“IT’S NOT NORMAL!”

Whenever I lead the ACMC training, Coaching Mastery, one thing I say over and over is, “The Coaching Conversation is not a normal conversation!” There’s a reason for it. I want to drive home the point that as a Meta-Coach, you need to shift your thinking, listening, and responding when you are in a Coaching Conversation from what you normally would do.

This has actually been an ongoing theme since the beginning of Meta-Coaching in 2002. One of the things that have always stood out to me is that the coaching conversation is not a normal conversation. In fact, if it was a normal conversation, then it would be worth a whole lot less. If the coaching conversation is just another conversation, one that you could have at the morning breakfast table, at the pub after work, or with friends when you are at a sporting event— there would really be nothing special about coaching as a profession. But it is different. And part of that difference is that it is not a normal conversation.