Posted on October 1, 2009 by Stephan Wiedner
The main topic of discussion during Tuesday’s peace dialog (just one of the events in the 4-day Vancouver Peace Summit) featuring the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Laureates was the challenge of bringing more compassion and creativity into the education system. It was certainly an interesting topic of discussion but what does this have to do with coaching?
It has everything to do with coaching because coaching stimulates creativity, it provides a set of tools that foster compassion, and it brings out your inner genius.
Reason 1: Coaching stimulates creativity
The Dalai Lama gave his theory by stating that creativity requires a challenge or mental contradiction. This forces the mind to expand and seek new solutions. And when the challenge goes away, the mind falls asleep. Therefore, to maintain one’s creativity, one needs to maintain some level of challenge.
Coaching is all about helping the coachee set challenging goals and maintain constant action toward achieving those goals. It’s a balancing act to find the right level of challenge because if you challenge the coachee too much, they shut down with feelings of overwhelm and the creative process stops. If you challenge the coachee too little, they lose interest and motivation and again, creative thinking stops.
Reason 2: Coaching offers tools for building compassion
The Dalai Lama also related creativity to compassion in an indirect way. He stated that compassion helps you see the world objectively. By focusing on understanding other people and wanting for them what they want for themselves, you can see the world more clearly. This objectivity is a necessary ingredient for identifying the worthwhile challenges in life. And when you objectively see the challenge, you act on it in creative ways.
Being a coach and practicing coaching skills is by its nature “other-focused”. Coaches listen, ask curious questions, empathize, believe in their clients, and help them achieve what they want in life. Another word that closely describes the actions of a coach is compassion. To be a coach is to be compassionate.
You don’t have to be a coach to be compassionate. Of course not. But coaching or embodying a coach-approach can teach you the tools for being more compassionate.
Reason 3: Coaching brings out your inner genius
Eckhart Tolle, best known for his books A New Earth, The Power of Now and his Oprah appearances, was one of the other panelists that drew for the audience a hilarious picture of himself on the soccer field trying to score a World Cup overtime penalty kick. If you’ve seen this man on TV or in person, you’d realize that he’s not exactly the symbol of athletic genius.
He alluded to a recent study that concluded that upon hearing the whistle to take a penalty kick, the soccer players that waited a few extra seconds were far more likely to score the goal. He posited that this was due to the individual going within, accessing their true-self, and shutting out the outer noise caused by the audience, the circumstances, and even the selfish needs of the ego. He equated this moment of silence with creativity and genius. For a soccer player, it results in a perfectly placed kick. For a physicist, it results in that a-ha moment that produces an new theory.
He quickly reminded us that of course, he could not achieve this feat by finding his quiet place and going within. Everyone has the capacity for creative genius but it has to be fostered. Only after hours and hours of persistent and determined effort can a soccer player have the abilities to make that perfect kick under incredible circumstances. The popular book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell suggests that 10,000 hours is the time required to perfect just about any task. Imagine Eckhart Tolle waiting silently on the soccer field for 10,000 hours before kicking the ball. As brilliant as he is, the mental game is only part of the solution.
And that’s where coaching comes in. Coaching is one of the best accountability structures that inspires persistent and continuous action toward achieving one’s goals. When you’re feeling down, a coach helps you keep going. A coach challenges you. A coach keeps you moving forward so that one day, when you need to place that perfect kick or come up with a new theory of relativity, your inner genius will be prepared to shine.