Hello, my name is Tracy Sinclair. Welcome to Coaching in Conversation. Coaching in Conversation is a chance to discuss and explore not just how we can keep developing and maturing as coach practitioners, but But also to consider how coaching is evolving and its future potential and place as a powerful vehicle for human development in today's and tomorrow's world. I'll be sharing some of my own thoughts on these topics and we will also hear from some great guests from around the world who bring their unique experience and perspectives. Hello everyone, my name is My name is Tracy Sinclair and I would like to welcome you to another episode of Coaching in Conversation. This time I am joined by Stephen Clements who is a professional certified coach with the International Coaching Federation. And Stephen brings a wonderful blend of different areas of learning, expertise and background. So, for example, Stephen started out with he has a bachelor's in engineering, in electronic systems. And then he also went on to do a master's in technology and innovation management. So Stephen is very well experienced, very grounded in the world of science. And as he has shared with me several times and in conversations with others, He didn't really have much to do with people, wasn't all that interested in people. He was interested in systems and machines and electronics and science. And then he eventually got promoted into a position where he had to manage people, these odd beings. And that, you know, Took him into a place of huge curiosity to find out more about human beings. And that ultimately has taken Stephen to become a coach. And he is a very, very skillful and elegant coach. And he really does bring a sense of enormous curiosity to everything that he engages with. And so today I'm really, really happy to have a conversation with Stephen who. It's not only contributing to His client work with the way he works, but also has contributed a lot to the ICF, particularly in Ireland, where he has been a member of the board. And he has also won the ICF Ireland coach of the year award a few years back. So all in all someone who I have a lot of respect for as a coach, but also a real fondness for, as you might be able to tell, because of his wonderful, curious. inquiring and stimulating way that he engages with any topic. And so I'm very pleased to have this conversation today with Stephen, where he is going to be sharing and engaging us in his curiosity, not just for presence, But for the phenomenology of presence, I hope you enjoy. I'm sure you will. Hi Stephen, it's really lovely to meet with you today. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm already noticing that I'm excited because we're going to talk about a really interesting topic, which is presence. And my excitement is because of the fact that just prior to clicking the record button, you shared that there's another aspect to presence that you'd like to bring in. And I can already feel my energy sort of chomping at the bit to get to that part. Which I'm sure we will. So welcome. And what would you like to share by way of just getting present and and entering into this rich topic? Yeah, thanks Tracy, and it's lovely to be here with you in this context because I always find myself getting excited when I see a dose of Tracy popping up in my calendar in one way or the other, because we always have such rich interactions and no doubt today is going to be one as well. And yeah, so I'm noticing that excitement too. Also noticing a little bit of, yeah, nervousness or, yeah, nervousness, nervousness, nervous excitement for my first time being on the other end of a a podcast microphone so a new experience for me and one, again, looking forward to it. And yeah, it's just I think any excuse to talk about the wonderful world of coaching, but also I suppose us as human beings and using coaching as a way to get our, get to know ourselves better. As we do the work with our clients, we're also working on ourselves. So it always feels like this is kind of like a guilty pleasure. You know, it's yes, you know, as a coach, I'm working with others, but I'm continuing to do that work on myself. And how rich and rewarding is it to, to, to do that? Well, thank you. And I, I'm already noticing just with your introductory piece there that My mind is firing off with all sorts of questions around how that is a demonstration of presence and getting present and becoming present. So you, you drive where, where will, where will we go first in terms of this, this topic? I guess maybe starting with why presence or maybe the importance of presence. And again I'm not sure if this is just reflective of where I am in life or where the world is at the moment, but there seems to be, you know, this acceleration that's happening in the world. You know everything is happening quicker and quicker. And I think as a species, we are we are Becoming obsessed in some ways with short termism and, you know, we can see it in all different aspects of life you know, one of my loves is technology and again, all you have to do is look at the pace of change in technology, you know, how, I can't remember the exact stats, but it was like a million years to harness from the invention of fire or the discovery of fire through to harnessing it for cook, for cooking purposes, and now, you know, look at Wilbur and Oliver Wright taking off from their first airplane to now travel in, traveling by plane, trains, automobiles, all perfectly normal everyday occurrence. And that took, you know, a few decades. Fast forward even further to computing, AI, it's all quick, quick, quick, quick. So that change is happening, but then