Unveiling the Multifaceted World of Coaching: A Deep Dive into Our Latest Episode

Coaching is an art that transcends the boundaries of a single skill set. Successful coaches often draw from their diverse life experiences, tapping into various roles they've played in different aspects of life. This multifaceted approach can significantly enhance their coaching effectiveness, bringing a rich tapestry of insights to their practice. In this blog post, we'll explore how coaches can leverage their diverse life roles to enhance their coaching effectiveness. If you're intrigued by the idea of drawing inspiration from varied experiences, you won't want to miss the latest episode of the "Coaches Journey Podcast" featuring Dr. Sheri and Faisal, where they delve deeper into this fascinating topic.

1. Harnessing Leadership Wisdom:

If a coach has held leadership roles in their professional journey, they bring a wealth of leadership wisdom to their coaching sessions. Whether it's managing teams, making critical decisions, or navigating challenges, these experiences provide valuable lessons that can guide and inspire their clients.

2. Building Empathy Through Personal Challenges:

Life is full of ups and downs, and coaches who have faced personal challenges can offer a unique perspective. Having navigated through adversity, they bring a heightened sense of empathy and understanding to their coaching relationships. This emotional intelligence helps them connect with clients on a deeper level.

3. Adapting from Different Environments:

A coach who has worked in diverse environments, be it different industries or cultures, possesses a global perspective. This adaptability fosters a coaching style that is flexible and tailored to the individual needs of clients. The ability to understand varied contexts is a powerful tool for creating customized coaching strategies.

4. Effective Communication from Varied Roles:

Coaches often find themselves wearing different communication hats throughout their lives – from being a parent to leading a team or collaborating with diverse groups. These communication skills, honed in various roles, empower coaches to convey ideas, provide feedback, and facilitate meaningful conversations with their clients.

5. Strategic Thinking from Multifaceted Experiences:

Whether it's managing projects, overseeing departments, or steering personal ventures, coaches with a background in strategic roles bring a unique perspective to problem-solving. Their ability to think strategically and see the bigger picture is an invaluable asset in guiding clients toward their goals.

In conclusion, a coach's effectiveness is not confined to their coaching certifications; it extends to the wealth of experiences gathered throughout their life journey. Embracing and leveraging these diverse roles can transform a coach into a dynamic guide, capable of adapting to the nuanced needs of their clients. If you're eager to dive deeper into the stories of Dr. Sheri and Faisal and how their own experiences have enhanced their coaching abilities, be sure to tune in to the latest episode of the "Coaches Journey Podcast."

Click here to watch the episode!

