Why I Coach Businesses: Heartwarming Lessons from My Father on How to Coach

People ask me all the time why I coach businesses. It’s hard to explain.

It took me twenty years to write this and I still struggle with the adequacy of my expression – of thoughts, feelings, decisions, openings, transformations, and points of transcendence.

But I think the real reason I wanted to coach is that I really just wanted to be a father.

I think fatherhood is the highest expression of being a man – biologically, logically, poetically, artistically, financially – it is all there inside me.

To take care of people, to care for them intensely, to stay up late at night – waiting up for them – these people you claim as your dependents – a responsibility not lightly to be taken, yet delicate and complicated sufficiently to warrant a required sensitivity to complexity, nuance, and flexibility in approach.

And then, of course, there is the creativity – for what father could really grow into his own, without his creativity?

Why I Coach Businesses: Reflections on Fatherhood

The creative father versus the reactive father – versus the active father – which and who was I to be?

Coaching gave me an organization of thinking to drop fatherhood into.  I am a father to my clients whether I like it or not, whether I love it or not – but love it I arguably do.   Coaching then could be a love and an organization of thinking for me.

A love and organization of thinking that is creative, transformative, and allowing for the transcendent in all of us.  A father for all that is human, good, and great in all of us.  A kind father who tends to a garden, allowing for the imperfections of the wilting tomato plant – to resist the urge to force change, but rather allow for healing – a strange but practical intentional practice that brings the plant back to life and then to a happy forgetting of previous troubles.

My father loved to garden.  I loved watching his garden. He would sit crouched on the lawn, with his small handheld scissors, cutting each grass leaf.  As a youth, I must admit some comic derision at this seemingly silly endeavor – a silly folly for a silly old man.

But I never saw my father more intent – more in the flow, enjoying every delicate cut, every incremental work of cutting that yielded finally a lawn of such beauty, that only the father – the creative father, the father that insisted on the art, rather than the science – could achieve in a lifetime.

Why I Coach Businesses: To See You Bloom

Maybe all those years of watching my father in that tropical climate, cutting those individual grass leaves, sitting crouched – patiently cutting, grooming, coaxing, encouraging each gentle grass leaf – then standing back and enjoying the mass scale effect of his work on the big picture – the total lawn – maybe it was all of that witnessing that led me right exactly to where I am now – at the same exact age that my father was when I first observed him in that delicate act of cutting and transformation.

Coaching and gardening may be the same exact thing – to nurture and grow a living thing to bloom and have their own opportunities.  In the final effect, it is also the same thing – the plant like the human being does not necessarily think of the creative father gardener all the time after it has bloomed. Oh sure, there will be the thanks and the acknowledgments, but the human being after being coached, lives his or her own life – now on her or his terms alone, as well as it should be – for that is the course of life – to attain your own independence, your own path – and then forget your father, and become one in your own right.

A creative father’s job is to create more fathers – a collective of caring and creative fathers who can make this world a better place – one we are proud of for generations to come.

If you need help finding your passion, contact me or follow me on LinkedIn.

9 thoughts on “Why I Coach Businesses: Heartwarming Lessons from My Father on How to Coach”

  1. Wow Sunil,
    Beautiful! I was very touched as I read your thoughts.. It also reminded me of the “motherhood” and nurturing that I offer my clients as I help them with their business technology issues that often block them from growth. I look forward to hearing more about your coaching process…

    Smiles,
    Evelyn

    Reply
  2. Sunil,

    I really love what you shared. It genuinely comes through from you in the work that you do. And the care that you extend to us.

    Wishing the best for you mission.

    Much Love,
    Naveen

    Reply
  3. Heart felt!
    Sunil your story is so touching…my dad passed when I was 16 so I became the defacto Father for my Mom and 3sisters. Then I got married became a Father then started Company couching start up advertising creative to help them use strategy and tactics to drive their marketing.alot of time and effort.
    When I became your client I never thought that you would be able to motivate me to rise above my funk that had come over me. The metamorphosis is truly amazing in a short time the seemingly small changes you have directed in me is so evident . I did not tell those around me that I hired a coach. Associates are questioning me what they perceive as my new energy,persistence and improved attitude
    And sence of hopeful thinking . Your coaching method is so subtle and so effective thanks for reaching out to me.

    Reply
  4. Funny, when thinking of father-like figures in my life yesterday, you came up- even though you’re younger than I! The best fathers hold a space for their son or daughter until we can claim our own space fully. You do that for me.
    So, I’ll go with yesterdays gut instinct and wish you Happy Fathers Day-may you continue to nurture growth for many!

    Reply

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