Kvelling About Clients

I don’t know what the right word is to explain this feeling but I feel proud of the accomplishments of my clients. When one feels proud of their children, takes pleasure in their accomplishments, there is the perfect Yiddish word – kvell. Just found a good definition on a website called bubbygram.com. Kvell = to burst with pride from the achievements of your loved ones.

That’s how I feel about Anita’s accomplishments. She worked in the academic world for 49 years. She retired a bit over a month ago and she already has two coaching clients! Of course, she’s
also going through all the feelings of the huge change in her life, but courageously moving into her new tomorrow.

This is another way I know the coaching relationship is working. She’s moving forward and I am kvelling!

To Coach a Friend or Not to Coach a Friend?

I have a friend for many years. When I first, formally started my coaching practice, she was one of my first clients. I wasn’t able yet to observe myself in the coaching process enough to be able to evaluate whether our coaching was beneficial to her or not. I just used the “if they still send you a check, it must be working” method of evaluating the results.

A couple of weeks ago she called and said I need your help. I’m overwhelmed and confused about creating my business so I either watch TV or eat to avoid the whole thing. I agreed immediately but we didn’t really lay out what she expected from me and from the coaching itself. The lack of having done that immediately showed up as a problem. She missed an appointment, then had a gas company guy come at the time of the next appt. and was heavy into negativity when we finally spoke on the delayed appointment.

I don’t perceive my job as talking a client out of their negativity. I perceive my job as working with it to change it. Subtle difference but a big difference in results for the client – and results for me. Which leads me to what I experienced that day.

When I hung up from our call I was tired and drained. I thought it was because I didn’t have enough sleep. But several hours later I had my next client appt. and although later in the day, I felt exhilarated and stoked which is how I most often feel after coaching – which I’ve used as an indicator that coaching is a gift of mine. Also, I remember learning from John Gray about a zillion years ago that if a relationship is giving you energy, it’s a good relationship and if it’s taking away energy, there are problems. He was referring to intimate relationships but what’s more intimate than a relationship between a coach and a client?

So back to my question: to coach a friend or not to coach a friend? I still don’t know if it’ll work in this case but I have begun to remedy the situation by requesting my friend to please write down her expectations of me and of our coaching. We will speak about it next week and we’ll see where we end up.

Lesson learned: friend or not, expectations of the results of coaching need to be laid out in advance.