Transcript

[00:00:00] You're listening to the coach's journey podcast, exposing the struggles and celebrating the successes in the life of coaches who are action takers and creating authentic impact in today's world, whether you're just starting out, expanding your reach or exploding your impact, you're in the right place right now, stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Now, here are your hosts of the coach's journey podcast. What's up coaches nation. This is Dr. Sherry for another episode of the coach's journey podcast. I am here with my co host today, Faisal and son, and we have a really good session for you today or session episode, we are going to talk about. All of the hats and roles that we have as a coach. I know that when I started coaching, when I was pivoting into coaching, I had two roles in my mind because I was a psychologist. And then I started to coaching and my mind sometimes would be occupied [00:01:00] with. Well, what is coaching or when am I, when am I doing mental health and what does that look like? And how do I like, it just, it was almost as if there were two gears that were like, sometimes like seizing up or locking up. I'd be caught like, ah, I don't know. I don't know. And at the more that I pivoted into coaching and the more that the coaching mastery community. Has been working with coaches and has been listening to coaches and getting to experience all of the amazingness that coaches get involved in. It's becoming even more complicated and more complex. There's so many different things that we can do and how we can impact. clients that we just kind of wanted to have a conversation about that today and kind of unpack that to get you thinking about all the different ways that you are or could be impacting and how do we differentiate those and what's the value proposition around that and there's so many questions. So Faisal, punt this over to you [00:02:00] for, because I know you do a lot of things as well. And you have become more intentional about labeling some of the things that you do a little bit differently. So, so I'm going to, I'm going to kind of let you take the conversation from this point. Thank you, Sherry. And, and if you're listening on Facebook live, we'd love to hear your perspective on it, because we want to know what you do in your sessions as a coach. And even if you're listening to this on our YouTube channel, please let us know in the comments what, what is it that you do in your sessions? What are your approaches? Do you are you in the coaching mode? Do you use different tools of that? Do you go in consulting? No judgment here because we have to navigate. I think coaching, the more I've been in it, it's so complex that it's hard to kind of pin yourself down into one role. Sometimes we'll talk about it more. And also make sure you like and share this too. So I wanted to, sorry, I wanted to [00:03:00] go into. Into this. And for, for me actually it's become a little bit more complex, especially since I went more towards me business mentoring because most of my clients are either entrepreneurs, investors, a mix of those, so. I have to be very intentional as to which role is coming up when I'm mentoring. So I make it a point sometimes to even mention that I'm transitioning. Sometimes I don't. It just goes naturally into it, but I need to know in my head what's what's happening. But before that, before a couple of years, it was. More on the coaching side, which meant more questions, which meant more diving into certain areas, which meant more there were perspectives shared, which meant more getting them to think about it in different ways, which was also and I'll share a couple of specific example, even recently. And both of these were actually more, I would say, more coaching examples. And then maybe I can share one from a mentoring example. And then Sherry can [00:04:00] share a couple of ones, too. For example, I had one client recently where he was dealing and I couldn't tell that in a session. This is the power of presence in a session because I could have so easily missed that. He was sharing his wins and all the things that were happening, working through. And then he's actually a meant. I do a mix of coaching and mentoring with him because he's a business client as well. But in this one, it went more towards coaching because he was sharing his wins and and I was celebrating him and I repeated it back to him and I could see his face shift a little bit. Like, did I miss something in there? And he went into it and something that came out of it that I would have not expected, but I could have easily missed that if I wasn't paying attention. And the whole session actually became about him feeling shame around something, and it was related to something that you felt he was addicted to. And he hadn't shared that for, for years, we've been working together and it didn't feel like he [00:05:00] could share that up until now. But I thought it was a very powerful session because we went into that helped them and even a couple of moments when he talked about it, I could tell he was emotionally affected by it and I had to stay with him for a while and then he would move past that. And I had to kind of stop him. Like, it sounds like you're bypassing it. Can you just. Pause a little bit. Just feel it. What are you feeling? Share that. Now that, and I won't go into the other examples. He's going to take it. I can go into it after Sherry shares, but, but that would be an example. I think that's a coaching example because I, I needed to build, I needed to, what I did was I repeated it back to him to make sure that I was hearing what he was saying. And also I needed to be present enough to notice what was happening, what his need was in the moment. Now that the. Session was going to be a completely different session, but it went in a completely different direction based on the client's needs. And within the session, I had to be that container for him to actually process those powerful emotions to now. Some people might say that that goes more towards therapy, but [00:06:00] we have elements of that that shows up in coaching that there's no way to avoid that. I needed him to process