I Am Here

I could coach myself.

In fact, I have tried this.

Open a Word document, type “Coach: What do you want to work on today?”; type “Me: I’m thinking about…”

And off I go, using myself as a thinking partner. Sometimes I get to pretty good results…

But, nothing is better for me than to have another coach guiding my thinking. Just having another person there changes the whole process. The coach is listening carefully for what I am saying and not saying. The coach will ask the hard questions that I might not ask myself.

In a recent call, my coach said point-blank, “You don’t sound very excited about this.”

Zing! That’s right, I didn’t even notice that! I wonder why I don’t sound excited?

A core coaching skill is called presence. And presence does not come naturally in our highly distracted world. It takes a lot of practice to be present with someone. Like, ALL there.

As your coach, I want you to know first of all that I am here. My mind is not on something else. I’m not thinking about lunch, or texts, or email, or my schedule, or my similar-story-to-yours-that-I-solved-brilliantly…

My mind, my focus, my mental energy is on nothing but you and your topic for the length of the call.

So keep that in mind next time we coach together. Your session is all about you and your topic. I am here for you, to spur you on to the deepest thinking possible on your topic.

Looking forward to being here for you!