Integrating the Paradoxes within Coaching with Heru Yuwono

Hello, my name is Tracy Sinclair and welcome to Coaching in Conversation, the Mastery Series. This series of conversations explored. As the concept of mastery in coaching, and I have the great pleasure of talking with several ICF Master Certified Coaches from around the world to understand what mastery really means to them, both as coaching practitioners and also as human beings. We explore many different perspectives and nuances of this topic, and I hope it is of use and interest to you as you continue to navigate your own pathway of development. Hello and welcome again to another episode of Coaching in Conversation. This time I am joined by a gentleman called Heru, who is based in Indonesia, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to him about mastery as part of our Mastery series. Heru is a triple masters, so he has the MCC Master Certified Coach with the ICF. He's also a master practitioner with the EMCC. And a master executive coach with the AC, and he is the founder of the CO-ME Coaching and Mentoring Institute. He's also an executive coach, leadership coach, a mentor and a facilitator, and Heru found himself having a wonderful new segue in his life after 20 years in the corporate environment. And coaching came into his world and he took that pathway, and here we are and he'll tell you a little bit more about that in the podcast. There are many, many titles that this podcast could have because I really feel as though the conversation with Heru just covered so many interesting elements. But the title that I have landed with, which I hope you will enjoy. Is this episode is called Integrating the Paradoxes of Coaching. I hope you enjoy. Well, I would say good morning, Heru, it's probably good afternoon for you joining me today from from Indonesia. I am so happy to have this opportunity to talk to you today. So thank you very, very much for coming and spending this time with me. Well, Tracy. I thank you, the honor is mine to know you and to be working with you collaborating so far. So thank you for this opportunity. Wow. You are very welcome. You know, you know, the feeling is reciprocated, so I love Yes, indeed. I love the conversations that we have and the work that we are doing. So well, today we are here to explore the topic of mastery. Mm-hmm. And I would, I would love to hear some of your perspectives. Maybe starting with what just the term mastery means for you, regardless of whether it's in coaching or anything else, what does, what does the word mastery mean for you? Well, may I share my preference? Please do. I am. I have no objection. We do what Mastery, however, if I may choose, I prefer to use maturity, actually. That's why I like your book Becoming a Coach it's really good book. So you mentioned about a journey to maturity. Maybe I have three personal reasons. So this is maybe very personal. Number one sounds to me maturity is more like a process, not just a destination. Number two, maturity is something, not just our doing, but also our being inside us. And number three, I think when we are mature, I think the benefit is not only for us, but only for other people. Mm. Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you for bringing that in because. As you know, that's a term that we have used in the book, and I completely agree with you. I love what you're saying there about maturity being a process, a pathway, a journey rather than a destination, which of course, I suppose when we are trying to apply that to. Something like coaching. We see various credentials as destinations, potentially. Yes, yes. And yet there's something very important I think here about that distinction between this is a process, not an end point. Correct. So I hope you get me right. So I totally agree with how, like, of course the ICF, we were both, we are both in ICF. They give the stages in a way ACC, PCC and MCC. Of course we need to have that cause we need some standardization, some indicators, some measurement. However, I think at the end of the day, to me it is, it is the process. It is inside us. And maybe more important word for, is it for our own glory or is it. We can use that level of maturity or mastery, let's say, or mcc, whatever, to the benefit of others. I think that's, that's more important to me. So not just, yes, I achieved this, this, this milestone I achieved this mastery level, which is good, of course. But then the next question is, what for. Mm mm Yeah, I'd love to explore this a little bit more with you. Her, or you said something really interesting to me there. You said, you said it's a process, it's inside a bus. Yes. And then you said and and what for, I'd love to invite you to say a little bit more about it's inside of us and then we can also look at the more about the what's for, but. Please if you would, about that. It's inside of us. You know, I, can I go back a little bit about the story or maybe the history? I'm, I'm into coaching cause Of course, yeah. And I think, you know me so people can find me on LinkedIn as well. I was working in a corporate for more than two decades. And I have no dream, no idea that one day I will become a coach. So, but then something happened, I took a early retirement from my corporate