that before we went to our solution finding a little bit and that helped. What are your thoughts there, Sherry? Well, as you were talking, Faisal, I was thinking about, like, what are the roles that I play right now? And I came up with five, and so I just kind of wanted to share them briefly, just to kind of give some perspective. And I'm sure there's probably more. But 1st of all, like, I am a psychologist. I've, I've done the training. I would, I was licensed for many years. I was a supervisor, all these things. I had a practice. I hired people. And so, like, that's something that. At one point in time, I was like, how do I separate that out from my coaching? And I would say that anytime we kind of start something new, it's, it's clunky. It's always clunky. We don't really, you know, any new skill set, any new thing that we start. It's, [00:07:00] it's. It, it needs refining. And so over time, I, instead of the question of like, how do I separate that out? How do I best integrate that into, into what I do and bring it into what I do? But I don't do mental health. I don't, I don't function under a license anymore. So I'm very specific about that, but. but I still function as a psychologist because I still have the skill set. I still have the knowledge. I still have the experience and all of that. So that is kind of one of the hats I wear is somebody that is knowledgeable in in the diagnoses and, and treatment of those. Secondly, there is, it's can you clarify that part? So do you, you don't diagnose or cause I don't want you to get. No, you're actually diagnosed in coaching sessions. Yeah. No, I don't diagnose. You know, I do not die. I do not formally diagnose. I I think of that framework in my own mind, because a lot of people will come and they're like, Oh, I'm, you know, I have, I'm anxious or have an anxiety disorder. I'm always depressed. Like, [00:08:00] we throw around because anxiety and depression are two words that fit into the diagnostic and statistical manual of you know, for mental health. Like, these are words that mean something to a therapist or a clinician. And so, so part of me is like when people like have this identity of, of having where they've come to me with like, oh, you know, have this, this disorder that is also part of this bigger picture, I do think and evaluate them on the inside. I'm like, yeah, there's like, they're. It's a mislabel or they're using it in a certain way that's unhelpful. So I, so I do have that framework that I bring, but no, I don't diagnose formally, I don't do any assessments for that. So that's, that's not part of part of what I offer. And also just something that you alluded to, clients are always diagnosing themselves to be honest. They're always giving themselves some kind of actually one good check for coaches is have you been formally diagnosed by that? Or are you self [00:09:00] diagnosing? Like, just if you just do that, most people are actually self diagnosing. Like, what, what, what made you reach that conclusion? And they will tell you their thought process. Usually it's they're putting a limitation on themselves. There's. There's nothing in there. And then just that could be that. Oh, I'm boxing myself into this diagnosis. I have this condition that I don't know if I formally have it, but I have I'm saying that I have it. So I'm operating like that. And then, like, if you're concerned that you have that or not, then maybe you'll get diagnosed if you really but is that really a challenge? Because people find it sometimes it's easier to give yourself a way out and actually deal with the problem. And I think that's part of a challenge as a coach might be is to help them understand that. Hey, there are other ways to look at this too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sometimes labels can help people object kind of bring something that feels very overwhelming. It can bring some clarity, which then they can move forward. Honestly, though, labels can also have the [00:10:00] exact opposite effect to where it now. Now they have a name for it and then they use that as a reason and excuse. So so yeah, so that's part of, so I, so I have my psychologist hat and then I have my mentor hat because I do work with a lot of real estate investors and I've, I've been a real estate investor for the last 16 years and I've done a lot of deals and a lot of analyses and have, you know, kind of live in so many of these different areas. And I ran a mastermind. For over a year with my husband who also invests and a significant part of the mastermind was where the group coaching kind of whatever you label it was, was around teaching aspects of real estate investing. So, so that is something that I've done at times. And it's, it's, yeah, that I, that I can bring in at times around real estate investing in, in specific. But I've also had a lot of women and business women, business owners and moms kind of in that realm of I, I'm trying to do business and I have this, this importance and identity around my, my role as a mom and [00:11:00] all of these things that have kind of looked at me a little bit as kind of a mentor. And usually this happens more in I get in some of the, the local groups that I'm a part of, like, through our church and things like that, that I kind of tend to have this role of mentor where I'm not, it's not a formal coaching or, you know, but rather kind of just having some casual conversations and in a group and things like that. So, so there have been other roles that I've kind of found myself being a mentor in so psychologist, mentor, consulting, this is something that I've done little snippets of. And I see myself probably doing more of and how I've done consulting and how I see that is different is, is people are coming to me because I have a specific skill set that they can like that. I'm kind of telling them what to do. Because I know it works and so in the past. That has been so when I was a psychologist with a [00:12:00] practice, I bought I grew that practice and I bought buildings and as I grew the practice, I, I bought multiple buildings and kind of scaled that. And so I've had a lot of psychologists and, and mental health practitioners who have a