we can see it happening in computer science. All of our other different systems, you know, whether it's politics is probably the other perfect example, it's very rare for a political system to actually have a long term view of anything these days in terms of a multi generational view, because usually the political system is all about the next election or the next meaningful thing that's coming up, which is usually an election. You know, and even if you think about our own health, you know, and hopefully I'm not the only person guilty of this but you know, making short term choices to get a few moments of, ah, yeah, that sugar rush, versus then, you know, making the longer term more healthier choices. Those are sometimes really hard to do because that short term sugar rush is always more attractive. So I think in this, Accelerating pace and world that we find ourselves in. Presence to me becomes even more important because it's only when we become present we're allowing ourselves to actually slow down. And to really start to connect with our experience, to bring that in, but also, you know, what is truly important, what is of value, where, you know, and to connect with what's happening as a way then of making different choices. And breaking that cycle of, of always being focused on yeah, what's the next thing? Oh, what's the next thing? Oh, you know, and, and running like that. And yeah, I don't know, I think it's just, as I look at all of these different things happening in the world, I'm just struck by, wouldn't it be lovely if everybody had that experience of slowing down, coming into the moment and, and just enjoying that stillness for a minute. Yeah, absolutely. And, and what was coming up for me when you were saying that is because we are living in a world and the multiple systems that we interact with in that world. that are running at a much faster pace. There's a part of us also perhaps that likes that, you know, this desire for instant gratification, for example, and all the great stuff we know about that. So in some ways what's just occurred to me is, is that being able to become present. is in some regard or in some ways potentially going against part of what our ego is saying we want differently. So we're having to almost battle with ourselves a little bit more than perhaps we may have done in times past. Because there is this overriding drive now that's coming from within as well as from without to have it now and, and, and be faster. Absolutely. And one of the, as you're sharing that about the ego, what popped into my head as well was something I'd recently heard about philosopher Nietzsche, who I think talked about the three metamorphosis, you know, and it's how many people are basically born a camel and will die a camel. I just thought that's such a lovely, whoever, I can't remember who it was I heard it expressed that way, but that was just a lovely way of thinking about life, you know, in terms of as a camp. When we're born a camel, we're burdened with the responsibility that's put on to us by other people, by society, by culture, by expectations of our parents, all of that. And many of us will carry those burdens until the day we die. And in some ways, you're becoming present. allows us to examine what is it that we're carrying? What is it that I am carrying? That's mine. That's truly mine. Versus, what are the, you know, what expectations am I carrying that actually belong to somebody else and as you start to ask those questions then it's like, well, what becomes different? And you recognise the choices. It's like, yeah, I can keep on being a camel or, you know, keep going with Nietzsche. You know, you can become the lion. You can start to fight back. You can say no. You can start to push back on what others expect for you. You know, all of those things. Oh, you shall, you'll do this. Oh, you must do that. Oh, you have to do this. Push back on those and go, well, actually, what is it that in this moment It's truly important to me and what, where am I going with this and what's all of this for and now we're starting to bring in all of those wonderful things that we know in coaching that's so powerful around, you know, identity, purpose, values and opening up all of those different avenues. And then as Nietzsche says, we arrive back at being the child. You know, and the child, but not with a naivety of the world, but with a curiosity of the world. And then we can truly take on what we want to take on. And yeah, again, wouldn't it just be wonderful if we could do, do that. And again, I think that brings back to, to presence and as opposed to bring in this other piece of your presence and the phenomenology of presence. Cause it's It's only when we start to truly sit with what we're experiencing and actually, yes, find the descriptive words to describe that experience and to bring it to life and to really tease it out, but it's also to challenge yourselves. You know, how do we know But that's the experience we're having because we'll automatically label things. Oh yeah, this is a, you know, Tracy, I'm having a really great interview. This is a brilliant brilliant conversation we're having. It's like, well, how do I, what is it that I'm experiencing that's telling me that this is a brilliant conversation? Ah, and then, you know, you go another layer deeper and it's like, oh, okay. And, and, Even as you start to play with that, it's like, okay, I might say, yeah, this is a brilliant conversation because I'm, I'm, I'm noticed. I'm, you know, really waiting to hear what the, what you're going to say and how you're going to respond and what the next question is going to be. And I'm noting, noticing