Learning to Work with your Inner Coach

A recent setback on an overseas trip reminded me of the power of applying coaching principles and tools to my inner dialog

Baegyangsa Buddhist Temple, South Jeolla Province (Photo credit: Josh Chernoff)

I am breaking with my custom of focusing on my clients and instead will describe an experience I recently had on a trip with my wife, Julie. For context, we had long-planned a trip to Korea with a group that orchestrates wonderful deep-dives into the cuisines and cultures of different countries. The tour itself was ten days, and we decided to go four days early to have some time to adjust to the time change, explore Seoul on our own, and reconnect with a Korean friend who lives there. On the morning of Day 3, I went out for a morning run and stepped awkwardly on a small curb within 100 yards of finishing my exercise. I was almost certain that I had broken a bone in my foot, and I limped back to our hotel room to assess the damage.

I was in a panic: how bad was my injury? What impact would this have on my trip? Would I be able to access good healthcare here? A thousand other cascading questions. I decided to be my own coach in this situation, and in the rest of my post, I will explore the nature of coaching in the form of an internal dialog between “Coach-me” and “Client-me.” I will do my best to put the essence of that dialog into words.

Client (in shock, momentarily despondent and weeping): “what a f***ing idiot!”

Coach: “what are the tears and emotion about? How much pain are you in?”

Client: “I’m less in pain and more in shock, actually. If I don’t put weight on the outside of that foot, I don’t have a lot of pain. But my emotions are in overdrive.”

Coach: “What are the emotions about?”

Client: “I’m feeling a whole cascade of things. Self -recrimination (“why did I have to go for a run? Why didn’t I just go to the hotel gym?”). Frustration. Anxiety. Anger. Regret. Disbelief.”

Coach: “Those are all powerful emotions. If you had to boil it down to one emotion, what would it be?”

Client: “Fear. Fear of the health consequences. Fear of ruining the trip for Julie, for myself, and the other people on the tour. We have been planning this for a year or more and now it will be ruined, and I will be responsible.”

Coach: “Where do you feel the fear in your body? Is there a metaphor you can use to describe it?”

Client: “Strangely, I don’t feel it in my foot, where the actual injury is. The fear fills my chest, making it a little hard to breathe. It’s making me sweat, and making my heart race and my blood pressure ramp up. I am definitely in shock, even if I am intellectually aware that I am not in immediate danger. The fear is like a smothering blanket right now.”

Coach: “Can you close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, go to the fear, and lift the blanket off of you?”

Client: “I’ll try. (taking a few deep breaths and beginning to relax). Okay, between Julie and me, we can deal with this.”

Julie called the hotel concierge, explained the situation, and they arranged for an ambulance to retrieve me from my room and take me to a local emergency room. The ER took x-rays and confirmed my suspicions: a broken fifth metatarsal in my left foot, requiring me to be non-weight bearing on that foot for 6+ weeks. Two hours later I was back in the hotel, with a temporary protective boot and crutches. Total bill, including ambulance, treatment, medications, crutches and boot? About $230. Maybe I should do a separate Substack comparing the US and Korean healthcare systems! The internal coaching session resumed.

Coach: “Okay, it seems like the urgent health challenge has been addressed. What’s your plan for what you want to do for the remainder of the trip (the “doing” part), and as importantly, how do you want to show up with Julie and the group (the “being” part)?”

Client: “Well, my usual MO on these culinary trips (this is our sixth such trip) is to be super-active physically in the mornings so that I have a decent appetite for the many things we will be eating each day. Clearly, that is no longer on the table, and I need to reset my expectations. The crutches will work for short distances but they are impractical for longer distances. We will need to work with the hotel and the tour operator to get a wheelchair and to do an assessment of where there will be logistical challenges along our various travels. With the protective boot on, it seems like I can stump around a little for very short distances when it’s absolutely required. There may be activities that are planned for the group that I won’t be able to do. I need to be okay with that.”

