As Coaches, We Have the Clients We Need!

How our coaching clients (or teams, if we are leaders; kids if we are parents; other half, if we are in a romantic relationship) are becoming mirrors where we can see what we most fear facing.

Before you jump into this week’s article, I’m happy to share we only have 6 places left for the next group of coaches in our Foundation Diploma in Developmental Coaching in July 2024. The early bird ends on the 30th of May. If you have been considering training as a (vertically) developmental coach and getting your first ICF credential, check out the Program Page for details and reach out for an admission interview.

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A long time ago, one of my first coaching mentors said to us:

“You have the clients you deserve!”

That statement struck me as harsh and almost ominous. Over the years I’ve come to believe it was true and, to take the ominousness out of it, I rephrased it slightly:

“You have the clients you need so you can grow”.

This has become a mantra that guides the way I make sense of coaching and also guides me as I teach and mentor coaches. But what does it really mean?

I’ve noticed early on that the topics clients brought to coaching were often ones I was struggling with myself. And we’re not talking about universal topics that anybody could relate with at any time - like one might feel when they read their horoscope - something always rings ‘true’. We’re talking about very specific things that come up in coaching conversations at very specific times.

At a time in my entrepreneurial journey when I was confused and anxious about the direction I wanted to take my business, I had a coaching client who was a serial entrepreneur and wanted to work through his powerful anxiety about where next to take his company. Or the time when - right as I struggled terribly with mother guilt from feeling exhausted and short-tempered with my daughter while spending too little time with her and too much time working and finalising my PhD - I had a coaching client who snapped (right in front of me) at her daughter who interrupted our Zoom coaching conversation just as the mother was sharing how overworked she was and how exhausted she felt. Or this week, when I explored with a client her penchant for taking on all the burdens and chores of people in her life right after having had a conversation with my husband about my habit of unnecessarily ‘reminding’ him of house chores he committed he would do (and was on the track of doing) but I somehow still could not seem to let go feeling responsible for.

I have been observing these wonderful and mysterious synchronicities in my practice for as long as I have been a coach. But this mirroring is not just about the topics that clients bring to coaching. It is also in how my clients engage with me in ways that seem to illuminate whatever blind spot in my own development I might have at that precise moment.

It shows up as the client who speaks so fast that I feel my head spinning and seems to always be in a rush to get somewhere and makes me realise I too have been in a huge rush for weeks, without stopping to reflect or breathe. It shows up as the client who overanalyses and puts me face to face with my own patterns of rumination. It shows up as the client who takes on her shoulders the suffering of the world and confronts me with my own tendency to confuse empathy with compassion and over-empathise to the point of exhaustion.

I notice this phenomenon at play beyond coaching. I work with leaders who feel incredibly challenged by people in their teams who often force them to face their own ignored and under-examined patterns. The workaholic leader hovering on the brink of burnout, who railed against a team member whom he had labelled as ‘lazy’ because he would never do overtime or answer emails after hours. The introverted leader who struggles with social interactions and feels triggered by one of their hyper-social, always chatty team members. The tough, hyper-rational leader who is annoyed at an overly empathic team member who cries easily and also loves spending time listening to others’ problems, when the leader wishes they could all just ‘get on with it’.

I also notice this phenomenon in the realm of parenting and education. The strict parent - a stickler for the rules - who has the most rebellious child, who breaks all the rules. The perfectionistic teacher who has a hard time connecting with THAT student, who always seems to make and repeat all the mistakes.

The people we coach, lead, raise or love seem to always push our buttons in very powerful ways.

There’s probably no need to even start writing about the people who raised us and how they can impact us! You might have heard the saying:

“If you want to see how well your therapy is working, go spend a weekend with your parents!”

I’m lucky to have an amazing, loving dad, whom I adore, and yet there is no other human in this world who can get on my nerves as fast as he does. 99% of the time it’s because he offers unsolicited help or advice, wants to be right or to have the last word - annoying habits that I too find myself caught up in with my own child more often than I would like. Just to reinforce that point, my daughter coined the nickname ‘Miss BossyBoots” for that version of me which shows up on days when I’m low on energy and patience and haven’t taken the time to check in with myself.

It took me many years to realise my ‘wrestle’ with my dad’s behaviours was in fact just me avoiding facing that I was behaving in the same way towards other people in my life. Rather than self-reflect on my own ‘saviour’ or ‘controller’ patterns and face all the painful emotions of shame and guilt that would come with that, it was much easier to ignore those unwanted traits in me and judge them in my father instead.

These are simple examples of what Carl Jung called ‘the shadow’ - the phenomenon by which we reject, ignore or deny certain aspects of ourselves (usually ones we are not proud of or which don’t fit our vision of our ‘ideal’ self) and instead project them as anger, frustration or judgement against other people. As we grow through the stages of vertical development, we become more and more capable of facing and owning our own shadow and the more we do that, the less likely we are to be triggered and over-reactive when seeing those same traits in others.

I believe that the invitation towards shadow work is very much at the core of “You have the coaching clients you need”. It seems that whatever we have not faced in ourselves, our clients are bound to bring up through this incredibly subtle and (most of the time) unconscious process.

Over time I’ve made a mantra out of “You have the [fill in the blanks here] that you need”. I find that choosing to regard those around me as mirrors and cultivating the courage to look in those mirrors especially when my impulse is to break the mirror, rather than face it - is one of the most life-changing practices I have ever come across. It has made me a better coach, but it’s also made me a better mother, wife, friend and all-around human being - not because I no longer have rough edges and flaws, but because I’m much more aware of them and willing to see them and learn from them when they do show up.

I am always inviting the coaches I teach and mentor into this practice from our first day together and, while some of them are sceptical at first, they soon start seeing those mirrors in every coaching interaction. The growth that comes from choosing to look in that mirror becomes an incredible gift, well worth the discomfort of facing what you would rather not see. The discomfort never seems to go away, however much we practice - I’ve come to think of it as the fair price to pay for wisdom.

So I’d love to know what you you think about “We have the clients/team/kids/partners/parents/friends we need?”. Where might you see this as being true in your own lives and what have you learnt from being triggered and looking into that precious mirror?

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this article. If you are curious to dive more deeply into learning about Vertical Development and how it might impact your work and life, check out our online library of webinars and certification programs accredited by the International Coaching Federation.

If you are seeking to train as a developmental coach and get your first ICF credential, admissions are now open for the next group of our ICF Level 1 Foundation Diploma in Developmental Coaching starting in July, with early bird ending on the 30th of May. Check out the Program Page for details and reach out for an interview.

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