Appreciation

by Anton Zuiker on June 28, 2026

Last year on LinkedIn I posted an update about how I was benefitting from leadership coaching, therapy, orthodontia, time to read, and opportunity to play pick-up soccer.

Here’s what I wrote:

So far in 2025, I’ve gotten a promotion at work, redesigned my long-running blog, been in good health (scored two goals in pick-up soccer on Sunday!), finished reading a few novels and memoirs, and started most mornings with meditation and mindfulness.

All of this is in my personal ‘vivid vision’ that I wrote last year. That two-page document, which describes what I want to be doing and feeling on my birthday in 2030, was inspired by a business strategy book by Cameron Herold, but really the clarity and specificity in my vision document reflects the weekly coaching sessions I’ve had with Troy Livingston. Troy’s been a curious, kind, and steady coach. I turned to him when I needed help applying mindfulness to my work life. His questions and insights have helped me grow as a manager and leader.

During this same time, my therapist has helped me look deep, my orthodontist has aligned my teeth, and my stylist has made my longer hair look good.

There’s more that I want to do. Less, too. I’m grateful for Troy’s coaching to help me see the difference. If you are at a point in your career that you’re ready to craft a vision for where 2025 will let you grow, consider Troy (or another coach) to go there with you.

Completion

Recently, I decided to stop my coaching sessions with Troy. After more than two years, I had come to a feeling of completion. “You have graduated,” Troy said to me in agreement, and so we reviewed the span of our conversations and the trajectory of my professional growth and inner peace.

I shared a small example. Here at the house we have a backyard courtyard and landscaping project underway, and there’s construction dust coating everything. Our cars, too, are full of dust from the gravel driveway and dry conditions here in North Carolina. I bought a pack of soft microfiber towels and handed them out to the family. Knowing the benefit of keeping my eyeglasses clean (I always have a hank from GondekEDC in my back pocket), I recommended to the family that they use the towels to “clear the dust daily.” I mentioned this to Troy and he agreed it was both a good practice as well as a fine example of awareness and habit and striving for clarity.

This mindfulness is precisely why I asked Troy for his support in 2023. He helped me get here, and I am grateful for Troy’s support.

Troy is available to be your coach, too. Check out Troy Livingston Coaching & Consulting.

Legacy

As good coaches do, Troy asked me repeatedly, “How do you want to show up?”

He also asked me, “What do you want to be known for?”

I never felt my answers to Troy were adequate or thorough, but I’m glad for those questions. I will keep working at being better, being kinder, being calmer, listening deeper, loving longer.

Last week, Om Malik, an influential journalist and blogger and venture investor, died at the age of 59. Om was admired, respected, and beloved, and there are many tributes to him and his kindness to others, whether strangers or new friends or longtime collaborators. (John Gruber’s remembrance is one of most beautiful of the bunch.) What a life. What a legacy. What an answer.

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