The Online Coaching Clinic

1996 - 2018

Say you want to create a nice blog to memorialize yourself before you die. A pro tip to get expert help is recruit college students studying web design. They come cheap. Here's how I learned that.

I invented The Online Coaching Clinic on February 9, 1996 about four years after I left my last ever job and relaunched myself as an executive coach.

It’s been an existential challenge to turn a simple internet business idea into a marketable product, to find partners, associates and consultants and sell a leading edge concept into the always revolutionary corporate education market. Many times I’ve had to question whether I was doing something worthwhile or just following another vanity project.

By 1996 my coaching business was ticking along and I was ready to distract my momentum by chasing a shiny object. The new idea I needed bubbled up at an elearning conference where I saw a speaker, Vaughn McIntyre, say “soon we'll have access to web based learning for a dime a lesson”. This ignited the idea that I could digitize my coaching ideas and sell them online.

I approached Vaughn and we hit it off. He was the VP of Organizational Development at Star Data building a learning management system that would incorporate web based content. My idea fit right in and he engaged me to develop something.

‘Something’ was an important word because I didn't know what I was doing and had to invent an application. Which I did with many trials and errors.

An expert in the field later called my application,  ‘an elegant solution’. I replicated an actual coaching session in an online module. My design was to succinctly present an idea coupled with open ended questions that stimulated creative and reflective thinking.

The first modules I created for Vaughn were forty five minutes long. Research showed us that fifteen minutes would be better so I adapted the nine original long modules into what eventually became 181 shorter modules.

Topics included Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Communication, Marketing and other professional skills. I spent hundreds of hours creating the modules using a dialect I concocted to sound like it came from Silicon Valley.

Within a year or so the project with Vaughn fell apart when he left Star Data and his vision was lost. I explored other partners who could get me up and running.

One expensive agonizing gambit was to get into business with a Lotus Notes consultant. That fell apart when we hired lawyers to create a partnership agreement.

But it had actually failed sooner. I just didn't know. Lotus Notes was not the right application. I was trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole. A good life lesson.

Then I hired consultant web developers who had a good reputation. That didn't work either. They couldn't interpret my vision in a way we both liked.

That was another life lesson. Don't hire a dog if you want to bark yourself.

Then the pro tip came into play.

In 2000 my future son in law suggested I hire college students to help me. He thought they had know how and would work cheaply without too much ego. He was right. I found a married couple in the engineering department at Ryerson. Aqeel was an electrical engineering student at the time and his wife Shazia was in Computer Science.

While I had had lots of fun when I traveled in Muslim countries I had never had a friend or business relationship with any. So this was going to be a new experience. And it has been a good one.

Shazia and Aqeel had a lot to offer to supplement my elegant ideas. They liked the extra money and wanted to make the vision work. They managed my expectations and their own. Their efforts paid off handsomely.

In short order we had a workable and, I thought attractive, online presence. It was something I was able to sell. Three early clients got us off to a fast start. They were The Law Society of Upper Canada, The City of Toronto and Nortel. Good brands and credibility for The Online Coaching Clinic.

One accomplishment in 2001 while still in our infancy was that I was able to get the Learning Division of McGraw Hill to partner a roll out of The Online Coaching Clinic through their sales force in the USA. That was going to get me over the Rubicon.

But alas it wasn't to be. McGraw Hill’s press release announcing our deal was released to the media on September 10, 2001. Bad luck. After 9/11 McGraw Hill Learning fell on bad times and our association ended.

So by the end of 2001 I'd had some ups and downs with The Online Coaching Clinic. Three good life lessons. First; don't let a poverty mentality let you settle for something that's not right. Second, ensure you have common goals with partners; remember, don't hire a dog if you want to bark yourself and third managing expectations is a two way street.

I met Valerie Walls as part of the McGraw Hill debacle. She lost her job and we started working together but more importantly became friends. One night over a drunken couples dinner with our wives the subject of children came up when Valerie and her very attractive wife, Serra, announced they'd like to have a child.

