Prospective clients regularly ask me why I chose the name Finding Alpha for my present business focus, and there are often questions about whether or not I'm promoting stereotypes of Alpha males in my work. This could not be farther from the truth. It's a paradigm shift from this.
Several years ago, I was coaching the CEO of a start-up company, and I had difficulty connecting with him about the interpersonal dynamics he was working on within his business and his inner state of being. After some difficult reflection, I realized I was the wrong coach for him. I couldn't help in the areas where he needed support. These were areas of my life that were not stable enough to be helpful to this man. It dawned on me that this man had many characteristics of an Alpha male, yet there were still areas of his life on the cusp of falling apart. Some areas of my life were also on the cusp of falling apart. It was a painful lesson.
At that moment, my stereotypes of what it meant to be an Alpha Male were transformed. From that day forward, I was able to evaluate the human psyche in a radically different way. Based on this new measure of stability, I began reevaluating my goals and my capacity to pursue them.
It is a measure that has served me exceptionally well ever since, as it has provided me with a new way of prioritizing my learning and development and what I pursue in the world.
What ensued was a roughly six-year journey of breakdown, discovery, and redevelopment of my psyche and life pursuits that continues today. It includes a mentally and physically painful journey of discovery that I would not wish on my worst enemy. But it is also one that I have survived, will forever cherish and is on the verge of becoming a powerful force in my life.
The other aspect of Finding Alpha that is deeply meaningful and deeply personal to me is my emergent identity as an Autistic. I have a congenital hearing, smelling, and seeing condition that I have inherited from my mother's side of the family. Think of it as kinesthesia on steroids with an interplay of sounds, smells, and vision distortion. Navigating harmonics, smell, and colour can be a daily grind without proper planning. Unmanaged, it disrupts my attention and can leave others feeling ignored, underappreciated, or even disrespected. It is my kryptonite. But it is also my superpower as a leadership development coach and therapist.
I hear and see things in people and social spaces that neurotypicals only sometimes catch on to. Think of these as Signals that can sometimes be psychologically challenging or frightening. I can land in these transactions and rapidly identify Signals, strategic pieces of a missing puzzle. This has been a stabilizing force for my clients and my personal life.
As we live through what feels like a civilizational cusp, a liminal moment in our culture, it is becoming increasingly difficult to read the Signals and make effective choices on where to make our next moves. Autistics are canaries in the coal mine of human evolution and are a dramatically underutilized asset in today's workplace.
Whether you seek psychotherapy or coaching from Finding Alpha or an organization wanting help navigating extreme change with the help of my colleagues and me at Humaxis, Inc. and one of our commercial partners, I would love to meet and work with you. Let's see if I can help you navigate the change you are dealing with and find out what's next.
Christopher Lee Chang
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