Clear metaphors can change how people understand what Coaching actually does. Metaphors translate process into embodied experience, reduce abstraction, and invite clients to relate their own life practices to the Coaching relationship. This article presents three rich metaphors presented in this episode of Talking about Coaching – surfing, driving, and mountaineering – each used by experienced coaches to explain differences between Coaching, therapy, mentoring, consulting, teaching, and friendship. The aim is practical: help coaches explain what they do, help clients choose the kind of support they want, and give concrete tools to use in sessions.
Table of contents
- Before We Dive In – A Word of Caution
- Surfing: Riding, Facing, and Choosing Waves
- Driving: The Passenger Seat, Sat Navs, and Toll Roads
- Mountaineering and Hiking: Sherpas, Steps, and Presence
- Short but Useful Metaphors: Somatics, Traffic, and Gear
- Practical ways to use metaphors in Coaching sessions
- Conclusion and reflection prompts
- ATTRIBUTION
- A NOTE FROM THE “AUTHOR”
Before We Dive In – A Word of Caution
“Before you read on, please note that this article is an AI-generated summary of the above podcast episode. While prompted carefully, it’s possible that some views may be misrepresented and/or information incorrect. If you find any errors please report them to us by emailing report (a) existentialcoaching.net . If you find something that seems odd, untrue, or difficult to believe, my encouragement is for you to go to the source and listen to the episode to get the full context. If it turns out to be false or misrepresented, kindly let us know! Due to the volume of information and limited team resources, we can’t check all AI-generated articles for accuracy, but decided that these are good enough, and hence valuable resources.”
Surfing: Riding, Facing, and Choosing Waves
“Ride the wave” is more than a feel-good slogan. It is a concise, multi-layered metaphor for the unpredictable, embodied, and skill-dependent nature of Coaching. Surfing captures three essential Coaching insights: presence, facing fear, and focus.
Personal insight
Yannick uses surfing to explain how life delivers unpredictable tides that clients and coaches must meet with openness. The image of paddling out and seeing a massive wave come is used to illustrate the counterintuitive Coaching stance: do not panic, do not turn away, paddle toward the force. That momentum, combined with calm breath and a sense of surrender, is how problems are navigated rather than avoided.
Broader reflection
The surfing metaphor illuminates what distinguishes Coaching from other relationships. Coaching is not about fixing or doing for the client. It is not the coach guiding the board for the client. Instead, Coaching invites clients to discover how to position themselves, how to create momentum, and how to use their own energy to move through the challenge. The coach can reflect what the client does in motion—like filming a surfer to highlight posture—without taking over the ride.
Practical takeaways
- Teach facing strategies: Invite the client to describe the wave they see and identify one action that aligns them with it rather than fleeing.
- Body awareness: Integrate breath and embodied checks when fear shows up—“what does your chest do when that wave appears?”
- Focus training: Use the paddling-back-and-forth lesson to explore grass-is-greener mindsets and the cost of scattered attention.
- Skill matching: Help clients select challenges that match current capacity—small waves, bigger waves—as a route to sustainable growth.
Driving: Passenger, Sat Nav, and Choosing the Route
Driving maps the Coaching relationship onto a road trip: someone is at the wheel, the coach sits in the passenger seat, and choices about route, speed, and rest shape the journey.
Personal insight
Siawash frames the coach as a fellow traveler who sometimes offers local knowledge, occasionally points out a restaurant, and at times warns about a rattling tire. The client remains the driver. This preserves client autonomy while clarifying exactly what coaching contributions look like: curiosity, observation, gentle challenge, and, where appropriate, informed suggestions.
Broader reflection
The driving metaphor separates Coaching from therapy and mentoring in a useful way. Therapy can be likened to a U-turn: it often requires revisiting the past and making sense of what lies behind. Coaching, by contrast, keeps moving forward while acknowledging the rearview mirror. Driving also opens a conversation about alternatives: sat navs (templates, paths advised by others), toll roads (paid support, Coaching packages, faster routes), and the difference between the Black Cab who knows the city and the Uber driver who follows directions.
Practical takeaways
- Clarify ownership: Remind clients that they choose the destination and the speed. Coaching is a partnership in which the client is responsible for decisions.
- Map the start: Get precise about where the client is now. Use concrete metrics—scales, current behaviours, tangible markers—before planning the route.
- Offer options like toll roads: When a faster route exists, explain the costs and benefits. The client decides whether the investment is worth it.
- Lean on local expertise: When a coach has domain knowledge, use it sparingly and transparently—“I’ve seen this rattle before; you might want to check the gearbox.”
Mountaineering and Hiking: Sherpas, Steps, and Presence
Mountains give Coaching a long-view metaphor: goals that require incremental steps, presence at each stage, and a realistic respect for risk and capacity.
