Be quiet for a minute. What do you hear? Listen closely.
Now do me a favor, scroll down to the comments, and enter whether you heard any music, and if you did, what kind of music it was. Think of this as a grand social media experiment!
The music might be loud and in the room with you, coming through your tv/phone, or faintly humming in the background. Maybe it’s wafting through your window, like church bells ringing in a distant part of your town.
Music is everywhere. Think about all the places music sneaks into your life. Here’s just a few: – The high school marching band in our suburb practices at all hours of the day and night. Probably your town too. (Football season is right around the corner, after all…) – When you step into a restaurant or coffee place, there’s music on.
– The worship center at church comes to life when the music starts.
– The significant parts of a movie or tv show are always enhanced by music.
– When was the last time you drove any where without the radio on?
Music is so common however, that we often take it for granted. We don’t even always notice it. For a significant portion of every day, music is playing around us. How much do we actually hear? (BTW…that’s a pretty good question to ask when you’re evaluating your coaching as well…)
If we pay attention to the music around us, pretty soon we start hearing things that we missed before. Maybe a jazz standard stands out over lunch… Or a guitar riff takes your worship to a new level… Or the sound of a certain singer’s voice brings an emotion right to the surface for you.
Learning to tune in to the music around us opens us up to a whole new world of thoughts, feelings, ideas and relationships.
It’s funny when you start taking music lessons: you hear things that you’ve never heard before. You can identify the french horn in the soundtrack of your favorite TV show or you can pick out the 7th chord the blues man is playing. Your ear gets trained. You become aware.
I want to suggest to you that, like music, coaching touches everything. When you lead with questions or let your lifestyle be informed by coaching, you become aware of a whole new world: a world where you build relationships by design, invest in the people around you, add beauty, meaning and experience to your life and the lives of the people around you, and help others accomplish their dreams.
The crazy thing is, unless you’re a trained coach, coaching might happen without you even knowing it. And that’s ok.
I think it’s ok there are people who are committed to calling the best out of you. I think it’s ok there are people who want to ask you a question that no one else will ask. I think it’s ok there are people who want to help you find your next step and to accomplish it. I think it’s ok there are people who want to focus all their energy and attention on you and what you’re working toward. I think it’s ok there are people who invest energy and effort in connecting with you.
I even think it’s ok that you might not know they’re doing these things, because they’re truly after what’s best for you and believe you can identify what’s best for them more effectively that anyone else can.
These people are called coaches.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if more people committed to this lifestyle informed by coaching? Questions, generosity toward the other person, and helpful accountability would set the stage for a different way to live.
How can you become more aware of coaching around you? I’d love to hear where you are learning to watch for coaching in the space below. (And of course, please add in the kind of music you’re hearing–or listening to–right now!)