Listen to the full episode here.
00:00:44 Hi. Rhonda Britten here. I’m so excited for today’s episode of Master Coach Mindset™ because we’re going to be talking about right, wrong, mistakes, etcetera, and I’m going to be answering a question from a coach. Now, if you have a question you’d like me to answer, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and at the bottom of the page, it says ask Rhonda anything, help me Rhonda, and you can throw in your question and one of those questions might be chosen for an episode of Master Coach Mindset™. Be sure to visit Master Coach Mindset™ to download your Fearbuster Coaching™ Tool of the day and of course, put your questions in.
[00:01:09] Today, I’m going to be answering a question that a coach sent in to me about her client who wants a baby, she’s older and what should she do. I’m going to be getting to that later on in the episode but first, we’re on line five of the Master Coach Manifesto™. Now, if you're a first-time listener and you have not heard about this Master Coach Manifesto™, you want to go listen to the first few episodes of this podcast and or go over to MasterCoachMindset.com and download the Master Coach Manifesto™ because these first 13 episodes, we’re going to be breaking down what this manifesto means.
00:01:35 Inside this manifesto, I’m also obviously going to be giving you some topics. I’m going to be giving you tips. I’m going to be supporting you in different types of questions to ask your client and ask yourself about what this particular phrase means. I want us literally to get into the mindset of a Master Coach and that is why I created the Master Coach Manifesto™.
[00:02:05] Today, we’re on line five. Yes, we’ve gone over four lines already, so again, please review previous episodes. Go ahead and listen to previous episodes. Download those onto your smartphone and listen to them while you're taking a walk, in the car driving, so that you can get this stuff in your bones and really ask yourself, am I embodying this? Am I living this? Is this how I see coaching and is this how I want to see coaching?
[00:02:35] I have a particular philosophy on coaching. I've been doing it for over 22 years and I really, really believe that what we do changes lives, that what we do saves lives, that what we do changes hearts and minds. We get to be on the forefront of this transformation in the world today. We get to be at the forefront. So many people still are nervous about therapy or have a stigma against therapy. We’re able to kind of get in there and support people who maybe aren’t willing to go to therapy. Again, we’re not therapists but give them the beginning steps of really changing their lives.
[00:03:05] Of course, if you're a Master Coach, you're going to be able to take them deeper, help them see more possibilities and help their lives shift faster. Of course, when you're a Master Coach, your clients do stay longer. Yeah. My clients, on average, stay about four years and they don’t actually ever leave me. I have clients to this day that … Let’s see. I started coaching 22 years ago. I have my very first client, Lisa, still occasionally when she needs a tune-up, when she needs a shift, she actually still comes to me 22 years later.
00:03:35 One of my philosophies, and again, you don’t have to have this philosophy but one of my philosophies is that whatever you pay me when we first start coaching together, what the last, whatever the last thing you ever paid me, that’s going to be your session cost for life. I never raise fees on my clients. Lisa was one of my very first clients. She paid me $25 a session and to this day, Lisa still pays me $25 a session. I love that. It makes me so happy.
[00:04:05] If your clients aren’t staying past your 12-week introductory sessions or 24 weeks, then these Master Coach tools, tips, techniques, skills and this mindset is going to support you in having a client that really, you have a relationship with them that goes beyond their current problem. That’s really key. Master Coach goes beyond their current problem, yes, solves their current problem and shifts their dream, of course, makes their dream happen but as a Master Coach, you're actually working beyond that.
00:04:35 Let’s get to phrase five of the Master Coach Manifesto™, and again, you can download yours at MasterCoachMindset.com. A Master Coach coaches beyond right or wrong or bad or good because there is no such thing as a mistake. As always, I ask you to shut your eyes and take a deep breath. Let’s do it for this time, this re-reading of it just one more time to ask ourselves, okay, you know what, do I really believe that? Is this how I really coach?
[00:05:05] Think about your life right now as a Master Coach because in phase one, phase one of the Master Coach Manifesto™, we talked about doing your own internal work. If you are a perfectionist, if you are somebody who wants things a particular way, right, you probably have a strong idea of right and wrong. If you have a spiritual base, you might have a strong belief in good and bad. I'm asking you actually to go beyond those two things and I’ll be talking more about that in just a minute. Just as we shut our eyes right now, and again, if you're driving, don’t shut your eyes but if you're capable or willing to shut your eyes, go ahead and do that and really ask yourself, are you willing to see the world beyond right, wrong, good, bad and really see that there’s no such thing as a mistake?
[00:05:35] Right now in the history of the world, we have a lot of problems. We have a lot of challenges and one of the reasons that we’re not able to solve them together at this moment in time, and I know some people are trying desperately, is that we do think in right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. I want you to really tell yourself the truth. Don’t lie to yourself. You're somebody who either is a Master Coach or wants to be one, so let’s not lie to ourselves. Let’s be really clear. Do you believe in right and wrong, good or bad? Do you believe that you are capable and your client is capable of making mistakes? It’s really important that you know that about yourself because that limits your capacity to see and support your client in making their dream come true, again, unless those values are completely aligned, unless you completely agree with them.
