Meet My Client: Tracy DeLuca

Tracy is a writer and a designer who is up to some super cool stuff. We met at a writing workshop and hit it off. We worked together for about eight months.

Tell everybody who you are and what you’re up to.

I’m Tracy DeLuca. I work as a designer in healthcare and I am trying to positively transform all of healthcare—or at least start with a little bit of it and work up to transforming the whole thing. And I also have a book project that is currently on hold, but had great progress through working with you.

We met first not as client and coach, but as writers at Cheryl Strayed’s Writers Camp at the Esalen Institute a few years ago. And then we kept bumping into each other at writing workshops. And then you agreed to be a human guinea pig for an eight-week creativity coaching program I wanted to test out. What made you sign up for that?

I love being a guinea pig. I know how hard it is to get people to do things that aren’t fully baked, so I jumped at it. I was in the middle of my book project and feeling like I needed accountability, so the opportunity came at a good time. And I liked that it was eight weeks. You know when sometimes you go to therapy and next thing you know, it’s two years later and you’re like, wait a minute, why are we still talking about issues with my mom?! I liked that it was a contained amount of time.

I’m laughing, because yes, we finished that contained eight weeks and then kept coaching for months after. When you think about our time together, what stands out, what was useful, helpful, valuable?

The first thought that came to mind was super productivity. I don’t remember all of the things you did, which is part of your magic, but I remember that I was able to establish a pretty regular cadence for my writing. You helped me with the book, but even though I hadn’t originally hired you for this, you also helped me with some coaching around my job. I was transitioning from being a consultant and working for myself, to working on staff for a big healthcare organization. You helped me work through that transition. I had originally started my job as a part-time staffer three days a week so that I could work on my book the other two days and I wanted to make sure I was taking best advantage of that time to focus on my book. I ended up really working four days a week, so I had to shift my approach with the book a little bit. I was still able to keep Mondays for writing. I remember you gave me some gifts, little surprises [a pin that says I give myself permission]. I have to constantly remind myself that I do give myself permission.

We kicked off our eight weeks together with me asking you what permission do you need to give yourself… what did you give yourself permission for, and what do you continue to give yourself permission for?

Back then, I needed to give myself permission to not feel like I had to write things perfectly. The shitty first draft! Let its freak flag fly! And then I think I felt guilty for having asked for time to write my book, and then it was actually granted! It was a weird psychological mindf**k. It’s like, how dare I ask for such a thing? And then to get the thing. And then to feel like, oh, I better really do this well. Otherwise, I’ve asked for this thing that I don’t even deserve. Putting a lot of pressure on myself wasn’t helpful. You really helped me deal with that by reframing how I thought about it.

What did you learn about your relationship to your creativity or yourself as a writer?

I’m sure it wasn’t totally like one day I felt overwhelmed and the next day I was typey typey. But I feel like you helped me do it in a way that didn’t feel so hard. Originally I was thinking, okay! I have two days a week to work on the book. So I should be writing eight hours each of those days, and if I’m not, then I’m not taking advantage of that time. You helped me realize that if that was what was keeping me from writing at all, which it was, then maybe, how about I just start with one hour? So I started experimenting writing one hour a week, on my off day from work. And even saying that, I think, oh God, that’s horrible, that’s not very productive. But it was way more productive than I had been before. Punishing myself for not doing eight hours got me no book, no writing. And giving myself permission to just do one hour, made me actually do it and feel like I was making progress.

There was a moment that was very transformative… I was having a hard time, even though I could see how many words I was accumulating, there was something about typing into a computer that kept my progress from being tangible. You asked me, what if you printed it out to see what you have? So I did, and almost burst into tears in Kinkos! Pages and pages were coming out and they had to refill the paper, and I though, how did I write this much and have no idea I had done that? And then my critical mind said, it’s probably just the same chapter over and over. And that was a lie. I was able to recognize that my inner critic was trying to talk me out of my accomplishment. Seeing all those pages totally motivated me. I was further along than I had thought. I had done the work. I didn’t have to keep believing that I was getting nowhere. It was physical evidence. I’m not saying it was good. But until I printed it out, I hadn’t believed it was really there.

You know that gap Ira Glass talks about? Where you know what good looks like, but you don’t yet have the skills to hit the mark… I realized that’s basically what is happening for me now. I see the gap in the quality of my work and I need to close it. I need to do the work to close the gap. I signed up for a class at SF Grotto when a bunch of things were happening in my life. Finding my birth parents. Some health stuff with my family. I bought a house. I needed to put the book on hold to focus on what’s going on around me. And when I’m ready to return to the book, I know what needs to happen.

Thinking back on our time together, was anything surprising? Or reinforcing?

The critical creature who lives inside of me said, doing this coaching thing is just another way to pretend that you’re doing something, but you’re not really going to do anything, you’re not really going to achieve the goal of finishing the book. It was like, that’s nice, you can make yourself feel better because you signed up. But what was surprising, was to find myself actually producing work. And not that it was ever easy to sit down and do it, but because I made it more of a habit, it felt manageable. Oh, it’s 10 o’clock on Monday, time to write! Somehow you tricked me into it not being so bad. Hahahahah. Even now, I don’t even believe I can do it again.

What do you know about yourself as a creative person? What do you trust? You will go back to the book at some point, because it’s amazing and it needs to be out in the world, so whenever that is, when you get back to it, what do you trust about yourself?

