13 AHAs from my *second* Allison Bornstein styling session.

Everything I learned the second time around. Spoiler alert: It was still a lot.

Back in the day (ok a few months ago), I couldn’t believe that an Allison Bornstein session was actually an accessible thing a regular person could just pay for, schedule and do. I had a lot to learn; it was the start of many brain exploding moments. And I summed all that up here. (Start there if you’re new to me.) Soon after that session, I’ve been feeling my style evolving, and I knew I could use an injection of Allison’s perspective. (Takeaway 1: Book early! She gets filled up fast.)

The timing is interesting. On the work front, my business, Honor Code, has added a coaching component, largely because I’ve realized just how much coaching helps me as a leader (find some of my biz coaching ahas here). So this time when I met with Allison, I was entrenched in writing and thinking about coaching. And I found that what Allison offers is some really excellent coaching. In particular

1. She’s not telling you so much what to do directively - buy this, make that outfit.

2. She’s always opening your mind to ideas and possibilities.

3. A lot of her work involves asking you questions you’ve forgotten or never knew to ask yourself.

4. If she’s teaching you, it’s teaching you to fish, showing you how you can flex a muscle vs. a teaching like “always X with Y.”

5. It’s not a one and done thing. Yes, in one session you will get so much! But you’ll also want to look back on that session and keep practicing. Or ideally, have another where your mind opens up even more and you get to practice what you’ve learned together.

So on that note, some of my ahas are underlines of what we started before. All of them were much needed. And appreciated. And actionable.

(Oh, and be sure and see how I prepared. I did a massive cull. I did a lot of thinking about my style and how I wanted to feel. I prepped questions — how to wear certain pieces; was it a mistake to cull certain others?)

What I learned: