Here's something I don't love admitting.

Some of my best coaching happens in sessions where I barely coach at all.

A long-standing client comes in. We talk about their grandchildren. Their job. Whatever's going on with the kitchen renovation that's been dragging on for three months. I drop in "keep your chest up" here. "Look straight ahead" there. That's most of what I say the whole session.

Those sessions are often better than the ones where I'm switched on. Cueing every rep. Correcting every angle. Making sure they know I'm earning what they're paying me.

I used to think that meant I was coasting on the quiet days. Getting away with something. It took me a while to see it the other way round.

I wasn't coaching less on those days.

I was coaching differently, in a way the client could actually take in, because I wasn't saying that much. The one or two things I did say landed properly, because there was nothing else competing for the room.

That's a kick in the teeth if you've spent fifteen years building technical knowledge and certifications the way I have. The days I coach best are the days that knowledge gets used the least. Not used worst. Used most precisely.

Most coaches who've been doing this a while have felt some version of this and quietly ignored it.

It doesn't fit the story we tell about what we're good at. We want the value we deliver to be visible. Cues given. Corrections made. A session that looks, from the outside, like expertise being applied.

If a client is paying for a result, the result has to be the best outcome for them.

Not the best demonstration of what I know, or proof I'm earning the fee. Those are two different jobs. Only one of them is coaching.

There's an image I keep coming back to for this, and it's not flattering.

The client is the organ grinder. The coach is the monkey. The one there to deliver what's actually needed, when it's needed, and otherwise get out of the way.

It's uncomfortable to say out loud because it strips the ego right out of the relationship.

No room in that image for the coach as the expert the client depends on. Just someone doing the specific, useful thing at the moment it's useful, and staying quiet the rest of the time.

Earlier this week I wrote about knowing your client's name, their family, what's actually going on in their life. This is what it looks like once you actually know those things. Not a technique. What's left in the room once you've stopped filling it with everything you know.

Which of your sessions are actually working, and which ones just look like they are.

I'm teaching the whole structure behind this, from first conversation onward, in a live workshop on 29 July (4:30pm Eastern, 30 July, 8:30am NZT). You can book your spot here.

Paul