You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching In. Today's guest put a post on LinkedIn talking about the fact she didn't like the word mastery and she liked the word human. So what could I do but invite her to The Coaching In to talk more about it? So welcome Kay Young. Thank you Claire. I'm really glad to be here, a bit nervous and mainly glad.
Great, I'm very glad. I think our listeners will be when we've spoken to each other. So you just got a credential with APEX, the Association of Professional and Executive Coaches. Tell us about the journey. Gosh, that's such a big question. I've had two journeys with Apex. So a year before that post, actually, I did my Master Supervisor of Executive Coaches. And so that was one journey. And then I did the second journey, which is the recent post that you've seen.
And it was quite a different journey this time. And what I loved more about it was a pilot within Apex on accreditation. Right. And what attracted me to it was first up, it was all dialogue based. It's like, let's have a orientation dialogue. Let's have a credentialing dialogue. So the conversations came before anything else. There's something in that for me that feels... just like, thank goodness. You know, the only... human... You met human to human. It's exactly that. Yeah, lovely.
It's exactly that. Just the relationship first, the human first, the who am I, how do I practice, actually, who are you? and it really was human to human. Of course, you know, it was also robust, so more came after that, but it was that just initial contact that made all the difference for me. Wow. Wow. So what was particular about the difference? What did it feel like? And remember that I've been in this apex process twice, so I know the difference.
And also I'm an ICF credential coach, which I need for my AOEC Academy of Executive Coaching work. So I know the difference now. And the difference it made was the opportunity to be seen, heard, met, felt first. and I think that makes all the difference. It makes all the difference in my embodied capacity to speak to actually who am I, who am I really? And how do I practice? And what are the significant, deepest personal professional influences that have shaped that practice?
And so that building trust, building relationship, being with another. utable human being. It's like okay now I'm settled, you know now I'm in my breath, in my body and can articulate more fully and more deeply. Bye. So what's different about your work now than it was when you started out coaching? Okay. I go to the, I go to the Carol Young quotes. So I've spent, as we all have, years and years learning all the tools, techniques, concepts, theories.
And the invitation in his quote is really beyond all of that. It's like, can you put aside... all of your tools, techniques, concepts, theories when you encounter the medical of the human soul. So it's more, I guess it's more being and less doing if I keep it simplest. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And that's been hard one. Actually, it's been hard one because. The tools, techniques, concepts, theories are a lovely safety blanket. As we come into this training and progress, you know, through the years.
And I mean, you'll know better than, better than most with your simplifying coaching book and your latest book as well. Well, we don't teach tools or techniques or theories. in our coach training for that reason. I didn't know that. Which makes it terrifying. Even more terrifying, yeah. But also deeply useful because you have to go straight into not knowing what to do. I can really understand how that's even more terrifying and even more... Eventually liberating.
Yeah, and our hope is that we teach people that all the resources that they need are here in this dialogue right now. And sometimes they will go off and get other stuff, but they'll drip it in gently onto the fact that they know that the resources that we have here and now are... Yeah, and the difference in that is that they'll go searching and drip it in based on enoughness. Yes! Not based on not good enough yet as a coach. I love that. And so I'm still interested in going out there.
Of course I am. I'm always, you know, there's a couple of, like Thomas Hubbell, like Nora Bateson just now, it's like, I'm really soaking up. And so I'm still going out there. And can I do that from enoughness in what's in the space in between? The client and I, you and I right now. Yeah, that is where the magic is. I love your word, enoughness, because that kind of summarises, it brings into it not knowing, doesn't it?
And it brings into it vulnerability and it brings into it being professional enough, but not over professional. Yeah, I mean, I think... It's only because I know not good enough. That the enoughness is so significant for me now. Right. You know, in my early days of training as a coach, the not good enough was so figural. The performance anxiety was so figural. Just the will I be good enough was so figural. That's what I mean when I say it's been a hard one journey.
