For 15+ years, I’ve been writing this blog and coaching people in my free time. I genuinely believed I knew quite a bit about coaching. After all, I had 30 years of executive experience. I had navigated high-stakes corporate environments. I had mentored dozens of professionals. I had given advice that people told me changed their lives.
Then about five years ago, someone said something that annoyed me: “Coaching is about helping someone find their own solution. You don’t give advice.”
I remember thinking: That’s ridiculous! Why would anyone want a coach who doesn’t give advice? Isn’t that the whole point? And how could someone coach executives if they’ve never been one themselves? At the time, I believed real credibility came from experience. If you hadn’t lived it, how could you possibly guide someone through it?
Five years later, I see my blind spot. And it’s humbling.
The Book That Challenged My Ego
The most impactful book I’ve read recently is The Advice Trap by Michael Bungay Stanier. What a provocative title.
I pride myself on giving thoughtful, strategic, practical advice. I thought that was my strength as a coach. The core premise of the book? Giving advice too quickly — or at all — is often more about the ego of the advice-giver than the growth of the person receiving it.
Ouch!
As I read, I started seeing myself on those pages.
Blind Spot #1: I Was Solving the Wrong Problem
One of the biggest lessons I’m learning is the power of deeper listening. Often, the first problem someone raises is not the real challenge. When someone comes to me with a situation at work, I’m quick to analyze it. I quickly form a hypothesis. I start mapping possible solutions. That’s what executives do.
But coaching isn’t about solving. It’s about staying curious longer. It’s about asking open-ended questions:
- What else is going on?
- How does that make you feel?
- What’s really at stake here?
- What do you want?
I’ve realized something uncomfortable: When I give advice from my perspective, I’m subtly expecting them to act like me. Even if the advice is good. Even if they intellectually agree with it.
Many times, when I’ve checked in later, they hadn’t taken action. Not because the advice was wrong. But because they weren’t ready. Or it didn’t align with who they are. Or they hadn’t arrived at the insight themselves.
Coaching is about meeting people where they are — not where you think they should be. That shift alone has been transformative.
Blind Spot #2: Advice Can Quietly Damage Trust
Another concept from The Advice Trap that hit me hard is the TERA framework — the psychological conditions that help someone feel safe in a coaching conversation.
TERA stands for:
- Tribe – Do I feel like you’re on my side?
- Expectation – Do I know where this conversation is going?
- Rank – Are we on equal footing?
- Autonomy – Do I have choice and ownership?
The biggest blind spot for me? Rank.
When I give advice, even with the best intentions, I may unintentionally signal: “I know better than you.” The moment someone feels “less than,” they disengage.
And autonomy? That’s another one. Because I genuinely want to help people avoid the pain I went through in my 30s and 40s, I sometimes tell them what worked for me — subtly implying they should do the same.
It sounds generous. But it can quietly rob them of agency. And without autonomy, there is no real growth.
Experience Still Matters — But Differently
I’m only halfway through this book, and it has already been deeply humbling. My 30 years of experience still matter. But they matter differently than I thought.
Experience gives me pattern recognition. It gives me empathy. It gives me calm perspective. It does not give me the right to override someone else’s thinking. That distinction changes everything.
This Isn’t Just About Coaching
What’s exciting is that these lessons apply far beyond formal coaching. They apply to being a better spouse, a better mother, a better friend, a better daughter, and a better manager.
Who doesn’t want to feel heard? Who doesn’t want to feel safe when sharing something vulnerable?
Listening longer. Reducing rank. Increasing autonomy. These aren’t coaching tricks. They’re relationship skills.
2026: A Year of Wonder
At the beginning of 2026, I declared this would be a year of learning and wonder in order to build my life force.
Since leaving full-time work, I’ve had the gift of time to feed my brain and my soul. I completed the Foundation of Coaching workshop with New Venture West, attended a two-day Love workshop (see my Yelp review here), and next month I’ll be taking a connection course with Joe Hudson.
There is still so much I don’t know about becoming
- a better human
- a better partner
- a better parent
- and a better coach.
And that realization feels freeing, not threatening :-).
The Real Reason I’m Writing This
If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: Even with decades of experience, we all have blind spots.
If you’re someone who prides yourself on being helpful — especially if you love giving advice — this book may surprise you. You don’t have to be a professional coach to benefit from it. I certainly didn’t expect to be this challenged. But I’m grateful I was.
Because my deepest desire is not to be the hero in someone else’s story. It’s to help them become the hero in their own. And that starts with listening.
Lei