00:06:05 Go ahead and shut year eyes if you can and be willing to tell yourself the truth. That’s all. The first step in transformation for our clients and ourselves is willingness to be aware, to admit the truth to ourselves with compassion, with heart, no judgment. Just tell yourself the truth about where you are on this continuum called life, on your own awakening. Deep breath. A Master Coach coaches beyond right or wrong or bad or good because there is no such thing as a mistake. There’s a very famous quote by Rumi that talks about this very thing. Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. That is what I’m asking you to do with your clients and yourself. Meet you in that field beyond right and wrong, good and bad and really believe that there is no such thing as mistake.
[00:06:35] Now, I get that that’s hard to swallow, right, because you say, “Well, I wanted to do it better,” but the very thing that lowers our self-esteem, the very thing that lowers our confidence as a coach and our client’s confidence and esteem and worth and value, et cetera, is that they think that they should have done it better, that they think they should have known it better. They have an expectation that somehow, they should have known something they don't know, something they've never done that they think they should know, right? I should have known that. How many times have you said that to yourself, "I should have known that". How many times have your clients said, "I should have known that. I should have done better. I know better. I should do better”?
[00:07:35] When you're in that mindset, it's not very empowering because if you would have known better or could have done better, wouldn't you have? In the Fearless Conversations Workshop, I teach the eight coaching skills that used to be a close training to only my Life Coach Certification Program™ candidates that become Certified Fearless Living coaches. One of the core coaching skills that I teach is the ability to see innocence, to speak as if they’re innocent, to really see them as innocent, your clients. That’s easier said than done. It’s probably one of the hardest mindsets to get behind.
[00:08:05] Now, I know as a spiritual being, if you believe in God, etcetera, even in our court systems, right, you're innocent until proven guilty, we want to believe that we believe that. We want to believe that that’s how we live but we can tell by how we talk to ourselves that that’s not how we do at all. That’s not how we live at all. I find that the more we know, sometimes we’re even more cruel to ourselves because the more knowledge we have, the more we think we should be able to embody it at a moment’s notice, the more we should be able to live it at a moment’s notice, the more we should be able to integrate it at a moment’s notice.
[00:08:35] In phase four, phrase four of the Master Coach Manifesto™, when we talk about process, again, that’s easier said than done. Process is the rest of our life. When I talk about moving beyond right or wrong or good or bad and that there’s no such thing as mistake, what I’m asking you to do is actually believe, not from a cliché point, like, “Oh, you're doing the best you can, right?” We love to use that phrase but we also hate it because we’re also like, “Well, I could have done better.” No. You actually couldn’t have because I believe that you would have if you could have and you didn't so you can’t, not that you can’t later or not that you can’t now but there is literally no benefit to blaming and shaming yourself for not being perfect. There is literally zero benefit, zero.
00:09:05 Now, I know I have … Oh, gosh. I have clients that argue with me, right? “Rhonda, I have to point out everything I did horrible and bad so that I’m motivated to change myself.” You know what, I don’t buy that. I haven’t seen anybody change in an empowering, positive, more loving, more openhearted way when they’re beating themselves up all the time to get them to change. Don’t see it. Don’t experience it. All I see is them becoming more robots and trying to be perfect, right, and live by other people’s perception of who they should be. I’m going to be a robot and do what I’m told or what I think is the right thing, right? Then, where is your soul? Where’s your heart? Where’s your open mind?
00:09:35 See, I believe as coaches, our job is to be more open-minded, more open-hearted. That’s part of my path. That’s part of my process. My job is to be open-hearted and open-minded, to become more so. When I see myself and judge myself as good, bad, right or wrong and see that I “name it a mistake,” I’m literally saying to myself, “You should have done better. What’s your problem?” Now, I could have different words, of course, but that’s the essence of it. What if you actually saw your client’s innocence and your own? What if you actually believe to the core of your being that your client really is “doing the best they can” like really?
[00:10:05] Even though they may have done “better yesterday” and they didn't so good today, there’s a lot of reasons for that. Maybe they didn't eat right. Maybe they didn't get a kiss this morning from their spouse. Maybe their boss gave them a dirty look. We’re getting triggered, micro-triggered all day long and we have these needs that are unfulfilled and we don’t even know it, right? We’re going to get to that in the later episode, all about needs, what are needs and how to get them met and how to support your clients in understanding their needs and getting them met.
00:10:35 When you judge and label yourself right, wrong, good or bad and do the same for your client and allow your client to do it to themselves, “I could have done better.”
“Really? What do you mean you could have done better? Tell me about that.”
“Well, if I would have started three weeks ago.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was busy doing this and busy doing that and it wasn’t a priority.”
“Oh, okay. Now, let me just get clear here, client. Let me just get clear here, client, so, you’re saying to me that you could have done better and so this is bad. Am I hearing you correctly?”
“Yes. Yes. I did bad, wrong, mistake.”
“And you also told me just to clarify, I want to make sure I got this right, that if you would have started three weeks ago, it would have been better. Am I hearing you correctly?”
[00:11:05] Whether you're a health coach, whether you're a business coach, whether you're a money coach, whether you're a love coach, the internal work that you do and I do with ourselves first and then with our clients is actually the work that allows the money to come, allows the health to be achieved, allows a business to grow.
