I read this question somewhere recently: What does a geode have to do with coaching?
Here’s my take.
A geode looks like nothing from the outside. It’s just a plain, dull rock. But crack it open, and there’s a cave of beautiful crystals inside sometimes purple amethyst, sometimes smoky quartz, sometimes blue celestine, formed slowly over years.
I remembered this the day I visited the crystal and mineral belt near Aurangabad. Rock after rock, all looking ordinary on the outside. And then you see one cut open, and it’s stunning inside.
That’s coaching, for me. It’s also close to what drew me to Being at Full Potential and its idea of human potential – the belief that people are already whole and complete, already carrying what they need, and the work is to help that hidden potential show up.
This crystal was never added from outside. It was always there, in the rock, waiting for the right conditions to show itself. But here’s the thing: nothing opens on its own. It takes effort. Sometimes it takes deliberate hammering, sometimes uncomfortable work, to crack something open and let the crystal aka the hidden potential be seen at all. Coaching is this real work, not passive, from both sides: the coach and the coachee.
Most people have more capability than they realise. Life just doesn’t often slow down enough to let it surface. And then our unwritten rules, beliefs, biases, assumptions, and conditioning take over. Coaching is that slowing down and noticing, questioning, and sometimes slow hammering.
I think this is why coaching sometimes gets mistaken for something softer than it is. People imagine a conversation, a few good questions, and clarity magically appearing. But real coaching asks something of you. It asks you to sit with the discomfort of not knowing yet, to keep showing up to the hammering even when it’s easier to leave the rock closed. The crystal doesn’t reward the client who wants an easy answer. It rewards the one willing to do the work of opening.
That’s really the invitation I want to leave you with. Wherever you are – physically, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually, there’s more in you than what’s currently showing up in your day-to-day. The beautiful crystal is there. It’s just waiting for someone to help you find the right point of pressure.
So the next time you think of coaching, think of the geode instead. Nothing was inserted; it was always there. It just took the right effort, in the right conditions, to be seen.
If this resonates and you’d like to talk about what coaching could look like for you, I’d love to have that conversation. Reach out anytime.
Let’s open the geode together.
