Greetings from Kerala…..ah! Yet another extract from my personal journal, #RegalJournal.
Had spent the morning at a temple, re-charging my spiritual battery, thereafter with some elders in the family.
In between some ‘work’, coaching & mentoring.
- Connected with a client yesterday afternoon, for a follow-up coaching conversation.
- We have blocked time slot on our calendars, once a month. (I am increasingly realizing the power of discipline, in any work… incl creative)
- We had a very deep conversation last month. He was a great client, ready, committed, action-oriented, and authentic. We covered multiple areas around his work, life, et al.
As is the practice, we started the conversation checking out on the actions (around ICF competencies 9,10 & 11), decided over the last session. He started saying, he has been ‘committed to the actions, most of the times, not 100% ’. And one of them included Journaling.
Then what he said was mind-blowing… He said,
‘most of the issues we discussed last time have been miraculously sorted out’!
- There has been a perceptible shift in all areas of his professional life, with benefit accruing to personal life too.
- Minor irritants at work, a few of them, have all improved. Some of them even noticed and acknowledged.
- Acknowledgement at home, usually the last to come by?!
- All in all a great month, between two sessions. Hence we say, the real coaching does not happen during the session, but between the sessions. How the client reflects, allows clarity to emerge and act upon… (Details deliberately being withheld, in view of confidentiality clause involved.)
That is the power of pure, classical coaching.
We spent some time to acknowledge, appreciate and anchor.
Coaching helps the client to move from the current state to a more resourceful state.
It takes multiple sessions for clients to move to such a resourceful state. Not in his case, as he was committed. He is still not sure what really caused it, especially the elements of the environment magically re-aligning. As a coach, it does not matter to me. It is the effect that is relevant, not necessarily the cause?
Of course, he did some things differently. The biggest of them was,
he made people a priority.
“PEOPLE” was always at the core of leadership, and thus leadership/executive coaching and also coach training. It takes some time before clients & coach-trainees discover these gems and act upon them, passionately. Then we can manifest magic, bliss guaranteed. It can happen fast too…
