About Boston Business Coach Scott Graham

About G. Scott Graham

I have been helping people figure out what they want, what is getting in their way, and what they are actually going to do about it for most of my professional life.

Sometimes that work has happened in a coaching conversation. Sometimes it happened in a counseling office, a treatment program, a business, an Outward Bound course, or in the middle of the woods.

The setting has changed.

The fundamental challenge has not.

Most of us already know more than enough to make meaningful changes in our businesses, careers, relationships, health, and lives.

Knowing is rarely the problem.

Doing is harder.

That is where coaching comes in.

Follow Your True Azimuth

My coaching practice is called True Azimuth for a reason.

An azimuth is a direction of travel. Your true azimuth is not necessarily true north, and it is certainly not the direction somebody else thinks you should be traveling.

It is yours.

Good coaching helps you get clear about where you actually want to go, recognize the forces that keep pushing you off course, and make the adjustments necessary to keep moving in the direction you chose.

For me, the bigger question has always been this:

When you are 90 years old and looking back over your life, will you recognize the life you intended to live?

That question applies just as much to the CEO building a company as it does to someone changing careers, starting a business, rebuilding after a major loss, or simply realizing that the life they are living no longer fits.

Coaching in the Age of AI

The world my coaching clients are working in is changing very quickly.

AI can research, analyze, summarize, brainstorm, draft, organize, and automate work that used to take hours.

I use it extensively myself.

I also think ignoring AI makes about as much sense as refusing to use the internet because you managed perfectly well before it existed.

But AI has made something else increasingly obvious.

Information is not the problem.

You can ask AI how to delegate better, market your business, improve your productivity, change careers, prepare for a difficult conversation, write a business plan, or organize your week.

Within seconds, you can have a reasonably good answer.

The harder questions are still human.

What do you actually want?

What are you avoiding?

What are you pretending you do not already know?

Where are you getting in your own way?

What are you willing to change?

And once you decide what you are going to do, will you actually do it?

That is the work I am interested in.

AI is an extraordinary tool. I use it, experiment with it, and help clients think about how it can make their work better.

But better tools do not eliminate the need for judgment, awareness, discipline, accountability, or another human being willing to ask the question you would rather avoid.

I Didn't Take a Straight Road to Coaching

I earned undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Communication from the University of South Florida.

After college, I worked with at-risk kids and eventually moved to New England, where I worked as a counselor and Outward Bound instructor.

I had already hiked the Appalachian Trail by myself, so getting paid to spend time in the wilderness seemed like a pretty good arrangement.

Outward Bound taught me something that has stayed with me throughout my career.

People are frequently capable of considerably more than they think they are.

My job was not to carry someone over the mountain.

My job was to help them discover that they could climb it.

That was coaching, even though I did not call it coaching at the time.

I later earned a Master of Science degree in Business Management and worked in counseling, addiction treatment, clinical supervision, program development, business, and organizational leadership.

Eventually I did what entrepreneurs often do.

I stopped working inside other people's organizations and started building my own.

That experience has mattered enormously in my coaching.

I understand business not only from graduate school or books, but from payroll, employees, cash flow, marketing, difficult customers, bad ideas, good ideas, projects that worked, projects that did not, and decisions that looked considerably easier before I was the person who had to make them.

I Practice What I Ask My Clients to Do

I have never been particularly interested in telling clients to grow while I remain comfortably unchanged.

Over the years I have continued learning, experimenting, starting things, stopping things, writing, building businesses, volunteering, meditating, traveling, teaching, and occasionally signing myself up for things that seemed like a much better idea when I registered for them.

I have completed Tough Mudders, marathons, long-distance hikes, wilderness courses, and a fairly ridiculous assortment of other physical challenges.

I write books.

I manage a nonprofit farm animal rescue, Willoughby Rescue.

I practice anāpāna, vipassanā, and mettā meditation.

I teach and practice Sun 73 Tai Chi.

I continue to serve my community and continue putting myself in situations where I have something new to learn.

Some of those things have gone extremely well.

Some have not.

Both have made me a better coach.

What Makes Me Tick

I ask my coaching clients to look honestly at themselves: their strengths, patterns, values, blind spots, motivations, and the places where they sometimes get in their own way.

I think I should be willing to do the same.

So if you are curious about the person you might be working with, I am putting some of that work right here.

These are not carefully written biographies or marketing descriptions. They are actual assessment reports I have completed over the years.

Some of what they say about me I like.

Some of it is less flattering.

That is part of the point.

Talentoday Plus

This assessment takes a broad look at personality, motivations, and behavioral tendencies.

Read Scott's Talentoday Plus Report

VIA Character Strengths

This assessment looks at character strengths and the qualities that tend to show up most naturally in how I approach life and work.

Read Scott's VIA Character Report

Emotional Intelligence

This assessment looks at emotional awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Read Scott's Emotional Intelligence Report

I use assessments with coaching clients when they are useful, but I do not believe a score defines a person.

For me, the interesting part is what happens after you receive the score.

What do you recognize?

What surprises you?

What do you disagree with?

What might you be missing?

And what are you going to do with what you learned?

A Few Key Facts

Education: University of South Florida, Antioch University New England

Founder: True Azimuth Coaching, Willoughby Rescue, Vermont New Hampshire DOT SAP Services

Podcast: Follow Your True Azimuth

My Vision

I ask coaching clients to think seriously about the life they are building, not simply the next task on their list.

I do the same thing.

One of the tools I have used is a word cloud built from my own vision for my life.

Hear Me Instead of Just Reading About Me

An About page can tell you quite a bit about someone.

Hearing that person talk tells you something different.

I have appeared on numerous podcasts discussing coaching, personal development, meditation, grief, business, writing, and some of the other subjects that have shaped my work and my life.

You can listen to some of those conversations here.

And About Coaching...

You can read my biography, look through my assessment reports, listen to podcasts, watch the video at the top of this page, and learn a great deal about me.

But none of that tells you whether I am the right coach for you.

There is really only one good way to figure that out.

Coach with me.

Pay attention to what happens in the conversation.

Do you think differently?

Do you notice something you had been missing?

Do you leave clearer about what you are going to do next?

That tells you considerably more than any About page ever will.