practice reach out to me, and I've had some 1 on 1 consulting with them about. How do I, how do I think about buying a commercial building for this? And what does that look like? And and so, so it's been very narrow and specific around that. So that's been kind of fun. But now that I've had multiple businesses and, and, and I know if I saw is kind of, I see him in this boat as well where. I probably have enough business skills, not probably, but this is, this is, that's a little bit of my own, like, self doubt coming in, but I probably have enough business skills and experience and knowledge to be able to help people kind of move their business forward. And this is something that we do with the coaching mastery community. We have a lot of state, a lot of. Conversations, a lot [00:13:00] of trainings that we do, even in this podcast around how do you move your business forward? How do you sell? How do you market? How do you, there's so many aspects of that. So there's a little bit of that business consulting because I've done it. I've been there. Not that I'm perfect at it, but I have a lot of experience and, and some pain that I'm willing to share. Like, let's help you not have the same pain. And so that's kind of like, the 3rd piece, and then I'll just quickly say the last 2. 1 is is hosting masterminds because being a host and kind of facilitating a mastermind is not group coaching. It's a bit different. It's basically facilitating other people to to build community to kind of develop their own or to develop, their own resources and answers. So it's not me necessarily. It's not always coaching, but it's also not necessarily consulting. It's a facilitation. And then the last one, of course, is coaching, which I will not explain. But coaching. So there's, those are the five things that I actively am [00:14:00] doing and I do see them as all slightly different in my role and the expectation that others. The expectations that I believe other people should have of me of how I'm showing up in that moment. Which is important to clarify with people, which kind of you, you talked a little bit about myself. Yeah. And this is, this is very interesting because why do people come to you and all the roles, by the way, amazing roles for you, you have so much experience in the background. And so those are really good strengths to know that people are coming to you for those and. So my clients over and over tell me why they're coming to me. Usually they come to me because they struggle with thinking bigger picture. They tell me that they, and so they hear me say that and they, they, they see that I do that stuff. So they will come to me. They usually come to me because I'm sharing something emotional in nature and they struggle with that piece. So there's like, it feels to them, it feels like at least intuitively, I have a good handle on that. They will come to me or they just like my [00:15:00] thinking process or the way they teach one of those pieces. But when we go into a session it's somehow things get resolved for them based on the way that I am and what feels aligned with them. And so every coach is going to have their own strengths and background and knowledge, things that will come in. Parts of them will be like consultant type of thing. Things like in your case, real estate that that's specific to business in real estate that you can help them with. You have enough experience around in my case with coaches that that I do that. But generally in business, even my real estate investors, so if I'm, if I'm going through and I started, I've started doing that much more in the past year because I've seen that I've seen the same patterns in the real estate world that I've seen in there. And I just checked in a couple of times because real estate investors tend to do the same thing. There'll be like, especially capital raisers. There are a lot like coaches in the sense they need to promote themselves. They need to do a bunch of stuff there. Yeah, I'm working on my pipeline. I'm doing this stuff. And I just stopped for a moment. I just checked and I'm like, okay, so isn't [00:16:00] part of this process for you to engage with investors and have conversations with them? And they'll be like, yes. So while you're building your pipeline, your funnels and everything, how many conversations have you had recently? None. How many? How much have you promoted yourself online that needs to be part of their process on LinkedIn or somewhere like, oh, I'm waiting until my funnels. I'm like, why do you need to wait? So that kind of goes into the mentoring and it's still kind of challenging them going, but I'm bringing I'm pulling a part of my knowledge. So, for example, somebody had really good knowledge of nutrition. They could use that as a way to question them if they're in a session that's around energy. Or they're combining their program around energy and life coaching type of thing. But I'm sharing this because every coach has their own strengths based on how they're experienced in life, the things that they've gone in and what ends up happening over time, you actually end up attracting people based on those strengths. In the beginning, you don't even know your [00:17:00] own strengths. So we're kind of trying to work with everybody. But I can tell you almost every client that's with me, they're specifically signing up with me for some very specific reasons that they have thought about. If I ask them, that's why it's actually a really good practice for them to, like, for you to ask it, it feels vulnerable. A lot of them like, why did, why did you choose to? Do this session with me. Why not another coach? Like I will ask that directly because it is like, oh, because of this, this and this that helps you understand why so those strengths and coaching become really important. What comes up in your sessions, I feel, and that that is actually your art of coaching for you specifically as a coach. Absolutely. So I also have my realtors license. On the real estate side, and I've had clients when I've asked them that they're like, because, you know, you're real, you're real estate agent, your husband's a broker and because I know that you fully understand the life