[00:11:35] Our clients are coming to us based on, "I want to make more money" or "I want to get healthy" or "lose weight" or "I want to find love." They're coming to us with a problem, right? Again, I'll repeat myself. The internal work is what they crave and is what is needed and necessary in order for them to achieve whatever they want to achieve. Because tasks alone won't get you there.
[00:12:05] You and I both know the reason this is called Master Coach Mindset is that not only does our mindset have to be in the right place, we support our clients' mindset to be in the right place. Master Coaches aren't afraid of their own feelings or the feelings of their clients. Master Coaches aren't afraid to hear a story about pretty much anything.
A Master Coach can sit with a client, listen to a client, be on video with a client, and literally be there for them and not be in their own stuff. I think that's a big difference between a beginning coach and a Master Coach. A beginning coach is still in their brain when they're coaching, right? "Should I ask that? What should I do? Should I say that? Oh gosh, what are they doing? Oh my god, am I thinking? Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh," right?
00:12:35 As a Master Coach, you actually have an ability to shut that off completely because you are so present and centered with your client because of your own internal work, that you can actually allow your client to unfold at a deeper and more expansive place and way more authentically.
[00:13:35] A little test for you to see how you're doing in the Master Coach realm based on this first line in the Master Coach Manifesto, your internal work. Here's some of the questions I want you to ask yourself. Are you okay with being present with feelings, your own first, and then with others? Are you okay with being triggered on a call and can you stay moving forward? Does your stuff get in the way of your coaching? These are some of the simple questions that you must ask yourself to determine if there's internal work for you to do.
[00:14:05] Now again, we become coaches most of us, myself included, because we're self-help junkies. I am too. I've been reading self-help since I was 12. Now it's about actualizing and manifesting and embodying and aligning and integrating, these are the things coaches do. Coaches introduce, but they introduce based on alignment, right?
Master Coaches aren't afraid of feelings or their emotions. They aren't afraid to say something wrong. They don't stop themselves from saying what needs to be said. They have the courage to speak up when moved, and they have the courage to be silent when called to.
00:14:35 Every coaching session is an opportunity to trust, to practice trust of ourselves as coaches. To trust our own intuition, to trust our intention in the session, to trust the client. When we do our own internal work, this gives us the foundation of being able to practice these things.
00:15:05 “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
“And I also asked you, well, what stopped you from starting three weeks ago and you said because this happened, this happened, and this happened and it wasn’t a priority. Is that also true?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds like you made a decision three weeks ago on how to spend your time. Is that true or false? I’m just trying to get some clarity.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“You decided to focus on whatever the priority was then.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Okay, so, if that was true then, and that seems like it was really important because that’s what you're saying to me, so, the result today that you got, isn’t that just a function of the decisions you made prior to this time? I’m just trying to get some clarity.”
“Well, yes.”
“How much time did you have to focus on this?”
“I only had a half hour.”
[00:15:35] You want to be awake, you want to be awake to what that is. You want to be awake that you're actively pursuing internal work each and every day. This is why this is step one in the Master Coach Manifesto. Our own internal work, so we can stay clear, stay pure and stay present for our clients. I'm going to repeat that again. It's why this is step one in the Master Coach Manifesto. To stay clear and pure and present for our clients. This is always on some level about our own work. The coaching session is not about us at all, zero.
[00:16:05] A coach always, just for inner work, your job as a coach is to always have a coach. Have a mentor, have somebody that is supporting you and guiding you. I think one of the key things that we do in my own Fearless Living Institute's Life Coach Certification program, which I am so proud of - we are probably the most rigorous Life Coach Certification Program out there - It's because we have supervised mentoring, 12 months of supervised mentoring, 24 plus sessions of one-on-one, customized individual feedback.
[00:16:35] Because in order to do our own internal work, we need some support, guidance, wisdom, spiritual aha's, right? We need that. If you do not have a coach or you do not have a mentor, I really encourage you to open your heart and open your mind to what that could look like in your life.
[00:17:05] Just be open. I bet in the next 24 hours, next seven days, definitely the next 30 days, you're probably going to meet somebody, run into somebody, have somebody pop into your mind, maybe even me, that is, "I want to coach with her, I want to learn from her, I want what he or she has." I invite you to start coaching in earnest with another mentor/coach.
[00:17:35] Your Fearbuster Exercise™ today is going to be a series of questions that I have for you in order to support you in the internal work of being a coach. Make sure that you go to MasterCoachMindset.com, MasterCoachMindset.com. There you're going to be able to download the Fearbuster Worksheet for today's Fear uster Exercise™ along with the transcript. You want to make sure to go to MasterCoachMindset.com to download the Fearbuster Exercise™and the transcript for today's episode.
[00:18:05] Before we complete, I want to make sure that I answer one of the questions that I've been asked, my hundreds of questions here, that I've been asked. I pulled out a couple. I don't like to come up with the answer, I just like to read the question, then come up with the answer. This is live. I pulled out a couple that I thought were relevant to today's topic.
