into his research on the inner cue blind spot, the way capable leaders can lose contact with the internal signals that keep judgment sharp and teams safe, especially under data overload. A standout takeaway is Scott’s idea that the most important leadership coaching can happen in the 10 minutes between events. We talk about how coaches and managers can create micro-pauses, ask focused reflection questions, and “keep the receipt” from hard experiences so learning compounds instead of disappearing. If you coach executives, lead a team, or want a repeatable approach to crisis leadership, you will leave with tools you can use in one-on-ones tomorrow. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a colleague who is feeling the pace, and leave a review to help other coaches and leaders find the show. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Find the full article here . Learn more about Scott here . Gift To Our Listeners: Use coupon code AUTHOR25 to receive 25% off of a choice Magazine Subscription Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

July 22, 202634 min

Episode 197: Classic Coaching Tools To Help Leaders Thrive with guest, Madeleine Blanchard

Send us Fan Mail Chaos at work doesn’t just scramble priorities, it shrinks a leader’s ability to think. We sit down with coach and author Madeleine Blanchard to get intensely practical about what helps when everything feels urgent and noisy: classic coaching tools, simple models, and the kind of questions that create instant clarity without turning coaching into advice-giving. We dig into why leaders sometimes complain that “all my coach does is ask questions,” and how coaches can use frameworks to ask better questions and help clients move faster. We talk through the Eisenhower Matrix for urgent versus important decisions, plus the sphere of control and the often-missed middle ground of influence. If you coach inside organizations or support executive coaching clients, these tools can turn a stuck conversation into a focused plan. Madeleine also brings back an oldie-but-goodie that still holds up: the Johari Window. We connect it to self-awareness, trust, authenticity, and how leaders can narrow blind spots. From there, we explore how to work with 360 feedback and assessments without getting lost in the instrument, using clean questions like “What if it were true?” and “What are you making it mean?” We wrap with playful accountability ideas (including WIN, “What’s Important Now”) and book recommendations for coaches who love models and want a deeper toolkit. Subscribe, share this with a coach or leader who’s feeling the strain, and leave a review with the tool you’ll try first. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Find the full article here . Learn more about Madeleine here . Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

July 15, 202628 min

Episode 196: Coaching in Chaos ~ Leadership In A Reactive World with guest, Doreen Steenland

Send us Fan Mail Your brain loves predictability, but leadership rarely offers it anymore. When stress and urgency become the norm, even the most capable leaders can lose access to their best thinking and default to old autopilot patterns. That’s not a character flaw, it’s a nervous system response, and it’s exactly where executive coaching can create real change. I’m joined by executive coach and former RN Doreen Steenland, author of “The Conscious Leader: Coaching for Embodied Leadership in a Reactive World.” We dig into what embodied leadership actually looks like under real-world pressure, why “just be calm” advice falls short, and how somatic coaching and applied neuroscience help leaders move from reactivity to choice. Doreen unpacks integrated intelligence beyond the purely cognitive lens: interoception, exteroception, proprioception, and emotion as practical pathways to deeper self-awareness and stronger decision-making. We also explore emotional contagion and why a grounded, steady presence can shift an entire room. From internal authority versus performing confidence to boundary setting with “full-body yeses” and “full-body no’s,” you’ll hear concrete ways to build psychological flexibility and stay connected to yourself when it matters most. If you lead teams through sustained stress, rapid change, or organizational disruption, this conversation offers a clear, usable framework for nervous system regulation and conscious leadership. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a coach or leader who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. Watch the full interview by clicking here . Find the full article here. Learn more about Doreen here. FREE GIFT FOR LISTENERS ~ The Internal Authority Assessment Most high-capacity leaders don't struggle because they lack capability. They struggle because pressure disconnects them from themselves. The Internal Authority Assessment™ helps leaders identify where they may be operating from hyper-responsibility, signal distortion, or identity drift—and reveals the patterns keeping them disconnected from their own wisdom, presence, and decision-making. In less than 10 minutes, participants receive personalized insights into: • How pressure impacts their leadership • Their primary leadership pattern under stress • What may be blocking access to clarity and self-trust • The first step toward becoming someone pressure can no longer disconnect from Ideal for executives, entrepreneurs, coaches, and high-capacity professionals who want to lead from internal authority rather than external pressure. Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

July 8, 202629 min

Episode 195: Managing chaos through adaptive presence with guest, Dorothy Siminovitch

Send us Fan Mail Disruption doesn’t “settle down” anymore. It stacks, spreads, and speeds up until leaders start feeling like the only stable thing is the chaos itself. That’s why I sat down with leadership, team, and organizational coach Dorothy Seminovich to unpack a powerful concept gaining traction: meta-ruption, the relentless convergence of disruptions across technology, geopolitics, climate, economics, social systems, and even personal identity. From there, we get practical about what leaders and coaches can actually do. Dorothy makes a clear case for adaptive presence, not just showing up with confidence, but expanding your range so you can meet the moment as it changes. We talk about how trust forms in an instant, why presence is relational, and how a leader can name uncertainty, reduce shame, and keep connection without pretending to have answers they don’t have. If you care about executive presence, adaptive leadership, high performance teams, or coaching in chaos, this conversation offers language and tools you can use right away. We also dig into stabilizing the inner system through Gestalt coaching and embodied awareness. Instead of looking outside for certainty, Dorothy shares how “checking in with your interior” reveals real data: what you feel, what matters, what’s missing, and what you’re avoiding. Those small, unscripted moments often become the turning points that create psychological safety, spark courage, and move a team forward even when the future is unclear. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a coach or leader navigating constant change, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What does “adaptive presence” look like in your hardest moments? Watch the full interview by clicking here . Find the full article here. Learn more about Dorothy here. Connect with Dorothy via email: admin@gestaltcoachingworks.com Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/