I take a lot of classes, I like working with teachers and people who can teach me things—I know that I have the resources to find the right teacher to help me close the gap. It’s not a motivation problem, it’s not a critical villain in my head problem. I want to learn how to be a good literary writer, to bring out the best in my work. Which is different from the kind writing I do in my job and feel really comfortable with. When I worked in advertising and when I started working in design, I had to bridge the gap there too. Both of those careers I didn’t think it would happen, and in each case, I was able to bridge the gap. So I have faith in myself to do it again. If I apply the same discipline and find the right teacher (which could be anything/anyone) and I’m back in a place where I feel I can committed, I know I can get where I want to go with it.

I am motivated by doing hard things. I like a challenge. For any kind of creative pursuit, we get in our own heads. Everything else that I’m doing…like at work, we have kind of a ridiculous goal—to change what healthcare is—but I feel like the great team I work with and the great leadership I have with my boss, that we can actually make an impact. I’m not afraid of tackling that hard thing and maybe that’s because of the team approach … but for whatever reason, when it’s just me and writing this on my own, I get in my own head. Somehow doubts swirl around. I wonder if it’s because we’re told writing’s hard. You have to kill yourself to even get to the chair. Why do we have to believe that’s true? I don’t know if it’s because it’s really true or if it’s because we’re told that.

I think it’s both. And that maybe the way that it’s hard and how it kills us is different for each person. When I was training to be a coach, I met a woman in class who was a writer and we used to coach each other around writing. In one conversation, I was just bitching and moaning and whining about how hard writing was, which kept me in a safe space of not having to do it. And she asked me this amazing question: What if it being hard is just part of the process? And the hard part of the process moves along and then you can do it, and then it gets hard again, and then it moves along...and something about it being hard being a natural part of the process made me not have an excuse anymore and it meant that it wasn’t a permanent state. It’ll feel hard and then it won’t, and then it will again and then it won’t again. That was really helpful for me and that was four years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.

When I worked at IDEO and I was getting started there, there was a chalkboard wall where people would write questions for everyone to answer. Somebody had written what do you feel proud of? And somebody’s answer was I am really good at a job I love. And I was like who the f*** is that person? How could you ever feel like you have gotten to a point where you feel like you do a great job with this incredibly difficult work? It felt to me like you could work a lifetime at that job and never achieve that feeling. And that question stuck with me and then a few years in, I checked in with myself—how do I feel now? And I surprised myself be feeling like I was really good at this job and that I love it.

What has coaching done for you, what do you still come back to?

It’s given me more language. It’s given me new concepts for how to think about my life, for how to approach things. You have your way of thinking about things and coaching offers many opportunities to pause and reconsider or reframe. I show up more authentically now and realize that is a source of strength. Being vulnerable, not always feeling like I have to do things perfectly. It’s almost like improv—celebrating when you screw something up. And voicing that instead of holding to the perfection and feeling like I’m never going to admit I made a mistake…realizing it’s better to be honest about these things.

There’s value in coming up with new ways to trick yourself. I feel like when I’m working through creative challenges and I keep getting stuck, trying different approaches is important for me. Not feeling like you have to find one solution and stick with it.

I took a workshop with one of my literary heroes, Dorothy Allison, a few years back, and in addition to talking about the craft of writing, she talked about what she knows about being a writer. She asked us to make a bunch of lists and one of them was a list of things that trigger you to write. Maybe it’s taking a class, or being with other people, or maybe it’s only being able to write at 3am… whatever it is, make this list for yourself, so when it gets hard, you can be reminded of what works for you. Which was really helpful, because as newer writers and maybe even experienced writers, it seems like there’s only one way to do this, which is THE way to do this and if you don’t do it that way then you’re not a ‘real’ writer. It was really freeing to hear that from a successful writer. It’s like, nope, you do it the way YOU do it. It’s part of your job as a writer to figure out what are the conditions under which you are able to write.

Yes, there are all these things that help us write. But in the end, we have to sit and just effing write it. One bit of trickery I tried was to speak aloud and let microsoft word translate it into type. I would sit in different chairs and play different characters and have them talk to each other. It was surprising how when I was that person, I instinctively knew how to respond.

I love that! It makes me think of perspective work in coaching… often when we’re stuck, it’s because we’re looking at things a certain way and sometimes physically getting in a different perspective, it frees things up.

What do you think the value of coaching is?

I am a collaborative person. I love when I have other people to go back and forth with, a kind of intellectual volleyball. That’s what coaching offers. Somebody to be throwing ideas off of, and somebody feeding ideas to you. I am looking at the world through this one perspective in this moment, based on my current context, which isn’t who all of me is, and coaches are a good reminder of showing up and who to be and different approaches.

People shouldn’t be afraid of coaching. People are sometimes afraid to go to a therapist, there’s all this stigma. Coaching is not a substitute for therapy if you have mental health challenges. Therapists perform a great service. But a lot of the issues we deal with in life, coaching is the perfect venue for them. And maybe in some instances it can even stave off some of the things that can turn into more clinical conditions. It’s a soft landing. We rarely give ourselves an opportunity to work on ourselves like that.

This originally appeared in my Spring 2019 email newsletter. To get on the list and receive this and other goodies in your inbox, sign up at pamdaghlian.com/newsletter

pamela daghlianMay 31, 2019meet my client, newsletter, interview