In 2024, I attended the Barefoot conference that featured Emma Jones, John Perry, Andy Chandler PCC, James Sills, and Bernice Hewson MA., BSc.

It was such a rich experience that it inspired a poetic reflection series. Click the link in the comments below to catch up on that.

This year I had the honour of being the Poet in Residence alongside another stellar cast of speakers, Heather Murray, Kim Morgan MCC, James Sills 🎤, Dr Andy Cope and Claire Genkai Breeze

They delivered a rich and diverse menu of topics ranging from getting to grips with AI, dealing with grief and loss, climbing mountains to find your voice, being more 'Cat 3' (all will be revealed) and navigating the ineffable.

In this series, I will provide a poetic snapshot of the conference. Highlighting the key points I got from their sessions and I would encourage you to reach out to the speakers if you would like to explore their topics further.

As Poet in Residence, I provided the poetic sandwich filler between sessions. Creating a space for the audience to recover their creative coaching zest, emboldened by the assurance that the poetry police had been incarcerated.

They fed words into the 'Poetricity Word Portal' and, after some poetic magic, out popped the piece below celebrating the coaching community.

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Coaching community

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Curious what a coach does?

Being together with our coachees

Creating safe spaces of reflections

Present with kindness and empathy

Gifting them a listening presence

Showing up with hope and compassion

Helping unleash their joy and magic

Lending them courage to embrace

Transformation

Respecting the rhythm of their purpose

Nurturing their passion

Honoring their intuition

Giving room to their inspiration

Ohh what a responsibility

Glad I'm in this community

Connected through this noble work

Welcome to a place of love and support

As we walk the path we support them on

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"Listening to the captivating Frank Bolaji Irawo talk about creativity in coaching through poetry. Mind blown at #barefootconference2025" - Panos Malakoudis

Before retraining as a coach with Barefoot, I worked in Tech for over 30 years, but don't be fooled; I was never a geek at heart. I learnt just enough to do my job; I was much more fascinated by the people than the tools.

I am reliably informed that AI is coming for all our jobs, so we better all jump on board or be left behind, so I made an effort to pay attention to Heather Murray's presentation at the conference.

It turns out coaches could benefit from AI by using it for research, coaching sessions analysis, transcribing and post-session follow-up.

It was reassuring to learn that we are still the bread in the AI sandwich, as we define what we want it to do and customise its output to more accurately reflect us

I decided to engage in the adoption process by feeding NotebookLM (Google AI Tool for processing and representing information) all my poems from the conference and see what it could make of it.

Could it do a better job than me, or better still, could we make a great team?

I will let you be the judge of that!

Below is my poetic summary of the session; see if you can spot how many AI tools are named and extra points for saying what they do. I look forward to seeing your response in the comments section!

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Chatting GPT
By Frank Bolaji Irawo

I was tempted to write this piece
With generative AI
But I was somewhat Perplexed
As I sought to get the last Grain
From my Napkin and said
HeyGen would you create a Claude
Who can Chat like GPT
Generated Persona Transposer
That is, not a Great Pile of Tosh
As some might think
I knew it was coming,
Till Heather's session
slapped me in the face
And said, "It's Here!"

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If you attended, please share your fondest memories of the event in the comments below

If you did not attend, please share any part of this series that resonated with you

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Connect with Heather Murray if you want to learn more about adopting AI

As a delegate at the Barefoot conference, I can heartily endorse you as an event Poet in Residence, Frank Bolaji Irawo. Brought a beautiful energy to the day, and allowed the audience to digest and see things from different angles - Laurence Davies PCC, Assoc CIPD

This year's Barefoot conference is just a few months away, and I'm looking forward to being a part of it again. 

With another great lineup of guest speakers to learn from. I am particularly looking forward to Jackee Holder's session on Radical Reflection.

It is one of the most underrated leadership practices. It is the door to awareness that puts a leader at choice to interrupt any unhelpful patterns as well as double down on the helpful ones.

Reflecting on who you are BEing was also the invitation offered by Dr Andy Cope in last year's conference.

It is the difference between making cosmetic changes with localised short-term impact or transformational ones that impact our very experience and quality of life.

Below is my poetic summary of the session; which of the key messages resonates with you? Comments below!

If you’re attending this year's conference, please do come and say hello. It’s always a pleasure to reconnect with the community (and meet new faces too).

#BarefootCoaching #BarefootConference26 #CoachingCommunity

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Be more Cat 3

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Life is full of choices

Change or transform

A bit like choosing to

Rearrange the furniture

on the sinking titanic

Or simply jump ship?

Here is another

Would you rather be real

or be a reel of the real you?

One will definitely cost you

more and be worth it all

Here is a riddle to consider

When is a thing not a thing?

When it lands on your "To Be" list

BEcoming A gift

that keeps on giving

Which would you

Rather be

That would be Cat 3

For me

Looks like he is at

Least

Enjoying this journey

If life deals a good hand

I get about 4000 weeks

of being me

Might as well be a version

I'm happy to be with

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If you attended, please share your fondest memories of the event in the comments below

If you did not attend, please share any part of this series that resonated with you

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Connect with Dr Andy Cope if you want to learn more about his work

"Frank Bolaji Irawo's performance as Poet in Residence at the Barefoot Coaching annual conference was truly inspiring. His live poetry creation and engaging presence captivated all 280 attendees, igniting their own creativity and confidence. His eloquence, passion, and generosity of spirit made the day memorable, and the positive feedback from delegates has been overwhelming. We are grateful for his contribution to making our event a remarkable success." Andy Chandler PCC & Kim Morgan MCC

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