I've got like a clarity in my, in my thinking. It's not just all over the place. It's like there's something in here that I, that I want to give voice to. I'm noting, noticing a bit of movement in my hands, you know, so I can start to bring. my present experience alive, but then we can start to play with it and go, well, okay, you know, if, if, if some of those things stopped, you know, if, if my hands weren't moving, would that still be excitement? If I didn't have the clarity here, would that still be excitement? So we can really hone in on what is it in my experience that creates the excitement? And from there, then it's like, ah, okay. So there's a real awareness that can develop from being present. Inquiring about the phenomenology and, and I think as Edmund Herschel, Herschel talks about it, it's, you know, challenge, challenging our natural attitude to just simply label things, apply context, judgments, whatever to what we're experiencing, but to really go deep and, and to, to get underneath it. So, yeah. I know I'm smiling because I know that when you and I talk, we often talk about how we've gone down rabbit holes. I can see a big rabbit hole almost a great one, a great rabbit hole of, you know, this idea of not just if I'm understanding you correctly, not just noticing my experience, but Being curious about and analyzing my experience and going deeper, going down that rabbit hole of inquiry and, and awareness. That helps to get, helps to, to, to broaden my awareness, I guess, around why is it, really, why is it that I'm experiencing something the way I do? So I, I, I've been sitting with a question then around this is, We hear a lot now in our world around mindfulness and mindfulness talks about being in the, in the here and now, being present. What in your perspective is similar or different to what we all understand mindfulness to be, whatever that is, and what we're talking about. Are they the same thing or are we thinking about something slightly different here? Yeah, it's a great question. In many ways, and I suppose it comes back to that mindfulness can be such a broad umbrella of a term. And yet at its heart, you know, it is about becoming. present to your experience in the moment. And I suppose the difference between, you know, at one level mindfulness, yeah, you become present and, and you may notice, you know, maybe your thoughts passing through like clouds in the sky and being able to not be attached to them, which again is really useful and valuable. So it may be then about, I suppose as we move more into presence and also phenomenology then it's more about really connecting with your felt experience at the moment and in some ways finding the nuances of it. So, so going that little bit deeper into it as a way of finding out actually what, what is then emerging as a result. And you're noticing the nuances between, again, it might be nervousness or excitement, excitement, you know, those could be very similar things. So actually, let's tease out, whereas at a mindfulness level it might be maybe noticing that there's nervousness, noticing that there's excitement, and just not being attached to any of those particular labels. So they're similar, but in some ways different. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not, I'm not proposing that I'm right here, but what, how I'm interpreting the meaning I'm making from it as we're talking, and I'm listening to you is that for me, there's, there is almost, and I know I'm always simplifying here, but there is almost a two step process. One is noticing, and then the other one is inquiring. And, and with mindfulness, we may notice and let go. There's an unattachment. And of course, that brings enormous value and benefits, as we know, what, what we seem to be talking about here is, is, is not necessarily just letting it go, but actually staying with it and be curious, being curious about it, interrogating it, inquiring about it and deepening our awareness and understanding of it is, is that right? Absolutely. Absolutely. With, with the end, as well as intention, if that's the right word, to, to Know oneself better. So, you know, as, as I get to connect my experience and become more aware of not just this wonderful grey matter up here that creates many, you know, can solve lots of problems and do lots of rational thinking, but actually with my whole felt sense, then that opens up a rich tapestry of awareness for me, which, you know, then you bring into other contexts, you know, it's, it's like, okay, you, you, you, you, I don't know Go into a room to speak to a group of people and now, rather than going like, oh my goodness, I don't know what I'm going to do, it's like, it, it, it goes much deeper. It's like, okay, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm noticing the energy here. I'm noticing my heart, my heart picking up. And you're able to start to differentiate them between the, don't know if I can do this, to the, Yeah, this is going to be really good, you know, really going to enjoy this, really excited to be doing this, you know, so we, we can start to apply what we're learning through one situation and into other situations and expand our sense making of what's happening for us, rather than that superficial, instant, convenient label that we can sometimes put on things, which Then, you know, as we know, turns into limiting beliefs and closes down the possibility rather than actually opening up and expanding things. Yeah, I mean, I smelled that when you said limiting beliefs, because I was at the same time thinking, gosh, you know, this, if we had the capacity to do this more, we could perhaps have a little bit