career and I went into the codes 2011 about that. And moola now I'm coach, yeah. With the Triple Master MCC from ICF. My learning is, well, the competency, the behavior, the doing is no doubt is very important, but I think something inside us, the being, I think that is some. Inside some learning that I found during my journey as a coach. So actually I really like one of my colleagues when he share about his MCC journey to my alumni, my students. He mentioned something very interesting. Can I, can I share here because I, I really like, is it like this coaching transforms the clients? Yes, we all agree. But then he said, Homa and the coats. And then I think when I reflect back, yes, actually when we learn to become a professional coach. To become a master coach or maturity in coaching, yes, of course we give value to other people, transform their life and make them better explore their potential, the clients. I mean, but at the same time, actually, we also grow, we also being transformed. Mm. So I think that's, so the coaching become, I think I, I borrow from myself, embodied the coaching mindset is become embodied. The coaching mindset is the, our, one of our competencies isn't it? Yeah. So there's something inside us. Yeah. I love this and you know that I completely align with your philosophy on this, around the being and the mindset and practitioners. Yeah. You know how when we are learning a skill, we can get very easily caught up, I think in what do I need to do next? What? What do I need? How do I get better and correct? How do I do this? How do I do that? We can get focused, can't we? On the behavioral skill, the technical enhancement of our skill. What, what advice or guidance would you offer to people who are thinking, okay, I get this, I have to go within myself, I have to tap into something in myself, but how do I do that? And so I'm just wondering for you, how did you become aware or what was it that you started to notice that helped you to have this realization that your mindset and. Your own being is really important here. How did you learn that? Okay. Again, can I answer in three aspects Tracy, and after this maybe I can ask you to share your opinion as well, because this is very interesting. Number one, how to get that number one practically fine. Someone that can help us. So when I say this, like go into the right person, find the right program, learn the right materials, that when I say right is professional codes, like agreed by ICF. So things like that. So, because when I flash back, when I started my coaching journey, I have. Misunderstanding about coaching. So I thought I knew coaching, but actually no I didn't. So need to find someone or something that can help us. That's practically number two. Philosophically, I think it's our will to coaching mindset to, so something is about inside us. I think it's very important because becoming a coach, again, I like your title, the title of your book, becoming a Coach. It's not just doing or behaving, but it's becoming a coach. That's number two and number three. Now, I go a bit long if you, if I may. Mm. Lately I'm interested to learn, hey, there is a paradox. There are paradoxes in coaching. So when you say we need to have a behavioral skills, yes, it's the doing, but also the being is also very important. So this is a paradox. Two things that looks like contradictory, but actually they are synergy and we need both. So, Let's say art and science. Again, I use the name of your program. I like that. I think we found both in coaching, art, and science. And of course if we go a little bit deeper into the coaching competency, we found something like being, giving trust and safety, but also we need to provoke the client, isn't it So? The competency says like trust and safety competency for, but also we need to provoking awareness. So I mean, in a simple word in my simple English language from forting and confronting, those are paradox to me. And I think, oh, this is, I learned. Yeah. So rather than we conflicting those two. Two factors, two aspect. If we can embrace them, make them synergy, I think it's going to be a more effective and more powerful. What is your take on this, Tracy? Well, I mean, I think it's would be very, very difficult for you and I to disagree on very much actually, because I'm so with your thinking, what you are describing is making me remember something or connect something that is really core to my own personal inquiry at the moment, but Please share, Tracy., yep. I have two words for it. One is integration and the other one is synthesis, which we could ask was similar. Yeah. And this, what you've just shared very much speaks to that for me is. As you have described, quite rightly within the competencies, we can see a number of paradoxes, or we might even say contradictions at times. Yeah. You know, we have to comfort, but we also have to challenge, and when I'm working with coaches in a training context who are learning, sometimes those paradoxes can be. Awkward or difficult to to understand. Cause I get many questions as I'm sure you might do, is, well, I'm being asked to do this, but then I've also got to do the opposite and do something else. And that can create confusion, can't it? While we are still learning the, the skills, and