One of the most frequently asked questions I get when I do my talks on "Coaching to the Soul" is how to present the notion of addressing the soul in business or corporate coaching. Won't we just alienate business clients if we start talking about soul when they are coming to coaching looking for increased effectiveness or performance?

The short answer is "Yes!". If a client comes to me with whatever goal, and I start to suggest that the goal is not really important, that what they really want is to re-connect to their souls, then the conversation is effectively over.

I remember hearing John Whitmore talking at the ICF Conference in Sitges in 2002. He showed a video of him coaching (using Tim Gallwey's Inner Game model) people to improve their golf. He also said that he thought golf itself was a boring and pointless game! That didn't stop him being available to serve the client in achieving their goal.

This point is taken one step further by Richard Strozzi Heckler in his book "The Anatomy of Change" (http://tinyurl.com/8kexm).

He describes meeting a young man, full of pent-up aggression. At one stage the young man says that he feels so mad he could kill someone. Heckler looks at him and says, "I can teach you how to do that if you want. I just want one thing from you. I want you to commit yourself to every session that I do." So began an extra-ordinary journey, with Heckler demonstrating techniques and pressure points, and the young man stumbling, and then Heckler returning to the principles of centering and awareness from his perspective as an Aikido master.

As their learning journey developed, the young man grew more interested in discovering himself, moving more into his body, and although the journey was often tough, the work was being done. After some months, the young man said to Heckler, "You know, it's easy to kill someone, but it's more interesting to find out about myself - it's not as easy, but it's more interesting."

For me, this very beautiful and moving story shows the value of the work we can do when we are willing to meet the client where they are, however odd or undesirable to us their goals might seem.

By providing the space, by meeting the client where he was, rather than trying to change him, or offer him a "higher" teaching, Heckler was able to allow the young man space to explore and express himself in a way that he'd never been able to up until now. The boy's true essence was able to manifest.

So, for me, whatever goals a client brings on the surface, my question to myself is along the lines of wanting to discover the soul that these goals are the window to.

If I listen to the client, if I allow him enough space, and respect him for where she is at, then trust will develop between us and he will express more of himself to me. If I try to probe to deeply, or push for the "soul", then we'll get nowhere.

There's a lovely quote from the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, "I want to do for you what the spring does for the cherry trees."

This sums up, for me, the essence of this approach to coaching - what's going to come out of our coaching is already there in the coachee - all we have to do is to provide the space for it to show up - we don't have to (in fact, we must not) try to steer it, or bring our own values to it - the essence will show up once we create the listening space that's needed, once we've built trust. And trust comes from honouring and legitimising the person for where they are - what we think of that place or that goal is totally irrelevant to the coaching process.

(C) Aboodi Shabi - 2005