more choice over the meaning that we do make of certain experiences in life where perhaps we, we, we were able to form less limiting beliefs and more neutral or empowering beliefs. You know, because we know, don't we, so much of the work that we do as coaches and also in the therapy context with, you know, more significant challenges or trauma in life. The meaning that we have made of a situation is, is the crux of an issue, you know, perhaps that we, we, we then struggle to navigate. So I'm, I'm just playing, I'm conscious, I'm sort of finding my words here as we're talking, but I'm just thinking there's a huge opportunity for this idea of, The interrogation and the inquiry of what I notice to give me more choice over the meaning I make of it in the moment. Rather than that almost being a, an unco an unconscious response that I then have to unpack and unravel and reframe and rewrite however many years later. Absolutely. And you know, if we, if we then think about our, our work as coaches, you know, and, and you know, as a, as, as I know you will have said many times as well, you know, one of our, our. Challenges of, as being a coach is to notice the assumptions that we're making about what the client is bringing and to, or even the assumptions that the client is making about what they're bringing and to, to shine a light on those assumptions, to double click, to, to go that little bit deeper. And in some ways that really connects then with noticing the assumptions that we might be making from a point of view being present. And, you know, how, you know, as I started to muse on this a little bit more my rational brain kicked in and went, okay, if we were to come up with a formula for presence, I wonder what that would be. And where I'd settled so far, this may change again, but I'm fairly, fairly happy with this from a, from a coaching point of view is our, from a coaching point of view, our ability to be present is, inversely proportional to our intention. So it's one over our intention. And again, if we think about our work as coaches, most coaches, myself included, will have an intention of wanting to help, to work with, to support, to you know, maybe through to fixing whatever, you know, there's all of these different words that we can use. And if we think about how that intention Any intention that we hold beyond just being present is going to take away from our ability to be present because we're thinking about, okay, how do I support? How do I help? How do I fix? And that takes our capacity to notice and then we're not noticing. Well, actually, what, what are the assumptions that I'm now making? You know, if my role here is to, to help, it's like, okay, what assumptions have I now made about my role? How am I interpreting what I'm hearing from the client that I'm working with through that filter to help? So again, it's, yeah, it's just fascinating once you start to, to drill further down into that and, and understand our own role in this as well as then, you know, this is us as the coach and now we have the client doing the same thing for themselves because what intention might they be holding? I need somebody to fix me. Oh, I need somebody to help me. Oh, I need, you know, so it's like, my, my mind was going to the idea there of set up. you know, what, what, what is being set up then psychologically by my intention going in, their intention going in. And all the while we think we're being present, whereas actually there's, there's an agenda, there's an agenda there, albeit that positive intention. So there's something then that's coming up for me around true presence there that is, is almost utterly neutral, utterly objective. I mean, I guess we still have that. I'm just questioning this now as I'm thinking around, you know, these concepts of being, of how, holding unconditional positive regard and, and. We maybe also even need to be careful that holding that doesn't tip us into this having an intention that actually could take away from the present. So there's something quite delicate there that I'm just sort of thinking about. And in some ways, as I start to think and play with that one of the things I love doing is having an idea and then, and then in some ways, you, well, Like, all of these things, using myself as an experiment so I find myself having weird philosophical conversations in my head about some of this stuff. You're like, how do I know X? You know, and I think the most obscure one was, I was out for a run thinking about a, and saw a traffic light. And it's like, well, how do I know that's a traffic light? And, and that took me down a whole path of what, what does that mean? How, how, how, how does that traffic light stop being a traffic light? You know, and it's like You know, if it didn't have lights on it, then yeah, if it wasn't hanging, you know, and then down to how, as a driver, you know, the context can be, it can be interesting in terms of if I'm driving along and the light's gone red, you know, then I might have a complete, completely different reaction to that traffic light if I'm in a hurry to get somewhere. It's like, oh, hurry up and change! Versus the, well, and then realizing, well, actually, here's me Projecting something onto this object that has no intelligence, has no sense making and so on. So, I love having those types of conversations with myself to go a little bit deeper, but coming back to coaching, what I also love doing then is experimenting. So, as I start to unpack some of the Or my thinking around the phenomenology of presence. I reached out to a coach friend and said, Hey, I've got this idea, could we just, could we have a play? And they agreed to have