Who knew actuaries and elite athletes had so much in common? I spoke with Chris Lombardi, FSA, MAAA, CERA, about coaching principles and their role in career and leadership development, among other topics.

Lombardi is founder of Lambeezy High-Performance Coaching and has eight years of experience using his coaching skills with a range of clients, including financial professionals, operations leaders, actuaries and athletes. He has a Coaching Fundamentals certificate from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) and is on track to complete his Certified Professional Coach (CPC) designation.

As an associate director at WTW, Lombardi specializes in helping large organizations manage the risk of their self-insured health care plans. He serves clients across various sectors, including retail, hospital systems, insurance and private equity. Here, he talks about using his 12 years of actuarial experience, combined with coaching skills, to help individuals grow in their careers.

What’s your “day job,” and how do coaching principles fit into it?

My job description will say I help clients manage the risk around their health insurance plans, but my secret goal is to transform my managerial role into that of a coach. I don’t really like the word “manager,” but the role gives me an opportunity to develop others in the company—or rather, help others develop themselves.

We don’t talk about clients or billable hours. There are no technical questions or long meetings with me explaining how to do something. I treat my team members just like my coaching clients—I ask questions to identify exactly what they want and help them build the self-awareness necessary to build the best plan to get there.

It’s a little tricky since it’s such a drastic shift from how a managerial role is typically approached, and the individuals did not come in search of a coach. There’s a lot more patience needed to wait for the individuals I manage to buy in and believe in the process, but once they do, it’s just as magical as it is in my personal business.

What drew you to coaching in the first place?

I’d say anxiety and worry about the ever-present ghosts that haunted me through most of my life. There were a few sparks that didn’t really catch fire—reading “The Power of Now,” seeing a sports psychologist and dressing up for college classes because “look good, feel good.” They were all fine for a time, but none of it really stuck. So, when I was one year into my career and hated my job, the panic started setting in. I couldn’t project a future for myself that didn’t include me being miserable, alone and trapped. Definitely a bit dramatic, but I also turned cynical and bitter for a time.

It turned out my best friend from high school was having similar feelings about his job. We met for dinner one weekend at a TGI Friday’s, pen and notebook in hand, and had a “how do we not hate our jobs” meeting. My buddy was reminded of a CD course he bought years ago at a yard sale called “Personal Power,” and we both agreed to commit to its seven-day challenge. That was my first introduction to motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

From there, everything changed—I was immediately hooked. Finally, someone told me I didn’t have to be stressed, I could do something about my lot in life—the limits I was putting on myself were mostly illusions. The course helped me organize my thoughts and understand myself. I was able to use it as a step-by-step guide to change. I finally felt empowered, able to actually do something.

I soon started loving that same job I had thought was causing me so much pain. An outside observer would see nothing change in my circumstances, but my attitude made a 180-degree turn, which changed everything. My brain had convinced me I was destined to be miserable for the rest of my life, and I was wrong; I was freed from the lie I convinced myself was truth. Simply put, I wanted to help others have similar experiences.

What is your coaching philosophy? How does a typical coaching relationship work?

I think the ultimate goal is to cultivate a mindset that embraces the inevitable difficulty faced when working toward a worthy goal an individual has identified for themselves. Life is all about taking on responsibility, but it’s overwhelming choosing which ones to take on and which to leave to others. I try not to have many opinionated stances in my coaching relationships, but this is a core belief that drives everything.

A typical session begins with an open-ended question like “How are things going?” or “What felt important to you lately?” Then I stay quiet and listen. I’ll ask follow-up questions to clarify, expand or go deeper, but my job is to get the juices flowing, then stay out of the way.

There’s so much I want to write in response to this question, but I’ll try to boil it down to a few key tenets:

• People support what they create. The answers have to come from them. Not only do they know the details the best, but they are most likely to move forward with maximum energy when they are in control of the idea-creation process.
  Building self-awareness is paramount. It’s amazing how we can go through life and still know so little about ourselves—our triggers, motivators, likes, dislikes and so on. To know what we want, we have to know ourselves. To build the most efficient plan tailored to ourselves, we have to know ourselves. It’s the key to all the work here.
• People don’t hear that they’re doing a good job nearly as much as they should. I’m a cheerleader—not a liar. I don’t praise when there is nothing to praise. But we can be so incredibly hard on ourselves and rarely do we pause to celebrate the small wins. We don’t have to be miserable doing difficult things. It’s not only the achievement of big goals that leads to happiness; we can have fun and enjoy the process, too.

A large percentage of your clients are athletes, and you compete in jujitsu. Do you draw any parallels between coaching athletes and actuaries?

Before getting our actuarial credentials, I think we’re practically the same as elite athletes. We’ve both been at the top of our peer group for a while. We have clear goals that are difficult to attain. There’s a daily routine necessitating extreme discipline and ownership. Negative doubts constantly haunt us, and we have to develop strategies to properly handle them. Both culminate in a single performance that will be deemed a success or failure. The preparation for this performance is not sustainable in the long run, so we both must make a plan to peak just before game time without burning out.

As a coach, I don’t need the subject-matter expertise. The high-level formula for success is always the same—get super clear on what you want to achieve and make a plan that works best for you, built through self-awareness.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries or the respective authors’ employers.