yet what I'm hearing you say is that it's not either this or that. It's correct. It's, and yeah, it's both. And that takes me to this idea of integration and synthesis, which Has been core, actually to my own development in the last few years. Not just in my coaching practice, but actually in life of how do I integrate the various elements of my life, how do I synthesize the various roles that I play, the various things that are important to me into something that is whole. That is then. You know, an integrated whole, and it's, it's sounding very similar to what you are describing in a coaching setting. How does that, how does that resonate with you? Can I integrate our, our sharing? So maybe the sentence will be like this, integrating or synthesizing para boxes makes our coaching more effective. I love that. I love that. Maybe that's what I'll call this podcast, integrating the paradox. Something like that. I love that. Yeah. Integrating paradoxes. That's one of the, if you like to say, one of the key to my mastery in, so that, you know, I mean that's, that's wonderful to me. That's just such a lovely way to try to articulate some of, yeah, because quite often, the so-called mastery or maturity as we're talking about Yeah. Is quite difficult to, to pin down, isn't it? Yeah. So we've got something there that feels really important, but could you say a little bit more also, Heru, about this idea of what is it for? We've said it's process. We've said it comes, there's something inside of us. And then you said what for, and you've talked about the transformation of the coach and the client. Correct? Can I, I like the quote from Sir Edmond Hillary. You know the gentleman that, yeah. The first person who reads the pick of mon, isn't it? I believe you know that name. Yep, I do. And of course there are many lessons you can find YouTube or Google, but I like to, of these quotes, number one, it is not the mountain we concur but ourselves. This is also one of the keys in, into maturity or into mastery. So when I see this, actually, it's not just I want to reach a ACC, PCC, MCC I think it's how we concur ourself because the mountain is there, the ACC, PCC, MCC is there already. How we concur ourself to reach that. That's, I understand that. And number two, the quote is also, the second quote is very inspiring for me. He said, sir, at Mount Hillary, human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain. So if I translate it how I make use this capability for the humanity, I think it is more important than just getting all the master A, B, C, the triple masters. So this is the word for, and now when I see my, my role, I really like coaching role because in coaching we are not on the spotlight, isn't it? It's the client in the spotlight. We are facilitating. We are partnering, we are partnering with the client to make the client a better person. Mm-hmm. So I see myself. Well, I like Sir Edmond Hillary so much, but I see myself not as, not, not look like him. I look like the, the shepa, you remember this, the Shepa Tenzing Norgay I read very interesting short article. It's been told that the 10 signal get the she power of sir being interviewed. Hey shepa. You are the shepa of the hiker, isn't it, Sir Edmond Hillary? Yes. And the Sherpa is walking in front of the hiker, the mountain climber. Yes, I am. So if that's the case, it should be you. The first person who reached the Mount Everest, not Sir Edmond Hillary. And it's been told that Tenzing said, yes indeed. I walk in front of him, but at the last last few steps before the pick, I stop and I give him to go in front to reach the pick first. Mm. I don't know whether it is the true interview or not, but I mean, this is really inspiring. So as a coach, I think I see my role more like a Sherpa. Mm. Let the client become the better, the best version of their life and hopefully they reach their own Everest. Mm. What is your think about that? That's really inspire me. I think this, I love your story there, Heru, and I think both of your quotes really. From Hilary Edmond seemed to underpin this idea of this is a journey. Yeah. This is about the climb, not the arrival necessarily. Right. And, and I guess in a way, this takes me to how I have found my own learning from an MCC perspective. I, I've often said that my journey or my learning started once I'd got the MCC because I started to realize that there is so much more to this development pathway and how the whole point of life in fact is the journey of what am I doing right now today in my life and how is that serving me and others rather than wherever it is I'm trying to head. Something else within One of those quotes that I'd love to ask you about is the first quote of Hillary Edmond, which is around not conquering the mountain, but conquering ourselves. Correct. What does that mean for you in terms of, when he says here, it's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. If you could, I'd love to just hear you say a little bit more about that and how have you perhaps conquered yourself or what is it about yourself that you feel needs to be conquered? Yeah. Again, maybe a tie back with the earlier discussion, conversation we had. Of course, everybody has different meanings, but to me it's like this. Imagine, let's