The Pilates for Busy People Weekly Show
This week I talk to Moyra Mackie an executive coach, who coaches leaders and their teams and works with them to basically de stress them so that they can calm down. So, they can get off that hamster wheel and think more clearly and focus on what they really need to improve, which is usually their relationships.
Where do your coaching sessions normally take place?
It varies. I do a lot of coaching now on zoom. I do a lot on the phone as well, but then I also go to client so I got a wonderful client who has their head offices in a barn conversion in the Oxfordshire countryside, and that’s fantastic. But often it’s London. So, it’s a busy office, sometimes we can be down in the basement in a windowless room somewhere. FinTech companies have some of the worst meeting rooms you can imagine.
You posted a photo on Instagram of one of your walking meetings, how do these work?
“I do work in meetings with quite a lot of my clients. I mean, that’s that I’m standing here now talking to you. I sit way too much. I’m standing a lot when I’m facilitating or speaking, that kind of thing. I believe in movement; I know the importance of movement.
First of all, it started as a response to really rubbish coaching rooms. In London, you’re never far from an open space. So green space, or even internally some of these buildings have got so much public space that you can walk around. I started initially by saying, why don’t we just go out and grab a coffee some of these execs have not been out all day. They’ve been sat at their desk all day. As long as they’re in their same environment, they’re not going to be thinking differently it.
Do you get more out of the person in these meetings?
I’m a whole body, whole systems type of person. I have an autoimmune condition myself. I know that the connection between our emotions and our thoughts and our feelings, it’s all connected our body and our minds all connected. They get use to that I promote mindfulness It fits with the kind of coaching that I do. But the results are usually that they are more open more quickly. There’s something about going in parallel with someone there’s something about just walking along together, rather than that sort of very kind of intense thing that can go on to sometimes it’s really a way of them letting off that steam and then we might sit down. But we’ve opened the space if you like, and literally we’ve opened the space, you know, we can breathe and then we can think and then we can feel.
Does your client become more creative?
We get stuck, don’t we? physically, we get stuck. And I think that thought wise and everything else we also can get stuck. And I think there is a connection
How do people react when you suggest a walking meeting?
Some people are really reluctant, you know, but one of the big teams I’m working with at the moment, we had a team retreat, and then we had all these practical tips that people could do and several of them committed to move more. Some of them have got the mindfulness app to tap stuff, but other ones have committed to putting the phone away and just going out without their phone, even if it’s just for five minutes or 10 minutes to get a coffee. I believe in kind of like the smallest possible steps you can possibly take to make a change.
