Dr Corrie Jonn Block started as a serial entrepreneur in his 20s. Since then, he has exited five successful businesses and buried 2. He says, “I've been bankrupt twice. Lived 8 years in pre-technocrat Estonia and five years in Yemen. Started and exited my strategy firm in Dubai. I'm a professor of strategic management, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a three-time best-selling author, And I carry four postgraduate degrees. Yet none of that compares to what I've learned from my clients as an executive coach in the last 15 years.”
For him, executive coaching has been his life's most rewarding, educational, and impactful career experience. He is extremely grateful for the transparency and authenticity he received from his clients and the learning experiences he shared as he tried to tackle never-before-seen challenges in some of the Middle East's most innovative and impactful organizations.
His valuable expertise has made major changes in people's lives. He has consulted, advised, mentored, and coached in industries ranging from oil and gas to luxury shoes on three continents in more than 150 companies, from entrepreneurial startups to major multinationals like Hilton, PepsiCo, and Microsoft. He has also coached leaders in major global entities like the United Nations and World Bank.
He mentions, “I coach holistically, so mindset, skillset, habits, tactics, and decision-making strategy are all important. But so are physical health, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, periods of mental recovery, post-traumatic growth, communication skills, and the ability to achieve a work-life blend. I have tools for all of these, and they're all important for helping a person reach their full potential.”
Personality and Characteristics
Being loyal, generous, curious, and passionate, he encompasses a strong sense of destiny. He genuinely loves people, and in all his communications, he tries to listen with empathy and respond with love. Recently, he started signing off all his emails, “Love, Corrie.” He did this for everyone: vendors, clients, friends, colleagues, strangers, members of the royal family, ministers of government. In light of this, he says, “I did that because in some small way . I wanted to insert a bit of love into every e-mail I sent. I've been doing this for two years, and no one seems to mind. So, I guess you could also say my communication style is bold and inclusive. But if you're interested in how I communicate and who I am, just watch my YouTube channel; that is who I am.”
Corrie has had a roster of clients he has successfully impacted and influenced, including CXOs in Microsoft, ADNOC, E&, PepsiCo, and Hilton, to name a few. The biggest impact they have reported is that they are more effective with less effort, happier, healthier, and make more money personally and for their companies. He feels this is very good feedback. For him, the biggest source of joy is knowing that these leaders are performing better in their executive roles and that their people benefit from stronger leadership. It’s not just the few executives that benefit, but the thousands of families in their care.
One of the biggest challenges he feels is that many CXOs feel that they don't need coaching. He says, “The biggest challenge is helping them see how high those stakes are and to accept that the only way they’ll truly discover what they’re capable of is to have someone next to them who can coach at their level. It doesn’t matter how good the coach is; the company is losing money if the executive isn’t coachable.”

Staying Ahead of the Curve
He has made it a habit to write a book every year, which means he needs to be able to add that level of value every year. To produce that much, he needs to take in a lot of input, for which he reads a lot, including books, articles, and academic papers. He easily reads 50 books and more than 100 academic articles every year. He also likes podcasts like Revisionist History and The Psychology Podcast, from which he learns a lot. 

One of his fortes when approaching a client is to always start with deep questioning and active listening. He feels he can’t present a tactic, strategy, suggestion, or methodology unless he has a very good idea of the character and context of his client. However, once he has that context, he shifts to providing tools that he knows will work. He mentions, “Some combination of CBT, NLP, positive psychology, neuroscience, and maybe a set of habits to form that we work on together. When my client chooses an action to take, I always ask for their level of commitment, and if it’s anything less than 85%, we go back to work on finding a better-fit goal-directed action. The most important tool, though, is accountability. I’m often the person in my clients’ lives that they are most transparent with, so I’m often the only person who can hold them accountable for change in those areas. Accountability is a massive predictor of success in coaching.”
Corrie shares that each year, he gets a call from at least one of his clients to tell him that they’ve experienced a heart attack, panic attack, burnout, or some other form of mental breakdown. There are advancing healthcare tools available in the market, but such cases are still rising. So he feels the best gift he can give them is a focused life, a mindful and peaceful style of time and task mastery, more focused time with their families, and greater personal wealth. He emphasizes that a talented athlete can do wonders with some coaching. That’s how gold medals are won and world records get broken, which is the same in business. All executives will only perform at their best with a competent executive coach beside them.
He shares his thoughts and advice with our audience and says, “The most fulfilling things in my life didn’t make me happy. Raising kids, starting companies, finishing doctorate degrees, writing books… they were all about 15% joy and 85% hard work. But it’s the hard work that makes them so fulfilling. The hard climb makes reaching the top of the mountain so rewarding. Being happy is easy. If you want to be happy, eat a Big Mac and doom-scroll Instagram; that will make you happy. If you want to be fulfilled, it’s time to get to work.”