Your Coach in Vienna and online – Shu Gaigg
You are basically right here,
- if you want to work with a coach who is experienced in crises and solutions
- if you want to realize your wishes and goals using effective and proven communication methods
- if you want to accelerate your progress and personal development
- if you – not for the first time in your life – want to (invent) implementable solutions
- if you want to use your brain yourself again instead of leaving that to others
Schedule your free initial colnsultation now
Your first step towards a solution!
Simply call +43 (0) 699 1 924 02 13 or fill out the contact form.
RealityCoaching starts with constructing solutions.
Once your starting point is clear, a goal can be formulated and we are on our way.
We pay attention to connections with the systems involved (family, partner, colleagues, circle of friends). An atmosphere is created that is conducive to realizing your wishes and achieving your goals.
In life, career and business coaching, I ensure that you stay focused on the solution and that you can overcome obstacles, blockages and problems.
Based on mutual trust, I provide you with observations, questions and successful mental processes that result from a variety of methods and precision.
RealityCoaching. Diverse, appreciative, solutionfocused, effective.
That is how I have been working successfully for many years. With many people. With a lot of joy.
Each time a journey, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, always exciting.
I think that’s enough when it comes to me and the way I work 🙂
Anything else that might interest you I hope to have packed into this website.
Below you will find case histories and short summaries of various coaching sessions. I would be happy if one or two stories inspire or motivate you to focus on one of your concerns. Whatever it is that is bothering you so much that you are browsing these pages, perhaps you too can be helped.
The following lines may sound sober and factual, but I can assure you that our conversations will be colorful, humorous, serious, gentle, powerful and much more, and one thing is certain: effective.
Case stories, successes, results
Chief Technology Officer (40+)
feels overwhelmed by annual goals and demands from his 18-member team and two directors. Despite a good start in the first six months, he fears losing his job, which makes him feeling paralyzed. He invests his coaching budget to reorganize himself on both factual and emotional levels, adapt his leadership style, and reflect on his own goals within the company.
Result: During a meeting with the directors, additional resources are agreed upon, and the desired balance between home office and office is established in the company. Regarding his team, he discovers the cultural differences from his previous company and organizes a good balance between “participation in product development” and fulfilling his leadership responsibilities.
Mental coaching for an equestrian in amateur sports (40+)
Result: European champion.
Entrepreneur (30+), with 25 employees,
describes his overall poor state of being, his doctor confirms his physical health but recommends “psychological support or something similar.” He opts for coaching, as it “fits better with my professional position.” In the initial conversation, it becomes clear that “the father-son conflict has raised the stress level far beyond tolerable limits.” Both father and son still work in the family business, and succession is a topic at hand.
In seven coaching sessions (each 1.5 hours), we focus on managing emotions, navigating the transition between son and CEO in their respective contexts, and perceiving the father as the founder in a new way. A double session is dedicated to preparing a conversation about succession. Previous discussions between father and son always ended in anger and mutual accusations.
This time, they decide that the CEO and the founder will start a mediation process to relieve the involved families. Result: The emotional pressure subsides, the situation remains challenging but appears manageable again.
Law student (23)
It is about a “knockout exam”. After two failed attempts, she prepares strategically and successfully passes. Key points according to the client: managing breaks, buffer times in the study plan, reflecting on motivation strategies.
Real estate agent (30+)
After a nervous breakdown, a visit to the doctor, and medication, the client stabilized enough in coaching to dedicate herself to her personal vision through a gentle process. Key point: “I remember again who and how I actually want to be.”
Result: Independence in the areas of her profession that truly bring her joy, working together with people she appreciates. Financial goal: doubling future annual income, which she achieved after 18 month. She now runs her “small, fine” company, keeping her vision and specific goals in focus with quarterly career coaching sessions.
Executive (30+)
is experiencing a career stagnation. In the first session, she formulates a core belief: “I am actually dumb.” No wonder she struggles to finally complete a multi-year education and diploma thesis.
Solution: The old belief is replaced with: “I can learn well when I truly want to.” Motivational strategies and learning techniques are brought to consciousness and are adapted. Result: successful preparation and passing of the long-delayed final exam. Impact in her main job: she enrolls in additional training required for promotion. Four months later: promotion.
CIO (40+)
Client reports a dilemma regarding his professional future. Both options appear equally right, and despite having good factual information, he finds it impossible to decide.
Intervention: Tetralemma work.
Result: New criteria emerge that were previously overlooked. These criteria are taken into consideration for the decision-making process, leading to a clear decision without any regrets.
Employee (50+)
feels bullied in a team of four after a new colleague joined. When she discusses the situation with her supervisor, not only is she not taken seriously, but she is also accused of being jealous of the new colleague. When she seeks coaching, there have been simmering conflicts and a cold war for months. Her self-confidence is weak, and her self-worth is low, despite extensive professional experience and expertise.
Since she clearly decides to stay in the company (retiring in 4 years), the first step is to communicate this to her boss. In the six sessions within ten weeks, the focus is on analyzing individual professional relationships and recognizing and changing her own communication patterns.
Results: The hidden agenda of the supervisor towards the new colleague comes to light. After resolving the conflict, there is a new and improved seating arrangement in the office, and the team of four has a good working relationship again. As an additional benefit, a dreaded family gathering turns out positively because the client was able to exchange her conflict avoidance for self-confidence.
Employee, catering company (30+)
describes early burnout symptoms. She derives her entire self-worth from her professional engagement, doing tasks that should be handled by others in the company. She always feels reachable and wants to be available. In an initial breakthrough session, she works on her current deep-seated judgment of herself: “I am worthless.” Although this statement resurfaces occasionally in subsequent sessions, it loses its impact over time.
With a strong focus, she develops professional options. Through intensive work on her “resume” she finds her new belief confirmed: “I am a valuable person.” This coaching started as a career coaching but had significant elements of life coaching.
Results within 6 months: She remains healthy, finds a new job with more appreciation, fewer overtime hours, and a 30% salary increase. She reorganizes her circle of friends and regains joy in her life and work.
Software-Programmer (40+)
Main issue: intense self-doubt. Privately, he has been in an “on-off relationship with an interesting woman” for a year. In his current company, he is offered a team leader position during the year. However, he can only control his doubts as long as the responsibility remains low. As a result, he has already let go of two advancement opportunities in two other companies and ended several relationships.
During coaching, he begins to reevaluate taking on responsibility and combines it with an appropriate amount of enjoyment and serenity. Four double sessions of coaching take place within two months. At a follow-up after another two months, he has secured the position of team leader and moved in with that interesting woman into a shared apartment. Both scenarios were previously “actually unthinkable.”
Student (24)
After two semesters abroad, she struggles to readjust to the everyday life at the local university, and her motivation to study diminishes, leading to poor grades. The risk of losing parental support looms.
Main intervention: Reflection on the current hierarchy of values and the criteria for fulfilling them. Goal: Less financial dependency, more independence in life design. Result: Part-time work and re-entry into the master’s program (which she has completed meanwhile).
Passed the master craftsman exam with distinction
Ten days before the exam this client calls me, describing his extreme nervousness. Heart palpitations, trembling hands, and a vague feeling of helpnesness make it impossible for him to finish his project drawings and create the presentation.
Main intervention: Resolving old emotions related to a dramatic experience from school days. He learns to focus his intense imagination on future success. After an emotional double session, a safety appointment is scheduled for two days before the exam.
Result: The client cancels the safety appointment and passes the exam with distinction.
Client (30+)
aspires to a transfer within an international company. He describes himself as very uncertain about the big step and feels “not ready yet” to have direct conversations with his superiors. However, the appointment is already set. The client believes that this step would significantly impact the members of his international team and work processes, causing his superior to reject it. The pressure increases due to significant family changes requiring a professional repositioning and a move to another country.
His goals in career coaching: Security in negotiations; preparation of multiple proposals for the transfer process, increasing the likelihood of the superior’s approval, and an exit strategy in case the transfer fails.
Solution: Pre- and post-support for each negotiation conversation. With systemic constellation work we clarify responsibilities and test effective new team configurations.
Executive (40+) leading 80 employees.
Coaching assignment for the first 100 days in the new organization: shaping the leadership position, constructing and reflecting on her different roles in day-to-day operations, relationship and conflict management in “inherited” and new situations. Understanding organizational culture by recognizing the organization’s history and differences in the potential speed of change between the executive and the organization.
Architect (40+), dissatisfaction is her driving force.
Problem: She has been professionally successful for a long time but “can’t explain why she has lost the joy in her work.” Lately, she increasingly doubts if she is doing the right thing. Clients are starting to hire her competitors.
