When Have You Felt Deeply Satisfied While Coaching?
I appreciated Francine’s comments about discerning “what’s right for me?” as she reflected on learning opportunities from her coaching work. It seems to me that part of understanding one’s legacy is to be courageously mindful about what actions and encounters bring us deep satisfaction. I would certainly contend that satisfaction—along with notions of happiness—can be cultivated as an overall stance on life. At the same time, there is something to be said about paying attention to the moments when we feel the greatest fulfillment and joy in ways that are healthy for us and others.
For example, I recall a client with whom I struggled to breakthrough about his health habits as a source for his poor performance as the department leader. Entering a session one day, I noted my own dissatisfaction and sat with the question as I began, “What does he need most right now?” The answer: a gesture of great compassion and truth-telling from me. He was moved in that moment in our session and we found an opening for the deeper conversation and an opportunity for real change at last. I found that my willingness to be more vulnerable engendered the same in him; I found the session among my most fulfilling ever.
I invite you to share an anecdote about a moment or a session in coaching someone or teaching coaching to someone in which you felt this way. What were you doing? What was different? What did you learn from the experience to deepen your practice?
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Comment by Francine on 10 March 2008:
David, thanks for the challenge to consider learning moments when teaching. I listen to and review coaching tapes for coaches who are in training in an ACTP. It has struck me often that as a “fly on the wall”, I am able to listen in a way that holds the entire conversation in view - the coach, the client, the content, the language, the nuance, the pacing, the dynamic- all of it. Having this insight about the observer perspective, I find myself using this as a reference point when I reflect on some of my own coaching exchanges- wondering “how big were MY eyes and ears in this conversation?” It’s helpful for me to notice when I’m getting too “on a mission” with a client and to take a step back to the big interactional perspective.