Yeah. And so the vulnerability just to be in the not knowing space. Yeah, I love it now. What was the trigger to move from the, I need to know more, more, more, more, more to this. I mean, it's been a lifetime's work. So... It started in midlife. Yeah, it started in midlife actually that search that searching for a deeper contact with myself that wasn't led by anxiety. You know, that midlife transition where it's like, I'm done with all of this. All of this, blah, blah, blah.
So it started with midlife. But actually, I think the main turning point was I spent a week. with Nick Askew, you might have heard of him. He is a film -er and his work's called Soul Biographies. And I spent a retreat week with him with half a dozen others on a farm somewhere in England. And he sat with his camera and we had a giant screen and we sat in front of the camera and others witnessed and we observed what happened.
in the human soul when there was nothing to happen when there was nothing to be done when actually it was an act of witnessing and I wrote a poem there I can't remember it right now but it was like okay enough of not enoughness wow so the poem emerged out of that out of that beauty wonder awe at other people witnessing me in that profound way on such a giant screen in black and white and me witnessing others and nothing needing to change. No improvement agenda.
And then, of course, later I did my gestalt training and the single most And that which is just lives in my bones is Biser's paradoxical theory of change, where the invite in the coaching work, in the living work is how might we support ourselves and our clients to more fully and to even more fully inhabit all of what is. And from that place, change becomes more possible. So it's letting go, surrendering. Giving up. I'm not good enough. It's just like sober. And what's the feedback you get?
From people you coach, okay? it's a bit mixed. You can imagine it's mixed. It's like on one hand, no. I don't want to think and feel and be like this. I want to... I should, I could, I want to be like that. It's like, I understand. I really hear that. And first, might you be willing to even more fully inhabit what is? So it's a gentle bowing, honouring... It's almost coaching as a spiritual practice. Really, you know, can you be with what is can you be or can we do that together?
And for other clients, it could be actually just quite liberating. Yeah, it could be quite liberating. It can be quite liberating. It's like because you're feeling me Thomas Hubel talks about our longing just to be felt by another and to be felt with all of all of how it is to be us, actually it can be so moving.
And it was for me as a therapy client and as a therapy client trainee or as a therapy trainee, when that first started to happen, I'm talking about 12 years ago now, I was actually clear I was almost on my knees. I had never experienced this, being seen in that way. It was profound. Another turning point. And it matters, it matters a lot. That's why I'm so glad to be here and so glad to be saying to the bit that was anxious at the beginning, it's like, this is not the time, sweetie.
This is not the time because actually this work that we are doing makes me go goosebumps. It is profound and it matters and I want others to bring it to the world. Yeah, and for them, for the people we're working with to experience it, it's got to be in us, hasn't it? It's got to be in us. And they can, they can feel it. I've got the most funny story. You can help me make sense of it. So we've just spent the weekend with some friends and they've got a dog who's quite anxious.
And we didn't use to be dog people. So when we went to see them, they would always keep the dog away from us because she was very bouncy and. squealy and all those things. And we are dog people now. And the dog was transformed. And the dog was transformed because we were really calm about her. And the owners were really calm because we were really calm about her. And therefore she was really calm.
But it made me really think about how in coaching, we don't acknowledge enough how much we can wind the situation up by our fear of dealing with enoughness. Yeah. I love, I love that story. I love it for two reasons. One is for the past two years, I've became the grandmother of a grand puppy. A bouncy, he's not anxious, but he's very, very bouncy, excitable. And I've been learning like you've been learning. Actually, I love the resonance of this.
to be what my dear colleague John Gray in the AEC calls around this dog he's called Ren, to be a calm presence in an anxious field or an excited field. If I think of the wider system and the wider field, it's like, you know, as people who are becoming dog people, I've never trained a dog in my life either. But I want to have a relationship with Ren. And so it's as stretching into being dog people can we be a calm presence in an anxious or excited field. And the same in coaching as well.
And actually, I do think that does come from enoughness because it's like, okay, I've never trained a dog. And... And I can still be in my breath and in my body and learn. And we've done brilliant with this dog. It's like I'm so proud and I'm so pleased for you because actually it matters for our four legged hairy friends as well that they have a good life. It was just the most extraordinary thing and...
