'Life makeover' candidate Bob Miyamoto is making lists, following through and feeling better

By Sherry Stripling
Seattle Times staff reporter

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bob Miyamoto heads to his car at the airport after a business trip.
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MILL CREEK — What's going on here? The Seattle Times hired a professional life coach to help a busy, busy guy ease the overwork and over-scheduling that plagues his life, and what did the coach do?

Instead of carving out chunks of guiltless, unfettered time to relax — which was our man Bob Miyamoto's goal — Coach Carolyn Fung has done just the opposite, adding to Miyamoto's already too long to-do list.

But spending time to make time seems to be working. As he rapidly ticks off the nagging tasks that have weighed on him even when he has time off, Miyamoto is earning the right to feel more relaxed.

Signed will? Check. Updated financial plan? Check. He also has refinanced his house, gone to the doctor, dentist, mechanic and more — all in a month in which he was traveling 17 out of 29 days, most of it for his work with the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory.

How has he done it? Why has he done it? And what makes a coach different from having a wife or friend say, "Hey! Worrying about painting the house isn't getting it done."

A plan for Bob Bob Miyamoto's goals • Feel less pressured. • Gain more energy. • Relax rather than rushing through everything, including things he enjoys. • Finish some nagging tasks at home and at work. What the life coach says Carolyn Fung says Miyamoto has long-term and short-term goals. Since the coaching is only for three months, he is choosing to focus on the short-term goals rather than rearrange his life. Working through the immediate list creates a sense of momentum and frees up energy to put toward longer-term goals. The short-term value is that he gets some immediate relief from pressure. One of her coaching questions to him: What can you tell yourself to give yourself the permission to enjoy your leisure time? Miyamoto's goals for next month: • Make progress on the back yard hole that's supposed to be a pond. • Line up house painters for inside and out. • Complete doctor and dentist appointments. • Continue working on systems to keep tasks from piling up. Coach Fung says: • Continue pleasure reading (he's exceeding the amount she assigned). • Keep working on systems to keep tasks from piling up (automatic bill paying? Hiring a "virtual" assistant — someone who works by Internet or phone (www.assistu.com) or (www.ossa-wa.org/).

Whatever the difference is, keep it up, says Miyamoto's wife, Deanna, who's amazed by the changes she sees in her husband two months into a three-month "life makeover." The refinancing alone will save the family $8,000 over the next eight years.

"All of these things could have been done years ago, but they just didn't get done," says Miyamoto, a hard worker, homeowner, husband, devoted dad and son to aged parents who live nearby. "It certainly does make it easier to relax now that I'm getting things done or I have plans."

Fung has worked with Miyamoto during the past eight weeks to determine where he wants to be and what he must do to get there. She talks to him weekly by phone to keep him focused on priorities. Year after year, he's resolved to find ways to control pressures on his life but he could never get past immediate concerns to look at long-term changes. Now, he is.

Last fall, The Seattle Times ran stories on Take Back Your Time Day, a national response to the concern that health and happiness suffer as we run ourselves ragged at work and at home.

Hundreds of readers responded with notes about their desire to slow down, including Miyamoto, who got the chance to work with a coach to see if there are lessons, tricks and techniques we all could learn.

With the added pressure of traveling parts of 40 weeks a year for work and dealing with two teens, one with a genetic disorder, Miyamoto schedules even his personal life in as little as 15-minute increments to keep up.

"I get home, help with homework, eat dinner, help with homework, run to my parents' place for a few minutes, run home, work with Leah on trumpet, get kids to sleep, do e-mails ... "

Both he and Deanna, an art director in Redmond, say they are not alone in living life on the run.

Miyamoto simply wants to re-balance his life so he can get better control of the pressure and stop rushing through everything, even things he enjoys.

"As I have grown older, I have become a greater creature of habit," Miyamoto, 52, wrote in an e-mail from the road. "I think it comes from being so busy and trying to optimize my life to fit everything in."

Coach Fung's first charge was to get Miyamoto to look at what he's tolerating in life and what he could change. Asking questions similar to the ones starting out on the cover, (see "Key questions for creating more time and energy"), she had Miyamoto describe how he spends his time in seven areas of his life and then think about what he might do to improve the quality of each area.