a coaching session. And we did it content free because the intention was to focus purely on the phenomenology of the, whatever the client was bringing. And It was so liberating, as I'm sure you've experienced when you work content free, because we're not in the story. The temptation isn't to go into the situation, the what, and all of the assumptions, or judgments, or things that we may want to know about the situation. It's like, well, actually, if we know nothing about the situation, other than inquiring how is the client experiencing the situation, we can in this moment as they bring it to mind. Huge, huge shift happened as a result, but also as a coach, I experienced it as complete freedom because there wasn't a context, there wasn't a destination per se, there was simply a lots of curiosity about What was emerging in that moment. And interestingly we started from a place of being, coming into presence with each other first, noticing what that was like and then bringing in, inviting the client to bring the work for the session to mind and then for them to notice what's, what's just changed in the experience between being in this case it was still calm. Yeah, still I think was probably the, the, the key experience through to then this piece of work being brought in. And yeah, there was a change in experience in, in, in the phenomenology and exploring that without actually understanding anything about what it was, was just, Ooh, it's like, can I do more of this, please? So there's something really well, yes, it sounds fascinating by the way, and the idea of working content free is always very. It's very creative, isn't it? And, and yeah, I enjoy that. What I was thinking of then is that there is something then around not just noticing and inquiring and being curious and exploring the experience, but there's something about having as clean a context to that as possible. So this idea of content free be so that. We're not contaminated, I guess. I was just thinking about, you know, what we were saying before about my intention, albeit positive, could still be contaminating my sense of presence. So now we've got another aspect of that, which is working content free. is a way of decontaminating the space. There's something about really keeping the space as uncluttered as possible for the phenomenology to emerge almost. Is that, is that, how does that land with you? Yeah, I love the word uncluttered, you know, because in some ways it does feel a bit like that, you know, in terms of sometimes The start of a coaching session can be a little bit like, you know, a client coming in and opening up their, their, their bag or rucksack and going, okay, and suddenly throwing all of these things into the space. So, and as you mentioned earlier, it's that setup. You know, if, if we're invite, as coaches, if we're inviting the client to do that and then going with them and rummaging around. Yeah, we're, we're now. And, and I suppose, you know, the, the difference is, as coaches get more experience, they'll be more aware of when they're getting caught up into it and actually be able to, to step back so that they're not in it with the client, but they're, they're at that appropriate distance. And yet if we don't do that unpacking in a way that's supportive of the client, that's still supporting the client and the journey that they're on, then it's even more powerful because now we're really getting to, to, The phenomenology, but it's also, you know, who is it that's having the phenomenology? It's the client. So, you know, as we, as we start to, we're making that shift, you know, from the, from the what, the situation to even more embracing of the person, the human being and their experience of it. And that, that's in some ways what, what makes us unique as human beings is that we can analyze the experience we're having. We can sense make of it. And you know, That's such a big part of being human, but yet how little time do we spend being human in some ways, because we're all busy doing stuff.. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just sort of, I, I almost feeling a sense of slight sadness, I suppose, in a way of just that loss. A sense of loss, you know, which, as you were going back to what you were saying at the beginning around just the pace and the speed, this, you know, and I'm thinking about things like reflective practice as well in that same regard, is, is there such little time for reflection, for noticing, for inquiring, we're almost squeezing the humanity out in a way and we're becoming, you know, rather automated when we, we worry, we worry in a way about automation through AI and yet we're automating ourselves in a way as well, interestingly, And that's, and that's not, that's not being human. Yeah. And I think AI is in some ways. Typical of, you know, like the part of me always loves conversations about AI, you know, from the, if I put my technology hat on it, hat on I'm always entertained by some of the hype around AI. And again, don't get me wrong. I'm, you know, I think AI. is disrupting things and has, is going to disrupt it. But there's also a lot of hype around its capabilities, what can happen today and everything else. But it also raises lots of huge questions around, again, sustainability. You know, AI doesn't come for free. It comes from a lot of computing power, which requires a lot of electricity, requires a lot of natural resources to create the circuits and everything else. So the, the, the, from again, from Humanity point of view. There's a huge cost to it. But yet then, if we think specifically about coaching and what differentiates the work that we could do or can do as coaches