[00:18:35] Question from a coach, who actually is a first year in her coaching practice. She asked me, "Rhonda, what should we do if our personal values conflict with our clients? How do you set aside something that you believe in so strongly?" Repeat that question. What should we do if our personal values conflict with our clients? How do you set aside something you believe in so strongly?" Well, that's a great question.
[00:19:05] I'm going to talk about two different types of coaches. The coaches that need everyone and all their clients to align with their belief systems, with their value systems. For instance if you are a Christian and you're pro life, if you only want to work with Christian women that are also pro life, awesome. Know it, nothing wrong with that, knock yourself out.
[00:19:35] If you have a particular thing that you strongly believe in, and it is part of your coaching, then awesome. You can completely coach that, you can completely be in alignment with somebody who has exact same values as you, so that's one type of coach. "You know what? I'm Christian, I'm pro life, that's my niche. Those are the women I want to work with, and therefore everybody's aligned with me on some level of one of my greatest values."
[00:20:05] Let's say that you want to be the second type of coach, which is the type of coach I am. The type of coach I am is you can come to me with any value you have, you can come to me with any belief system you have, you can come to me with any problem you have. Because I'm going to support you based on my own inner work being the foundation of everything.
00:20:35 “If you just put that in perspective, not you could have done better, would have done better, should have been better but based on 30 minutes of prep time, how well did you do? Thirty minutes of prep time.”
“Well, if I think of it that way, I guess I did pretty good or I did okay.”
“Yeah. Sure. Thirty minutes of prep time. Wow, on a scale of one to 10.”
“Well, I did about a six.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, but I could have done it three weeks ago.”
“Yes, and three weeks ago, what do you think you could have done?”
“I would have been a 10.”
“Yeah, and what priority was this?”
“A two.”
“Yeah. Is it okay if some parts of your life are just sixes?”
“Well, I want everything to be a 10.”
“I understand that and is that possible? Is that going to happen?”
“No.”
[00:21:05] The second type of coach like I am is your values and I can differ, but we have one thing the same. That one thing the same is I have a commitment to support you in more freedom, and I have a commitment for you to live more authentically as you. That's my commitment, I want you to be fearless. Not fearless in, "I don't have any fear." In Fearless Living, we don't believe that people don't have fear, right? We don't believe that. We believe that in our neurobiology that fear is a given. Being fearless is actually the willingness to understand, process fear, and then master it.
[00:21:35] When a client comes to me, I know that there's fear at the heart of something. I know that they want to live more true to themselves, regardless if it's increasing their income three times or losing weight. It doesn't matter what problem they come to me with. They want more of themselves, right? They want more of themselves to show up, they want more authentic self to show up, they want to be more free, more fearless in who they want to show up as. How they want to shine, right?
[00:22:05] Somebody can come into my ... On a phone call, whether I'm on a phone call or whether I'm on video with them, and I've had sessions one-on-one in person. Let's say that they have a different value system than I do. My job is not to change their value system to become mine. My job is to help them embrace their value system and to make sure it is authentically them.
[00:23:05] One of the things that I believe is that to be more free, some of the values that we hold is that it's more open minded, more openhearted, right? More love, more expression, more speaking up. That's, regardless of what my clients' values are, those are the things that I care about. If I focus on the things that the client wants rather than the “value,” i.e., believe in abortion or don't believe in abortion. Believe in God, don't believe in God, right? If I'm talking to the woman or the man, and I'm focusing on what they really want, then they get really clear on whether those beliefs work for them or not, or how those beliefs may differ for other people. They're going to come to that conclusion, not me.
[00:24:05] If somebody stands before me and has a different value system that I don't agree with or don't believe in or don't subscribe to, it's not about me, it's about my client. It's about supporting them to live their true life, their authentic life, and to live it more fully, more free and more fearlessly with confidence, courage, compassion and clarity. Because that's when I give in each and every session, more courage, more confidence, more compassion and more clarity.
[00:24:35] Great question. I'm running out of time, so we will keep going in our next podcast. Again, you've been listening to the Master Coach Mindset podcast with Rhonda Britten. I'm so honored to be your host. Be sure to go to MasterCoachMindset.com to download the worksheet for today's Fearbuster Exercise™ along with the transcript.
The Fearbuster Exercise™ is going to be a series of questions that you can ask yourself to help you check yourself about your own internal work, and to help you go deeper in your own healing and to authentically awake.
[00:25:05] Heck, why not go to MasterCoachMindset.com right now and download the transcript and the Fearbuster Exercise? I know that it's going to support you not only to become a better you but more importantly, for this podcast, to become a better coach.
This has been Rhonda Britten, thank you so much for listening. I'll look forward to talking to you in episode two about our next section of the Master Coach Manifesto. In our episode two, I'm going to be talking about, "A Master Coach doesn't judge time or results, but uses a different set of criteria to determine success."
[00:25:35] In episode two, I'm going to be talking about, "A Master Coach doesn't judge time or results, but uses a different set of criteria to determine success." We're going to talk about what success is and what success means. My definition of success, and maybe help you understand your definition of success better, and of course our clients' definition. I'll look forward to seeing you in episode two of Master Coach Mindset with Rhonda Britten.
