How to develop the confidence to coach CEOs, athletes and more successful people than you are

Sherry: This is a big deal being in the community staying accountable growing intentionally doing new things, but being able to, to bounce it off of other people, I think that's totally critical.

Faisal: Agreed completely. And it makes a lot of sense. And then if we don't have feedback, we usually just use our own perception. Whatever we've come up with as a conclusion. We all have blind spots. I don't care how aware we are. How knowledgeable we are. At some point, we're gonna get stuck in our heads and we need other people to give us feedback.

Ad that's how human beings operate. Human beings by nature are a social species, our mind doesn't work individually. So this is just one branch of that world, 

Sherry: If you're willing to say, You know what? As a coach, I don't need to have accountability. I don't need to bounce these things off to other people.

I don't need anybody to help me with my blind spots. Who are you to coach people and tell them? That they need a coach for their blind spots. Like, let's not be hypocritical. But here's the cool thing about the Coaching Mastery community. We have a Facebook group. We have this whole mastermind, a membership that provides credible support.

We are in the middle right now of shifting part of our Facebook group to being free. And so you have an opportunity, a unique opportunity that we are just in the middle of launching to be able to participate in seeing some of the conversations we have. With other members that go even deeper than we go on our podcast, you have an opportunity to put some comments in, like ask questions, Hey, what do you guys think about this?

You get to do all of that stuff for free. So I'm so excited as we shift to being able to grow the Facebook group because it's like a level one opportunity for you to really dig in and find a community and support with other coaches, that you can grow with. So it's an exciting time. 

Faisal: Yeah. and you can just find us on Facebook at coaching master community.

Just search that name and you'll be able to see it. You might see a couple of groups, but one will be private and we will have to give you permission to enter. You'll have to answer I think, three questions there. 

Sherry: Yeah. And we do check you out. So, which is a good thing. So we're not letting any, you know, Tom, Dick, or Harry come in

And where did that Tom, Dick, and Harry come from? Have you ever heard that Faisal like those three names? 

Faisal: I have, but I have no idea where that comes from I came into this side of the world a little bit late. So I usually ignore some of the references, if I'm really curious, I'll look at 'em.

Sherry: Well see, I would think that being new to it would be like, I wanna know where that comes from. Whereas like when you grow up, you know, in a culture and you hear this stuff all the time, you don't necessarily question it. And I know that you're one that questions everything. Yeah. So you've never questioned Tom Dick and Harry

Faisal: I have. It's just, it hasn't come to be a necessity. I've learned to adapt to time learning. When I need it, I'll go learn about it. 

Sherry: That's hilarious. That's hilarious. All right. Alright, so Faisal unpack for us, kind of the thought process behind today's topic. 

Faisal: So we are talking about confidence essentially. And it doesn't matter what field you're in, confidence is the thing that you need to help you move forward. Now, when I talk about confidence now, I don't mean Having an appearance of confidence because you can pretend to be confident and you might even be successful, to fool some people temporarily.

And usually that just only stays on the surface and people pick up on that very fast. And we've all run into people who appear to be confident and all of a sudden you see, oh, that there was no substance there. . And so when we talk about confidence in coaching, what we're actually talking about is how can you have the confidence to be able to coach people who on the external world, they seemingly are more successful than you. In business and so many aspects of life, or at least the measure of success in the professional world

that's how people look at it. So CEOs, athletes, movie stars, whoever. how can we go about approaching that? Because it can be intimidating and I've been intimidated a lot of times to coach somebody at that level. But also, it's not just the title. There are people who've done quite a bit of work.

 And I can start with this story. So this was the first time. I really, really felt intimidated by a client, or at least I felt it more so this was one of the contract coachings that I did. So I got exposed to these amazing individuals who had backgrounds in all sorts of places.

And there was this one individual who was a CEO. And he had multiple businesses. And part of that program was that he would go through a high-performance coaching process and he got the link to fill out the questionnaire for me to look at before our session.