say they use the metaphor of Mount Everest. Mount Everest is there and is not to be conquered. It is the mountain climber who conquered him or herself to enable him or herself to go to reach the summit. I think similarly, like with, let's say MCC, we talking about mastery codes and we have a title, master certified codes in ICF. It's there with all the requirements and everything. It's just we need to equip ourself, we need to concur ourself to enable us to reach that and one. Again, come back to the earlier conversation. We need both the skillset and the mindset. The doing and the being. So I think that's how, let me tell you a little bit story. My mentor, coach for my journey for MCC, I had a very respect, respected mentor codes. And you know what? Quite, quite a lot occasion she mentioned about. What's your mindset or what's your being? Because somehow we can learn the competency, the behavior, skill, the skillset. But then I think at least for me, more challenging is to fine tune the mindset, you know, the being. So that's how I said I need to. Well, maybe the, the word concur, maybe it's a bit too hard, but I need to adjust to fine tune my being aligned with what the coaching mindset is. The being of the goods. Mm. What is your, your view on this three? So, mm. Yeah. I mean, I love this idea of skillset and mindset. Yeah. Doing and the being. And it is actually why as you, you described why I call my coach training the science and the art. Yeah. And I specifically call it science and art before rather than art and science because for me, The science bit comes first. We learn the skillset first. Yep. And from a solid base of that skillset, then we can focus on the artistry. And I interpret that as the artistry is when we start to become more natural, more fluid, but also when we start to focus on our being. I'm doing this with someone else. Correct. We're always focused on our being. And I must just reference the model. How I got this idea about the science and the art was actually from a model of learning and development created by a gentleman called Michael Brenda, who has done a lot of work around adult learning, but also around nonverbal intelligence and how. How our growth is evidenced, to people. So I completely agree with you around this idea of that transition. I really also, Notice that our competence is, especially in embodies a coaching mindset and probably maintains presence as well, helps us to think about things like being comfortable with not knowing correct. Being able to manage and regulate our own emotions. Yeah. Being comfortable and welcoming of pause and silence and time for reflection. So there are, yes. There are indications in there aren't there of this sense of our being. Correct. Yeah. Well, I couldn't agree more. Thanks Tracy for sharing that. So integrating or and synthesizing paradoxes in our coaching any in our life. That's maybe it. Yeah. Well, and it's in our life as well, isn't it? You know? Yeah. I have noticed that since going for my own mentoring back in 2019-2020, when I went for my MCC, it opened up such a rich development pathway for me. That still continues where I'm looking at. This integration of life, not just in coaching. And, and back to your point about conquering ourselves. Yeah, yeah. I noticed that the more I can integrate my broader life, The better I can do that in coaching. I'm not saying the better my coaching is, but because I don't want to kind of get to standards in my mindset there. But yeah, I noticed that I am more grounded. I am more present. So it's a little bit like how we are in coaching mirrors, how we are in life. Yeah. Yep. Agree. So we've covered some really interesting things here, Heru, and I'm just conscious that as with all of these wonderful conversations, they have to come to a pause at some point. If there was, if there's someone out there listening, which I'm, I hope and believe there is listening to us who is really interested in. Working on developing their own maturity, who's really, you know, listened to what we've been saying here and is holding that question, gosh, how can I do that? What could I do to help develop my own maturity? What, what guidance could you offer from, from your perspective? This can take like, Long time to share, but I try to pin down into this. Well, I like the quote that said, I trust that everything happens for a reason. If I reflect back my journey in coaching, I told you already earlier, I never dreamed that I will become a coach, but then that that opportunity comes to me if you want, if we want to say from our spiritual lens, is like a defined intervention. So I mean, If the opportunity is there, it happen for a reason, grab it and then follow it. We never know where it will take us, especially something good like this. So, flashback 2010, I didn't know. Something happened to me. Okay. I just said I got a heart attack and I think, oh, this is something bad. But actually it, it opens open up an opportunity for me to a new venture which is coaching. I just follow that and yeah, thank God. Now I can not just, I can become a master, but, I can add value to others as a coach and as an educator because I help quite a few people to get certification, become a professional coach. So I think number one is seek