I'm living and they come to me for coaching. So, so that stuff is highly relevant. I think the most. One of the most [00:18:00] important things that I would like as a coach that, you know, for those of you listening to this to walk away from is, is being intentional and having a conversation with potential clients on what do they want from you? What are their expectations? Because I think that is what drives. That's ultimately what drives the boat in kind of that initial relationship building. And so if I can clarify with somebody who I had a strategy session last week with somebody, and they told me they specifically chose me because. Of my background as a psychologist, so that tells me a little something now, if we end up doing coaching together, I, in my mind, I need to ask, like, what are his expectations of me? Is he wanting me? Is there any diagnosis stuff that he has some belief around? Or does he wanting some sort of. I, I just want to come into this knowing fully what the expectations are so that I'm not. Accidentally telling them what to do consulting when they really [00:19:00] aren't wanting that and it actually might be counterproductive because they, they might develop a little bit of resistance when they were so there's, there's just a lot of complexity. So, have those conversations, and this is a reminder to myself to have these conversations to really clarify what it is that they're wanting from me. And then, as I pivot into some of these different roles you know, it's probably good. Good. Not a bad idea to kind of check out, like. All right. Well, we've been talking about these things and I do have some ideas specific around what could help you. Are you, would you like to hear them instead of just pivoting into ask from asking a bunch of questions into like, oh, well, actually, what you need to do is, you know, consulting. So kind of creating a safe space for. Pivoting between them and also, I mean, we're not going into the specific tools of coaching that you can use because there's so many of them that you can use. And we have regular conversations around those in CMC. I mean, you could part of like a big part of coaching is asking [00:20:00] questions, but there are other things that come in that you might have to do some teaching. You might have to share perspective. You might have to think and get them to think about it from somebody else's viewpoint. Bye. Bye. Bye. You might have to do other tools, use different tools and techniques to help them. Basically, we can get reconnected to their own strengths to what matters to them, what feels aligned with them. And to me, at least when I look at what coaching does, at least mindset coaching, life coaching, these kinds of things is I want. My view is that I want them to get connected to what truly matters to them, which goes down to what is in their heart and soul, what matters to them to move forward, what's sustainable for them, what will take them towards what would make them the best version of themselves. Not what, what I think will be the best thing for them or somebody else thinks the best thing. That's why I'm always challenging their notions of what their relatives or their society or somebody else's thing. I'm like, well, what do you think? What? Because a lot of times people don't think that they have their own, [00:21:00] they know what to decide for themselves. And part of it is that they need to develop the knowledge, the skill set to think, the skill set to trust themselves more, all that stuff, and the encouragement, the support that they might need to move forward. So, it's really important to know all that stuff, but we're generally touching on what is it, what are the roles that coaches show up as? So, the other experience I have is one of the things that we do in CMC, we have another. We have contracting position for coaches. So I I love listening to those coaching sessions from, from the coaches that we have, and I kind of sometimes feel like I'm watching a movie. I actually try to take out time to do this with some of them can be very long. Yeah, and I'll just listen to them, watch them. To me, it feels like a movie because I'm like, waiting, what is he going to ask next? What is she going to ask next? And sometimes there's disappointment that comes in. Sometimes it's like, why, why, why didn't this coach ask this question? Why didn't they go in this direction? Every coach is of course going to [00:22:00] approach things differently. There are different ways of doing things. But one of the things that I've seen with coaches that they and this is a very Common thing. Oh, I was going to share something else before. Anyway, let me finish this thought. What they do is they don't, they don't call out clients and they don't share their own thoughts. Like two, two major things that can completely transform. And I actually learned this from a couple of modalities. One was compassion and inquiry. We, they're actually taught actively. If you feel affected emotionally by something that the client says, it's actually, you need to share that with the client. You need to let them know that there's something that you're feeling. It's like it's not as because they're dealing with emotions a lot that's relevant, but it kind of clues into different kind of models too is I want them. So if I hear something or they're hesitating with something, I'm like, here's what I'm sensing and I might be completely off, but is that accurate? And usually your instinct is right. Your body's picking up on something or they say [00:23:00] something and you have this instinct to call them out on it. I mean, it sounds like you're not taking responsibility for that. But it's a scary question to ask because now you're, you're like putting them in a difficult situation and putting yourself in a difficult situation in the beginning stages of coaching. Those are, those are the hard questions to ask. But later stages, those are, they become very common questions to because all what the clients need you for is to help them see their blind spot things that they can't notice things that other people around them are not noticing whether it's their team. other people, especially as people go higher and higher up, less and less people question. So they need you as a coach to question them, challenge them, get them to, even if sometimes it feels like they're resisting that process. And that's actually very uncomfortable. So I say that a lot to coaches, like if you're not just as uncomfortable as the client, the session is, if you're so relaxed in that session, that it doesn't feel like a dance. It probably [00:24:00] isn't a great session. Just just as a these are just my frames for kind of judging how these sessions go. