Small confession before I get into it: I sat down to record a video and had my camera set to photo mode instead of video. So I spent a few minutes talking to a screen that wasn’t recording anything. Fitting, actually, given the topic. More on that in a second…I just finished proofreading our upcoming Presence issue, and I want to share a few things that stuck with me, because even after years in this field, this one had me learning things I thought I already knew.
Presence isn’t performative.
That’s the first thing that landed differently this time around. It’s easy to think of presence as something you show, a way of sitting, a tone of voice, eye contact held just so. But presence is a competency. ICF frames it that way, and I’d guess other coaching bodies do too. Like most competencies, it starts as something you do deliberately, a set of behaviors you practice. Over time it becomes less about doing and more about being. That shift, from doing to being, is the whole point.
Attunement is doing more work than we give it credit for.
The issue also got into attunement, and specifically the neural systems that connect us to the people we’re coaching. When a coach is fully present and engaged, that connection isn’t just a feeling. It touches the client’s actual trust in the coach. Fascinating stuff, and a good reminder that presence isn’t a soft skill sitting off to the side of the work. It’s structural to how coaching works at all.
I hope you get a chance to dig into the full issue. If your subscription needs a refresh, or you’d rather just pick up this issue on its own, head to choice-online.com and you can sort that out there. Our team is always around to help with questions, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