versus what AI might be able to do. And again, this is where it's about embracing Our uniqueness, we're human, and we have access to things that I can't see an AI ever having access to until we get into the realm of quantum computing, where we're moving beyond pure logic, because again, if you think about Us as human beings, we're not a binary system made up of lots of little transistors that can arrive at one or zero. We are effectively quantum computers, we're biological, we have, we can hold lots of states all at once. No way I can do that yet because they're still binary systems, very complex and you know, what they can do is wonderful, but they haven't got that analog ability in some ways and as far as I know, don't have a nervous system motor neurons and all of that sort of stuff yet that we have. So let's embrace our humanity even more. But then that means us actually, you know, discovering or rediscovering and reconnecting with our humanity as well. Yeah, that's absolutely, that's the thing that's really landing for me, which you've given me a lot more richness when I try to explain or share perspective, let's say, to coaches who are worried about AI. And what I often find myself saying is that, yes, you know, AI will be able to take out what I think of as the low hanging fruit of many, many coaching conversations. But what they can't take out is your, is your presence, is your humanity. So we're sort of coming, you know, coming right back here, aren't we? That this in the future is, it's our humanity and our humanness that is the differentiator. That's the difference that makes the difference. And, and therefore, ever more than before, developing our sense of presence and starting with ourselves and learning that with ourselves is the key. is the key to not just our growth but also our sustainability in, in, in this sphere and probably many others. Just, just for clarity and to, to sort of keep this grounded in, in coaching and presence. What, how would you summarize What the concept then of phenomenology is, particularly when it comes to presence, what is it? What is it we're talking about here? So I think in the probably the most common use of phenomenology is used to infer the subjective experience of the moment. So how, what, what am I experiencing in this moment and then putting words on into it as a way of sharing, communicating and connecting with that experience. So that, that's probably the most broad definition of it. But then I suppose it's really fascinating to, to look at the likes of Edmund Herserel, who founded the phenomenology movement and it goes So much deeper than that, you know, and my understanding of it, which I'm still diving down that rabbit hole, you know, is he started to create this idea of phenomenology as a way of bringing language into the scientific method. Because science is obviously very focused on third person experience, what can we objectively measure and everything else, whereas phenomenology is all about that first person experience. So he wanted to bring that first person experience and description into the scientific inquiry and that then opened up. I suppose this, this whole idea of phenomenology as an approach, which is, you know, step one is how can we set aside our natural attitude, you know, our natural, Natural attitude to label something, to apply that sense making label to it. So to set that aside and to look at everything as if we were seeing everything for the first time, like a child coming across a toy for the first time. It's like, ooh, what is this? I've never seen this before. Rather than going, oh yeah, it's a toy, or it's a turtle, or it's a Kermit the Frog, or whatever. You know, it's just Looking at it with fresh eyes. And then there's that phenomenal, phenomenological, phenomenologically, phenomenological reduction, got there in the end, which is about, you know, again if we think think about say, a dog, you know, my dog Clara is lying here beside me so I, you know, I can't, my natural attitude is I would say, oh yeah, that Clara is a dog, but actually again looking at it and going, well what makes what I'm seeing or experiencing a dog? You know, if, if Clara didn't have fur, would she still be a dog? If she didn't have the four legs, would she still be a dog? So again, challenging what assumptions we're making about whatever it is that whatever we've labelled and, and to really just understand and go that layer deeper, deeper. And I think then from, for me, then the next part of that is then relating that experience to, to, well, You know, especially if we think about in coaching work, you know, there's a challenge or something that the client is trying to do, or there's something getting in the way, or there's something holding them back, or whatever it is. So if we can approach that phenomenologically, understand it, explore with it, tease out all of the nuances, more often than not the work now is done because the client has a better sense of, oh yeah, actually, I now know what it is. Not just the nuance, you know, not, not just the, the broad label, but actually I, I, I can re, I really see this now and with that clarity they, they can, they, they already know, they already know what happens next. Yeah. Because, you know, again, they, they don't need, need us as coaches to tell them what to do. It's like, Oh yeah, I can see it. Right. Okay. And with that, yeah, I've, I've, I've now got the, the, the, the clarity to move forward in whatever way is right for them. Yeah. So yeah, phenomenology is so much more than just that first person experience. Yeah, what you're making me think of there is ultimately this is like the epitome, isn't