Operate, Test, and Adjust: Coaching as a Dance

First: This is incredibly human.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re good enough, feared not being able to help, or felt pressure to deliver a result… you’re not alone. These are deeply human experiences. They don’t make you a bad coach—they just make you a person doing work that matters to you. That in itself is a good sign.

Second: We don’t get to control complex systems.
This is a foundational distinction for me. There are two types of systems in the world:
• Complicated systems, like machines, where all the parts and dependencies are knowable and can be managed.
• Complex systems, like people, where many of the interdependencies are unknown and even unknowable.
Coaching lives in the domain of complex systems. We cannot predict what will happen. We cannot control it. What we can do is bring curiosity, responsiveness, presence, and creativity to the moment—and see what emerges.

Third: You’re not the agent of change.
You’re the catalyst. One of the most liberating frames I’ve ever adopted is that I am not the one who “makes” change happen. I don’t “fix” the client. I don’t “make” them change. That’s not my job—and it never was. Instead, I see myself as a catalyst—a participant in a co-creative flow. My job is to create conditions that support the client’s own generative intelligence—the deep inner faculty that actually does the learning, shifting, adapting. That creative intelligence lives in every client. It built their language. It built their identity. It knows how to build new responses. And our job is to help it come back online.

Fourth: Let go of outcome pressure.
There is no universal law that says, “You must get a result in every session.” That’s not how change work works. That’s not how life works. When we take excess responsibility for outcomes, we place ourselves in a trance—a controlling trance. And ironically, we do our worst work from that place. The more we can unhook from needing to “get it right,” the more creative, present, and effective we become. Instead of pressure, choose curiosity. Instead of control, choose participation. Instead of needing to prove something, choose to play.

Fifth: If this is something you struggle with—beautiful.
This is part of the work. This is part of the unfolding. You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re just walking a path that includes unwinding old conditioning, unhooking identity from performance, and coming back into relationship with the deeper intelligence in you and in your client. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to know everything. You don’t even have to feel confident. But you do get to keep showing up. You do get to bring presence, curiosity, and care. And you do get to let this work change you as you offer it to others.