Why coaching needs silence AI is not aware of

Coaching is one of the most frequently used terms in the field of personal development today, but there is much more to this profession than just setting goals or motivational phrases. We spoke with coach Katarína Ožvoldová, who originally came to this field completely by chance, and even with a slight degree of skepticism. It was only after an intense experience with people who shared similar values that she became convinced that coaching really does make sense.

Today, she focuses on topics such as sustainable performance, burnout prevention, stress, and working with the body. She believes that the path to change does not lie in extreme performance , but in understanding one’s own needs and signals. In the interview, she speaks openly about what coaching can do, where its limits are, why it is sometimes important to “upset” the client, and why artificial intelligence can never replace the silence that a coach understands so well.

I was hesitant to start coaching, but a wow moment among like-minded people convinced me

What was your journey to coaching like?

My journey to coaching was hesitant. In the company where I was working I was in charge of motivation, training, and sales support. The budget didn’t cover the entire coaching course, only two days of mentoring. I didn’t know that it was for people who had already completed coaching training, and I somehow snuck in. In the end, they let me stay for the whole two days and even allowed me to try coaching.

Well, when I was surrounded by like-minded people who shared certain values, were humane, and I could see and experience this overall, that’s when the wow moment came, in the sense that coaching has something to it. That’s when it clicked, I went to my first training session and started coaching my friends to get some hours under my belt. One friend even wanted to pay me, and that’s when I realized that it actually has value and is useful.

Do you focus more on life coaching or business coaching?

For a long time, I had a foot in both camps, and I still do a little bit, because I’m still attracted to the business environment. On my blog, I also like to bring up topics related to work, burnout, fatigue, or stress, but it wasn’t until recently that I anchored it under the name sustainable performance coaching.

We often think of coaching as mainly about setting goals, how to pursue them, and how to achieve them. Although, often it is also about what stands in our way, about deeper issues that we need to address, and this is where it all came together for me: yes, we want to get somewhere, but how can we do it in a way that is sustainable for us, so that we don’t forget about ourselves, our needs and values, and so that we can be at peace.

Reducing from 100% to 85% may be the way to achieve sustainable performance

In one of your articles, you write that people don’t have to perform at 120%, but they do have to continuously adjust their performance so that they don’t burn out.

This is basically the model according to Yerkes-Dodson’s law, which was formulated at the beginning of the 20th century. It talks about the level of stress at which we achieve optimal performance. Because if we avoid stress, we often fall into a phase of boredom, and in that phase, it’s hard to move forward and we don’t know what to do with ourselves. The other extreme is when a person goes full throttle, which was my case in the past, and doesn’t realize that they also need to regenerate, which is the stage when burnout occurs.

The optimum is somewhere in the middle, where we overcome challenges, but it is not about long-term stress and tension, which is already unhealthy. Slowing down from 100% to 85% is optimal in that I allow myself to regenerate, relax and give myself space.

Life cannot be separated from work

What issues do people come with to coaching sessions?

It varies. Sometimes a person comes to me, I have a specific client in mind right now, and needs to solve something work-related, but we end up talking about their partner and relationship. These topics often overlap simply because life cannot be completely separated from work. Entrepreneurs come because they want to move forward, they are looking for direction, but this also opens up topics such as communication and relationships within the team, how to work with people, and so on.

Or people come who are tired and need a change. Often, they don’t pick up on the signs that something is wrong in time, only dealing with the problem when they are at rock bottom.

A coach is not a people pleaser

When do you consider coaching to be successful, and when do you consider it to be unsuccessful?

For me, it’s important how the client evaluates it, that they always leave with something. They may not solve the whole problem right away when we talk about it, but they always take something away with them. Then I don’t evaluate whether it was successful or unsuccessful, or whether I am satisfied or dissatisfied. Sometimes the client may leave slightly angry or frustrated, which may be useful for them in the end – they will realize this and come back. So it can‘t be evaluated entirely based on emotion. In coaching, we have to learn to stand our ground, even if the client gets a little angry; we aren’t people pleasers. A client comes to us with a problem, and we help them look at it from different angles as well as look inside themselves – what they learn about themselves, and that’s not always easy.

It can be challenging for coaches to realize that it’s OK even if the client gets a little angry. We have to stand up for ourselves in that we are here to help the client see the situation from different directions, but they have to walk the path themselves. We can ask good questions, and the client can ask themselves good questions, but will they also formulate the answers? We often get stuck in a loop and don’t sit down to write down what comes to mind on a given topic. It is necessary to gradually untangle this knot, and that is another positive impact of coaching, that someone helps us with it. We tend to digress and look for connections until we lose the thread and forget what we are actually thinking about.

Can coaching harm someone?

I don’t think so. Rather, it may happen that a client delves into deeper topics and the coach misjudges their competence in terms of whether it is a matter for another professional, such as a therapist. We need to know where the line is, be able to name it, and be able to honestly tell ourselves whether we still dare to go there. Or whether it’s time to move that client on. However, pure coaching, when principles, ethics, and the like are followed, can‘t do any harm.

Trust is key

How should you choose a coach?

One thing is to verify education and qualifications, or membership in an association. The unfortunate thing about coaching is that it is such a trendy word and is often used to describe people who don‘t actually coach, but simply borrow the term because they don‘t know how else to describe themselves. A certain relationship develops between the client and the coach, and because we are going to open up and perhaps say things that we have never said to anyone else, not even our closest friends and family, we need to trust that person. So that’s another important factor, whether I’ll feel safe, or whether the topics they bring up resonate with me when I read or listen to something from them. Most coaches also have a non-binding introductory interview, which is good to take advantage of. There, we can get a feel for whether we like the person, we can ask them questions and find out if there is a connection, if it will work out, and if we can trust that person.

