The initial interview was productive. We discussed areas of leadership growth, the process of coaching and we both left with a feeling of enthusiasm and expectancy to work together. I sent out the welcome note with an invitation to setup our first session…two weeks later I received the reply. “Sorry, I won’t be coaching. I’ll be engaged in other responsibilities this coming year, which will demand my time. Thank you for the opportunity.”
I was initially confused by the response. We discussed the importance of full commitment to the coaching engagement and taking on his leadership growth with fearlessness. He was signed up and ready to go after our initial meeting, but two weeks later sold out on the old “I’m too busy for my own development.”
I could spend months analyzing the root cause for the flip from enthusiastic expectancy to I’m too busy, but I was more interested in his last statement , “Thank you for the opportunity.” This comment implied I was offering an opportunity to him.
Opportunity is defined as: an appropriate or favorable time or occasion, a situation or condition for attainment of a goal and a good position, chance, or prospect, as for advancement or success (Dictionary.com.) There is something essential intrinsic about opportunity, “…a favorable time…a situation or condition…a good position.” These are all very subjective circumstances which only we can identify.
Then, what I found so dissonant in the communication was he thanked me for an opportunity which only he could acknowledge as an opportunity, but he could not grasp for himself. In other words, I can not offer opportunity, I can offer a situation, condition, an occasion, a prospect, but he had to perceive the opportunity for himself. Opportunity is an inside job.
Operating in the world from possibility, the ground of being allowing the creation of anything, has us step into opportunity. Like Milton Berle’s comment, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
Coaching
I invite you to reflect and answer these questions for you:
- Where is opportunity revealing itself in your work and career today?
- When an opportunity arises, are you stepping into a ‘Yes’ or backing away with a ‘Thanks anyway?’
