A couple of weeks ago, Lauren and I flicked on Apple TV and settled down on the sofa with a box of After Eights to watch the movie Greyhound.
For those who haven’t seen
it:
The movie tells the tale of a US Navy commander (Tom Hanks, aka America’s Dad) leading a convoy of Allied ships across the Atlantic while being pursued by German U-Boats during World War Two.
The entire movie is a high
stakes game of nautical cat and mouse, with Tom and his crew trying to dodge the U-Boats’ torpedoes while leading the convoy to safety.
The U-Boats don’t just pose an underwater danger.
They try to demoralise Tom and his
crew through the airwaves too.
At one point, a U-Boat taps into the radio onboard Tom’s ship and menacingly threatens his crew with this transmission:
We watch your ships sink into the deep. We hear the screams of
your comrades as they die. The Grey Wolf is so very hungry.
Chilling stuff.
(wisely, Tom changes the radio channel)
Anyway, the movie is a great watch.
It also got me pondering about my coaching.
And, in particular, how coaching is similar to Tom’s
warship.
The role of a coach is to help people navigate their own high seas and dodge obstacles along the way. To guide, to support, to point things out and to go on the trip together.
But unlike Greyhound,
coaching isn’t a perilous and harrowing journey.
Instead, it’s an adventure.
It’s an exploration.
So if coaching was a movie, I wouldn’t call it Greyhound.
I’d call it Playground.
Being coached is like jumping into a play area, wallowing in discovery & curiosity, getting
lost in the moment and in your imagination, experimenting and trying things out, feeling more and more alive as time goes by and starting to see new possibilities and options - not just in the playground, but in your life.
Until your whole life becomes a playground too.
Of course, there might be a few playground bullies who threaten to stop your adventure.
Bullies who are hungry (so very hungry) to sink you into a deep sandpit and hear you scream as they push you down a slide.
But I can guide you through that too.
If you’re ready to jump into the coaching adventure playground:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
- Tom