It has to be Practical
Integral Coaching needs to be practical. As coaches, our primary goal with a client is to provide a substantial program – based on their topic (what we determine they want to achieve) – helping them move from A to B. We do this by creating practices that help them embody a New Way Of Being (NWOB) that leads to them reaching their destination = topic. We are not here to philosophize, proselytize, prophesize, or pamperize. We educate only in a manner that is related to development within their program.
Too many times a new coach, who suddenly has a captivated audience of one, will use this safe container they’ve created to work on their own soap-box speech about some meta-phsyics of reality that they themselves are still learning to comprehend. Or, a more seasoned coach, who is able to consistently create regular decent forward motion in a client’s process, can find himself becoming slightly aloof and not fully engaged (resting on his developmental laurels) and will believe it his his place to “educate” his client about some aspect of greater moral or cultural conduct or implication. It might be about some manner in which the client “should” go about understanding something. Or that it might be “more inclusive” and “progressive” if the client were to consider this [opinion that I am currently expressing and moderately attached to].
Watch yourself !
You are not a preacher my friend, you are a coach. And the less you preach, the better a coach you will end up being. [And, just as a side note: if you are a preacher and a coach (which I do know a few), be a good catalyst for positive change, and ensure you keep the distinctions of when you are being a coach and when you are being a preacher clear with your client. Ambiguity of that sort is a disservice to your client and to both vocations.]
Keep it practical. Let the client find their own insights. By all means bring in your own flavors, ideas, and preferences within your coaching sessions, yet please keep your moves and words within the coaching process based within the essential practicality of the client’s program. Otherwise, instead of working with you, they might as watch Dr. Phil, read Don Miguel Ruiz, and ask their friends what they should be doing.
