Spark U Coaching

A lot of you do not know my dad is having some health difficulties due to Acute Pancreatitis (AP) and a stint in the ICU at the beginning of January. The recovery from AP is a long and arduous one and the after effects of being in the ICU do not help. My father is one of my favorite people in the world and I am feeling helpless about how I can help him regain his strength and return to the vibrant, amazing person he is. So, I have decided the best way I can be there for him right now is to let him know how important he is to me every single day; how much he has influenced who I am and who Blayne (his grandson) is becoming. To that end, I am writing a post every day about something that happened that day and how my father’s teachings influenced the choices I made. On Sundays when I spend time with him, I will read the posts. It will be like a prayer for him each day and then on Sundays, a gift to him for how much he means to me. So here goes…

Today I was really struggling with my coaching skills. I conducted 3 coaching sessions today and felt like I fumbled through each one of them and couldn’t find my footing. I ended the day feeling defeated and wondering what I was thinking and how I would ever make it as a parent coach. Then I thought about my dad and what he would do.

In that moment I remembered being 10 years old and my dad practicing a speech on my brother and I in the living room. He had joined Toastmasters because he decided he needed to face one of his biggest fears. Public speaking. At first he practiced all his speeches on us and he was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Comically horrible. I laughed in the wrong places and told him he needed to talk louder or change this part or that part because it was boring. And here is the thing, he didn’t give up. He persevered despite the fact he was so horrible. Eventually he started winning ribbons, then he stopped practicing with my brother and I and in the end he went on to be a pretty well-known motivational speaker in Seattle with a business teaching people to follow their passion.

This taught me that hard work and perseverance create mastery. It is something I have carried with me my whole life and whenever I have felt like I have today, I remember this lesson and change my focus from what is NOT working to what IS working and how to get more practice so I can master what it is I want to accomplish.
When Blayne was 8 years old I told him he had to pick an instrument to learn. He chose the guitar. He had visions of himself playing like every rock star he followed at the time. When reality hit and he was not coordinated or didn’t have the know-how to be able to play a song in his head, he wanted to give up. I told him the point of learning the instrument was not to be a professional or because I thought he had a gift, but because learning an instrument would teach him hard work and perseverance create mastery. Therefore, he wasn’t allowed to quit until he mastered it. Today he can play any song he has in his head on the guitar. But most importantly, he learned how to create mastery.

And for me… I can’t wait to do my next coaching session because I know it means I am that much closer to mastery.