Surgeon Overcomes Fear of Cutting
(and all it took was a little coaching)
April 3rd, 2008 
by Susan Harris
This rash of publicity for garden coaching is creating a whole new bunch of coachees, and one of them is my new favorite. Not just because his professionally designed garden was so damn gorgeous, which it was. But because he decided the estimate he’d gotten for maintaining it - $11,000 a year - seemed outrageous, and he wondered if he could do it himself, with a little coaching. And because he took careful notes as I explained how to prune each of his shrubs and by the end of the walk-through he was visibly excited and exclaimed, "I feel so empowered!" God, I love that shit.
It seems that this surgeon-gardener had read many books about pruning and was still afraid to take action - it’s all so confusing! Yeah, I hear ya. That’s why teaching pruning one-on-one, in the garden, is so much better than books, videos, PowerPoints and all the rest. Coaching rules!
Posted in Coaching | 
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April 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Susan - I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I returned from a week in Portland Oregon. Seems my blog was featured in the Wall Street Journal “Blog Watch” column. My hits jumped ten-fold! Thought I’d share the article with you.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120647608055863245-lMyQjAxMDI4MDA2NjQwNzY2Wj.html
Enjoy!
April 14th, 2008 at 4:11 am
This post cracks me up. It probably helps that I’m picturing you teaching Weird Al Yankovic, who is wielding a scalpel and rolling around in his flower beds and singing “Like A Surgeon.”