So here's one last lesson; unless you're in Hollywood be subtle when offering to father another couple’s child, no matter how much alcohol is involved and don't beg and don't be persistent.

I’m closing The Online Coaching Clinic. Shazia is doing the project alone. She and Aqeel split after having three kids. Go figure.

The business has lasted 22 years which is a long time in internet business land. I've made some money and met some interesting people along the way. Just what I hoped for.

October 12, 2018

My Decision to Cut, Replace and Cement My Knee

May - June 2018

My left knee replacement 10 years ago came after 6 years of steadily increasing pain. During the previous two years I limped badly.  Magically when I turned 60 the hospital doors opened wide. As a senior citizen the government wanted to shower me with privileges.

This year the run up to my right knee replacement was 7 months. I initially aggravated the arthritis in my right knee in January watching Tom Brady and the Patriots beat the Jaguars while stationary biking for 90 minutes. That was too long. I was in pain for about a month. Rest and ice and painkillers cured me I thought.

But no they didn't.

I hurt the knee again playing golf in May at Don Valley, walking that hilly course .

At first the pain was mild and then suddenly it crossed a line. I become a limper again and for week or so I couldn't  straighten my leg to put on long pants.

Because I was a veteran of the system I had quick access to orthopedic surgeons and new x-rays clearly showed a problem so within a few weeks I had a July 30^th date for my next knee replacement. It was lucky I got a quick date. I was in so much pain that I was considering expensive surgery in the USA. Not my style.

Then a new wrinkle arose. I agreed to try a Cannabis pain killing cream which my friend Barb Bernstein was very bullish on. With one call and a $100 exchange I added this cream to my diet of rest, Tylenol, compression and ice.

And guess what, within a week the pain that had been so severe was mostly gone. Maybe the rest had kicked in. It wasn't the Tylenol because I stopped taking it when my stomach got upset. I doubted the ice or compression suddenly did the trick

It had to be the cannabis. I even stopped using it for a few days to test my hypothesis. And the pain came back. When I started using it again bye bye pain. It was about four weeks before my scheduled surgery. Hmmmm

I started thinking about cancelling. The pain was gone. Did I really need the surgery?

On the one hand I knew surgery was risky. Sadly, recently someone I knew had died from a blood clot two weeks after a standard hip replacement. Plus I knew the recovery period would be at least 5 painful weeks. I also knew that surgery spots were hard to get and if I didn't really need one maybe I should give it back for some less privileged person who really needed it and didn't have the contacts to get to the front of the line.

A friend, 88 year old John Torok, told me that when he was 80 he was scheduled for surgery but walked away when the pain subsided. Now eight years later with no operation he was still playing tennis. Hmmmm

Margie, my wife, was very convinced that I should have the surgery. I would likely need it eventually, remember the definitive x-ray. And maybe next time the circumstances would be less favourable, like a four month painful wait and our prepaid vacation in Florida having to be cancelled. I called my surgeon’s secretary for her view. She told me I should go ahead. Spots are hard to get. No one ever cancelled.

The downside of going ahead was risk, aggravation, two months without golf and months of pain. The downside of cancelling was the risk of an inconvenient situation in the future. The upside of going ahead was a timely solution to my arthritic knee. The upside of cancelling was maybe I'd never need the replacement at all.

What a wimp I am. At times I was near tears.  This decision was tearing me apart.

Finally I went ahead. Potential future inconvenience outweighed the possibility that I'd never need the surgery.

And now I'm done with process. I'll be back on the golf course again in a few weeks perfecting my mediocre swing. That too will be painful.

A Good Lesson Not Easily Learned

1975 - 1980

Possibly the best pro tip I got in the 17 years I worked in advertising is to prefer products from Procter and Gamble. Learning that tidbit came from the most domineering relationship I've ever had.

When I joined Ogilvy and Mather, a top ranked worldwide ad agency on May 5, 1975, I didn't know that it was the watershed day of my working life.

I had been sent to Ogilvy & Mather by a headhunter as cannon fodder. That is, they expected someone with experience in the advertising business would get the job. I had none and was to show what unqualified looked like.