So, He fills out the questionnaire, he fills it out in a very different way than most, it's a pretty long questionnaire. It's 30 minutes, but I think he spent much more time on it. So I opened the questionnaire and I look at it, there are charts in there I'm like, what the hell? there are charts of performance tracking, you know, all sorts of stuff in there.

And I read through the whole thing. Took me about, I think 30 minutes to go through the whole thing. And at the end, there was something he said that was very, Interesting. And it was very scary for me too in the meantime. But also very interesting. So what he said was that you know, I've shared all this, not to brag or say that I've done all this work and all this, that I've done I really have done a lot of work on myself and I've progressed in terms of my mindset, in terms of my success.

He was a true high performer in all areas of his life. And he even challenged me. He is like, if you really think that you can help me, then I'm happy to jump on the call. But if you don't feel like you'll be able to help me, then let's cancel that call. So, I'm thinking, I'm like, oh shit. How do I respond to this? 

Sherry: He's calling ya out and you're confidence. 

Faisal: He was literally calling me out and I was scared. I was like, I don't know if I can help him out, to be honest. And I sat there and dealt with those emotions because my heart rate is racing and I'm like, I need to do that anyway.

I'm like, would I be able to help him? And I thought about it for a bit and I realized, well, the only way to know is if we just do the call. It's the first call. It's a discovery call. and I'll show up with the best that I can do. And if I can't help him, then I can't, I will still do my best.

And I sent him an email. I said that I got your questionnaire. Thank you for filling it out in so much detail. And I'm pretty sure I said that, and this was like four years ago I think at this point. I'm trying to remember the words. But I think I said something to the effect of I would love to do this session and I really wanna honor you for doing all of that work before I did that session, I don't know if I can support you and the whole point of that session is for me to see if I can support you and how I can support you.

If you are open to it, I'd love to do that session with you. And it'll be interesting for you too. And he's like, then I sent me a quick email back and like, let's do it. I'm like, okay. So we did the session. We go through it and this is what I found out. People who are really high performers, you have to do a lot of discovery to figure out, because they really have, like, if they say that they've done a lot of work, you, you literally have to go through every part of their life to even find an area where they're struggling in.

And this is a 60-minute session at a probably, I think 40-minute mark Up until that it was like he's doing amazing in every area At the 40-minute mark. There was a point that came in around his relationship with his wife and I saw a shift in his tonality. I saw a shift in his face and knew I needed to go deeper in that area.

Sherry: you found your in. 

Faisal: And then he had, and it's not that he was hiding anything, it was just that he might have not noticed it. And we go into that area and there was a slight difference in the way that they were looking at their vision and he didn't think much of it. But what ended up happening was that it was creating a lot of frustration for him.

He was just putting it aside. And it was an alignment issue. And also was a support issue, whether or not he could support her and me, I can't talk about the details, but as we went in there, he had a huge realization around that, and his next action step was to actually go have a conversation with her about it.

Now, here's a cool thing that happened. He was very happy and he is like, yeah, this, this was very valuable for me. Thank you. I met him at an event a few months later I was just standing there at the front of an event that was, that was part of the coaching team there. And I had seen him on video, but I hadn't met him in person and it's like this guy just comes in he gives me a hug.

I didn't even recognize him. He is like, Hey, remember we did that session and I challenge you and all that. I'm like, oh yeah, that's you. He is like, and the whole team was there too. He is like, you know, he was just, the whole event, he was talking about me and how I was able to move him forward. He talked to every team member there and we had an incredible conversation at the event.

I actually became good friends in a lot of ways. So the reason why I'm sharing that story was that it was very easy for me to back out or say that maybe I can't help you. Maybe it's but I think the thing that was important there is that the fear was there. Then, I didn't know if I was gonna be able to help him but it was the curiosity and openness.

And I've actually used that a lot. Whenever I see something odd or different or somebody. I'm like, I'm actually really curious to see how I would perform and how I would be able to support that person in that area. And then that curiosity piece is much more important than the kind of show of confidence that, oh, well yeah, I can help you. I didn't know. 