And I just realised how much we can, we, other people, so that's us and the owners can generate the, the behaviour of the dog. I mean, we were, it was like we, looking back on how it's been before, it was like we were puppets controlling the behaviour of the dog without having any idea. Because all we thought we were doing was managing ourselves. Yes. But we weren't managing ourselves very well. So what did you do different? What? What changed the situation for you?
So I look after next door's, our listeners will know, I look after next door's dogs. And so I take a dog for a walk every day and the latest dog is big and there's lots of learning from being with a big dog than there was from being with a small dog about being. But I think that in the room with our friends, I think I wasn't bothered. And I think the dog really picked that up.
And I, and I said, hello, I didn't play a lot with her, but I also, she didn't pick up my fear, anxiety, worry, annoyance, all of those things. yeah, it was, was, it was such an interesting experience. and I love. what you just said, a calm presence in an anxious or excited field. Yeah, I've got a field out here, which is can be anxious and excited. Every time I look in the field, I'm going to think about your calm presence in a field. Yeah, in my field.
Yeah. John, John Gray talks about calm presence in an anxious world. Yeah, I'm translating it a bit. Yeah, but it's the same. It's the same invitation, really. And, and of course, what's invisible and unseen is still in the wider system. It's still in the wider field. And so it's how I think this is why I love Nora Bateson's work just now on warm data. She's calling it, I don't know much about it yet, but it's and Thomas Hubels as well.
It's how do we as experienced coaches or coaching supervisors, how do we How do we even more tune into what's invisible and unseen? You know, the kind of, and unspoken, and the mystery that's in the space in between, that typical coaching can mess because it's so focused on what's seen and what's obvious. I think that was a quote I used in Simplifying Coaching about the difference between a puzzle and a mystery and how often in coaching we can think it's a puzzle that needs to be solved.
And the thinker can think it's a puzzle that needs to be solved and we chase the solution to the puzzle. I love that. Yeah. And how could, how could we, how could we even know what the puzzle is? And it isn't. Yeah. Yeah. So you've gone through a massive transformation. You are going through a massive transformation around your willingness to really engage in this transition from the enough, not enough to enough. What's your hope for the profession, Kay?
I think that's what brings me on here actually, it's what made me say yes to the invitation. So it really is that we will deepen our capacity to be more aware actually, to deepen our capacity for more resonance, more attunement, to be more with the unseen as well as the seen, the invisible as well as the visible. the mystery as well as the ordinary. You might call it consciousness, but that word's a bit confusing. Awareness is a bit easier.
Really, I do think we're on the turning point for our way of being has consequences. And gosh, there's never been a more significant time for us to be more aware of the being. the world needs right now, which isn't so focused on puzzles or solutions or old thinking to current issues. It's so much more than that. And coaching for... you know, I don't know what you've got to call it, but coaching for systemic change or social justice or social change, whatever it is, just person by person.
And not me and we're going to change the world, but just person by person, the ripples of that. That really matters to me. I love that thing person by person. We've been shortlisted for an award. This is hashtag ironic given what we're talking about. Tell me. But I've got a line that I was going to say in the final presentation we do to them that was lives change lives. But I like yours better. May I steal it person by person?
Yeah. I like, I love life's changed lives and you can steal mine happily. Thank you. Yeah. I won't be the first person and I won't be the last. No, indeed. Yeah, and in that way there is something about my hope for the profession as beyond the individual, you know, like as if person by person could be mine. It's like, it's kind of funny isn't it, as if mastery, you know, it's such a western individualized word.
Yeah, it's like, no, we have to, we have to know this isn't actually about us at all, really. Indeed, indeed. Yeah, yeah. Because for me, it's all about doing hardly anything, but yet doing a lot. That's what mastery is. In The Human Behind the Coach, we've actually only talked about it in the introduction because we just abandoned the word because it was so annoying. Yeah, I didn't know.
