We can see elements of coaching, the hero’s journey if you like, in many traditional tales and fairy stories.

If we think about Jack and the beanstalk for example, we might start off by saying that it was about slaying giants, finding the courage and the confidence to destroy your demons, real or imagined.  Or maybe it is about climbing a beanstalk, up to a bigger and better place, finding not only gold but the source of wealth itself:  the hen that lays the golden eggs.

But then again it’s about planting magic beans, whatever anyone else might say, and waiting to see what grows.  And seeing how the beanstalk grows up, and up, and round, and out, leading to all sorts of extraordinary places that you couldn’t have imagined when you threw down those beans.

Or maybe the story is about how people change, and grow – or remain stuck in character.  There is Jack of course: curious, confident, hungry, full of desire, at times over-reaching.    But what about the Giant, striding around his empty castle, trapped by his own wealth and power.  Or his sad lonely wife, desperate for children, longing for any sign of love.   And then there’s Jack’s mother, who does nothing but worry and moan, the voice of negativity… and yet, at the end, is the one who fetches the axe.

And when we think about it maybe the story is not just about slaying giants – because the giant only dies when Jack and his mother are able to chop down the beanstalk.  Perhaps it is about breaking the ties that bind, real or imagined…

But what does all this have to do with coaching and NLP?  Well, it is a story that begins with a problem state (no money, no prospects, no joy in life) and ends in a positive end state.  We can see that in material terms (wealth, economic freedom) but mainly in the transformations that have taken place through the course of the story (freedom from fear, courage, confidence, a sense of your own power).  There’s some magic along the way, of course, but everything flows from the resources they have already got: the milk cow (poor old Daisy), and Jack’s confidence, resilience, curiosity, believing in the impossible…   What the magic beans do is open up new possibilities and let the story unfold…

The beauty of this and other stories is that there is no one answer… but many layers of meaning that curl and twirl like leaves on a beanstalk… meanings that we make and take from our own experience and map of the world… meanings that change over time… and with each reading… and I don’t know which part of the story has the most meaning for you now…?

Two men were working together on a building site.  When lunchtime came, they sat down at the side of the road, and opened their respective lunchboxes.  The first man, on looking into the box, rubbed his hands together gleefully and said ‘Great!  I’m starved.  Chicken, cheese and tuna sandwiches, a nice piece of fruit….’

The second man looked at the contents of his box and sighed heavily.  ‘Oh no, not ham again!  I can’t believe it.  That’s the third time this week I’ve had ham sandwiches.  I’m getting sick and tired of seeing ham.’

‘Come on, cheer up,’ soothed his mate.  ‘Look, if you’re so sick of ham sandwiches why don’t you just ask your wife to use something else?’

His mate looked puzzled.  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.  ‘I don’t have a wife; I make my own sandwiches’.

I hope you like this story.  It makes me smile every time I read it, remembering just how many ham sandwiches we all have in our lives… me included!

But what has coaching got to do with the story of the ham sandwich?

Coaching is often associated with goal setting and then taking action to achieve those goals.  But the essence of coaching is working together to reframe a situation, changing perspective so that the client starts to look at things in a different light, from a fresh angle…  This is all with a view to opening up new possibilities and choices.  That might include continuing to eat ham sandwiches…  But the client would be aware that they were making that choice – and that awareness in itself would be enough to change the lunchtime experience…

Of course the change in perspective might well lead to the client deciding to change their sandwich filling… or maybe to make their own soup… or go for a picnic in the park…and that is where the coaching around goals kicks in, as the coach and client work together to make those aims specific, to start to bring them to life, to identify the actions, however small, that the client can take to make them happen… always and all ways building on the resources that the client already has.  Taking this sandwich example to further extremes… that might include all the ingredients in the man’s fridge, the money he has to buy new fillings, people he knows that are ace sandwich makers, friends who would be willing to give him recipe ideas, places he knows where he can buy great sandwiches…  And then there are the most important resources of all: his inner resources… confidence, motivation, a sense of possibility, the desire for change, creativity, a re-awakened appetite… And those resources are the ones that are for life!

With thanks to Margaret Parkin’s ‘Tales for Coaching’ for the ham sandwich story