Bold - Stefan’s Week-notes 05/10/2025
Inspired by the weeknotes of friends and coachees including John Fitzgerald, Steve Messer and Nour Sidawi - I thought I'd give it a go.
Weeknotes - Boldness, in the face
Some weeks call for care, others for patience.
This week called for boldness – not bluster, not noise, but the courage to act before certainty arrives.
As Brené Brown reminds us, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
What’s the central thread that tied my week together?
Bold.
What moments lit me up this week?
A conversation with Camilla about the word stewardship itself – testing the edges of vision and meaning.
A challenge from me, about whether a consultant is really consulting.
Both reminded me of Peter Block’s idea that consulting isn’t about being right, it’s about being in right relationship.
Three coaches coached me this week as part of the recruitment process – “Are they good enough?” Yes, but here’s the tweak. One I even gave a second shot, because attitude matters more than polish. Recruit for attitude. They stepped up.
What did I wrestle with this week?
Risk.
I wrote and shared a post about my coaching that pulled no punches:
“Do you want your kids and partner to love spending time with you, to still have time for friends, to train or ride, and to do meaningful work where people find purpose alongside you? Do you want to share the load, impress your board, and hang up your coat at the end of the day knowing those who worked for you respected and valued you?
Well, as a coach, I’ll tell you – you can have that. But you have to carve out space. It might mean honesty about your hopes and fears, and doing the work, not just your work.
I coach. You change. You pay me. And we connect over our joint purpose.
Life’s too short to beat around the bush. Let’s get this party started.”
Bold. Risky. Raw. And exactly the point.
Amy Edmondson might describe this as psychological safety in its truest form – not playing safe, but being safe enough to play big.
What personal moments felt significant this week?
On the bike, pushing hard in a training session I wasn’t sure I’d complete.
Booking myself into a big race for next year – because I need something big to go after.
There’s a point, mid-effort, when breath and will merge and the noise falls away. Csikszentmihalyi called it flow. I just call it truth.
In friendship, asking honestly: Is this working?
The answer: yes – we just need to mix up the filter.
Bold questions, honest answers.
Where did I see stewardship in practice this week?
A client asking me to ask them – how can you change systems one step at a time?
Recognising this isn’t about freeze or flight, but about the long fight – persistence over time.
Otto Scharmer might call it “holding the space until the future wants to emerge.”
And again with Camilla, sitting together in the weight and worth of stewardship – not theory, but lived practice.
What metaphor captures the feeling of this week?
Being the wave.
Not resisting, not skimming across the top, but leaning fully into the force – like Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa: beauty and power coexisting, form and chaos in the same stroke.
Boldness as movement and presence.
What did I notice beneath the surface this week?
About me – the sheer drive behind Be the Waves. From others – the challenge: What’s your real motive, Stefan? Is this paternalistic, from a white middle-aged man?
It stopped me.
As bell hooks wrote, “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”
Stewardship, too, must prove itself in action.
So I sat with it. The motive isn’t power – it’s responsibility.
Boldness means facing the question and letting the deeper why speak for itself.
What am I carrying forward into next week?
Selecting the first cohort of coaches and putting them forward to the client.
Clarifying governance and legal status for Be The Waves.
Forming the first circle of stewards.
More coaching too.
Bold steps – the next layer of foundation.
What else stayed with me this week?
I’ve been reading Antonio Damasio’s Self Comes to Mind.
His writing on how consciousness arises through the body reminded me why I coach from the body up – leadership as something you feel before you know.
And the image that’s stayed with me isn’t from the book, but from outside my flat: my bike, leaning against the wall, waiting.
Because this week I signed up – at least in my head – for a very long ride next year.
And now I have to make it real.
Boldness isn’t in the declaration; it’s in the follow-through.
How would I like to sign off this week?
You don’t have to be great to get started.
But you have to get started to become great.
And whether you come from a great place when you start – that’s key.
As William James once wrote, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
That’s boldness: the decision to start – and to start from a good place.
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For now; thank you
I am…
An executive coach and the CEO of Be The Waves, growing stewardship for a thriving planet.
I helping good people lead great things; in other words - I empower Stewardship
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it. It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here