Personal insight
Nicki and Yannick bring hiking and mountaineering into Coaching conversations. The Sherpa image is especially useful: some coaches have been up the mountain many times and can carry experience about terrain, dangers, and the right gear. Others are skilled navigators who can help clients plan routes they have not themselves taken.
Broader reflection
The mountain metaphor helps coaches and clients discuss pacing, risk tolerance, and what success means. Reaching the summit looks different for everyone: taking a photo at the top, savoring the climb, winning the race, or discovering new capacities on the way up. The metaphor also emphasises the value of presence. At higher altitudes, the next step requires full attention; distractions can cause real harm. Coaching supports this kind of focused, step-by-step attention.
Practical takeaways
- Break big goals into steps: Help clients design micro-actions that compound into progress. One careful step is often safer and more sustainable than one big leap.
- Include descent planning: Coach the return trip. Getting down the mountain safely has different skills than climbing up.
- Use the Sherpa stance: When coaches have relevant experience, they can act as Sherpas—sharing warnings, offering routes, and holding the client’s hand through known challenges.
- Define the summit: Ask why the client wants to get to the top and what they will do once they arrive. Clarify the motivation to shape the route.
Short but Useful Metaphors that Extend Coaching Practice
Somatics and embodied coaching
Both surfing and mountaineering draw attention to the body. Somatic checks—posture, breath, movement—are a fast route to insight. When clients act instinctively in high-stakes situations, movement reveals authentic patterns that talk alone cannot access.
Sitting in traffic
Sitting in traffic illustrates the circle of influence concept. When many concerns are outside control, the only useful response is to accept and choose how to use the time. Coaches can help clients shift from anxious reaction to calm response, or they can help plan routes that avoid repeated congestion.
Uber, Black Cabs and the sat nav
These images help explain differences between coaches and other helpers. A Black Cab coach suggests local mastery; an Uber coach follows a sat nav-style approach. Sat navs are helpful but they can atrophy navigation skills. Coaches can discuss when templates serve and when bespoke exploration is needed.
Practical ways to use metaphors in Coaching sessions
Metaphors work best when they belong to the client. The following steps help coaches use metaphor ethically and effectively in Coaching.
- Invite the client’s metaphor: Ask what imagery the client naturally uses—“If your current situation were a landscape, which would it be?” Work with what emerges rather than imposing a metaphor.
- Check resonance: If the client uses surfing images, explore what elements matter—waves, paddling, the impact zone. This deepens shared meaning.
- Translate to action: Convert metaphor insight into practical steps—paddling as committed action, sat nav as a plan with milestones, mountain steps as micro-goals.
- Use metaphor for contracting: Describe the Coaching relationship using metaphor language during contract setting—“I will be your Sherpa; you will be the climber” clarifies roles and expectations.
- Reflect and return: Come back to the metaphor across sessions. Metaphors evolve; waves change, roads close, mountains fog over. Tracking those changes is high-value Coaching work.
Conclusion: What coaches gain from metaphors
Metaphors translate Coaching into lived experience. They make abstract differences between therapy, mentoring, consulting, and friendship tangible. Surfing teaches presence and the courage to face waves. Driving clarifies ownership and route choice. Mountaineering reminds coaches and clients to plan steps and respect capacity. Each metaphor gives coaches a concrete way to explain roles, set expectations, and invite embodied work.
Use metaphors to surface the client’s stance toward risk, learning, and attention. Ask reflective questions such as:
- Which metaphor fits your current experience? (surfing, driving, hiking, or something else)
- What role do you want your coach to play? (Sherpa, passenger, sat nav, instructor)
- Which small step can you take now? (paddle toward the wave, take the next mountain step, pull into the next rest stop)
Coaches who cultivate metaphorical fluency will find it easier to communicate values, differences, and practical offerings to prospective clients. Metaphors also highlight ethical practice: they keep the client as the doer, the coach as the facilitator, and tangible outcomes at the centre of every agreement.
1) ATTRIBUTION
Talking about Coaching is a podcast by coaches for coaches. It does what it says on the tin: We talk about coaching. We, that is Yannick, Siawash and Nicki. We love coaching, collectively got a tonne of experience, knowledge and charm; and we all felt it was time to give something back to our wonderful coaching community. Whether you’re a life coach, work with organisations or practice any other form of coaching, you can ask us anything and we’ll discuss it for and with you so you can learn, grow and develop your practice and business skills!
2) A NOTE FROM THE “AUTHOR”:
I hope you enjoyed this article. If any of it resonates, make it swing! Start a conversation with someone about what came up for you, or let us know what you think_. We’d love to hear from you!_And please keep in mind that, while I’ve personally engineered the prompt for these articles and everything that’s written will be based on the above video, this content is AI-generated, so the general guidance is to go to the source and listen to the podcast.
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This article was created from the video What are good metaphors to explain how coaching works? Talking about Coaching – Episode 25 with the help of AI.