How Coaching Changes the Coach

Episode Overview

Coaching is usually discussed in terms of what it does for the person being coached. In this episode, Brian turns the question around: What does coaching do to the coach?

Drawing from more than fifteen years of coaching, Brian describes how the coaching mindset has changed the way he relates to other people, handles his own insights, and carries responsibility. Coaching has made him less individualistic, less compelled to give answers, and less likely to take ownership of problems that properly belong to someone else.

More than a professional skill, coaching has become a way of understanding Christian community, personal maturity, leadership, friendship, marriage, and faith.

Key Ideas

1. Coaching changes how we understand community

Coaching is a fundamentally collaborative process. The coach is the expert in the conversation, while the client is the expert in the subject of the conversation.

That partnership offers a picture of healthy community. People do not need to have identical strengths, roles, or perspectives in order to work together well. They contribute differently to something neither could create alone.

For Brian, this has deepened his understanding of the body of Christ. Christian faith is personal, but it is not merely individual. We are joined together, dependent upon one another, and called to create something collectively that no single person could produce independently.

2. Coaching changes how we steward awareness

Coaches regularly notice patterns, connections, and possible solutions before the client does. The temptation is to immediately share every insight.

Brian has learned that an awareness does not go to waste simply because he chooses not to say it. When an insight is not immediately released, it can continue to work within the coach. It can mature, connect with other ideas, and produce greater depth.

The discipline of not correcting, explaining, or contributing every thought has made him a better coach, trainer, leader, and person.

3. Coaching changes how we carry responsibility

Responsibility is a strength, but it can become unhealthy when we take responsibility for things that properly belong to other people.

Coaching has helped Brian ask:

• What is genuinely my responsibility?

• What belongs to the other person?

• How can I support someone without taking over?

• Can my presence help them carry what is theirs to carry?

Sometimes helping means solving a problem. At other times, it means listening, encouraging, remaining present, or allowing another person to make a difficult decision.

Memorable Quotes

"I am a better person because I am a coach."

"The coach is the expert of the conversation, but you are the expert of the topic."

"That awareness that I don't share doesn't go to waste. It actually piles up in me, and it works on me."

"I don't tend to grow when I share everything I know. I grow when I don't share everything I know."

"Coaching has changed how I carry responsibility."

"Christianity brings something to my coaching, but I think coaching brings something to my Christianity."

"Coaching has given me a better life."

Reflection Questions

1. How has coaching changed the way you understand relationships and community?

2. What awareness are you tempted to share before another person is ready for it?

3. Where might you be carrying responsibility that properly belongs to someone else?

4. How could you support someone without solving the problem for them?

Mentioned in This Episode

Brian will teach CAM 501: Foundations of Christian Coachin