The Joy of Good Book Discoveries and Coaching Moments

I need a good book to read.”

I perked up.

“Not personal growth— that's all I've read this year. Fiction. Something deep and thought provoking. Something I can get lost in.”

I perked up even more, mentally scanning my home bookshelves for the right title to lend to my friend.

I love books. After I read them, I keep them as little trophies; I like seeing the titles on my shelves and remembering how the book impacted me, and what was happening in my life when I read it.

I also have piles of books in my bedroom & office that embody “Tsundoku”: the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you've purchased but haven't read yet.

One of the few books I've tossed is The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, after she dared to insist on getting rid of your old books. 

(Out of my cold, dead hands, Marie Kondo).

Anyway, knowing my friend's love of poignant language and of nature, I asked if she'd read All the Light We Cannot See or Thirteen Moons, two of my favorites.

When she said No, I felt chills from the excitement of getting to introduce them to her.

As I described what I loved about each novel, I kept exclaiming, “My skin is literally tingling!”

“You're getting book-tingles!” she laughed.

We chuckled at our new terminology, and relished how fun it is to get book-tingles when you feel a story (or the language telling that story), changing you. I loved having book-tingles knowing she was about to deepen her sense of awe & wonder while reading them.

(Nothing sexual about these tingles. They're just the feeling of being “lit up” inside).

You know when else I get tingly?


When I see a coaching client “get it.”

For example: my Mighty Mastermind gathered for our retreat last weekend, and it was amazing and tingle-inducing to see big shifts happen. 

As we sat around the fireplace and discussed their businesses, or walked in the woods, or even poured our morning coffee in the kitchen… “aha-moments” kept striking.

Sometimes it was a truth they already knew, but it was just sinking in on a new, clearer level. Often tears were involved. (More than once I heard, “I don't know why I'm crying!”, but as a therapist/coach I knew it was a sign that something was being released, newly realized, or maybe both).

A lot of it had to do with owning their clarity: seeing things in a new way or stating the truths they knew but hadn't felt ready to trust or say out loud.

I see it happen with individual clients, too. Something clicks, the change sets in, and I feel the “coaching tingles” knowing that they're going to be acting from a place of deeper clarity & insight.

Business tingles are fun.

They're a sign that you're onto something.

(As opposed to business nausea or work ulcers, which are a sign that you're either on the wrong track, or still stuck on the idea that business must involve lots of suffering to be meaningful).

Have you ever had moments in your work when you tingled with excitement or inspiration? 

What was that moment telling you?

(Or do you have a favorite book that gives you “book tingles?” I'm always looking to feed my tsondoku ;)

I'd love to hear back from you.

p.s. My Mighty Mastermind doesn't open up again until the fall, but you can join the interest-list now and be the first to hear about it before I open it up again. I've also got some spots for 1-1 clients and VIP days opening up next month. Learn more.