I was interviewed by five executives. It helped that I had traveled in central Asia. That appealed to two who had also traveled but not as far. It helped that I had an MBA and unique experience. That appealed to another, a Dartmouth MBA. It helped that I had lived in Los Angeles. That appealed to one more who had stars in his eyes. And because I was well read I could b.s. on many subjects. That appealed to the ultimate decision maker, the agency Chairman, Roy MacLaren, who just a few years later was elected to parliament and served as a cabinet minister under Pierre Trudeau.

In the ad business your personal brand is based on which firm and who your clients are. So working at Ogilvy was good branding for me as were my initial clients, Unilever and General Foods. They were in the packaged goods business, the most sophisticated area of advertising because they had big budgets, advertised primarily on television, were international and did the most market research. So right from the get go I was at the pinnacle of the business but in an entry level position.

I developed quickly. I worked for smart people who knew what they were doing. I was an Account Executive reporting to an Account Supervisor who reported to an Account Director. That’s the way Josef Stalin would have organized it.

As an account executive my responsibilities included minding a brand book which contained schedules, proposals, strategies, minutes,  media plans, finances, research results, client biographies, the advertising history and more,  all in one place. I was not required to have opinions but I was required to have relevant facts handy. That was the easy part.

The hard part of account management was coordinating, facilitating and optimizing relationships among all the stakeholders which included in order of importance, clients, the four agency service groups [creative development, media planning and buying, market research and advertising production], agency leaders and finally consumers.

It was stressful but I had a fear of death personality and grew rapidly in the job.

And because of that I was promoted to Account Supervisor effective February 9, 1977. It came with new accounts and two new bosses; David Rutherford and Wayne Jordan. They were new to the agency having just been hired away from Procter and Gamble where they were senior marketing managers. They had been clients of ad agencies but had never worked in one. That was ominous for two reasons.

Firstly, having been client side they were more command and control than listen and serve.

Secondly, Procter and Gamble isn't like other companies. They are more disciplined. For example they never cut their advertising budgets when profits are tight. They fire people instead. And they tend not to join industry associations. They think there is nothing to learn from the competition and they don’t want to share their secrets. Not collegial.

It took about two weeks for the agency to realize that assigning me to work for two newbies was probably a bridge too far. I was asked to choose one to bet my career on.

I chose Rutherford because the clients that went with him were more interesting to me.

David and I filled an empty space in each other. I needed a wise disciplinarian father figure to channel my underused brain and he needed someone who would gladly disciple at his knee. He played the role of an English don who thought Captain Bligh was misunderstood. Challenging.

We were a combustible combination. While we did good work together David had to sweat from his teeth teaching me to write his way. That helped me think better and professionally.

Everything about being treated like an empty vessel that needed to be filled with right thinking left me stressed that I could crash and burn. That was a hypothetical horrible that motivated me to work hard to succeed. I was very good from time to time but never good enough for my ersatz dad to let me feel whole.

We lasted four years together. In 1980 David was promoted to Managing Director of the firm and I chased a shiny object moving to McCann Erickson to work on the Coca Cola account for a nice raise in pay.

During most of my time at Ogilvy and Mather I had clients who competed with Procter and Gamble brands. And usually the P&G brand was the market leader. I learned the reason why from David. P&G brands sell more because they are manufactured with better ingredients and more expensive engineering so while they cost more to buy they are worth it.

And that is something worth surviving a life changing boss to find out.

A Steamy Night in Jupiter

2006

Here's a pro tip about how to access marijuana if you suddenly feel like you want to get high but find yourself in a jurisdiction where it’s still not legal so you can't pop over to the nearest convenience store to get your fill.

Truth is as I write this memoir I'm a little surprised I was sixty years old before I discovered this tip. It's likely that I just never needed to know earlier because when pot was part of my life it was just there. But by age sixty I had long passed my still getting stoned date.