I did when on our last call you said that, but I'm still, even when I hear it for the second time, I'm still so excited and glad, actually just really glad that you've mentioned it and then abandoned it. It's like, I'm not a... It just feels like a big heavy, arrogant thing. And this is about light and light and humble and there was a post on LinkedIn the other day and I can't say who said it because they've gone back to permission to get to get this person's permission for us to use their name.
But and I'll put it in the show notes if we get the name before this goes out. But this person on a basic coaching course, day one or day two, said to the trainer, I get it, this is about going from hero to zero. Don't you love that? It's really, I guess it's the invitation of life. really, you know, it's zen -like, or it's Buddha -like, or whatever you want to call it. It's like taking the eye out of it.
And actually, I think that's a life's work, because we have been raised, if I think of the wider field, we've been raised in an individualistic way. zero to zero. Isn't that beautiful? It's beautiful, yeah. And it reminds me of what else, oops hang on, what else I hope for for the profession which is that more coach training. will be actually beyond the tools, techniques, concepts, frameworks, theories.
It will be beyond the training, beyond the accreditation, but still deepening, deepening, deepening the work. Yeah. I'm really interested in that. Yeah. Yeah, so my philosophy now is what's the least that I need to do for somebody to feel seen and heard and felt and get some insight into their stuff. And it is the least, isn't it? And often I think we just do too much because we think, they won't think it's valuable if I don't give them more than this. I know. I know.
And of course, that's emerging out of a... cultural belief that we add value as a society, as a culture, as an individual through doing stuff and letting go of that to know, to know as you know and I know that what's the least I could do here where actually our being or our presence is the value. our silence, our being with not knowing. I were. I guess trusting, trusting what's the smallest movement that wants to show up here. Actually that wants to show up.
It wants to reveal itself without us getting too busy. And going back to your soul biography thing with the black and white screen, it feels as though your fellow... The people who were with you on that journey were simply bearing witness. Simply bearing witness, yeah, nothing. And the profoundness of that, well, yeah, I mean, you know it as a master coach, actually, that when we bear witness.
the potential for... a shift to happen towards, I don't know, towards wholeness, health, healing, balance, whatever it is. It's like it's what, it's what, it's what is what the system is wanting to happen. So yeah, just bearing witness. There was so much silence, maybe it was five days not a week we're together, there was so much silence in that time. I've got a quote hanging on a slate actually in my home office here. It says, the door is open. Let silence be your key.
Aligned from a poem by one of my daughters. And it's so here every day. Because also I, like other coaches, I know that historically I've added value by doing stuff. So it's not that I'm... trying to be, it's not that I'm even all the time being perfect. You know, I want to be human and perfectly imperfect, but still with the invitation to do less. and then even more to us. even more enoughness. Yeah. Amazing.
Yeah. And you know, the more we witness people in the moments of their not enoughness, however that shows up, the more we bear witness to them, the more enoughness becomes. more enough this happened that's actually what's happened to me. I've had I've had the most and still have world class people around me who can bear my moment still, where not enoughness still shows up. And in bearing witness to that I become just more spacious.
Trying to do that with my arms, find a word, but it's like, okay, I've got more breath, I'm more in my body. I've got less fear, less anxiety, much more enough for the next small step. And like our experience with the dogs. That change in you changes everything in the space between us, doesn't it? Everything. Everything. Okay. I hope we'll keep in touch. What an absolute delight to have you here in this conversation today. Yeah. Thank you, Claire.
I've so appreciated this opportunity to speak to what's close to my heart and what I want for the profession. And I so appreciate you reaching out. Well, thank you. And we'll put Kay's contact details in the show notes. Yeah. Are you okay if I end by reading that quote from Palmer Parker that you put in that original post? Yes, please do. So this is Kay quoting Palmer Parker. The human soul doesn't want to be fixed. It simply wants to be seen and heard.
The soul is like a wild animal, tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods, shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself. Thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you for your company, Kay. You've been at The Coaching Inn. I'm Claire Pedrick, and I've been in conversation with Kay Young. Bye -bye, everyone. Bye bye. I keep clear.
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