A favorite coaching client of mine looked at me and said, “I am so weak.” I couldn’t disagree more. I was thinking, “You are strong.” So strong to admit a weakness; so strong to be so vulnerable.
So strong to start.
This client has lots of plans about what he wants to get from coaching, but what he wants – what he really, really wants – is to lose weight. Eighty pounds of it.
When he imagines himself as an old man, he is fit and thin. He knows he can and will lose the weight.
We talk about his current perspective on being overweight. He describes himself as a glutton, as someone who can eat an entire apple pie for breakfast. His voice is prickly and small. That’s when he talks about being weak.
So how else could he think about food? “I want to be French,” he says. “I want to eat butter in moderation!” His voice booms out in a Julia Child accent, loud and big and happy.
We talk about moderation. And soda pop. He drinks a lot of soda pop. More than a six-pack a day. That’s 140 calories a can. More than 840 calories a day.
After some negotiation, we agree that he’s going to stop drinking soda for one week. He can have the apple pie, just no soda pop.
He emailed me this morning to tell me that he didn’t drink any soda all weekend. Not easy (Google “soda pop addiction” – he’s got lots of company) but he did it.
He’s started.
Maximize Your Career in Your Current Organization
From a University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education webinar: Prospective clients sometimes ask me how I have the credibility to coach senior executives in industries I know nothing about. Challenging question, right? So I have a choice here: I can answer in a way that risks sounding defensive, talking about my experience and my degrees. I like to do something really unexpected instead.
I like to talk about knots.
