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Know-It-All Stages of Life

Recently I attended the International Coach Federation (ICF) conference in Orlando. This annual event attracted 875 business and professional coaches from around the world this year. I enjoyed attending workshops and meeting coaches with special niches from serving rap groups to corporate big wigs. Intriguing conversations took place between meetings, over breakfast and even standing in line waiting for bathroom facilities!

By the gala Saturday evening banquet, I was riding high. The food was great, the music high stepping and the conversation around the table stimulating. As I made my way to the rest room with a group of people from my table, I was called over to visit with several people sitting nearly against one of the exit doors. One of the women at this table was someone I had invited to the conference. Janice had worked for a time at the company I worked. While we had met only once or twice before, we had a colleague in common and had stayed in touch over the years via phone and email. Janice had invited two of her friends to this conference. One, Sally, I had met over dinner the first night of the meeting. The other, Grace, had spent a good part of the long weekend in her room, so I hadn't interacted with her very much.

At this point, Janice was asking me, "So, how have you liked the conference?" I responded that I liked it very much, as I had the conference the year before. Janice and Sally both chimed in that they were very disappointed in the event. It had not been what they had expected. They wondered, "Melanie, you're a smart person. How could you like this conference that included so many workshops that seem so basic?"

I was so taken aback that it took me a chance to catch my breath. I thought a few minutes before responding. I didn't want to come across defensive. It also occurred to me that I felt somewhat responsible since I was the one who had invited Janice in the first place.

I told Janice that I try to take a "beginner's mind" no matter where I go. I figure there is always something to learn. I also babbled on that I find it difficult to criticize. As an English major this was an encumbrance because I mostly looked for what I liked in a piece of literature.

Janice and Sally said that they were expecting a more traditional conference where papers would be delivered and defended such as at the American Psychological Association. It was understandable I imagine that an expectation of such an academic conference would have lead to disappointment of a conference that was more hands on. The women were also turned off by all the hugging that went on. I told them I rather liked that aspect of the conference and that I saw these people as "my tribe!"

I said good-bye to the women and walked back to my table, almost in a daze. I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. Of course I shared this experience with the people sitting near me at my table.

I then remembered an incident in my life some 19 years earlier when my husband and I attended a Catholic Marriage Encounter weekend in St. Louis. Even though we weren't Catholic, our friends who were urged us to participate in this program that had had a positive impact on their marriage.

My husband, Gary, was usually game for these things. He had purposely joined a mainly Catholic fraternity in college to see what it was like to mingle with people who were very different from him. Whenever we go to a new restaurant he asks the waiter or waitress, "What is the most exotic thing you have on the menu?" He likes to put himself in unusual circumstances. I guess I do too or I wouldn't have married him in the first place!

In preparation for the Marriage Encounter weekend, we were told that the presenters would not be professional speakers. The Priest and the couples leading the program would be reading their notes aloud to the group. I accepted this as a reality we would have to put up with. But Friday night when we sat listening to the speakers I wondered how I would ever make it all the way to Sunday afternoon. As I sat there (five months pregnant) I was totally bored, thinking, "I know all this!" Well I was entirely wrong! Somewhere on Saturday morning I realized there was a lot more for me to learn. As a matter of fact, I remember having a realization that life consists of a series of "Know-it-All Stages" that we break through from time to time. I had just broken through one of my know-it-all stages and was much more the wiser for it. This revelation was perhaps the most profound learning I took away from this weekend. And the significance of this learning has stayed with me these many years since!

Ironically enough, the keynote speaker at the ICF conference this year was Tim Gallwey. For whatever reasons, Janice and her friends hadn't attended his presentation. I wonder if they had whether their opinion of the program would have been different. Gallwey practically invented coaching on the tennis court some 25 years ago as he stumbled on the understanding that his students learned best the less he interfered with their natural ability to play the game.

Instead of telling people, "Hold your racket here; put your feet there," Gallwey discovered that if he asked his students to focus on the seams of the tennis ball or how their feet felt, they played a much better game of tennis. He demonstrated this approach in a pre-conference workshop out on the tennis court where he showed how novices could become fairly decent tennis players in as little as 20 minutes if they were coached through the process using his methods. The simplicity and effectiveness of his coaching was truly amazing.

Gallwey is a lifelong learner. He reports today that while he once thought he knew a lot about coaching, the more he learns the more he realizes he has more to learn. While he might have once thought of his knowledge and ability as a coach as an eight on a scale of ten, today he sees his number as a two! He approaches he learning with a sincere amount of humility. This is impressive coming from a man who does truly have a gift of coaching.

I had been drawn to hearing Gallwey speak at this conference in part from reading his books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf as well as from listening to a tape of his speaking before another audience some 15 or 20 years ago. On the tape he related an incident in his dentist's office where he had visited to have a tooth filled. As the dentist was finishing up in his mouth that day Gallwey asked him, "Learn anything in there?" The dentist responded with, "Heck no. I'm an accomplished dentist. I know what I have to know about dentistry!"

Little did Gallwey's dentist know that that would be his last visit. Anyone who didn't have more to learn was not a dentist Gallwey wanted fiddling around in his mouth. To me it sounded like his dentist had truly reached a "know-it-all stage" in his life which he was not willing (at that time) to break through. I was so impressed with this example of wanting to be a life-long learner that it had stuck with me over the years and I had found myself relating it to many people along the way.

So the question is, "Are you stuck in a know-it-all stage of life?" Or are you willing to take a beginner's stance and consider as one book title put it - that even a rock can be a teacher? And if you are in a know-it-all stage of life, how do you know it? How do you break through it? And are you willing to break through it?

While I came home from the ICF conference with many valuable treasures, among the most profound learning for me this year was the reminder of the danger of reaching a know-it-all stage. I truly have Janice and her friends to thank for this reinforcement!

Coaching Bookshelf

The Inner Game of Golf by Tim Gallwey
Teaches the concept that what occurs on the golf course or within the game of life for that matter rests on the game that is occurring within the player's mind.

The Inner Game of Work by Tim Gallwey
A long awaited sequel to Tim's other books to be published in January 2000.

Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life by Laura Whitworth, Henry House and Phil Sandahl
An overview of the model of coaching used by one of the foremost coach training schools.

The Portable Coach: 28 Surefire Strategies for Business and Personal Success by Thomas J. Leonard
A strategy for making your life more effective from the founder of Coach University.

Take Yourself to the Top: Secrets of America's #1 Career Coach by Laura Berman Fortgang
Offers a variety of exercises to help you identify obstacles to reaching your goals and challenges to leaping out of a midcareer rut.

Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore
A practical manual for understanding the basics of coaching and instituting a program to reach potential.

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Copyright Melanie Keveles & Starting Fresh Coaching. Used with permission.

Melanie Keveles helps people live their dreams instead of dreaming of living. Do you have a secret dream that you yearn to make real? Discover how Melanie has helped others achieve success, change their careers, and rediscover joy. Visit her website at www.startingfreshcoaching.com