24 May BEHIND THE SCENES, 20+ YEARS MARRIED TO A COACH
Guest Writer: my husband, MIKE GEIGER
Behind every great man is a greater woman.
With true sincerity of heart and extreme gratitude, I have been blessed to “marry up” and spend nearly 25 years of marriage with an amazing wife, true friend, and yes…a coach! 🙂
20 years ago, I remember bantering names for Christy’s business, and while I can’t remember all the options we were considering, I still remember crystallizing “Synergy Strategies” with a tagline something like, “Helping you find clarity, focus, and a plan.”
After 20 years, this is still what Christy does and does very well. I certainly have had my struggles and all too many challenges of having clarity, focus, and plan. I know there were moments…seasons…of frustration as Christy desired (as she does for all her clients) that I was at my best and wanted me to implement the very things she was implementing and sharing with her clients.
I have not always been the best student. Perhaps that is the challenge of having a wife who is a coach. She will not settle for mediocrity, half-effort, or aimless wandering through life. Perhaps at times, I would have been content with that, but the greatest blessing of having a wife who is a coach…she didn’t allow that to happen!
Honestly, I am still not the best model for the great value she has and continues to bring to our marriage. I am a slow student…but when the student is ready, the teacher arrives.
This truth is one that I believe is real for all her clients. If you are ready to be coached, Christy will pour her all into you. She believes in you. She wants you to be your best. She wants you to succeed. You just must be ready.
I would not be where I am in life and ministry without her love, care, drive, and skill set.
What inspires me most is that she doesn’t quit…even when you feel like quitting yourself. Her belief in you as an individual is relentless. The only reason for any lack of success is the lack of my personal motivation to succeed. It is not the lack of her effort or skill set.
Christy would be the first to admit, that she is not perfect. While she might not be flawless in all the skills she encourages one to implement, she continues to improve and work on them. Perfection is NOT the goal…improvement is. This is an important lesson for me. I often give up if I can’t be perfect at it. I gravitate to what is easy, not always what is needed. I naturally flow to what I can do without a whole lot of effort and learning. What inspires me most about my wife is that she does not stop working to understand herself, improve herself, and be better tomorrow than she was today. I have embraced the truth that there is always the opportunity for growth and improvement.
Christy realizes and shares the value of surrounding yourself with a team.
I am still learning to value the team. A coach can seem like a very individualized profession. Yet Christy realizes and shares the value of surrounding yourself with a team. Even her clients are part of her network. She learns from them, consults at times with them, and receives feedback from them. This also becomes a valuable resource to her clients as she readily passes on what her network has added to her. This too I am still learning to leverage. I usually ask, “How can I do …?” before I ask, “Who can help me…?” As a result, I am often personally limited by my ceiling as well as limit my ministry to what I can do instead of building a solid team to expand the capacity I have on my own. This is one of many areas I am needing to learn and embrace from my wife.
I could go on, but I think this is supposed to be brief. Sure, it is annoying at times to be “coached” when you really didn’t ask. Sometimes I just want to gripe…not have a problem solved, however, the negatives are few and the positives are a true blessing. 20 years has brought many opportunities to have “clarity, focus, and a plan” and in the next 20 I hope I can surprise my “coach” and be the person she knows, believes, and champions me to be.
I love you, Christy! Congratulations on your 20 years of coaching!
