The essential learning of a business and life coach

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 | By Andrew Machon

Maybe one of our greatest gifts that we discover together with the masterful coach is an acceptance of our fallibility.

When we are fallible we free our clients to explore their fallibility. We free our humanity to find expression through our work.

When we are free to be imperfect we can more fully relax into being our most natural self. Strangely, in acknowledging our limitations, we can often glimpse that which is unlimited. As we accept our limitations, paradoxically our confidence to coach increases, as we are no longer concerned with making mistakes. We may even realise how our problems and mistakes become a vital source of potential learning and growth.

YOU HOLD THE MASTER KEY

The key to mastery is in your hands. Commonly we meet other people’s expectations and forget our own.

Your unique individuality can easily be forgotten in seeking the approval of others

It often seems that our chance to feel good and fulfilled is dependent on meeting someone else’s expectations and goals. In a topsy-turvy world the antithesis is nearer the truth. Fulfilment is something only you can discover and permit. In my own experience this comes from the continuing journey of self-acceptance, and is the joy of acknowledging your innate talents and what you most love and enjoy. Only you can permit yourself the joy, freedom and confidence of being your most natural self and there meet with the masterful coach.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HARD

We make things hard because we (our analytical eye) love the challenge. We set the bar we then need to jump. Maybe we believe somewhere deep down that work has to be hard in order to be worthwhile. Instead, find the choice to also make it easy. In striving and driving we lose sight of our natural talent and mastery. See if you can make it easy. Do more of what you most enjoy and love, without reproach.

Give yourself permission to enjoy your life to the fullest – no one else can

BE AND DO

We spend our lives searching for our most significant other – the person we most long to find and with whom we belong. But in the activity of the search and the need to find we forget and overlook the being that exists within our doing. Our namesake reminds us that there is a human being in all that we do. Might this being be our most significant other? In discovering this being, do we make the acquaintance of the masterful coach as our most authentic identity as a human being?

BE COMFORTABLE WITH PARADOX

If you learn to see the paradox of things you no longer need to judge or divide. Instead, you are given the chance to contemplate more deeply dilemma and conflict and to consider if there might be a deeper, more peaceful resolution. Paradox can teach us how to see the prospect of a more creative resolution beneath surface conflict, division and difference.

Paradox teaches the judge within us the wisdom of patience

BE STILL

We often fill our lives with activity. The qualities that define and inform our mastery emerge when we are still. Our goal is not so much to get somewhere, but is more the chance to come home to our truest and most natural self. The masterful coach awaits your acquaintance just beyond your busyness. When we are still we can see the extent of our activity, rather than be driven by it. We can give our full attention and concentration to the coaching relationship and practice.

Learn how to still your surface waters in order to discover your depth

REMEMBER THAT WE FORGET

If you remember anything – remember that we forget. Forgetting is a fallibility that we learn to forgive. In the humility of forgiving yourself and others you recognise the strengths of the masterful coach.

YOUR LOCK IS YOUR KEY

We label problems as bad and rationalise or reject them.

In dividing ourselves we split and trap our potential

The partial self seeks always to become whole. In becoming whole we realise our hidden potential as the power to choose, relate, resolve, develop, learn and change. Maybe our ultimate power as human beings is realised in the expression of original self? The journey of the coach is to accept partiality and to foster unity. The problem we consider to be our lock as we have explored, in truth is the key to our hidden potential and power. Rather than seeing problems as limitation, let these serve as the base from which we remember our potentiality and aspiration to wholeness.

EVERYTHING SERVES AND LIMITS

We confine ourselves when we divide and judge – we split our resources and our resourcefulness. When you face a problem as a coach, consider how it both serves and limits and therein you will discover the hidden potential. Try it.

COACH WITH YOUR HEART AS WELL AS YOUR HEAD

How you are when you coach is as important as what you do. If the client can trust and know how much you truly care, then nothing more is usually necessary. Knowing we are valued in our imperfect state, and knowing this is natural, can offer the greatest freedom and joy. If you build trust, care and compassion then you permit your client to be their most natural self without condition – and all this may happen without words.

PLANT SEEDS

I never forget the joy of gardening. Ultimately growth is out of my hands and yet I can nurture, care and dream of creating my own small Eden. Watching how nature grows is a great teacher to the coach. All we can do is to plant our seeds timely, thoughtfully, compassionately and playfully – with the intention and hope that they will grow, blossom and fruit. This is the essence of my own coaching practice.

Andrew Machon is a coach of 20 years’ experience working with senior leaders in a number of the world’s largest organisations. He is also passionate and active in the development of other coaches. He offers a rare blend of scientist, psychotherapist, artist and businessman. His latest book is ‘The Coaching Secret – how to be an exceptional coach’, published by Prentice Hall Business. It is available from Transpersonalbooks.com for £12.99. Any coaching, supervision or workshop enquiries contact Andrew at thegoldenquestion.eu