the opportunity and if the opportunity is to grab it and follow it, and of course, find the right resources to help us because, Can I say something I found it very interesting actually. Coaching is so, becoming so fast growing and becoming very popular. Even in my country. This is in Asia. Usually we are a bit like behind, but I noticed there is a study from ICF. The biggest obstacle for in coaching industry, number one, is global recession, but number two is untrained individuals who call themselves coaches. So this is really like one of the things that trigger me to start my own institution, to help people to become the professional coach because now the term coaching is so becoming so popular. People can call themselves coaches without the proper, and I think there is a risk, and I heard testimonies from few people who get the bad experience with the person who called themselves coaches, but actually it's not properly trained. So that's why I said, okay, so this is Good. This is a noble profession. Coaching. Let's preserve it. Let's make it professional and really a good, a noble profession as, as it is, should be. So I think that is very important. So grab the opportunity, find the good resources, and then work for. Pay it forward to hundred people. Maybe. That's, I think that's my sharing. I don't know if any any comment from you there, so. Well, I think what you've shared, just I needs to just sit there because it's beautiful and seriously, I can really feel almost goosebumps on my arms because you're just describing something so beautiful. That is, is for me, principles of learning for humanity, not just for us being coaches Yeah. But how we are as human beings. And it really struck me how you talked about how can we be part of a noble profession, so, Correct. Which I think is so important when we have a profession that is so, so popular now, which is wonderful. Yeah. And at the same time, we need to also honor the integrity and the quality Exactly. Humility and all of those things for it to be a noble profession. And I, I really believe that a lot of the things that you have shared today with our listeners, Help us to do that. So I feel really quite emotional as we are finishing this, Heru, honestly, because I feel very humbled and it reminds me of what is important about this journey of maturity is to stay humbled, to stay learning, and to keep thinking about how can we be our best selves. In order to be in service of others and paid. Exactly. Yeah. How can we be our best self in order to in service to others? Yeah. Can I add a few more sentence? Because like the quotes from Sir Edmond Hillary, I think at the end of the day, if we learn coaching, we risk the mastery. What is that for? So that was my question number three earlier. I think it's for humanity, isn't it? So we learn coaching to make others people life better, but at the same time, it's also we grow. So humility is more important than just the title. That's why I, I also like the, the, this is another part of coaching. Can I have one or two minutes? Because I, want to share my opinion. Coaching is very, very, very good. However, there others support profession. I know you are very resourceful person as well, Tracy, of course, we have like counseling, we have mentoring training and et cetera. So to me, again, this is, can I borrow your word? Integrating or synthesizing? So, While coaching is not the same as mentoring, as counseling, we don't need to conflict other, because if we can integrate, we can synergy. At the end of the day, those are the means to support. People, isn't it? To support human in front of us, our partners, so it doesn't matter. We use the coaching or mentoring or counseling, but at the end of the day, the ultimate intention is for the humanity. Yeah. So that's why I now I think, okay, let's learn coaching. Be the best in coaching. But you don't have to be like, oh, we are the best one among the others. I remember the, the quote, I think it's the African. If you want to go fast, go alone. And I think coaching is go very fast now. I think if you want to go far, go together. So I close with that quote. Wow, what a lovely, what a lovely quote for us to end on. Yeah. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. I could spend the whole morning here talking to you. I've really enjoyed them and truly benefited from this conversation and yeah, I'm sure those listening too will as well. So thank you so much. I really, really appreciate your time and your perspectives and your wisdom and I really value the connection we have and I'm looking forward to when we catch up again very soon. Likewise. Thank you so much Tracy and whoever listening to this, hopefully this is beneficial for you. Yeah, I hope so. Thank you. Thank you. You have been listening to Coaching in Conversation, the Mastery Series. A podcast that takes a look at mastery in coaching, what it is, what that means, how do we nurture or cultivate it, and many other interesting questions. You can hear more about coaching, education and development@tracysinclair.com and follow us on social media. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and a review. And also share it with your network to help us expand our reach. Thank you for listening and see you next time.