Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Practicing Coaching Presence

Time to embark on that essential and yet enigmatic coaching competency: Coaching Presence. The test will come today as I do the following: get over being angry over some bureaucratic insanity, traverse snow and ice carefully, happily board a train (love trains) and spend 3 hours with my iPod and laptop, lovely food and great service, finally arriving at my destination to work with super terrific people. Got it? So what does this have to do with being present? ... well, everything.

My job for the next two hours is to come to terms with the bureaucratic mess, toss it aside and practice what I do everyday, all day ... be present to my clients. So today, I will put myself to the test and clear my mind of judgment, anger and frustration. There's another time to deal with that situation.

Coaching Presence asks some pretty basic behaviors of ourselves: be flexible, be present in the moment, listen without judgment, be confident and care for the people/person on the other side of the relationship (be it business or personal). Well, it's not so simple and it does take practice.

Practice is the place where you and I spend just about all of our time, isn't it? Ask George Leonard ("Mastery") who reminds us of this: love the practice because it's most of life. So today I will practice yet again what I've been practicing consciously for the past 17 years: be consciously present, as if it were a new practice. 'Presence' then has a chance to show up and be the coolest behavior of all. It's a win for everyone, including clear thinking.

Enjoy your practice session. It's called 'life.'

No comments:

Post a Comment