Let’s talk about shoes

In the ongoing exploration of bringing creativity and playfulness into our coaching practice we recently had a conversation about shoes…

Let’s step in to explore this further and look at a bunch of ideas around how to have a fascinating coaching conversation with your clients, about their shoes.

To start walking down this path you could open with a question such as:

What shoes best represent how you are coming into the session today?

Be curious and playful by kicking around some questions like:

• What colour are they?
• What would you name this shoe brand?
• If you were to wear those shoes everyday, what difference would that make?

Of course you should ensure you are partnering with your client, and if they seem to be finding it hard to connect with the metaphor, then notice this and move on. Be careful not to keep using it just because you find it sparky and fun.

If it seems to be a good fit, and/or you have a client with a preference for visual stimulus, then another variation is to bring some images into the mix.

Offer them a picture like this and ask:

Which shoes would you most like to wear? (and why)

An alternative could be to ask them to draw a picture of the shoe, or of the logo for the shoe, noticing where the attention of the client is drawn to.

If  the client wants to take their shoes off instead in order to engage into the session the way they want, you might ask something like:

• Where would you like to leave them?
• What is the effect of taking them off?
• Are you ready to wear your shoes on again or a new pair? (at the end of the session)

What’s super exciting about this, is that you can apply it to a range of things. Maybe your client has new glasses on, maybe they arrive with a hat on, maybe they have a new bag (more on this in a future post). The metaphor can stretch a looooong way!