Listen to the full episode here.
00:00:44 Hi. Rhonda Britten here. I’m so excited for today’s episode of Master Coach Mindset™ because we’re going to be talking about right, wrong, mistakes, etcetera, and I’m going to be answering a question from a coach. Now, if you have a question you’d like me to answer, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and at the bottom of the page, it says ask Rhonda anything, help me Rhonda, and you can throw in your question and one of those questions might be chosen for an episode of Master Coach Mindset™. Be sure to visit Master Coach Mindset™ to download your Fearbuster Coaching™ Tool of the day and of course, put your questions in.
[00:01:09] Today, I’m going to be answering a question that a coach sent in to me about her client who wants a baby, she’s older and what should she do. I’m going to be getting to that later on in the episode but first, we’re on line five of the Master Coach Manifesto™. Now, if you're a first-time listener and you have not heard about this Master Coach Manifesto™, you want to go listen to the first few episodes of this podcast and or go over to MasterCoachMindset.com and download the Master Coach Manifesto™ because these first 13 episodes, we’re going to be breaking down what this manifesto means.
00:01:35 Inside this manifesto, I’m also obviously going to be giving you some topics. I’m going to be giving you tips. I’m going to be supporting you in different types of questions to ask your client and ask yourself about what this particular phrase means. I want us literally to get into the mindset of a Master Coach and that is why I created the Master Coach Manifesto™.
[00:02:05] Today, we’re on line five. Yes, we’ve gone over four lines already, so again, please review previous episodes. Go ahead and listen to previous episodes. Download those onto your smartphone and listen to them while you're taking a walk, in the car driving, so that you can get this stuff in your bones and really ask yourself, am I embodying this? Am I living this? Is this how I see coaching and is this how I want to see coaching?
[00:02:35] I have a particular philosophy on coaching. I've been doing it for over 22 years and I really, really believe that what we do changes lives, that what we do saves lives, that what we do changes hearts and minds. We get to be on the forefront of this transformation in the world today. We get to be at the forefront. So many people still are nervous about therapy or have a stigma against therapy. We’re able to kind of get in there and support people who maybe aren’t willing to go to therapy. Again, we’re not therapists but give them the beginning steps of really changing their lives.
[00:03:05] Of course, if you're a Master Coach, you're going to be able to take them deeper, help them see more possibilities and help their lives shift faster. Of course, when you're a Master Coach, your clients do stay longer. Yeah. My clients, on average, stay about four years and they don’t actually ever leave me. I have clients to this day that … Let’s see. I started coaching 22 years ago. I have my very first client, Lisa, still occasionally when she needs a tune-up, when she needs a shift, she actually still comes to me 22 years later.
00:03:35 One of my philosophies, and again, you don’t have to have this philosophy but one of my philosophies is that whatever you pay me when we first start coaching together, what the last, whatever the last thing you ever paid me, that’s going to be your session cost for life. I never raise fees on my clients. Lisa was one of my very first clients. She paid me $25 a session and to this day, Lisa still pays me $25 a session. I love that. It makes me so happy.
[00:04:05] If your clients aren’t staying past your 12-week introductory sessions or 24 weeks, then these Master Coach tools, tips, techniques, skills and this mindset is going to support you in having a client that really, you have a relationship with them that goes beyond their current problem. That’s really key. Master Coach goes beyond their current problem, yes, solves their current problem and shifts their dream, of course, makes their dream happen but as a Master Coach, you're actually working beyond that.
00:04:35 Let’s get to phrase five of the Master Coach Manifesto™, and again, you can download yours at MasterCoachMindset.com. A Master Coach coaches beyond right or wrong or bad or good because there is no such thing as a mistake. As always, I ask you to shut your eyes and take a deep breath. Let’s do it for this time, this re-reading of it just one more time to ask ourselves, okay, you know what, do I really believe that? Is this how I really coach?
[00:05:05] Think about your life right now as a Master Coach because in phase one, phase one of the Master Coach Manifesto™, we talked about doing your own internal work. If you are a perfectionist, if you are somebody who wants things a particular way, right, you probably have a strong idea of right and wrong. If you have a spiritual base, you might have a strong belief in good and bad. I'm asking you actually to go beyond those two things and I’ll be talking more about that in just a minute. Just as we shut our eyes right now, and again, if you're driving, don’t shut your eyes but if you're capable or willing to shut your eyes, go ahead and do that and really ask yourself, are you willing to see the world beyond right, wrong, good, bad and really see that there’s no such thing as a mistake?
[00:05:35] Right now in the history of the world, we have a lot of problems. We have a lot of challenges and one of the reasons that we’re not able to solve them together at this moment in time, and I know some people are trying desperately, is that we do think in right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. I want you to really tell yourself the truth. Don’t lie to yourself. You're somebody who either is a Master Coach or wants to be one, so let’s not lie to ourselves. Let’s be really clear. Do you believe in right and wrong, good or bad? Do you believe that you are capable and your client is capable of making mistakes? It’s really important that you know that about yourself because that limits your capacity to see and support your client in making their dream come true, again, unless those values are completely aligned, unless you completely agree with them.
