Coaching Like a Vacation: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips to Make Change Work Better 🌱

One of the trips I remember in vivid detail is the first time my family went to Borneo. The kids were 8 and 10 years old, and I’d recently had big knee surgery, and the 4 of us had just finished moving, and my wife was leading the kids in homeschooling for the first time. Yes, a lot was going on! And landing in Borneo… wow. Not only did it feel like ‘a different world,’ but suddenly all the complexity and chaos of the preceding weeks was set apart. We were in a new time.

That’s the first insight for coach-like-vacation: Contrast

If a client says, “my coaching session is just another meeting in my busy day,” we have a Big problem. To coach-like-vacation, we need coaching to be a time outside of time.

Angeles Arrien – anthropologist and author of The Four-Fold Way – told me about this. She said we have “ordinary time” where we’re caught up in the normal stuff, and “extraordinary time” where we’re outside of the day-to-day. Small rituals, such as a moment of breathing and a question you ask every time, are an easy way to mark this shift to new time. But only if it’s authentic, no one likes a fake vacation.

Back to Borneo – one of the other highlights was doing things we’d never done. The grownups were learning and so were the kids. We went trekking and got bitten by leeches for the first time. We went scuba diving for the first time. We saw orangutans for the first time.

Second tip for coach-like-vacation: Novelty

Coaching is an opportunity to experiment. I tell clients, “this is your laboratory” and invite them to test out ideas, try new things. When I’m coaching over time, I don’t ask the same questions, and I don’t expect or want it to be the same from month-to-month. Perhaps most important, I use the Six Seconds’ learning philosophy: Fish Don’t Talk About Water – here’s a short video explaining how that works in coaching, and the neuroscience of novelty (shown above on this page)

In Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, I’ve always been fascinated by “The Return,” which is the transition going back into Ordinary Time. Of taking the insights or treasures from the magical adventure back to ‘real life.’ This is central to ICF competency 8: Facilitates Client Growth.

It also reminds me of coming back from Borneo, and an intriguing realization.

Remember, we were homeschooling, so part of the curriculum was writing. That involved a lot of tears and arguments. Yet months and years later, when we asked the kids about Borneo, their strongest memories were associated with blog posts they wrote while traveling.

Third tool for coach-like-vacation: Reflection

Reflection is a lovely word. Its literal meaning is a metaphor for the cognitive process. Like seeing the reflection of a mountain in a still lake… the process of reflection is looking, inquiring, thinking to see a new perspective.

As a coach, I use the Six Seconds Journals because they feel good, and also have a great little section of key emotional intelligence concepts at the start we can refer to. Of course, any journal will work. The point is to be seriously dedicated to time for reflection and writing. Tip: In your coaching session, try asking your client if they’d like to pause for a moment and write down one of their key ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. I suspect you’ll find that increasing the reflective practice in and after coaching is profound.