Coach: “I sense that your Hyper-achiever Saboteur may be activated by the idea of not being able to do absolutely everything. And your strong value of independence may be challenged by having to accept help from the group. It seems to me that it would be useful for you to get really clear on who you want to be on this trip. What choices will you make?”

Client: “That’s a great prompt. I would benefit from setting some clear intentions. Here is my stab at it. I have some choices to make. The broken foot does not, de facto, ruin the trip. That’s just a perspective, not an objective fact. With Julie’s and the group’s assistance, and with some understanding and grace on my part, I can have a great (albeit different) experience. I can choose to be Eeyore, dwelling on what could have been and beating myself up for the accident and seeking out the negative, or I can be optimistic and open-minded. I want to be gracious and open in accepting the help of others when it’s offered. That will be a good growth exercise for me. I want to be patient when I get frustrated by the little obstacles I will face. I want to be engaged, involved, and fun to be around. I want to experience fully the wide range of activities that are planned. I want to get to know the other people in our group better. Maybe the injury creates a more human context for that. I want to express my gratitude when people help me. I want to learn as much, or more, as I have on the other food tours. I want to find the hidden gifts in these circumstances. I don’t want to dwell on what could have been, and instead enjoy what I am experiencing. I want to listen to my body so that I rest when I need to.”

Coach: “That sounds like a great starting point. How do you want to be held accountable for those aspirations?”

Client: “Come back and talk to me at the end of the trip.”

The tour operator rented me a wheelchair to use as we toured around the country. Everyone in the group went out of their way to make things easier for me - preferred seating on the tour bus and in restaurants, an appropriate pace when we did market tours, help navigating the Seoul subway system in a wheelchair, various logistical accommodations as we visited different locations, and assistance carrying my crutches or pushing my wheelchair when Julie or I got fatigued. Julie went above and beyond, as usual. A thousand small things that added up to something bigger than the sum of the parts. At the end of the tour, I checked in with my coach for accountability.

Coach: “So, how did it go? What was your progress on your intention?”

Client: “I feel really good about the trip and about how I lived my life in a potentially difficult situation. When people offered to help, I accepted the support graciously. When I had to do things differently, I accepted the needed changes and actively sought out the learning that came from those changes. Spending two weeks in a foreign country in a wheelchair was a real eye-opener about access to public and private spaces for people who are not fully-abled. I will take that forward with me in new awareness and empathy. I didn’t try to hide the fact that I was injured and not always feeling great, but I didn’t dwell on it either. I managed to participate in almost all the activities, with the exception of diving for shellfish with the haenyeo (seawomen) of Jeju Island. I rested when I needed to rest. I got to know and enjoy the company of the other tour participants. I tried not to be too big a burden for Julie, although I know her vigilance was cranked up to 11 for the entire trip (often reminding me not to overdo my activities).

Coach: “Did actively setting an intention and making a choice change the experience for you?”

Client: “It did. I was clearer about what I chose and why, and how those choices translated into my everyday activities and interactions with others. It tamped down what could have been a lot of frustrating emotions, and opened me up to experiences and learnings I might have missed otherwise. Even if the trip wasn’t easy, per se, it was fulfilling.”

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In closing, I will share an adage from my coaching certification training at the Co-Active Training Institute that stuck with me: “Coach the person, not the problem.” The underlying logic is that the coach’s role isn’t to help solve a specific issue or roadblock for a client; it is to assist the client in their personal growth such that they are equipped to navigate through the presenting issue and the many challenges that will confront them in their career and personal life. As the client grows, the presenting problem shrinks. This sense of personal growth and capacity-building is one reason I frame most coaching engagements as a finite six-month period. Ideally, at the end of that period, the client has gained enough knowledge that they can more independently guide their actions and their “being” in the workplace and at home, in essence, self-coaching to a more fulfilling life experience.

Question of the week: what is your inner coach asking of you?