Manifest - Stefan’s Week-notes 07/09/2025
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 - Edges, Openings, and a Manifesto
This week I decided to change the frame. Instead of the usual rhythm of questions, I wanted to sit with a different set - ones that felt bigger, riskier, maybe even a little raw. Questions about being human, about stewardship, about edges and attention. The result is less a neat list and more a wave of reflections: fragments of coaching conversations, the launch of a manifesto, and the quiet lessons tucked into everyday life.
What did this week teach me about being human?
This week held a mix of coaching sessions, inquisitive sessions, and a conversation with a client about extending coaching across their organisation. That invitation meant reaching out to fellow coaches and beginning new relationships - the kind of expansion that feels both exciting and humbling.
And what did it teach me about being human? Less a lesson, more a reminder: when you open the door for others, you don’t just create opportunity, you create connection. It started with me asking the question: what if? What if we want to have a bigger impact? What if we gave more time to this? What if we didn’t do this at all? And she offered her own variation: what if you had someone in your team? That exchange - a layering of “what ifs” - reminded me that being human is about curiosity meeting curiosity, about possibilities widening when two people dare to ask together.
Where did I show up fully as a Steward?
One moment came with a potential client.
Snowed under, focused only on the support others needed, but not themselves. I asked, “Can I ask you three questions?” They agreed. I asked, I listened, and then checked in: Was that helpful? “Yes.” How do you feel? “Good… very good.” Then I offered, “Will you let me coach you - even for an hour? We can build on that.”
Stewardship, in that moment, was about noticing the person behind the responsibility, creating space for them to be supported, not just to support.
Another moment was more public: launching Be the Waves through its manifesto. Putting those words into the world felt like stewardship too - not as an act of ownership, but as a gesture of invitation. The reception was heartening, not just in numbers but in the sense that the idea landed as something people wanted to be part of.
What is trying to emerge through me right now?
It took a long time for me to find my voice. It had been muted in childhood; through leadership I began to find it again. But for the past few years, since leaving leadership, it has felt like I’ve been waiting - waiting for the right space, the right invitation, the right permission.
What I notice now is a change. I’m no longer only holding back, waiting to be asked to coach. I feel myself stepping forward more as a steward, not just a holder. For years I honoured the boundary of “only coach when it’s asked for.” Now I can feel that softening. I’m more willing to ask the question, to create the space, even when it hasn’t yet been offered.
It feels less like overstepping and more like alignment. Stewardship sometimes means tending what needs tending before others see it, or before they can find the words for it. Funnily enough, my greatest connections back in the good old Twitter days came from doing exactly this - asking coaching questions to strangers, opening up a moment of reflection where there wasn’t one before.
What’s emerging in me now is a return to that instinct: to create space, not just wait for it. To trust that asking the right question, in the right spirit, is often the most human - and the most stewarding - thing I can do.
What did I pay attention to, and what did I miss?
I paid attention to what was being said - the words chosen, the flow of conversation, the points being raised. I paid attention to my own words too, conscious of how I was framing things, the questions I was asking, the ground I was trying to hold.
But what I probably didn’t absorb enough was the warmth behind some of the responses. The love, the advocacy, the quiet encouragement that was there for me as much as for the work. I heard it, but I don’t think I let myself fully receive it. That’s what I missed - not because it wasn’t offered, but because I didn’t stop long enough to let it in.
What’s the edge I stood on this week?
For me, the edge was letting myself receive. Not just hearing encouragement, but absorbing it - allowing warmth, love, and advocacy to settle rather than brushing past it.
At the same time, I’m seeing so many people standing on their own edges. The edge of self-discovery, where they’re learning what really matters to them. The edge of taking a stand, daring to hold a line or speak a truth. The edge of keeping themselves from tipping into overwork, even when the system pushes them that way. These edges show up most often in the people who are already purposeful - or those who are longing to find their purpose.
It feels like a collective edge: me learning to receive, them learning to stand - and all of us, in our own ways, trying to steward a life and work that is more aligned, more sustainable, more true.
Who did I lift, and who lifted me?
I lifted a female leader carrying the weight of a major transformation. I asked her: By when do you need to deliver what you’ve “promised” in five years? She paused, then replied, We’re 18 months in. So I followed: Are you on track or off track? Her answer came quietly but surely: On track - we’re probably already at the three-year desired outcome. And then she let out a long breath. In that moment, the pressure shifted. The story she was holding - of being behind - gave way to a truer one: of being further ahead than expected. Sometimes lifting is just asking the question that lets someone breathe again.
Who lifted me?
Everyone who commented on or clicked into the Be the Waves manifesto. People who took it seriously, who treated it not as a throwaway launch but as the beginning of something real. That lifted me because this mission isn’t abstract - it’s rooted in the desire not to leave my children behind in a world that isn’t safe for them. Their engagement reminded me that others feel this responsibility too, and that I don’t have to carry it alone.
What actually happened - in the work and away from work?
In the work: coaching sessions that ranged from deep reflection to practical strategy. Inquisitive sessions that opened up new arcs. A conversation with a client about taking coaching wider in their organisation - which meant reaching out to fellow coaches and beginning new relationships. The launch of Be the Waves through its manifesto, and the energy that came back from people engaging with it.
Away from work: time with the kids, full of the usual mix of laughter, questions, and logistics. Bike rides that steadied me, reminding me again that movement is my way of processing. A week that carried both expansion and grounding - the bigger mission surfacing, and the small, ordinary moments that keep it real.
Closing
What I notice, reading it back, is how much this week has been about thresholds - edges we stand on, openings we step into, the courage to launch something not as an endpoint but as a beginning. The manifesto was one threshold, but so too were the smaller “what ifs” in coaching sessions and the reminders to let warmth land. That feels like the work of stewardship: noticing what’s emerging, daring to name it, and choosing to tend it forward.
As Rilke wrote: “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”
If this resonated…with your week, your leadership, or your search for meaning - drop me a line. I’m here for those who want to live and lead more fully. Always.
Because we need more good people leading great things.
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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.
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