Curiosity should come naturally to coaches

Is it important for coaches to continue learning?

Continuous education is also based on our ICF code of ethics: we need to constantly develop and address our own issues. International certifications and recertifications, which need to be renewed after a certain period of time, require hours of further education, so the professional field also pushes us a little in this regard. I like the analogy used by one of my mentors: in order to be a good teacher, you need to constantly be a student in some other field. Coaching should also be based on curiosity and an interest in new things.

So what are you learning now?

This year, I have been working on my personal development, so I am also learning indirectly through a systemic approach and group coaching, and I plan to continue this next year. I have been dealing with many of my own issues there and learning from experienced people. I have been studying body approaches in coaching and kinaesthetic coaching for a long time. Working with the body comes very naturally to me because, before I got into coaching, I got into movement therapies, first as a client and then through study. I found it fascinating what the body can reveal to us when we learn to perceive it and be more sensitive to ourselves. We then begin to approach life differently.

When we want to move forward or make a decision, our body tells us where it wants to go. We can also learn more by connecting with our feelings and what we are talking about or deciding on. When I notice certain gestures, I show them to the client and name them. Or we create an imaginary situation in space, what happens when we approach and move away from it, and how we perceive it on a physical level.

A coach does not need complicated language

Have you ever coached in English?

Throughout university, I got to work with students who came from places like Kenya, which was sometimes challenging because of their accents and speed of speech. I realized then that it wasn’t about understanding everything, but about creating space in the present and capturing some important moments. I always prepare for such coaching sessions, especially for team meetings. Once, I coached an IT team in English on the topic of communication, and of course, there were some IT terms and abbreviations that I didn’t understand, so I just wrote everything down. It’s okay for a coach to admit this, because we are not experts on topics, but on the process. People accept this, and I was surprised myself at how it turned out in the end and what solutions and action plans they came up with.

We coaches need to ask questions as simply as possible and not complicate them unnecessarily. So, if we free ourselves from expectations in that language, simple expressions and phrases are enough for us to ask a simple question.

I have always been a bit of a daredevil. Even when I worked for a company, we invited foreign speakers to conferences, or we traveled ourselves. We had very specific internal jargon, and at some point, I decided to try simultaneous interpreting. I then completed a few days of training in Prague and really enjoyed it. I have been interpreting for years, and I also learned by living abroad and having to find my way in various situations that I have to communicate somehow. It also depends on the level of stress. When we manage to let go of it at some point, we no longer worry about what the other person will think, how we will say it, whether we will say it correctly, or whether we will get confused. We no longer block ourselves.

So communication is not just about language as such.

In coaching, a lot happens through listening and tuning into nonverbal communication and perceiving signals. We only use coaching tools when we feel that now is the time. We don’t stick rigidly to our coaching and ideas, but adapt to the client.

AI cannot replace a coach because it doesn’t understand silence and nonverbal signals

What about coaching and artificial intelligence?

This topic is being discussed in the coaching community, and we will also have one presentation on AI at the SAKonference. We believe that AI tools can help people quickly reflect on their thoughts or orient themselves in a given topic. However, AI will never completely replace a coach in terms of perceiving things on an emotional level. As I mentioned, much of coaching happens in nonverbal communication and silence, and that is something that AI will never be able to read.

At SAKonference 2026, we will discuss the future of coaching and what the role of a coach is and will be. AI can‘t go into depth with a client. I recently had an experience where a client sent me AI outputs on her topic for inspiration, instead of letting the process flow and settle, listening to her thoughts and her inner wisdom.

By communicating everything via AI, we overwhelm ourselves with thoughts that aren’t our own. As a coach, I can‘t completely influence clients not to use AI in the process, because we live in a time when we want quick solutions and quick answers. However, they need to process, and to take the first step, based on which they can find out whether a given solution works for them or not. Then we take the next step, and the next.

We should learn to distinguish between what we need AI for and what we don’t. In my opinion, this is also related to self-confidence. When I don’t trust myself, I wait for the answer to come from somewhere else. Even in coaching, there are people who say, “You tell me what to do.” Well, through coaching, we also learn to trust ourselves, and AI can’t help us with that because it won’t get us out of a loop, solve deeper issues, or make decision-making easier.

We want to look to the future

Since you mentioned the SAKo conference, what can we look forward to?

We‘ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of SAKo, but above all, we want to focus more on the present, where we are now, and the future, where coaching and leadership are headed. We‘ll also look at emotional intelligence, but also the aforementioned AI and how to use it, or not use it. This year, we‘ll focus not only on HR and leaders, but also on the coaches themselves. The workshops will be divided into two areas: for corporate participants, we will have case studies on how to approach coaching in companies, and coaches will discuss current approaches and topics in coaching.

Katarína, thank you for the interview.

If you are interested in the coaching conference mentioned in the interview, please contact Katarína directly at: info@katarinaozvoldova.sk, since the website of the conference is in Slovak only.

At the Bridge, we are happy to be one of the main partners again. And the mentor in our coaching course, Mike Shreeve, is going to have a workshop on coaching in the second language, at which he will present a unique survey and support the participants in trying out some activities.

Find out more about Katarína Ožvoldová at her website: www.katarinaozvoldova.sk.

Edited by: Kamila Jančíková / Photos: archive of Katarína Ožvoldová