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, so there's so many things we can do. I also, as you were talking right before we did this podcast, I was doing a, like a 30 minute training for some real estate agents on productivity. And at the end of my, at the end of my time, like I talked a lot because I was like, trying to like, give them a framework and only had a limited amount of time. I asked a few questions and had a couple opportunities, but at the end, I was like, and, you know, there's this other opportunity for you to do coaching, which. Is not going to be quite like what you experienced. And so I have enough awareness to recognize. Okay. What I'm doing in this thing isn't quite coaching. It's more training and then I'm able to clarify with the people that what they're going to experience in this other area. Is going to be different and I can talk about a little bit about the differences and so it's [00:25:00] good just to continue to refine your awareness of what kind of services you're delivering when, because then you can also more specifically. Help explain what is coaching and what is not coaching, because I don't want people to think that my 30 minute rant on productivity in this framework that I gave them is coaching because it really wasn't that was training. So, so I think it is important just to continue for us to reflect on how am I showing up? What's the kind of role that I'm showing up in each of these different areas and just kind of building that and bringing that awareness to other people so that. The world can better understand what is a coach. Yeah, and it's also I would say one last point is that we're also learning what coaching is because I don't think it's fully defined because different modalities will define and work through it a little bit different. There are some foundational stuff in there, but if you look at different modalities of coaching, people approach it so differently. That we're [00:26:00] actually as an, as, as an industry, we're learning what actually coaching is. It's not as clear cut as you might think. It sometimes goes into the world of therapy. Sometimes it goes into the world, not the world of mentorship. And then coaches tend to kind of put a box around like, no, no, no. I just do coaching. I don't do that stuff. I don't. But the reality is that, I mean, every, every coach that I've met, they do weird, different things that they don't share with other people. Partly because of a liability, the liability issues, but partly because they're like, well, I don't know if that's, I'm supposed to be doing that, but maybe it's better to share these things. That's why we want to hear from you. Definitely share with us in the comments as to what are the things that are effective in your sessions? What are the hats that you wear in your coaching sessions? So we can learn from each other and really see what coaches actually do. And, and then we can weed out coaches who are not actually coaches. And just to bring one more example to what you're talking about I was part of a fitness community for a period of time and the two husband wife team [00:27:00] that kind of let it. They, there was consultation in there and there was a little bit of mentorship, but there was also some coaching because they did do, they did do some mindset stuff and had some questions. So so I just wanted to just continue to express that this is all nuanced and there's so many different industries that bring coaching into a piece of it. And so, but the more that we can clarify, you can clarify it for yourself based on your niche, based on your clients, what you're doing. Kind of how all these pieces fit together. That's only going to benefit you in being able to clarify what your offer is, what the value proposition is, what your results for your clients are going to have, and ultimately be able to be more effective as a coach, slash mentor, slash trainer, slash. All of the things. Yeah. And, and last 2 recommendations before we end the podcast. And if you haven't done this, this is probably 1 of the most important things you can do as a coach, [00:28:00] listen to your own coaching calls. Really take notes, listen to him. In fact, if you haven't done at least 100 calls, listen to all of them. And and as you grow, you'll I don't listen to all my calls now, but I do listen to some calls where I feel like I missed something or something went really well. I need to pay attention to it. And also 2nd, throughout your journey, get several coaches to listen to your calls. Get annoy other coaches to listen to your calls. I'm still after one of my coaches. He still hasn't responded. It's been months. I'm like, can you listen to my goddamn call? To get feedback, even even those who are peers around you, because you will hear things that you would not have thought about your coaching session, positive and negative and take it as a feedback. And also in the new age, you can actually get AI to give you feedback. If you upload the transcript, Grip, I'm going to try that more. That might be a really fast way to do it to give you perspective from different expertise point of view and give you a suggestion that might be very useful. Aside from that, we're excited to [00:29:00] hear from you. What are the hats that you wear as a coach? What are the different ways that you approach your coaching sessions? What are the things that you heard from us that might be insights or has, we'd love to hear from you. Please share this with any coaches that you know, and we're excited to share some thoughts with you in our next podcast episode next week. Amazing. Bye. You're listening to the coaches journey podcast.