Marianna is like a ray of light. The first thing I picked up was not what I expected given that her profile danced to the drumbeat of empowerment. But what struck me immediately was gentleness. What made this quality so potent was its sidekick, strength, working together like Batman and Robin or Warrior Princess Xena and Gabrielle. Not a forceful strength, but rather the assuredness that comes with knowing yourself well.
Coaching is just part of her work, creativity, and modelling also make up the roaster, but it wasn’t always this way.
When I asked Marianna what she did before coaching she told me she was working in a pharmaceutical company handling refunds. I could feel how lifeless the energy there was, how it had drained her. She confessed how unhappy she was at that time and found herself always complaining.
And then came a moment of magic.
One day, when everything was weighing heavily on her, she was grizzling about her life to a friend and got something she wasn’t expecting.
A golden bullet.
I worked with French philosopher Alain Forget for many years and one of his many skills was delivering what he called ‘a golden bullet’. This is a question, observation, or statement, fired at exactly the right time, that cuts through the defences and gets in deep.
If you use it well you can break free.
Marianna’s friend fired not one but two. The first thing she asked was, “What do you want?”
That may not sound earth-shattering, but that’s the thing about a golden bullet it’s all about the timing. In Marianna’s case, no one else had asked her that before. Tuning into her, I felt how it had opened her up, shifted her perspective, and made her look beyond the horizon.
Her friend wasn’t finished yet.
Before the dust had settled, in came the next question, “What are you going to do about it?”
As it turned out, pointing her in the right direction, in this manner, was all it took. She ended the relationship she was in (that day!), the job went, and she moved to a different climate. Marianna was on her way.
Today she helps women and men to find their power and purpose. And that combination of gentleness and strength is the perfect platform to hold the space to help people achieve that.
It took a little time for me to get the final piece of the jigsaw of Marianna’s unique compelling quality. There is this natural flow within her. Of course, we all have this, it’s just that with her it was more centre stage than backstage.
Experiencing it so prominently reminded me of how important this fundamental function is to our happiness and success. The more we allow the energy of life and creativity to flow through us the more alive we feel. The converse is true.
So how do we make sure we are flowing naturally? The key is to be in alignment and let it happen. The challenge is that there’s so much that can knock us off balance if we let it. And when this occurs, the magic is hard to come by. Then we need a friend to fire a golden bullet that makes us pause, gather ourselves up, and see our true nature so that we can start being true to who we are again.
You can find out more about Marianna at: https://www.linkedin.com/sales/lead/ACwAABhrCrIBSL6XW4aqPGUQX3z5DrSlxArZBqw,NAME_SEARCH,x2my
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