Own your observations

When listening goes too far

It’s telling that I’m only writing about this now, 138 newsletters in.

I’ve basically been on my soapbox these past 137 editions about the importance of learning communication skills: listening, holding space, staying present without interfering.

Not just for professional coaches, but for anybody who ever deals with other humans (and cares about healthy and meaningful relationships).

I’ve hammered this home in no uncertain terms: “These skills should be in schools.” I say. “Writing, math, listening. And then everything else.”

But even something powerful and necessary can lose its effectiveness when misunderstood. And this newsletter is about that.

The first swing

Before coach training, I thought coaching was basically expert advice-giving. You help people by sharing your experience, knowledge, and suggest what you think they should do.

I wasn’t the only one. It seemed like most of my peers showed up thinking coaching was about giving advice. But very early in the program, it started to dawn on us just how far off we were.

That’s not what coaching is at all. It’s not about directing, steering, or instructing. It’s about listening, staying out of the way, and giving people space to think. And when I saw the power of it, I latched on hard.

Like most people in my cohort, I overcorrected. The pendulum swung too far. I stopped offering input, practiced being silent, and tried to be as non-interfering as possible. I taught myself to suppress my natural responses: my curiosity, my hunches, my urge to speak up.

I didn’t expect that total neutrality would come at a cost.

When the coach disappears

My coaching conversations weren’t going well.

Even though I had seen my mentor coaches do this new and powerful thing called listening, and I’d even felt the occasional glimpse in my own practice conversations, it wasn’t working at all for me yet.

It often felt like I couldn’t connect to the person across from me.

I was doing everything I’d been taught. I held back, listened, and gave space. But the conversations felt babbly: a lot of words, not much depth.

The person in front of me would talk, but nothing seemed to shift. I couldn’t feel them moving. I was noticing things, patterns, hesitations, moments that felt charged, but I wasn’t doing anything with them. I held back, thinking that was the right thing to do.

I was just beginning to sense I wasn’t showing up as myself. I’d made myself so neutral, I’d stopped being useful. I wasn’t really there.

Swinging back as myself

That’s when I chose to swing back.

I needed to make myself felt again. Not by leading or steering, but by responding to what I noticed and letting that show. So the other person had something real to push against, something that could help them clarify, shift, or move forward.

That meant letting go of the training wheels and figuring out how to coach, not as a student, but as myself.

I won’t say it wasn’t scary to leave the safety of my mentors, their examples, and the comfort of doing it “by the book”.

But I felt I had to, because it was clear the conversation needed more than space. It needed someone there.

Own what you see

It wasn’t enough to make space and learn to listen. I had to step into it myself.

That meant showing up as a real person in the conversation, not by directing or advising, but by owning what I noticed and offering it back honestly. Not as fact, but as something the other person can engage with and respond to.

If you hold back what you see, the conversation becomes emotionally thin and you become hard to connect to.

Learning to listen is essential. For everybody. But it’s not the whole picture.

At some point, you also have to show up. Not as an expert. Not as a fixer of lives. But as a real human, with a backbone, who’s willing to reflect what feels true.

That’s how you connect in coaching, and in any conversation.