Why Coaching?
Here I unpack a little of my story to help you understand why I do coaching. In doing so, I'm hoping you might find some inspiration on your journey to be coached. Curious..?
Many years ago someone asked me one of those vocational questions, and I answered suprisingly quickly: “If I could encourage people for a living, I would!” Now while that’s a lovely idea, finding practical application in the world of work has eluded me for some time.
Fast forward a couple of decades, in reading Gary R. Collins book on coaching I might just have found that answer.
WHY COACHING?
Giving God glory in conversation
Many years ago I answered a somewhat-random vocational question with the phrase “if I could encourage people for a living, I would!” but finding practical application in the world of work has eluded me for some time.
Having grown up in a community of faith, I always sought to find ways express that faith “in the real world” but my actual work has mostly taken advantage of my technical skill sets – 3D modelling, CAD drafting and BIM work for civil and structural engineering.
25 Years into that career, and after running my own 3D Data Modelling business for a decade, I thought I would go back to employment and do some part-time theological study, and now I find myself nearly 35 years into that engineering career, with a Graduate Diploma in Theology, and still pondering my answer to that vocational question. For the last couple of years, however, some ideas have begun to collide.
Gary R. Collins in his book, Christian Coaching, suggested that the coaches might be able to help their clients understand their personal shape by looking back and asking “what were the moments of your life where you felt most alive?”
As I considered that question, I had the most intriguing recollection… in that a bunch of memories that I held dear… what I call ‘God moments’ in my journey… were actually all conversations! This then lead me to another memory, this time of something I’d written down after just one of these moments:
“So often we give glory to God in music, arts, creation, and prayer. The place I think we need to give God glory more often is conversation."
Kent Langdon
ENGINEERING MODELLER, MUSICIAN, AND COACH... AND I DO LOVE A BIT WRITING, TOO.
“So often we give glory to God in music, arts, creation, and prayer. The place I think we need to give God glory more often is conversation."
- Kent Langdon, London, 2001.
Recognition.
The recognition that many of my “most alive” moments were conversations was a pretty remarkable realisation to a person who was just about to set out on a journey of coaching, because coaching is conversation.
I see those “alive moments” are times when we’ve wrestled with the most important and meaningful areas of our lives. They might be about faith, relationships, work process or creative purpose. But they are all things that matter.
The other critical factor in the practice of coaching was that it didn’t rely on my knowledge or experience, and it doesn’t really need years of relationship building… It was simply two people being intentional and using the careful process of considered conversation to bring discovery, insight and change.
In Coaching, the foundational premise is that you have the experience, the values, the passions, to shape your journey forward. It just might take conversation to help you take that next step.
I see coaching as an opportunity to encourage, not by what I know or what I teach, but in seeing in you and in your journey, God’s fingerprints. I seek to honour the design and value He has placed in you. And I see the chance to have a conversation to help you come alive.
I'm Kent Langdon - how can we get this conversation working?
Kent Langdon
COACHING FOR THE LIFE YOU LIVE EVERY SINGLE DAY