Accelerate Your Coaching with Awe

To be successful in your coaching relationships, you must bring the right energy. This is just as true for the coach as it is for the one being coached.

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What does this look like in practice? Let me start with a story from the beginning of my career as a coach.

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It was still dark outside when I received a call from Dicky—a close friend, CPA, and the source of many of my new clients. I was in the Financial District of Boston early that morning, walking to meet Hank, a client Dicky had sent my way.

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Dicky got right to the point, and he was pissed. “Hank’s gonna to get f**ked!!! You have to tell him to run, not walk, to his lawyers. His partners are scheming to steal his business."

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To say the call turned my mood inside out is an understatement. I had been enjoying the beauty of the pre-dawn light in the great city of Boston. I was singing along with my music and musing about how fortunate I was to be flourishing as an executive coach.

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But after Dicky’s call, I could feel the anxiety coursing through my body. My heart was racing and I was feeling confused and unhinged. Dicky’s negative energy had burned off my placid disposition. I was scrambling to figure out how to handle a meeting that was going to be happening in just a few minutes.

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As well-meaning as Dicky was, what he wanted me to do disrupted the essential function within the coach-coachee relationship. Executive coaching helps leaders see themselves more clearly in their circumstances. The only way to be effective as a coach is to come in with a particular kind of open, inquiring energy and promote an inquiry-based approach to the conversation. If I was to do my job properly and provide what Hank needed, it wasn’t by coming in and laying out what I (or Dicky) thought he should do.

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I knew that I couldn’t come into the meeting with Hank in the state I was in. I stopped and found cover in a quiet and isolated nook inside the beautiful hotel just a few steps from the restaurant where I was meeting Hank. I sat, took several deep breaths, quieted my mind, and slowed my heart rate. I allowed myself to relax. As I gained composure, I brought Hank and his most redeeming attributes to mind. As I took these measures, I could feel the shift. I relaxed into my body and my confidence returned. 

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Neuroscience and neurophysiology frame this dynamic comprehensively. Two notable neurophysiological systems come into play whenever we shift from a disconnected state to a connected state: the default mode network in the brain and the more widely distributed vagus nerve. 

The default network mode (DMN) is a constellation of brain activities that begin to emerge as an organized subsystem when we are children. It gives us the ability to develop a sense of ourselves as separate and apart from the rest of nature. Some refer to the DMN as the origin of the ego. It’s necessary to be able to sense ourselves as separate from others—especially when it comes to setting healthy boundaries.

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But when this instinct becomes too exaggerated, it causes a lot of problems that are easy to spot: A loss of connection with others can make us lonely and callous to the experiences of others. This experience is only magnified by the expansion of social media in day-to-day life, especially for people who have very few outlets for real, in-person interaction. When all your interactions are brief, impersonal, and without context, it’s easy to forget the basic humanity of the people with whom you’re developing keyboard friction.

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The vagus nerve is the antidote to the DMN. It extends throughout the body and is referred to as the “wandering” nerve because it makes its way from the brainstem to the heart, lungs, abdomen, and various glands. When the vagus nerve is activated, it reduces stress, lowers heart rate and blood pressure and improves digestion. The vagus nerve is connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest, digestion, and relaxation. In simplest terms, the vagus nerve plays the role of maintaining balance and the well-being of our bodies.

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If you can engage the vagus nerve, you can deactivate the DMN and feel more connected or merged. This experience is what I refer to as the merger of the inner and outer worlds that we are constantly traversing. 

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The experience of connecting with others often creates a sense of awe. Preeminent psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner defines awe as an “overwhelming sense of wonder, reverence, and admiration that is often triggered by encountering something vast, extraordinary, or transcendent.” According to Keltner, awe is a profound emotional response with eight different triggers. The most common triggers are encounters with other people. You might think of it as ordinary or common. Keltner suggests that “awe has the power to expand our perspective, shift our focus away from ourselves, and connect us to something greater than ourselves, leading to feelings of humility, inspiration, and desire for connection and meaning."

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Wow! 

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Activating the vagus nerve and deactivating our default selves do a lot of good—including the ability to be with others with ease and comfort, as well as all the health benefits we’ve discussed. 

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This fact is inspiring! 

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In a fast-paced, increasingly complex, and hostile world, the ability to intentionally “check in” to a relationship and generate those feelings of awe is indeed encouraging. It is also easy to see how a loss of empathy for our natural environment and each other is not the result we want in our homes, places of work, or communities. Understanding the vagus nerve and the DMN creates an enormous opportunity to help our industry leaders reset, grow, and transform their lives and their relationships in work and life.

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Ultimately, it’s the path to improving the world around us!

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The best part is that this harnessing of the vagus nerve and the DMN is simple to do. Anyone can learn it and begin to use it right away. When I was ready for Hank, I walked into the restaurant and saw him sitting there waiting for me. I was able to look him in the eye, smile genuinely, and greet him with calmness and warmth. I was able to serve in my role as his coach and make inquiries to help him get what he wanted and needed.

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The issue with his partners eventually came up in response to my prompts. Not surprisingly, Hank’s story had only some small semblance of the one Dicky was so amped about. It was very clear that Hank was fine, knew what to do and had managed his situation well. 

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What does this mean for leaders?

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The benefits you can personally see from coaching can be distributed throughout your organization! You can learn to do what your coach does for you for those on your team—and you can teach them to do it with their own teams. 

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You can change your own energy, improve the way you interact with your direct reports, and shape the way those direct reports interact with their reports. You can teach yourself—and others—to relax and settle into their best selves when interacting. 

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I know this because it’s the core of my coaching business. I teach my clients how to coach the leaders in their organizations. My new book, Power to Coach: Develop Leaders Around You, is an excellent introduction to this concept. It’s also the curriculum for the three-month peer executive coaching cohorts I run for select groups of mid-career leaders. Watching these leaders grow into the real skills and attitudes that can transform their relationships—and their businesses—has been amazing to experience.

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