More is better. Until it isn't.

I triage every client before we start.

Not just Tom.

Everyone. If you've been reading for a while, you'll know this already. If you're new, I wrote about it here: (When your client shows up visibly exhausted).

It's the part of the session I value most, a few minutes at the start to find out what we're actually working with before I put any demands on the body or the mind. It's not small talk. It's the most important coaching I do.

Tom is close to 80. Ex rugby club president. Self-made.

A man who has spent the better part of his life running on grit, hernia and all, hip replacement and all, every accumulated rugby injury and all. His relationship with his body has always been the same: demand more, push through, get it done. Weakness is not a category that exists in his world.

Or it didn't used to.

This week, he came in wanting to tell me about his grandson.

Harry is eleven. Immensely talented sportsman. Also dyslexic, which makes school harder than it should be, which in turn makes him a sensitive kid. Prone to tears when things go against him. Vulnerable in the way that other eleven-year-olds, ruthless as kids can be, will sometimes find and press on.

Tom's instinct, the one he's carried his whole life, was to toughen Harry up. Tell the other kids where to go. Meet hardness with hardness. It's what worked for Tom. It's what built everything he has.

But he didn't do that.

Instead, over six months, he mentored Harry with patience. With care. Met the sensitivity without trying to fix it or harden it away. And this week, Harry received a school award for his improvement.

Tom was proud as punch.

I let him finish the story. And then I said something like: " Look at what happened when you met him where he was instead of where you thought he should be. Love, care, patience. He grew slower, maybe, but with more substance. A stronger foundation.

Tom nodded. And then, quietly, he started talking about his body.

About the hernia he's been grinding through.

The hip.
The decades of more is better rather than better is better.
The cost of an uncompromising attitude toward something that needed a different kind of attention entirely.

He didn't need me to draw the line between Harry and himself. He drew it.

Three things made that conversation possible. Consistency over years, not weeks. A triage ritual at the start of every session that signals to the client that what's going on with them matters more than what's on the programme. And the patience to let a client finish his story before I said anything at all. None of those are advanced coaching skills. They're just habits most coaches never build because nobody told them the relationship was the point.

That's the moment I keep coming back to. Not because I did anything particularly skilful. But because the relationship we've built over years created enough space for him to hear himself think out loud. And because the triage conversation, that simple ritual of checking in before we start, meant the story about Harry had somewhere to land.

Here's what I'd ask any coach reading this:

Are you building the kind of relationship where that conversation is possible? Not forcing it. Not fishing for depth. Just being present and consistent enough, over enough time, that when a client arrives with something real, there's somewhere for it to go.

Most coaching stays transactional its entire duration. Sets, reps, programming, progress. All of it valuable. None of it enough.

Because sometimes a man comes in to tell you about his grandson. And if you're paying attention, you realise he's actually telling you about himself

Paul