Life's Biggest Decisions Don't Have a Right Answer

SummaryIn this episode, Mike Dauphinee sits down with Barbara Macnish, Gallup-certified strengths coach, founder of TriQuester Teams, and one of the first coaches to join The Dauphinee Group, for a conversation about what it means to navigate without a map. They go back nearly 20 years, to a strengths session in Portugal that changed Barbara's career before she even knew she wanted to be a coach. This conversation covers what it takes to choose a person over a plan, how a season of real hardship taught her to trust her own resilience, and why the best coaching has nothing to do with having answers. They also dig into what makes CliftonStrengths different, why tactics always expire, and what happens when you stop treating life like a math problem with a right answer.About Barbara MacnishConnectedness · Communication · Developer · Empathy · IndividualizationBarbara Macnish founded Triquester Teams in 2013 so that she could offer her coaching skills to individuals and teams, releasing their potential and enabling them to perform at their best. She uses assessments such as the Clifton StrengthsFinderTM and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and to help her clients grow in their understanding of who they are as individuals and in their contexts at work and at home. When team coaching, she identifies issues in the structure and composition of teams in order to enable the team to find creative solutions to the challenges they face. She was team leader of the European Team-training Group at Christian Associates International, a church planting and social action organization based in the USA and Europe, between 2010 and 2015. Her role included recruiting, training and organizing team builders to train leaders across Europe in inter-personal communication, shared vision, values and protocols within their teams. She is a qualified mediator and delivers training and coaching in dealing with conflict. Barbara taught in an inner city school in Baltimore, USA; was Office Manager for the executive office of World Relief in Baltimore; and delivers leadership and management training for Azesta LTD in the UK. She has been a part of The Dauphnee Group since 2022 working with leaders and managers in the financial sector. Mother of two, she paints and sells her art, and organizes community art projects.TakeawaysThe biggest decisions don't have right or wrong answers , they have trade-offs. Start by naming what you're willing to pay.Choosing a person over a plan is not abandoning your values. Sometimes it is the most authentic expression of them.Tactics have an expiration date. If the strategy isn't working, adding more tactics won't save it.You can have strengths and not be using them. Resource and application are two different things.The healthiest version of you has been shaped by others. You can't see yourself clearly without people who mirror you well.CliftonStrengths doesn't just describe you. It gives you language to name things you've been dismissing as nothing.Resilience isn't a trait you either have or don't. It's something you learn to trust, usually through the things you didn't think you'd survive.Being available to someone else's story is not a distraction from your struggles. For some wiring, it's exactly what refuels you.Soundbites"There isn't a right or wrong. You're not ditching all that is meaningful to you if you choose this relationship.""The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name.""Self-esteem in a bottle. That's what CliftonStrengths can be.""In moments when only you can choose, the healthiest you has been shaped by others.""Being available to someone else's story always seems to help."Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Maps Are Dead with Mike D on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.⁠Join The Fit Forum⁠Mike's free CliftonStrengths community — bring your Top 5 and find your people.