So on a steamy night in Jupiter, Florida December 2006 Margie and I were dining out during the first iteration of our annual winter holiday away from Toronto with our friends the Bermans, our 25 year old son and his childhood platonic lady friend Judy in the Food Shack, one of the cool, hard to get into restaurants, close to our rented condo, when Barb, Mrs. Berman, discovered suddenly that she could not face the future without getting high. As I recall we were having quite a raucous time and Barb wanted to take it to the next level. By the way I've changed the names to protect all but my wife and I.

Turns out Judy was the linchpin to this pro tip. As you can imagine with our son there Barb took a few veiled moments to get to the point. We were the generation that didn't get high with their kids. But slowly step by step with appropriate innuendo Barb got the message out. I remember Judy saying “Are you serious? Do you really wanna get high? Wow that is so cool.”

Then Barb chimes in with her two part pro tip strategy. First thing, and this really shows how worldly that Barb is. Speaking with the wisdom of many years experience Barb tells us that one of the bus boys will solve the problem for us. Second thing Barb tells that it will work better if willowy Judy is the one to approach the most likely bus boy. That wasn't really a pro tip but completes the story. I later learned that Barb has used her busboy tip in places as varied as Israel, ski resorts, Mexico, beach resorts and Germany.

Judy was then, and still is, a vibrant fun loving person so it didn't take much cajoling to get her to buy into the plan and then to buy some weed from the most convenient bus boy. I, of course, had to pay. You know how that works. Einstein's third law of family economics. A child never pays for anything if a parent is anywhere close by.

Judy accomplished her mission with relatively ease. The first thing was to identify which of the bus boys spoke English. Ten years ago jobs like that were done mostly by recent economic  immigrants who were new to the English language. The project took two stages. Firstly Judy had to corner her target somewhere comfortably innocuous. That took place publically in an aisle of the restaurant. The ask was made. A rendezvous in a more private area was arranged and about ten minutes later the exchange was made outside the ladies room.

What happened next made the night even more memorable.

We waited until we were outside the restaurant to roll and smoke. We were in Florida not Amsterdam so that precaution was taken.

We got high while driving back to our condo. And were gently buzzed as we climbed the one flight up to our front door. Now the Berman's had done the driving as they had a spacious rental car so we discovered when we went to open the condo that none of us had a key. That's a difficult enough problem when you're straight. In our extra sensitive state it led to jocular laughter mixed with my wife screaming at me; quietly, in respect of the neighbors.

We marched down the stairs and around to the back of the condo in the hope that the balcony door was unlocked, which was likely because we had a screen door that allowed for a nice breeze. And even if it was locked it would be easier to crash thru.

Alas when we got to the back there was no obvious way to get up to our second floor balcony. No combination of strength and lightweightedness produced an acrobatic team tall enough to deposit one of us on the balcony.

Contacting our landlord was out of the question so we began exploring the neighborhood for something tall and mobile that would allow the ascension we needed. We were cautiously optimistic because all the garages were open air.

Well it all turned out well. Stumbling around we happened on a ladder that allowed our ascent and the screen door was open so no crashing thru.

A happy ending to a rollicking life lesson.

The Father, The Son and His Son

1984-2010

There's some question as to who my father really was. It might have been Fred MacMurray on the My Three Sons TV show in the 50s. Or maybe Ward Cleaver, you know the Beaver’s dad on Leave it to Beaver or maybe even Danny Thomas, Marlo’s dad on Make Room for Daddy. These men all had something in common. Their children gave them entertaining problems to solve with wise advice delivered sincerely to a receptive thankful child.

My childhood wasn't like that. At least what I can recall. My dad was mostly absent, working long and hard hours and ill as a result until he died when he was 48 and I was nine. I have some  pictures and a few memories. There are  eyewitness reports of a man who was gregarious, the life of the party and a husband and father with anger management issues.

To be fair, my dad was born into a bad situation at a bad time and then the Russian revolution made things worse. He emigrated to Canada in 1927, married, started a family and was living the  Canadian dream. Along with my mum he suffered Holocaust related psychological bruising as their families were dying in Europe. I'm willing to give him a break if all he had was anger. He was a successful immigrant and I've had a good life in part because of wealth he created but didn't have time to spend.

