PURPOSE
Coaching is a spiritual
practice. It is an empowering
way of being in service to
self and others. It is both a
skill set and a way of living
that challenges you to
expand yourself beyond who
you believe yourself to be, to
living more fully who you are
at your essence.
This realization came home to me during the holi-
day season of 1992. I was invited to a party where
the only person I knew was the hostess. Upon my
arrival, she pointed out another party guest who
was a Ph.D. in Career Counseling, and she warned
me that this woman held a war against coaching
and coaches. My intention was to avoid her.
I kept my distance from that woman through-
out the evening. All of a sudden, I was caught off
guard when, there she was, standin g in front of
me with her cocktail glass held at eye level be-
tween us. Reading my name tag, she confronted
me: “Hello, Fran. What do you do for a living?”
Without a moment’s thought, I blurted, “I be me
all day long, and I get paid abundantly for that!”
She threw her head back, squinted her eyes,
shook her head, turned, and walked away. As I
drove home that night, I thought, “It’s so true!
Who I am now is what I do, and what I do now is
who I am!”
At some point, early in my coaching career, I shift-
ed my orientation from doing coaching with cli-
ents to being a coach as a way of life and living. I
don’t mean that I started coaching family, friends,
and everyone I met. I mean, I started living the
principles of the coaching paradigm as though I
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had tapped into a reservoir of wisdom that was
latent within me.
The most challenging part of becoming a mas-
terful coach, though, was letting go of my attach-
ment to being the expert. Years later, as a student
of coaching, I learned to honor the coaching par-
adigm by holding my clients as the expert of their
lives and work, and myself as the expert in the
coaching process—forming a partnership with two
experts. I began noticing the “high” I would feel
on seeing my clients build on their strengths, take
greater risks and leaps of faith, and make heroic
changes in their lives. That’s when I realized that
being the expert had been feeding my ego. Now,
I am feeding my soul, as I hold my clients as the
experts of their lives. I am being the facilitator
of calling forth their natural wisdom. And that’s,
well, beyond delicious. It is extraordinarily nour-
ishing, rewarding and fulfilling.
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Seven Coaching Wisdoms for Transforming Your
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