Goal: (Re)discover personal vision. Make a decision regarding the future career path.
Solution: The client focuses on the criteria for her personal happiness (value hierarchy) and discovers relevant differences from her current professional life. Her motivation increases again through specialization within her field of work, some former business partners start hiring her again, and she gains new business contacts.
Supervisor, mediator (50+)
is on a quest to find the optimal business location.
Problem: The client loses her current business premises due to a water pipe break and sewer problems, rendering it unusable. The search for a new location proves challenging, yet there are four possible locations with which the client is dissatisfied.
Goal: Decision-making.
Solution: During coaching, the client discovers additional criteria for an optimal new location. Systemic constellation work reveals potential synergies and explores a new fifth option, which ultimately becomes the future place of business.
Medical student (20+)
has exam anxiety. Problem: The client studies for exams in his program. Due to the fear of not passing the exams, he devotes all his time to studying, leaving no room for leisure activities. Despite his efforts, he fails some of the exams, and the ones he passes are achieved at the expense of his personal time with his girlfriend, friends, and family. The client loses more and more social connections and becomes increasingly unhappy.
Goal: Transition from fear to confidence, being able to successfully complete exams without anxiety but with appropriate tension, and having enough time for life.
Solution: During coaching, it becomes clear that the client has developed a belief in having a bad memory as a result of experiencing exam stress and other situations. He increasingly doubts his intellectual abilities. In Coaching. he rediscovers how he used to achieve successful learning outcomes while still having enough time for friends and family. By updating his learning strategies, he achieves relaxed and excellent results again, in a relaxed mood, successfully completing the first stage of his studies.
Executive (30+), real estate industry leading 50 employees
Coaching over a six-month period. Initially, the client experienced difficulty falling asleep and internal restlessness. She was desperate as her direct supervisor had increasingly kept information from her, had not forwarded emails or did so with delays, and scheduled meetings in a way that prevented the client from attending. Direct questions were met with increasingly vague answers. Combined with the fear of being fired and the nagging question of what she was doing wrong, her stress levels escalated to the point where she needed medical treatment. Therapy included sleep aids and antidepressants. Her self-esteem was “at rock bottom,” and she saw no prospects on the horizon. She described the general work environment as “almost conflict-free, open, friendly, and respectful,” both with colleagues and the aforementioned supervisor.
During coaching, the client developed her individual stress management tool, a bedtime ritual, and was able to discontinue medication in consultation with her trusted doctor. To further recover, she took a vacation. In a double session, she prepared well for a clarifying meeting with the supervisor. Upon returning from vacation, it became apparent that although the desired meeting was agreed upon, it was postponed multiple times. Therefore, we began to explore her professional options, both within the current company and outside. This helped stabilize her self-esteem.
A few days later, she was terminated, and the prepared conversation did not take place. It later emerged that the replacement of their position had been “ultimately politically motivated and prepared in advance.”
Subsequent coaching sessions facilitated a comprehensive awareness of my client’s professional values. Based on this foundation, she searched for new leadership positions. In our seesions she prepared and reflected upon job interviews.
Result: The company she favored offers her a management position, which she gladly accepts.
Sales manager (m, 30+), technical industry
Role in the company: Digitizing various sales processes for the European market. His perspective: Board members seem to not recognize the “logical” development. The client is frustrated and desperate because his previous efforts and suggestions are not being taken seriously.
Solution: While developing a corresponding presentation for the board, one of the coaching methods reveals that the company’s history and relationships beneath the surface of the official hierarchy play a more significant role than the client previously realized. He accepts this and begins to adjust his strategy accordingly.
Result: Calmness and composure return, my client stops wasting personal energy but remains committed to the topic. This also has a positive impact on partnerships. The outlook for the future is optimistic.
Team leader (30+), advertising agency
Appointement as the leader of a team consisting of members from different hierarchical levels with tasks including product development, internal process transformation, nationwide rollout of results, and training on a new product and workflow.
Key questions: How can I lead team members who would be my superiors at other locations in the agency and delegate tasks? How do I deal with the colleague who wanted my job and is involved with one of the managing directors? Throughout the coaching, the focus was repeatedly redirected to the question: How can I lead myself well and stay healthy through this challenge? What is important to me in collaboration? What are my strategies for decision-making, resourcefulness, and conflict resolution?
