Coaching is all about listening. To listen well, the coach has to be fully available. Full availability requires mental and physical space: being in the right place inside and outside.
As a global leader, I have done most of my coaching on the phone. Although face-to-face sessions have always been appreciated, they have rarely been possible. As a result, I had to find a place which helps me to be totally peaceful and connected to the person on the phone. Clearly, it could not be my home with my kids entering and leaving the place, often playing and sometimes fighting. It could not be the office either as the matter discussed could be personal and not to be exposed in the open-space.
The answer was not very far from home... only a few hundred meters from my backyard on the boarder between France and Switzerland. There is nothing more calming and elating for me than sitting on a bench in the middle of the country side, on a beautiful morning, in front of a vineyard, with a beautiful view on the Jura and a coffee mug in my hand... ready for my first coaching call to begin...
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