My Coaching Story- Howie Adams

Since 2005 I’ve learned so much about the profession of coaching and about the people who are called to coach. One thing that stands out the most, I learned from my mentor Sandy Hogan. Sandy shared with me, “People come to coaching when something inside of them is ready to awaken.”

I have found this to be true of the coaches that are called to be a part of the solution in people’s lives and for the clients that are seeking their services.

To this aim I became curious about other coach’s adventures on their coaching path. We’ve been interviewing coaches around their coaching story and will be sharing
these with you over the next few months.

This week, we are featuring Howie Adams. Howie is a retired dentist that is leaving his legacy work through personal coaching. He is our senior faculty for the Neurobiology of Emotional Intelligence & Somatics. I hope you enjoy Howie’s coaching story!
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What inside of you is ready to awaken?

My Coaching Story
by: Howie Adams

In my late 40’s, I knew I was longing for something different in my life. I simply did not have an idea of what that longing was nor what was transparent to me.  

My life was “relatively” great personally and professionally. But the call to something different would not cease. 

By coincidence, I was introduced to coaching. My first experience was startling. 

I was on the phone with someone I had never met nor knew. In that call, I was treated with unconditional dignity and respect and compassion. I felt supported in a safe space by someone who listened beyond my words into my soul to what was not being said. All the unseen burdens began to bubble up to the surface. 

On this call and those to follow, I found myself discovering and beginning the process of unburdening those transparencies — my sadness, my anger, my dissatisfaction, and frustration. I was no longer captive to emotional pain and shame, but rather free to discover my longing for something different in my life.

I became aware of tendencies and habits with which I often defaulted. Old messages, rules, and ideas that I lived by were named. Those tendencies and ideas served me to get me to that time in my life. However, I came to recognize that those tendencies and ideas no longer allowed me to take care of what I really cared about in any present moment.

My life shifted from attempting to live with absolute predictability and control, to energetically and playfully immersing myself in spontaneity, curiosity, discovery, and adventure. 

My relationships with others and myself have become more authentic. I live with greater ease and spend more time and energy with people and activities that bring me increased happiness and joy. It is a process.

Coaching for me is a way of being. 

To partner with someone and hold that same safe space that I was afforded, so they can do their “work” and discover their truest selves is an honor.

To listen to another beyond their words and to explore with them what resides deep in their souls is an honor. 

To walk with another as they let go of that which does not serve them and amplify that which does serve them is an honor. 

To accept another being unconditionally for who they are — to explore and discover with them their uniqueness — is an honor. 

To be present with my whole self and the whole self of another is an honor.

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