Activity based

# Chapter 234

Coaching is activity-based. - Masterminds

The ability to accept input is not just sitting in a kumbaya circle and hearing the wisdom of the elders. It is usually practical and applicable in real life right this very moment. Yes there is often wisdom involved, but take the illustration of my grandsons and you will see that coaching is activity-based.

I like a fire in the evenings. My grandsons, especially the two youngest ones are often here in the evenings and that is fire time. Fires are hot. Fires can be dangerous. Fires can be lots of fun. So the youngest grandson is very coachable and fire doesn’t tempt him to do anything foolish because, like I said he is very coachable. His brother, not as much so.

This grandson is less coachable, and consequently he gets too close to the fire. Though the other night, I got some coaching assistance from the fire itself, as I was telling Brooks to move back away from the fireplace, one of the logs in there gave a tremendous CRACK as it exploded open from the heat. THAT got the grandson moving! But fear is a poor motivator in coaching and most other things. The ability to accept input is the key. When my oldest grandson visited us in Eastern Europe several years ago, he and I went hiking up the tall mountain that covers the city from the South. He grew weary of both my pace (slow) and my lead (surely in the wrong direction even though I lived there) so I let him lead. We did eventually reach the summit, although it took us an additional hour. He was happy for me to lead us down because there was pizza waiting at the bottom, and he was hungry and grudgingly admitted that I knew the path far better than he did. Coaching is activity based.