00:06:05 Go ahead and shut year eyes if you can and be willing to tell yourself the truth. That’s all. The first step in transformation for our clients and ourselves is willingness to be aware, to admit the truth to ourselves with compassion, with heart, no judgment. Just tell yourself the truth about where you are on this continuum called life, on your own awakening. Deep breath. A Master Coach coaches beyond right or wrong or bad or good because there is no such thing as a mistake. There’s a very famous quote by Rumi that talks about this very thing. Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. That is what I’m asking you to do with your clients and yourself. Meet you in that field beyond right and wrong, good and bad and really believe that there is no such thing as mistake.
[00:06:35] Now, I get that that’s hard to swallow, right, because you say, “Well, I wanted to do it better,” but the very thing that lowers our self-esteem, the very thing that lowers our confidence as a coach and our client’s confidence and esteem and worth and value, et cetera, is that they think that they should have done it better, that they think they should have known it better. They have an expectation that somehow, they should have known something they don't know, something they've never done that they think they should know, right? I should have known that. How many times have you said that to yourself, "I should have known that". How many times have your clients said, "I should have known that. I should have done better. I know better. I should do better”?
[00:07:35] When you're in that mindset, it's not very empowering because if you would have known better or could have done better, wouldn't you have? In the Fearless Conversations Workshop, I teach the eight coaching skills that used to be a close training to only my Life Coach Certification Program™ candidates that become Certified Fearless Living coaches. One of the core coaching skills that I teach is the ability to see innocence, to speak as if they’re innocent, to really see them as innocent, your clients. That’s easier said than done. It’s probably one of the hardest mindsets to get behind.
[00:08:05] Now, I know as a spiritual being, if you believe in God, etcetera, even in our court systems, right, you're innocent until proven guilty, we want to believe that we believe that. We want to believe that that’s how we live but we can tell by how we talk to ourselves that that’s not how we do at all. That’s not how we live at all. I find that the more we know, sometimes we’re even more cruel to ourselves because the more knowledge we have, the more we think we should be able to embody it at a moment’s notice, the more we should be able to live it at a moment’s notice, the more we should be able to integrate it at a moment’s notice.
[00:08:35] In phase four, phrase four of the Master Coach Manifesto™, when we talk about process, again, that’s easier said than done. Process is the rest of our life. When I talk about moving beyond right or wrong or good or bad and that there’s no such thing as mistake, what I’m asking you to do is actually believe, not from a cliché point, like, “Oh, you're doing the best you can, right?” We love to use that phrase but we also hate it because we’re also like, “Well, I could have done better.” No. You actually couldn’t have because I believe that you would have if you could have and you didn't so you can’t, not that you can’t later or not that you can’t now but there is literally no benefit to blaming and shaming yourself for not being perfect. There is literally zero benefit, zero.
00:09:05 Now, I know I have … Oh, gosh. I have clients that argue with me, right? “Rhonda, I have to point out everything I did horrible and bad so that I’m motivated to change myself.” You know what, I don’t buy that. I haven’t seen anybody change in an empowering, positive, more loving, more openhearted way when they’re beating themselves up all the time to get them to change. Don’t see it. Don’t experience it. All I see is them becoming more robots and trying to be perfect, right, and live by other people’s perception of who they should be. I’m going to be a robot and do what I’m told or what I think is the right thing, right? Then, where is your soul? Where’s your heart? Where’s your open mind?
00:09:35 See, I believe as coaches, our job is to be more open-minded, more open-hearted. That’s part of my path. That’s part of my process. My job is to be open-hearted and open-minded, to become more so. When I see myself and judge myself as good, bad, right or wrong and see that I “name it a mistake,” I’m literally saying to myself, “You should have done better. What’s your problem?” Now, I could have different words, of course, but that’s the essence of it. What if you actually saw your client’s innocence and your own? What if you actually believe to the core of your being that your client really is “doing the best they can” like really?
[00:10:05] Even though they may have done “better yesterday” and they didn't so good today, there’s a lot of reasons for that. Maybe they didn't eat right. Maybe they didn't get a kiss this morning from their spouse. Maybe their boss gave them a dirty look. We’re getting triggered, micro-triggered all day long and we have these needs that are unfulfilled and we don’t even know it, right? We’re going to get to that in the later episode, all about needs, what are needs and how to get them met and how to support your clients in understanding their needs and getting them met.
00:10:35 When you judge and label yourself right, wrong, good or bad and do the same for your client and allow your client to do it to themselves, “I could have done better.”
“Really? What do you mean you could have done better? Tell me about that.”
“Well, if I would have started three weeks ago.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was busy doing this and busy doing that and it wasn’t a priority.”
“Oh, okay. Now, let me just get clear here, client. Let me just get clear here, client, so, you’re saying to me that you could have done better and so this is bad. Am I hearing you correctly?”
“Yes. Yes. I did bad, wrong, mistake.”
“And you also told me just to clarify, I want to make sure I got this right, that if you would have started three weeks ago, it would have been better. Am I hearing you correctly?”
[00:11:05] Whether you're a health coach, whether you're a business coach, whether you're a money coach, whether you're a love coach, the internal work that you do and I do with ourselves first and then with our clients is actually the work that allows the money to come, allows the health to be achieved, allows a business to grow.