Miyamoto created two lists of 10 tasks or areas of his life that drain his energy at home or at work. Then, with a fervor that surprised his coach and family, he started eliminating items, either by getting them done, as in the case of his will, or working on ways to delegate tasks, such as writing.

On the Web For useful information about finding balance, as well as our first story about Bob Miyamoto and Carolyn Fung, please go to seattletimes.com/lifecoach.

He took days off to handle appointments he'd been postponing for years.

Alone it might not seem earthshaking to refinance the house or get a physical exam. But the worry of not doing what needs to be done adds up, says Fung, a former psychologist who did her coach training through Coach U, one of a dozen accredited schools in the country.

Replacing the worry with accomplishment "creates a sense of momentum and frees up energy to pursue other goals," she says.

Miyamoto gained insight just by examining where he spends his time. He already knew travel is the biggest drain, but since working with Fung he's given more consideration to the toll it takes. Though he has no problems answering huge volumes of e-mail for work, even on weekends, he feels formal writing eats up too much time to do well. Yet, he has trouble giving it up because he likes the outcome.

Fung says she has no stake in whether Miyamoto actually makes changes in his life. The onus is on him. She doesn't chastise him for not completing whatever goals he sets for himself for the week. But just knowing she'll ask about it in their 30-minute phone sessions provides Miyamoto an extra push, he says.

Instead of fretting about getting the absolute lowest interest rate, which has kept him from refinancing in the past, he just did it and is glad he did.

Instead of once again realizing a week has gone by without setting up routine appointments with the doctor, the lawyer or the service people, he sets aside an hour each weekend to do research, including names and phone numbers, which he puts in a file so he can call during the week from the road.

Fung asks harder, more pointed questions than the Miyamotos would ask themselves. Not "why" questions, as Sigmund Freud might ask, but "what" questions to get things moving.

"What can you do that's different?"

For example, when they talked about his long-term plans to cut back on traveling, Miyamoto mentioned that he has plans under way to travel less, but those changes will take up to four years to complete. His job involves fund-raising and identifying research needs.

"How would you accomplish that in one year?" Fung asked him. "What if your life depended on it and you absolutely had to think in those terms? How would you do it?"

She didn't want him to answer right then. And she doesn't have the answers. But if she tweaks his thinking, he might.

Miyamoto thought at first he wanted more direction than Fung was willing to give. Now he understands that he has to find the answers or they won't fit his life.

"I need the push but not the solution," Miyamoto says.

"Pushing" is not a role his wife would take. With the added strain of having a child with medical issues, he and Deanna learned long ago to pick up the slack together but tolerate what doesn't get done.

Now, with their two daughters growing older and nearing the time they will be leaving the house, Miyamoto feels the timing is right for him to prepare for the next evolution. He wants a better balance between duty and enjoying life.

Life coaches can cost from $150 to $1,000 a month or more, which is usually the incentive that drives people to follow through on changes, Fung says. She's impressed by how seriously Miyamoto is taking this project given that he isn't paying.

Think about his motivation in other terms, he tells her. What's the most important thing in his life? Time — time for his family, time for work, time for himself.

"That's why we're here," he says. "Why would I invest this time and not get value from it."

Miyamoto says he'll know he's made real change if he can learn to take care of the essential stuff on his to-do list on a regular basis. Fung says the change she likes most is how Miyamoto has been able to enjoy the time he's taken for himself.

He reads for pleasure twice a week, following her suggestion. He hasn't made it to a community band practice all month because of travel, but he took a day off to ski with his younger daughter, Leah, 13, and this week he missed a work conference to go with her to a jazz festival in Idaho.

"I love jazz, and I love Leah so it seemed obvious," he said. "You never know what next year may bring. I have given up many other things to cover work meetings — just not this time."

Two tasks high on his to-do list are finishing a pond that Leah started in the back yard and going to Disneyland, which is 17-year-old Tamra's choice as her high-school senior year reward.

The family went to Disneyland just a few years ago. Miyamoto spent half his time back at the hotel answering e-mail, something Leah has not forgotten.

"This time," she told him, "we want you with us."

Sherry Stripling: sstripling@seattletimes.com

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