Coaching is one heck of a subtle profession.

We are not consultants.  We are not advisors.  We are not mentors.  We are not therapists.  We are coaches.  Somehow I wonder if the word coach incapsules everything a coach does and is.  Is there such a word for what we do?  I remember writing about this in the very beginning, maybe we need a word that really describes what a coach does.

There are two general types of coaches you will find out there, the purists and the rest.  The purists will ONLY ask questions and that's it.  They will never give their opinion, nor share their intuitions.  The others will share their opinions and intuition hits once in a while if the client wants to hear and if it is relevant.  Though I have a lot of admiration for purist coaches, I wonder about the effectiveness of the overall sessions.  How long does it take for a client to be fully empowered without direct feedback?  How long will it take them to embrace their uniqueness on their own?

Most other coaches find the incredible subtleties of coaching is when is the right time to give your insight, when do you share your intuition and when is it alright to refer to outside sources.  It is very subtle.  Have I said it was subtle yet?  It is!  You don't want to influence your client, yet you want to check in to see if something that came up could be of importance.  You need to present it in a neutral way and by asking if it is important to them at all.

All in all, I love it!  It's like dancing an intricate and fascinating tango.  It's genuine curiosity, care and interest in someone else's life.  It's one step to the right, three to the left, one forward and sometime two backwards.  It twirls and whirls and somehow you eventually get to the Holy Grail, the deeply rooted aspiration, that magical "Ah ha" moment.  After that, it's time to custom build a personal strategy on how to achieve those goals.

Ah the subtleties of coaching.  It makes me smile to think how obvious the value of true coaching will be in a few years.