[00:11:35] Our clients are coming to us based on, "I want to make more money" or "I want to get healthy" or "lose weight" or "I want to find love." They're coming to us with a problem, right? Again, I'll repeat myself. The internal work is what they crave and is what is needed and necessary in order for them to achieve whatever they want to achieve. Because tasks alone won't get you there.
[00:12:05] You and I both know the reason this is called Master Coach Mindset is that not only does our mindset have to be in the right place, we support our clients' mindset to be in the right place. Master Coaches aren't afraid of their own feelings or the feelings of their clients. Master Coaches aren't afraid to hear a story about pretty much anything.
A Master Coach can sit with a client, listen to a client, be on video with a client, and literally be there for them and not be in their own stuff. I think that's a big difference between a beginning coach and a Master Coach. A beginning coach is still in their brain when they're coaching, right? "Should I ask that? What should I do? Should I say that? Oh gosh, what are they doing? Oh my god, am I thinking? Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh," right?
00:12:35 As a Master Coach, you actually have an ability to shut that off completely because you are so present and centered with your client because of your own internal work, that you can actually allow your client to unfold at a deeper and more expansive place and way more authentically.
[00:13:35] A little test for you to see how you're doing in the Master Coach realm based on this first line in the Master Coach Manifesto, your internal work. Here's some of the questions I want you to ask yourself. Are you okay with being present with feelings, your own first, and then with others? Are you okay with being triggered on a call and can you stay moving forward? Does your stuff get in the way of your coaching? These are some of the simple questions that you must ask yourself to determine if there's internal work for you to do.
[00:14:05] Now again, we become coaches most of us, myself included, because we're self-help junkies. I am too. I've been reading self-help since I was 12. Now it's about actualizing and manifesting and embodying and aligning and integrating, these are the things coaches do. Coaches introduce, but they introduce based on alignment, right?
Master Coaches aren't afraid of feelings or their emotions. They aren't afraid to say something wrong. They don't stop themselves from saying what needs to be said. They have the courage to speak up when moved, and they have the courage to be silent when called to.
00:14:35 Every coaching session is an opportunity to trust, to practice trust of ourselves as coaches. To trust our own intuition, to trust our intention in the session, to trust the client. When we do our own internal work, this gives us the foundation of being able to practice these things.
00:15:05 “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
“And I also asked you, well, what stopped you from starting three weeks ago and you said because this happened, this happened, and this happened and it wasn’t a priority. Is that also true?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds like you made a decision three weeks ago on how to spend your time. Is that true or false? I’m just trying to get some clarity.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“You decided to focus on whatever the priority was then.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Okay, so, if that was true then, and that seems like it was really important because that’s what you're saying to me, so, the result today that you got, isn’t that just a function of the decisions you made prior to this time? I’m just trying to get some clarity.”
“Well, yes.”
“How much time did you have to focus on this?”
“I only had a half hour.”
[00:15:35] You want to be awake, you want to be awake to what that is. You want to be awake that you're actively pursuing internal work each and every day. This is why this is step one in the Master Coach Manifesto. Our own internal work, so we can stay clear, stay pure and stay present for our clients. I'm going to repeat that again. It's why this is step one in the Master Coach Manifesto. To stay clear and pure and present for our clients. This is always on some level about our own work. The coaching session is not about us at all, zero.
[00:16:05] A coach always, just for inner work, your job as a coach is to always have a coach. Have a mentor, have somebody that is supporting you and guiding you. I think one of the key things that we do in my own Fearless Living Institute's Life Coach Certification program, which I am so proud of - we are probably the most rigorous Life Coach Certification Program out there - It's because we have supervised mentoring, 12 months of supervised mentoring, 24 plus sessions of one-on-one, customized individual feedback.
[00:16:35] Because in order to do our own internal work, we need some support, guidance, wisdom, spiritual aha's, right? We need that. If you do not have a coach or you do not have a mentor, I really encourage you to open your heart and open your mind to what that could look like in your life.
[00:17:05] Just be open. I bet in the next 24 hours, next seven days, definitely the next 30 days, you're probably going to meet somebody, run into somebody, have somebody pop into your mind, maybe even me, that is, "I want to coach with her, I want to learn from her, I want what he or she has." I invite you to start coaching in earnest with another mentor/coach.
[00:17:35] Your Fearbuster Exercise™ today is going to be a series of questions that I have for you in order to support you in the internal work of being a coach. Make sure that you go to MasterCoachMindset.com, MasterCoachMindset.com. There you're going to be able to download the Fearbuster Worksheet for today's Fear uster Exercise™ along with the transcript. You want to make sure to go to MasterCoachMindset.com to download the Fearbuster Exercise™and the transcript for today's episode.
[00:18:05] Before we complete, I want to make sure that I answer one of the questions that I've been asked, my hundreds of questions here, that I've been asked. I pulled out a couple. I don't like to come up with the answer, I just like to read the question, then come up with the answer. This is live. I pulled out a couple that I thought were relevant to today's topic.