Sherry: So what I love about this story, and there are two words in particular that came to mind as I was listening to you talk? You know, and we started this conversation off about confidence and when, when I think about confidence as a coach, I envisioned me saying, you know, absolutely, Faisal I can help you.

Let's have a conversation to figure out how I can help you, but I'm confident I can help you. But what I heard you do in that story wasn't that approach. It was it was humility. And so your approach wasn't one of like, of course, I can help you, but it was one of like I wonder if I can help.

Let me see. And you were being humble because you were being open to the possibility that you could help, but you legit were open to the possibility that maybe I'm not gonna be able to help. Maybe I'm not the right person. And so I love the undertone of humility, which I think goes into that curiosity because you're not coming in with an assumption.

And yet there still can be this confidence. So as you've grown over the last four years, how are you balancing humility with confidence? 

Faisal: I think they work with each other as long as it's true confidence. Because that's why I'm stressing on the fake confidence part, cuz that's a front I've done that a lot of my life and, and I know very well how to do that.

I just have chosen not to go towards that because it helped me keep this kind of persona that would protect me from others, but it didn't help me actually progress. two different things cuz I know that people catch on at some point  and I can spot that from very far a lot of times. But here's the thing, I look at these things differently than values per se.

I look at them as what actually works practically, what works long-term is being human. Understanding that we all have shortcomings, we all have areas of strength. We all know things that we can help a lot of people with. We all know that other people know a lot of things too. We all know that there are areas that we won't be really good at, but there are areas that will be really good. Under common sense, things that we know about, but we ignore them just to protect ourselves in a lot of ways.

So here's what I've done. So even now like if somebody and I get a lot of referrals, a couple of weeks back, it was one of my old clients, she sent one referral to me a month ago. And, and there's this client I did the strategy session with and I was surprised to get that email cuz she sent an email.

She's like, you know, I referred this person too. He did that session. He didn't even sign up for my coaching. I sent him another email afterward. But I thought I guess the session didn't go very well because I didn't get any feedback from him. But she's like he was in her mastermind and she said he the person that I sent to you actually made a major life decision.

He completely changed his career. He's quitting his job and he credited a lot of it to you. I was like, really? Because he didn't even respond to me. which I find really funny a lot of times, which is okay. I was very happy that I was able to support him and maybe you didn't need coaching beyond that at that point.

And she's like, I have another person who has done this, that, and the other, and is a very accomplished human being. And then my response is like that. That's awesome. I'd love to support her. I don't know fully if I will be that's why I do a full strategy session now. My strategy sessions are two hours. They're not even 90 minutes anymore. Because there's a lot in there. 

Sherry: And you do like to talk let's be honest. 

Faisal: Yeah, that's part of it too. That might be a big one.

Maybe I'll say maybe. So basically my response is usually along the lines, be honest, I don't know if I can support this person, but I'm curious to try to see if I can support them. They do have to fill out a questionnaire and they do need to be open. They don't need to commit to anything.

They just need to show up. And she actually wanted to gift it to her. So she's, she's like, can I please pay for this session? I'm like, yeah, that's fine. You can do that. You can give it. And the reason why I frame it like that. Not because, oh, I have some high value around humility, but it's because I really, in fact, I don't know.

Yeah. Because I might not feel aligned with this person, or they might not. Feel aligned with me. And I had another client I talked to whose husband wanted some coaching. And so he was looking more for a conservative Christian coach. And I'm not that I might have some conservative values, but I'm not the Christian or conservative.

Per se. So I told him, like, I actually have some coaches who might be more aligned. I can get him connected to it now, or I'm open to doing the session. Maybe he'll feel aligned with that. She's like, I'd love for you to try a session with him first, and then if he doesn't feel aligned, then we, we can think about it there too.

And then like, there are so many factors where you might not be aligned with a person and the title and accomplishment will be the last thing. Yeah. To even think about. Yeah. 

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