So why might Fred MacMurray, Ward Cleaver or Danny Thomas have been my father. Well  because it's from them I learned about fathering. Not from my own distracted dad.

I learned from them that fathers spend intimate time with their children in order to set boundaries, keep their children inside the lines and dispense sage advice when needed.

Along with my wife I was active with the boundary setting and lines keeping. And I took every opportunity to stand in line, fill out forms, suck up to teachers, second guess coaches, drive, write and edit.

But there hasn't been much Fred MacMurray like ministering. My children, Amy and Stephen were independent thinkers from an early age. Amy was  entrepreneurial. She had her first business at 10. Stephen first showed leadership in grade one when he led a revolt against the curriculum.

I have had much more time with Stephen over the years. A high point for example was when I suggested he become a lawyer. That happened dark and early one Saturday morning in the sandbox when he was three. It never seemed to be a question after that.

As a teenager there were a few times when money not advice solved his problems.

For example when he was seventeen Stephen wrote home from camp asking us to send him some new contact lenses. A problem solved by money. He was a counselor but still a kid so no surprise that he'd run out of contacts. But he's a boy; strong and silent. How strong. How silent. He needed new contact lenses because he’d lost his pack on a canoe trip. It happened when he let his pack sink while he saved one of his campers. Their canoe had tipped shooting rapids. We heard about this from the camper’s grateful parents not from Stephen.

I yearn to be the wise solution provider. I've had lots of success with that in my professional career. I've wanted it as a parent as well.

So while my wife was busy working to form Amy into her image I took a large role with Stephen. One tactic was father son holidays. Eleven of them by my count between 1993 when he was 12 and 2010 when he was 29.

The first was to spring training in Dunedin Florida. After that just golf. The destinations as I remember them almost in chronological order; Myrtle Beach, Jupiter, Sarasota and Naples in Florida, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Northern California, Northern Ireland, South West Ireland and South West Scotland.

I was partially successful influencing Stephen on these trips. We talked a lot about politics and economics then and mostly see eye to eye now.

But there wasn't much Ward Cleaver life advice on these trips. Where to get off the highway was not a problem that needed wise modelling. He didn't need my advice on dealing with women. No one does.

There are memories from all these trips which I think speak to Stephen’s makeup. He has the gift of the quip.

My favourite is from the trip to spring training. One night we went into Tampa to see Jai Alai at a fronton there. Jai Alai is a betting sport like horse racing. Except you're betting on men playing a handball kind of game. It’s a race track, pool hall kind of atmosphere. The one we went to was distinctly down market. The leather seats were old and torn. The arena smelled of stale smoke and misaimed urine. Not to mention we were in the minority of english speakers. So there we are in our smelly seats feverishly hoping the man in the dark blue shirt, with the number 7 on his back, will win at five to one. My son, who loved gambling already, even though he was only twelve, leaned over to me and said “dad, I can't imagine ever being this happy again”.

Another memorable quip was from our trip to Northern Ireland. We were teeing off on the second hole at the Portstewart Golf Club in a steady drizzle. Now this a special hole. It's a 400 yard par four from an elevated tee to a fairway lined with 100 foot dunes. I've never seen another hole like it.  As we’re taking in the scene Stephen says to me “dad, this is like a video game”.

As a teenager Stephen joined me as co-owner of Margie's Marriage Counselling, our fantasy  baseball and hockey team. This gave us some more time together for a decade or so until I lost interest and he took over completely.

One nice thing that happened recently was I saw a reflection of my father in Stephen. It was a life of the party image. It wasn't the first time I had seen his animated side but it was the first time since I was determined to write about my dad and was thinking about him more. It brought a tear to my eye.

My take away from all this is that the job of fathering is not the wise problem solving. That's for TV. What works is talking to your kids in the sand box when they’re too young to understand what they are saying yes to and then an overdose of face time for the rest of your time together.