[00:18:35] Question from a coach, who actually is a first year in her coaching practice. She asked me, "Rhonda, what should we do if our personal values conflict with our clients? How do you set aside something that you believe in so strongly?" Repeat that question. What should we do if our personal values conflict with our clients? How do you set aside something you believe in so strongly?" Well, that's a great question.
[00:19:05] I'm going to talk about two different types of coaches. The coaches that need everyone and all their clients to align with their belief systems, with their value systems. For instance if you are a Christian and you're pro life, if you only want to work with Christian women that are also pro life, awesome. Know it, nothing wrong with that, knock yourself out.
[00:19:35] If you have a particular thing that you strongly believe in, and it is part of your coaching, then awesome. You can completely coach that, you can completely be in alignment with somebody who has exact same values as you, so that's one type of coach. "You know what? I'm Christian, I'm pro life, that's my niche. Those are the women I want to work with, and therefore everybody's aligned with me on some level of one of my greatest values."
[00:20:05] Let's say that you want to be the second type of coach, which is the type of coach I am. The type of coach I am is you can come to me with any value you have, you can come to me with any belief system you have, you can come to me with any problem you have. Because I'm going to support you based on my own inner work being the foundation of everything.
00:20:35 “If you just put that in perspective, not you could have done better, would have done better, should have been better but based on 30 minutes of prep time, how well did you do? Thirty minutes of prep time.”
“Well, if I think of it that way, I guess I did pretty good or I did okay.”
“Yeah. Sure. Thirty minutes of prep time. Wow, on a scale of one to 10.”
“Well, I did about a six.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, but I could have done it three weeks ago.”
“Yes, and three weeks ago, what do you think you could have done?”
“I would have been a 10.”
“Yeah, and what priority was this?”
“A two.”
“Yeah. Is it okay if some parts of your life are just sixes?”
“Well, I want everything to be a 10.”
“I understand that and is that possible? Is that going to happen?”
“No.”
[00:21:05] The second type of coach like I am is your values and I can differ, but we have one thing the same. That one thing the same is I have a commitment to support you in more freedom, and I have a commitment for you to live more authentically as you. That's my commitment, I want you to be fearless. Not fearless in, "I don't have any fear." In Fearless Living, we don't believe that people don't have fear, right? We don't believe that. We believe that in our neurobiology that fear is a given. Being fearless is actually the willingness to understand, process fear, and then master it.
[00:21:35] When a client comes to me, I know that there's fear at the heart of something. I know that they want to live more true to themselves, regardless if it's increasing their income three times or losing weight. It doesn't matter what problem they come to me with. They want more of themselves, right? They want more of themselves to show up, they want more authentic self to show up, they want to be more free, more fearless in who they want to show up as. How they want to shine, right?
[00:22:05] Somebody can come into my ... On a phone call, whether I'm on a phone call or whether I'm on video with them, and I've had sessions one-on-one in person. Let's say that they have a different value system than I do. My job is not to change their value system to become mine. My job is to help them embrace their value system and to make sure it is authentically them.
[00:23:05] One of the things that I believe is that to be more free, some of the values that we hold is that it's more open minded, more openhearted, right? More love, more expression, more speaking up. That's, regardless of what my clients' values are, those are the things that I care about. If I focus on the things that the client wants rather than the “value,” i.e., believe in abortion or don't believe in abortion. Believe in God, don't believe in God, right? If I'm talking to the woman or the man, and I'm focusing on what they really want, then they get really clear on whether those beliefs work for them or not, or how those beliefs may differ for other people. They're going to come to that conclusion, not me.
[00:24:05] If somebody stands before me and has a different value system that I don't agree with or don't believe in or don't subscribe to, it's not about me, it's about my client. It's about supporting them to live their true life, their authentic life, and to live it more fully, more free and more fearlessly with confidence, courage, compassion and clarity. Because that's when I give in each and every session, more courage, more confidence, more compassion and more clarity.
[00:24:35] Great question. I'm running out of time, so we will keep going in our next podcast. Again, you've been listening to the Master Coach Mindset podcast with Rhonda Britten. I'm so honored to be your host. Be sure to go to MasterCoachMindset.com to download the worksheet for today's Fearbuster Exercise™ along with the transcript.
The Fearbuster Exercise™ is going to be a series of questions that you can ask yourself to help you check yourself about your own internal work, and to help you go deeper in your own healing and to authentically awake.
[00:25:05] Heck, why not go to MasterCoachMindset.com right now and download the transcript and the Fearbuster Exercise? I know that it's going to support you not only to become a better you but more importantly, for this podcast, to become a better coach.
This has been Rhonda Britten, thank you so much for listening. I'll look forward to talking to you in episode two about our next section of the Master Coach Manifesto. In our episode two, I'm going to be talking about, "A Master Coach doesn't judge time or results, but uses a different set of criteria to determine success."
[00:25:35] In episode two, I'm going to be talking about, "A Master Coach doesn't judge time or results, but uses a different set of criteria to determine success." We're going to talk about what success is and what success means. My definition of success, and maybe help you understand your definition of success better, and of course our clients' definition. I'll look forward to seeing you in episode two of Master Coach Mindset with Rhonda Britten.
