Coach Approach Blog

Imagine a giant, hulking Elephant with huge tusks.

It doesn't take much for me to imagine, because I nearly fainted when I saw a ginormous elephant eyeball peering through the roof of our flimsy tent in Amboseli National Park. I can still vividly see its eyelashes and the thick, dusty folds of its skin! And I will never forget its even more ginormous right tusk blocking our escape route to our puny-looking car. I could scarcely move or breathe as it loudly tore branches from the bushes just ar…

When I'm talking with a person in conflict, I'm often struck by how one person in a conflict is desperately pleading with another to take a new perspective. "Look at it like this," they might say. And the person they are pleading with stays cold, also wanting to be seen and heard. If only YOU could get a new perspective, they say.

It seems that the whole world has gotten into an addiction to conflict. New perspectives are forced upon us by older or younger generations. The Covid pandemic brough…

I've been feeling insecure lately. I was telling myself, "I just don't know what to do about European VAT taxes." It was looming big, scary, and unknowable. I was feeling like a stupid foreigner and even borderline criminal.

I was really panicking about it, so I began practicing one of my morning rituals of syncing my breathing to my pulse, and slowing them both down. (Full disclosure, I avoided my daily calming routines for a couple of days and just ate chocolate and got overwhelmed until I re…

Today, we are gifted with a guest post from my dear friend and coaching colleague, Eva Leparakuo from Kenya. I think you'll love her perspective on honey....

"As a young entrepreneur still learning business, sometimes the math doesn't add up...for now. This morning, as I picked up the honey jar which had about a teaspoon of honey left, I sighed. Honey, or any extra shopping, was not in the budget this week. As I scooped out what was left and slowly washed out the jar, someone asked, "Did you se…

Today, we are gifted with a guest post from my darling sister Kathryn. Here are her good, good words for you about letting things get Untangled:

"I was the mother of a two-year-old and an infant. At only 28 years old, I had had a major postpartum breakdown that landed me in the psychiatric ward of a hospital for a week and which required months of bed rest to adjust to my medication.

I really wasn’t sure that I would be able to drive myself to my first-ever appointment with a therapist. The th…

Ten of us young women in an outward-bound wilderness camp were struggling to climb the last boulders at the top of a mountain when one of our members, who had very low blood sugar, slipped to the ground and could no longer move. Seeing her danger, the rest of us quickly devised a stretcher made from our rubberized ponchos and some strong sticks. It took the strength of six of us to maneuver her back down the slope to where she could be picked up by a rescue vehicle. By the time we had descended …

Some of you have expressed interest in finding out what exactly happens in a professional coaching conversation. What makes it different from the way a friend would listen?

In the coaching process, after connecting human-to-human, the coach's main focus at the beginning of a conversation is, "What is the desire? What is the objective of this conversation?" "What opportunities are wanting to emerge now?"

Yet what often happens is, that a conversation may start with venting... the client comes i…

Some people believe that when you're on a path of personal and spiritual growth, it's important to find out to root causes of unhappiness in order to make improvements. And yes, it's wise to rise above and observe emotions, to feel them, to be kind to them, and to allow them.

But it can be just as important, if not more so, to focus on our moments of happiness and really settle in to enjoy them, remember them with gratitude, renew them, talk about them, and experience them even more fully. 

Re…

"An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it.

    “How does it taste?” the master asked.
    “Bitter,” spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in th…

I didn't finish today's Wordle. What a heartbreak. What a loss.

I just couldn't think of a word that had a 'V' and an 'I'. I was stuck. And by the time I thought of it, the day's Wordle had passed. "Vivid" came to me hours too late and the board was reset. What's more, I lost my 19-day streak. It felt like a public humiliation and failure. (to whom? so weird)

So I began ruminating on all the life lessons that have emerged for me since beginning to play this five-letter-word guessing game some …