I was privileged to be able to attend this year’s Coaching for Careers (C4C) confluence in Stratford-upon-Avon.  The wonderfully inspiring Helen Gormley led us through a series of Street Wisdom exercises. The brief was to connect with the world around us and find the wonder in the everyday while also ‘walking with a question’.  Out we stepped into the gardens of the conference hotel and wandered about.  

An onlooker commented that we looked like a bunch of zombies : we all ambling along slowly and deliberately.  Towards some unseen goal. For many it was visibly effortful to slow down and take in the surroundings. I thought I’d be really good at this – as a regular meditator I am well-versed in slowing down and noticing what is going on inside and out. But even so I had no idea of what was going to happen and that in itself was quite wonderful.

I found myself barefoot on a sun-scorched lawn, the grass dry from weeks of summer heat. What caught my eye wasn’t the grass itself, but the faint pattern left by a lawnmower: alternating light and dark stripes, like a quiet barcode etched into the earth.

I chose a dark stripe and began walking along it, flanked by two lighter ones. But as I reached the halfway point, something curious happened—the stripes seemed to vanish. The contrast that had guided my steps faded. I could no longer see the path I was on. So I simply kept walking toward the fixed point I had chosen at the start.

When I turned around to retrace my steps, a quiet revelation struck me: the stripe I had walked along now appeared light, framed by two darker ones. Of course, this is how lawnmowers work—they bend the grass in alternating directions, creating a visual effect that depends entirely on your vantage point. But in that moment, it felt like more than a trick of the light. It felt like a metaphor.

Framing and the Illusion of Clarity

This small moment reminded me of a concept from Winning Decisions by Russo and Shoemaker: decision framing. The way we define a problem—what we focus on, what we ignore, what we assume—shapes the options we see and the choices we make. Much like the lawn stripes, our frames can seem obvious and solid from one angle, only to dissolve or reverse when we shift perspective.

In coaching, we often help clients reframe their challenges. What looks like a dead end from one view might reveal a hidden path from another. But this isn’t just a cognitive trick—it’s a practice of humility. A reminder that our current view, however compelling, is always partial. One of the tenets in Buddhist practice chimes with this also: The first limb of the Noble Eightfold path is Right View (Samyak-drsti) – a recognition of impermanence, and the true nature of reality (much more could be said about this!). But even so, there is also a clear exhortation that any view is bound to be provisional, and the ultimate goal is to achieve No View.

Walking with Intention

What stayed with me most was the act of walking toward a fixed point, even when the path became unclear. There’s something quietly powerful about choosing a direction, trusting your footing, and allowing clarity to emerge in hindsight.

In coaching—and in life—we don’t always get to see the full pattern while we’re in it. But we can choose our orientation. We can walk with intention. As discussed earlier, we can create reasons for our choices and own them.

And we can pause, turn around, and see things anew.

Sometimes, the stripe you thought was dark turns out to be light. And that, too, is beautiful.