4: Turning the Mirror on Ourselves as Coaches

We believe that Rumi’s quote has important implications for the coaching profession. As coaches, we need to reflect and model that which we encourage in our clients. An important part of this modeling involves our willingness to periodically hold a reflective mirror up to ourselves, to engage in the kind of perceptual openness and personal risk taking that is a necessary prerequisite for transformational learning.

The fact is that, whether we like it or not, our clients hold us up as models who have been brave enough to venture further down this path of self-discovery. What we do, how we act, and our use of self in our coaching engagements set a level for what our clients can hope to achieve. The second part of Rumi’s quote, that speaks to the “hundred ways” is also important, since it reminds us to honor the many different paths that individuals might travel in their journeys to self-discovery. When we are mindful of this concept we stop assuming that transformational learning must follow a given sequential path.