I left a coaching session today, thinking about the client. I have been working with this client for several months, and I always look forward to our sessions. While I try to not work with clients who I do not enjoy working with, sometimes it happens, and even when the client isn’t difficult, one enjoys working with some more than others. I was thinking about this particular client, wanting to know what it was about her that made me look forward to our times together. I wanted to understand this in the hope that I can share the experience to help others. Since the details of coaching should protect one’s anonymity, I will not name this client, even though my comments about her are positive.

As I thought about this client, her behavior includes that she is positive, optimistic, and engaging. She is also fun to work with. She is very open and allows herself to be vulnerable once trust is established. She is also giving, and the best example I have of this is that I have two new clients from her referral. It is obvious that she has a good friend network.

As I think about my client and her positive behaviors, I remember a conversation years ago with an office mate, who happened to be male. While I do not remember the context of the conversation, I recall his main point. He mentioned that we either attract people to us, or repel them, and that this happens by our behaviors. He went on to discuss that to attract people to us they have to feel safe with us. They have to be willing and able to be vulnerable with us.

As I think about all of this, I wonder if there is an in-between regarding whether we attract people to us or repel them. I decided that there isn’t, that an in-between might make us feel better, especially if we think we might not attract others to us, but it would be a “splitting hairs” issue. In essence, people either like us, or they don’t.

This is an important issue. If people like us, they’ll do what they can to help us. If they don’t like us, while they will not necessarily try to harm us, our interactions with them will not be positive. Connections are so important, and when our connections with others are good, we are able to have and accomplish so much more.

I want to be more like my client; positive, optimistic, engaging, fun, and giving. Life is so much better when we have people in our lives who are good, and who make us feel good when we are around them.