Today, I turned 54. And all I want for my birthday 🎁 is to be coaching my athletes IN PERSON, to be coached IN PERSON, to be coaching other coaches IN PERSON.
We are, quite simply, better together — in person.
Communication is better LIVE.
When I see your face, your hands, your body language—I know what you mean.
When I hear your words—when I listen to a story-it doesn’t really influence what I do.
When you look into my eyes and experience me as open to you, it validates your experience of our relationship. You have a real feeling about me, about how I am receiving you.
We all have experiences that we call on to support or deny what we hear.
Those experiences happened — in person. We experience things physiologically.
I recently was coaching a client in a life coaching session – on zoom. (Insert big eye roll because Zoom my ass —but its what we have).
We were trying to get to a vision of his perfect day. As he started writing this day he wants to experience his mind went to things he didn’t want. OK. Great place to start! When I know what I don’t want it can lead me to what I do want—which is what we really want to focus on.
Did I mention I want to BE in the room with you?????
He recalled a time in his youth when he felt free—away from his family of origin, in the hills of northern California, young and alive, and in love with the possibility of life. Attached to this was this memory was this feeling for the here and now.
“Right now, I want to NOT be worrying about X, Y, Z the way I felt – back then.”
But it was a physical experience. It wasn’t something he heard about, it was something he experienced through his physiology. His mind, body and spirit were affected by the landscape, the smells, the sounds, the feelings. Its how we KNOW what we know. The body is equipped with intuition—to sense what is right and what is not right—it is a feeling based on an experience.
I can tell you about fire. But you must experience it to know what it really is.
When I am coaching I am fully alive. I was recently gifted—and I use that word with a choice—an opportunity to talk with two coaches Cara Heads Slaughter and Angela Sorenson. Both are brilliant coaches and athletes I hold in the highest esteem. I had to pinch myself. We talked about coaching, what it means, how it is best delivered, how we benefit in our own right from all of the coaches we have worked with, how to define great coaching (intangible) and most of all what it means to be vulnerable to the journey that one embarks on with a trusted advisor; a coach.
When I am in the room with my chosen coaches I AM alive.
When I am in the room with my athletes—I AM ALIVE. My vitality is on point. I know that it is my calling because I FEEL fully ALIVE when I am doing it.
When you are in the room with me and we are engaged—you feel it too. Its amazing to feel seen and heard and alive in the presence of a trusted advisor.
Every single one of my student athletes—from middle school to college has expressed their disappointment with E-learning. “It’s not the same. It’s boring.”
Engagement is what life is about!
Not one of my kids has expressed excitement about this virtual lifestyle that has been inflicted upon us.
THIS. From the online generation. This, from the generation of kids most likely to be disrupted by virtual reality………
It is not enough.
Only 7% of human behavior is influenced by WORDS.
And 38% of what influences other human beings is voice quality.
But…..
55% of human behavior is influenced by the Physiology of the communicator.
I want to be in the room with you. As a coach, the way I move my body—to view you from a different angle, the way I tilt my head to experience you…
We all have to be present.
Here.
Now.
What a gift 🎁!
I mean, why do you think they call it a present???
I miss you.
I hope you will gift me of your presence soon.