Meet Clayton Borah | Resilience Coach for Leaders

We had the good fortune of connecting with Clayton Borah and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Clayton, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
I believe that we should be living our lives with purpose. We have a limited time we are alive, and we all must die, so we shouldn’t waste our time doing too many things that don’t add to our lives.

We should be doing things that have value and provide purpose to our lives. That is the first piece of deciding whether to keep going or not. If it’s a superfluous activity, we should stop doing it as soon as possible. We should also be constantly taking inventory of the things we’re spending our time on so that we don’t waste time on things that don’t matter.

When it comes to the things that do provide purpose in our life, we may need to stop doing those things as well. The criteria I use for continuing an activity are whether or not it needs to be done and if anyone else is doing it.

If it needs to be done, but someone else is doing it, then it’s ok for me to stop. If it provides purpose for my life, it needs to be done, and if I don’t do it, no one else will, then I must keep going.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Leadership coaches are nothing new. They’ve been around for years, and they’ve done a fantastic job of teaching managers how to manage and sometimes inspire those they manage. There are hundreds of books on how to be a better leader.

Where I’m different is that I’m only concerned with people leading organizations with a purpose greater than profit. Those people have a personal investment in what they’re doing, and when the line between business and personal gets blurry, we let our personal fears and doubts influence our decisions.

I coach these leaders on building practices into their lives that will make them more resilient and willing to put themselves on the front lines of sharing their mission and vision with the world. While these people may also benefit from tips and tricks on managing people, if they don’t have the resilience to continue pursuing their passion through the pains of growth, they won’t have a business to manage.

These leaders are often the founders of the organization. As it’s grown from a solopreneur venture into a larger business, they are not equipt to handle the personal demands of handing off parts of their work to others. They must develop resilience as they transition from simply delivering their product or service to leading a purpose-driven organization.

I’ve developed my own process for helping this type of leader based on my own business and life journey.

I opened my first business in the early 2000s and closed it after a couple of years because I had no idea what I was doing. I opened my second business in 2015 and developed my resilience coaching process from the lessons I’ve learned firsthand in that business.

I approach my coaching from the perspective of helping leaders that are dealing with the exact same issues I was at the early stages of my business and wish someone would have helped me.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to dedicate my shoutout to the author Ryan Holiday. His books on Stoic Philosophy have given me the tools to persevere in business and life.

Stoicism has been around for thousands of years, but Holiday has a gift for presenting the concepts in a modern context. His daily meditation book, “The Daily Stoic,” not only exposed me to the timeless principles of stoicism but it helped me develop a daily habit of working on my personal growth and resilience.

Website: https://claytonborah.com

Instagram: @cbborah

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cborah/