Bill. It sounds like in some ways you had a very sacred conversation.
Julio. Very, and as a matter of fact, he told me things that I am sure he never said before and probably will never say again. I insist that when we reveal, it’s not just an act of revelation in terms of “look at that;” it’s an act of transformation. Very often, we believe that transformation happens by what I am told. I would say that very often transformation happens by saying something in a context that is transformational.
Bill. And you’re being the witness to that revelation or that disclosure.
Julio. That moment has sacredness to it, and the only way is to live it.
Bill. So, when you look at coaching as being a practice that only emerges because the old practices aren’t there, it points to us needing sanctuaries. All we have to do is dust off old words (like “sacred”) and old settings (such as sanctuaries). They are still profound. You seem to be saying that coaching is itself a sacred conversation. It’s the kind of conversation that comes with trust; it comes with an assumption, or at least with the expectation, of some honesty.
Julio. Yes, if you look at even the etymology of the word conversation, it is beautiful, because conversation means changing together.
Bill. I didn’t know that. So, it comes from the same source as the word conversion?
Julio. Yes, conversion and version. If you take a look, we have lost in our society our conversational capabilities, or the art of conversing, and we have replaced it with a kind of utilitarian dialogue. So, I can tell you to ‘do this’ and you can say ‘do that’, and that’s important—-some articulation to coordinate action is needed. But there’s a coordination of action that is not at the traditional level of action we think of—which is reflection. For instance (I am quoting Proust now): “The real voyage of discovery is not to visit new lands; it’s to have new eyes.” That’s what I’m talking about. When a good conversation takes you to a place that you never thought about before- wow, I never considered.
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