People sometimes ask me what's different about my style of coaching. I'm starting to figure out how to articulate it.
Coaching, in a traditional sense, is a process aimed at improving performance by helping individuals to develop and learn through guidance and encouragement. It typically involves a more experienced or skilled person, known as a coach, who supports a learner or client in achieving specific personal or professional goals by providing training, advice, and feedback.
Oddly enough, what I do when I work with a client has little to do with that. It has a lot more to do with yoga, in the original sense of the word. The word "yoga" comes from the Sanskrit root "yuj", which means to join, to yoke, or to unite. This union is typically understood as the union of the individual consciousness or soul with the Universal Consciousness or Spirit.
What NLP has offered me is not the rigid application of turnkey techniques, but the subtle art and skill of catching genius as it unfolds. It's a dance of intuition and insight, much like a gardener knowing just when to water or prune their plants.
Imagine I was having a conversation with you, with your story unraveling like a spool of thread. My job isn't to fix or to instruct, but to listen, to really listen. Each word, each pause, each subtle shift in your tone, is a clue to your genius that's waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be coaxed into the light.
My job is to be present, being genuinely curious about you. It's about stimulating you so your genius can emerge, and creating a space where you can explore and then helping you capture it so you can find your way back to it at will. This is where the real magic happens.
It's one thing to run a therapeutic protocol like a swish pattern or a fast phobia cure on someone. It's another entirely to detect that, when they are inspired solving a problem at their best, they operate from the second perceptual position.
Think back to the most significant conversations you've had in your life. Were they scripted? Were they delivered with perfect eloquence? Probably not. They were powerful because they were real, because the person you were speaking with was fully there with you, actively participating in the unfolding of understanding.
Ultimately, what I do is foster a connection deep enough to allow someone's inner genius to surface. It's about being a guide, not a director; a listener, not a lecturer. I'll tell you, I am inevitably blown away by how brilliant, creative and talented my clients are.
The heart of what I do – if we can even call it coaching – is catching genius in the act, one conversation at a time.
