I’m a regular Bikram Yoga student, and recently one of the teachers said the following, “Make sure you are working to your body’s edge, while listening to your body’s limits.” This was such a great distinction and had me stop...
Category: #5 – Active Listening
Listen spaciously to your client
One of the most respectful and powerful coaching skills we have available to us as coaches is the ability to listen. Just listen. Listen with a lot of silence, and with a lot of quiet, yet present, spaciousness. Do you...
Coach the Human Being of your Client not just their Content
One of the best gifts a masterful coach can bring to their client is a different perspective, without interpreting through their beliefs. We don’t live in our client’s skin, think their thoughts, believe what they believe, or have the exact...
When a Coaching Session Really Begins
A coaching session is a structured conversation so both coach and client know that this is a coaching conversation that has a purpose, versus just having a nice conversation. There’s a definite beginning and an ending to a coaching session,...
Great Coaching is Not Time Bound
As someone who trains and mentor coaches, I’ll often hear coaches say that if they had more time in a coaching session, they would have been able to ask this or say that. Some coaches say that 30 minutes isn’t...
Be Present to Client Language
One of the best ways for a coaching client to feel heard is to use the client’s language in our reflections, messages and questions. There are many of the ICF core competencies affected by how well the coach listens including...
Coach Clients to their Emotional Honesty
One of the often misunderstood areas of coaching is how to coach clients to express their emotions appropriately, and how to handle the emotions of others. ICF core competency #4: Coaching Presence states that the coach, “demonstrates confidence in working...
Be Curious About Client Meaning and Language
I recently attended a Panel Discussion at my local Performing Arts Center. The title of the discussion was, “Do the Arts Make Us Better People?” The moderator started out by saying that we need to define what ‘better’ means. She...
Listening and Coaching Presence
The way a coach listens to their client plays a huge role in the direction, and success, of a coaching session. Two of the ICF Core Competencies are particularly involved in listening. The first is core competency #4, Coaching Presence,...
Coach the Client not their Content
Coaches are usually passionate about learning, and that includes learning about their client. Sometimes coaches can become so interested in what the client presents as the topic they want to focus on, that the coach gets bogged down in the...