An Airplane Connection

Last week when I was visiting my family, my son-in-law gave me a gift. It was a book called “Mindset” by a Psychologist. It’s not a new bestseller or anything… it was published in 2007. But he thought the book might be helpful for my coaching practice. That was a Tuesday morning.

Four hours later, I boarded the plane to head home.
The woman sitting across the aisle from me taps me on the shoulder and holds up a copy of the very same book. She tells me she had just picked it up the day before.

I asked her why she chose that book and she said “My Coach suggested it to me”.
When I told her that I was a Coach, we proceeded to talk the entire flight about the value of coaching, how she was benefiting, what brought me to study to become a Coach, the challenges of her new job as the Executive Director of a large non- profit organization, and more. We even took a selfie of the two of us with our identical books.

It warmed my heart to have a conversation with a complete stranger about how much it meant to her to have a Coach and how successful she was finding the relationship with her chosen Coach. As a Coach, I know coaching works. And all of my clients know it works. But it’s great to hear from someone I’d never otherwise have a chance to talk to, about how beneficial coaching is for her.

And it also reminded me of the joy I get in connecting with another person, over a common topic (the book… coaching…) and how we were clearly meant to meet that day in early March, flying between Toronto and Ottawa. You never know where the most interesting conversations will show up!