Dan Anslow-O'Rourke
Dan Anslow-O’Rourke is the Senior Video Producer at Lawline, a U.S. based company specializing in continuing education and online learning for attorneys. Dan is responsible for managing the video production team and ensuring top quality in their work. He was coached by FOM Coach Becca Woodring Buttermore in our 1-1 Executive Coaching program.
Initially, Dan found the term ‘coach’ to be too rigid as he thought that a coach would just tell him what to do and expect him to comply. His coaching experience with Becca ended up being much more collaborative. “Becca had a great balance between commiserating and understanding, then redirecting and reframing (no pun intended) the way I looked at things,” he says. “She had an approachability that I wasn’t expecting.”
Coaching taught Dan that he’s incredibly self-aware and great at over-thinking. “I thought that those things were flaws that needed to be fixed,” he says. “Becca helped me realize that they’re an asset in certain situations, and sometimes they just need to be repositioned.”
Dan finds that he no longer gets in his own way. “I used to over-explain and take on more than I was being asked to because I assumed that’s what others wanted,” he says. “Now I give people the benefit of the doubt and I keep the ball in other people’s courts when needed.”
During coaching, Becca encouraged Dan to get personal feedback from the people in his life. He found it reaffirming to learn how much others appreciate his attitude. “It also let me know that I’m doing things right and it’s being received well,” he says.
In previous jobs, Dan had managers who micromanaged and patronized him and who didn’t make him feel valued. Becca helped him reframe those situations as a stepping stone to open conversations with his current management about what he does want from those relationships.
Coaching helped Dan see the human side of work. “Becca would say, ‘wherever you go, you’re always there,’” he says. In situations where someone would drop the ball on something or wasn’t handling something well, Dan gained the tools needed to coach them in a compassionate way.
Dan’s coaching experience ended up coinciding with his wedding. Whereas normally he would take on his husband’s stress, he learned to not dive right into it and instead offer a metaphorical life jacket. “On the wedding day, we both said, ‘we feel like we should be stressed or nervous about something, but we’re not!’” says Dan. “A big reason for that was because of the temperament I had going into it having done coaching.”
Dan describes Frame of Mind Coaching™ as an opportunity growth, self-reflection, self-awareness and wellness-awareness. “I didn’t know what to expect from coaching, but Becca made it easy by coming to each conversation with a great energy,” he says. “There’s a friendship and bond that comes out of [Frame of Mind] coaching that doesn’t end once coaching is over.”