The Power of Acknowledging

While staying indoors during my 14 day home quarantine after my overseas trip, I encouraged myself to spend some time every day to look out of my balcony so as to take a break from staring at my computer screen. It was a strange sight as i could hardly see any vehicles or people. I felt isolated in a strange land. Uniquely, every evening around 4pm, it would rain and I took this opportunity to make that time-slot as my 'balcony-viewing' time, as I cherished looking at the rain.

Surprisingly, (this has never happened before), i observed that I was acknowledging and distinguishing the numerous variables, such as; speed, direction, density, wind interference, wind support, darkness of the sky, the sound of the rain, the size of the droplets, the intensity of the rain, the presence or absence of lightning and thunder, the reaction of the people - some with umbrellas, some with caps, some zero protection and running in a sprint, among others.

These are things which I would never have spent time to 'waste' on. What impact did these observations and acknowledging their presence/absence have on me, as a coach?

I realised the more observant and sensitive I am, will help me sharpen my core competency of maintaining presence (Core Competency #5) where I need to embrace everything in the room, as well as listening actively (Core Competency #6), looking at the wider context of how people make choices on their behaviour and non-verbal response, during the rain.

Acknowledging the rain – a simple and meaningless act – had turned out to be a powerful learning platform for me.