it, of, of What we say in coaching around, it's the client's work and not mine. They don't need me to solve the, solve the problem. I could get in the way of the work. You know, ultimately this idea of really engaging with presence and phenomenology and working in that way with my client really honors the, the, the, the true essence as I'm thinking about it of What coaching is meant to be about, which is that it is that they do have the answer. They can find the answer. It can emerge. And sometimes we think that we need to do that by asking lots of really insightful questions to evoke their thinking. And yet, Actually, if those questions were more about what is actually happening right now and how do you know it's happening right now, and what else do you know about what's happening right now, could actually be far more insightful questions than the ones we traditionally think of. Yeah, so this is the, the competency nerd in me coming out. So one of the things that I've been thinking of was, you know, if, if you took your competency, I think it's 2. 4, 2. 6 about the accessing, coach accessing their own intuition for the benefit of the client. And then you think about, you know, the two particular ones, a competency seven around inviting the client to share more about their experience. their experience in the moment and coach making observations to support the learning of the client. Like in some ways, if you're sitting present with your client, inviting them to share more about the experience of what's happened, happening, and they're becoming more aware, but also if you're fully present as a coach, you can notice then the shifts. And you can literally see that point at which, oh, something's just happened. And again, part of our role is, you know, something's just happened. I've just noticed there was the, I had the sense that there's been a change in the energy there. You know, you went from here to here. It's like, yeah, actually, what's happening? And if we can pay attention to those moments, those are usually the ones where the client goes, oh yeah, yeah, I've got it. You know, and it's just, they can be turning points in conversation. And conversations. And yet it all starts with presents. You know, as you say, it's not a question. It's not a you know, magic question or anything else. It's just purely being curious about how are you and I experiencing each other and how are you experiencing whatever it is you brought. And even in fact, how they refer to whatever it is they've brought, if you're working content free, can be a world of information in itself. You know, is it a problem, is it a challenge, is it a exploration? It's like, hmm, you know, just that label can say so much as well. It's so much. It's interesting because I remember when I very, very first trained as a coach one of the things that the teacher said is, when all else fails, just be present and be curious. We all kind of went, yeah, yeah, okay, I get what that means. But this conversation today has really unpacked what that actually means. So much more than that. The understanding of that has so much more depth now. So, so thank you for that. I'm really mindful of our time and I, I do feel like I could keep, keep engaging with you on this, but as we maybe bring this to a pause for today. What else would you say to leave those coaches listening to this, which I hope there are many what would you say to them in terms of encouraging and inviting them to just engage a little bit more with this space? I think the, I suppose probably the first step would be to, the, the invitation to the coaches listening would be to become more aware of their intention when they go into a particular coaching session or a particular client, you know, are they holding. Yeah, what is that intention that you're holding and be curious about how that may or may not be getting in the way of them being fully present. And then, you know, play with it. And, and the way you can play with it is to slow everything down. So allow conversations to be more spacious and just, just like, you know, if we think about the universe and these billions and billions of stars yet there's even more space between all of those stars that that's where there's so much to explore and to discover. So just like in a coaching conversation, allow that space between the questions, between the interventions and start to play with it. See, see what do you notice in that space. But that's the first step. Yeah. Give yourself and your client the gift of space and slowing down. And yeah, from there, who knows what's possible. Yeah. Let the phenomenology begin. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Stephen. I know I've left this webinar or I'm leaving this session wanting more. I hope other people are doing the same and that they'll go off and and express, you know, experiment with, with this idea. So thank you so much. Thank you, Tracy. I really enjoyed the conversation. And, you know, again, thank you for everything that you do in the coaching community and beyond. It's just such a pleasure to be here with you and to share some of that journey with you. So thank you. Well, likewise, Stephen, thank you so much. You have been listening to Coaching in Conversation by Tracy Sinclair, a podcast aimed at exploring how coaching is a vehicle for human development in today's and tomorrow's world. You can learn more about coach training and development at TracySinclair. com and follow us on social media. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating and review, and also share it with your networks to help us expand our reach. Thank you for listening and see you next time.