The Tailor Series and Change
“People rarely change their behavior at someone else’s request. They do it of their own accord, when they want to*.”
Lately I’ve started sniffing out the elements of coaching in every moment of my life, and that includes the latest Netflix series I watched, “Terzi” (The Tailor). Have you wondered where I found coaching in this series? For those curious to know more, I’ll keep writing…
The character in the series who made me think the most was “Cemre.” She joined the show in the second season, at the moment the lead character needed help most. She noticed the person struggling under an emotional burden and attuned herself to them, and to the people around them as well, watching from the outside all season without judging anyone. We heard nothing about her own life in the series; it wasn’t about her. That is exactly one of coaching’s magic tools: not “judging” how the person in front of us relates to others or lives their life.
Another scene I connected with coaching was the moment Cemre and Peyami flew from the car into the sea. Yes, the scene isn’t believable at all: Cemre, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, came out of the water without so much as a bloody nose and still wanted to enjoy a carefree swim, which is anything but ordinary. But what if we take some creative license and turn this scene into a metaphor? Did Peyami sink to the bottom? Yes, he did. Was Cemre down there with him? No, she was above, waiting for him. Was Peyami’s awakening about himself? Yes: whatever the subject, the responsibility had to lie with the person themselves. In coaching sessions, too, we hold this mindset and let the client experience their emotions and feelings, but we are never in the same place as them. “We don’t hug the stove.”
The last similarity that made me think was that Cemre, unlike the main character Esvet, never offered clichés like “Pull yourself together, come to your senses, this isn’t you” to Peyami. On the contrary, she always stood by him and only asked questions aimed at understanding, and sometimes simply observed. Adam Grant, the Wharton professor and author of Think Again, says that logical explanations don’t always work. All you can do is understand how the other person thinks and ask whether they want to reconsider. The rest is up to them. A very illuminating perspective on change, isn’t it? Granted, in coaching we perhaps aren’t talking about a change as rapid and drastic as Peyami reaching a divine level right after his alcohol addiction; that would be too much to expect. But isn’t it worth experiencing these tools even for the baby steps of change?
*From Amy Gallo’s book “Getting Along.”
Would you like to talk about this topic as part of your own development journey?
AUTHOR
Azer Karabıyık
Career Transition Coach PCC, ACPC, ORSC
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