Executive (40+), IT Corporation, 5 to 15 team members depending on the project.
This executive has been engaging in coaching for several years, attending 2-3 hour sessions as needed to develop solutions. Topics include strategy for advancement in the company, designing large presentations for 200 or more participants, salary negotiation beyond monetary aspects, and finding solutions for personal concerns.
Junior consultant (30+)
Goal: becoming Senior Consultant.
Concerns: Reflecting on her own leadership style and personal development in general. Specifically, improving confrontational skills, handling excessive emotions from conversation partners, identifying blind spots, learning and implementing options for perspective shifting.
Key issues resolved: Overcoming the fear of the unknown, situational self-assessment and task evaluation along the spectrum between perfection and pragmatism, recognizing and addressing tension areas with the management.
From department head (30+) to managing director and authorized representative, arts industry
A “conversation simulation” is desired as preparation for the crucial hearing with three candidates. Two external, and the client being the only internal applicant with strong support within the company. The assigned topics for presentation include strategic development and positioning of the brand, entrepreneurial vision, and a five-year outlook with specific milestones.
First coaching session: Key sections of the presentation are reflected upon, analyzed, and expanded in terms of action options. Emerging uncertainties are addressed by recognizing the current personal values hierarchy. Personal confidence is supported by clarity regarding unique selling points compared to competitors. Systemic interconnections and less obvious correlations can be identified and utilized from the company’s history. One outcome is a brief, concrete, and appropriate recognition of the predecessor’s successes. An exit strategy is outlined in case the decision favors an external candidate despite strong internal support.
Second coaching session: That is exactly what happened; the client, like many others, is more than surprised. The setback is processed, the strategic outline is specified, and loyalty to the new Managing Director is positively clarified and implemented. The goal of becoming a Managing Director in the future remains active.
Third coaching session: 10 months later, we work on the kick-off speech to all employees as the client has been promoted to the desired position of Managing Director and Authorized Officer of the company.
Journalist (30+)
still complains about having “little self-confidence” and needing courage after two different psychotherapies. He wants to “learn to stand up for himself” and feels as if he has “no right to exist” and lacks joy in life. These are his statements in the registration/goal questionnaire. Within 8 weeks, an initial session, breakthrough session, and three more meetings take place. In the follow-up, the client opens with a smile, saying, “I’m not sure if I still have any concerns.” Therefore, we revisit the goal questionnaire and reflect on his personal development. At the end of the session, no further appointments are needed.
A young woman (20+)
spent months contemplating whether she should end her current relationship or “drag it along,” feeling sad, frustrated, and weak in the process. She desired changes as soon as possible, so we scheduled a 3-hour breakthrough session. Key phases included resolving the perceived dilemma of either-or, gaining a clear understanding of her own values hierarchy, and brainstorming ideas for the next few weeks to make these values tangible again: dancing at the studio, meeting friends, taking time for reading and relaxation. No decision needed to be made in the next 4 weeks, hence no more brooding. But also no more “dragging it along.”
Follow-up after 6 weeks: The client reports having more energy and self-confidence in terms of being self-aware. She shares her insights about herself and her emotions with her partner. During this conversation, it becomes evident that BOTH have different ideas about future partnerships. They have a respectful separation.
Student (20+) reports on her exam anxiety.
She feels “not herself” when she is sweating, trembling, and experiencing a blackout in front of the examination committee. She is also reserved during lectures, and speaking up requires a great deal of effort, which prevents her from demonstrating her knowledge effectively.
The goal is to prepare for a major exam, and milestones are set for all intermediate exams leading up to it.
Methodically, she learns to reevaluate remembered key situations, identify and build emotional resources from them. She develops a vision of the future where she is capable of succeeding in exam situations while feeling “free, courageous, and clever.” She mentions three individuals as good mental models for the desired emotional state, which are analyzed and integrated into the coaching sessions. She has always been well-prepared on a factual level.
Between the second and third meeting, she successfully manages the one exam available in the short time frame and talks about several contributions she could give with “almost joy.”
During the third session, we discuss whether this progress will continue and what she can do to maintain her successes. Therefore, we work on her beliefs regarding personal change. The outcome of the session is a smiling confidence. Investment: Initial consultation and 3 sessions (1.5 hours, 1.5 hours, 1 hour).
to be continued ☺
