In Chapter 6 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, business coach Jullien Gordon answers "At This Moment in Your Life, Where Are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?" Gordon talks about finding a spiritual community after relocating from the West Coast to the East Coast. He details why that is important to his well-being and what he and his wife are doing to fill that void short-term - watching Agape Sunday services online - as they look for the longer-term connection. To complement this resource, Gordon invests in his marriage, daily journaling and weekly meetings with his coach. Jullien Gordon is a high performance coach and consultant to organizations, individuals and teams who want to increase employee performance, motivation, engagement and retention. He earned a BA from UCLA, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a Masters of Education from Stanford University.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: At this moment in your life, where are you seeking advice and coaching?
Jullien Gordon: That’s a good question. I’ve had a very difficult time finding a spiritual community in New York in the way that I found it in California, both in Oakland and in L.A.
Erik Michielsen: What have been the challenges in finding that spiritual community in New York versus what you’ve found in Oakland and in Los Angeles?
Jullien Gordon: My spirit is at my core. And it is the reason I’m here and the more connected I am with that source of energy, the more powerful I move through the world. I mean there’s different types of energy, there’s your spiritual energy, there’s your emotional energy, there is your mental energy, and your physical energy. And for me, my spiritual energy is definitely at my core. We had initially found a community, that community—I like to say transcended and kind of evaporated, and so we are in search now. Currently we watch Agape Live on Sundays which is—Agape is a spiritual community in Los Angeles, California, and we watch that service through live stream at noon, Eastern Standard Time. And so that’s been our way of connecting, but if we could have it here in person, we believe that that would be more powerful for our growth and development. I do have a coach who I meet with about every two weeks who supports me, and holds space for me and challenges me and holds me accountable. So that’s been a powerful space for me and I invest in that. Outside of that, it’s been just a lot of deep introspection in terms of journaling on a regular basis. I call the first 30 minutes of my day first period and I use that space to meditate, to journal, to reflect, to read, and so my books and my own journaling and my own writings have been kind of my space of coaching and analysis. But I wish I could have a community of people who have a similar vision as me that I could meet regularly to work through some of the challenges that I’m having as an entrepreneur, as a man, as a husband, as a son. That would be a very healthy space for me, but I haven’t been able to find it yet, so it’s been a solo journey—or with the exception of my wife, she’s been my greatest source of feedback and accountability and safety, and so I wouldn’t—and I’ll call her my coach in a lot of ways.