Listen to the full episode here.
00:00:47 Welcome to Master Coach Mindset™. Hi, my name is Rhonda Britten, your host and Master Coach to support you in becoming the best Coach you can be. Taking Coaches from beginning Coaches, to good Coaches, to great Coaches, to Master Coach, because I want you to have as much confidence and influence and impact as you desire. Personally for me, I think the key is becoming better, becoming a better Coach, becoming a more confident Coach, having the skills and tools underneath you, as well as the mindset to support you and knowing that you can change lives.
[00:01:18] I don't think most Coaches problems are because they don't have a pretty website, or because they don't have that perfect everything, or they don't get their funnel right. I actually think it has to do with the confidence and their coaching ability, because if you know you can coach, well then Clients are everywhere. So today is episode 13, the last episode of this season. So don't worry, don't worry, we're going to be continuing with season 2. Season 2 is going to talk about the Eight Coaching Skills that I train my Coaches, my Certified Fearless Living Coaches and that is really the foundation of our entire coaching program.
You're going to find and discover what those Eight Coaching Skills are, and I'm going to show you how they can impact your Clients and you as a Coach. So that is season 2 coming up shortly, but today is episode 13 of season 1. As we've been doing each and every week, we've been doing a line by line of the Master Coach Manifesto. If you have not heard the Master Coach Manifesto and want to listen to the whole thing, go to episode 00, and I read the whole Master Coach Manifesto for you and of course, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and download the manifesto as part of the Fearbuster Coaching™ Toolkit.
[00:02:34] You actually get a copy of the manifesto and I really encourage you to grab it, put it on as a screensaver on your computer. Either download it and print it, and put it somewhere in your office so that you see it on a regular basis, because this is going to remind you what your job is as a Coach, because it's more than just changing lives. In order to change lives for me personally, these 13 lines, these 13 phrases are critical for me to be ready, and able, and confident, to give my Coaches, to give my Clients, the best Coach I can be. Without these 13 phrases and lines, I'm going to maybe play-act coaching.
[00:03:18] Do you ever feel like a fake coaching? I think that's one of the big things that Coaches deal with, feeling like a fake and feeling like not they're not good enough, and that's because they're not embodying these 13 lines. So I really encourage you to grab the Fearbuster Coaching Toolkit and grab the manifesto, so you have a copy for yourself. Of course, go listen to episode 00 and go listen to me talk about the 13 lines. Like I said, every episode takes one line at a time. So this is episode 13, we're on line 13. We're on the last line of the manifesto, yay.
I am so excited because this is my favorite line. Of course, it sums it all up. Now some people might ask me like, "Well, how did you get this manifesto?" It downloaded through me, I said like "What is a Master Coach?" I just started scribbling, started writing as fast as I could and I shared it with my Coaches. They're like, "Oh my God, can I have a copy of it? Can I download it?" I said yes, so I made a pretty copy and now I'm sharing it with you. It was one of the reasons why I decided to a podcast actually, is writing these 13 lines of the Master Coach Manifesto. So I am super excited to be on episode 13, to talk to you about this last line. So shall we get to it? I think so.
[00:04:37] There's a really good question too today, I love it. You're going to love it too. If you ever want to ask me a question because I answer a question in every episode to help you become the best Coach you can be, and answer the questions that are on your mind, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and you can record a question for me, and the more questions the better. I love questions, so ask away. I cannot wait to hear your questions and I love all the questions I've gotten so far. So join in, ask me a question. All right, line 13. You ready?
[00:05:12] "A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment, never pushing away fear but devoted to ushering in freedom." So let me read that again. A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment, never pushing away fear. Listen to that line, never pushes away fear but devoted to ushering in freedom. So usually what we're trying to do is get away from fear. We're trying to ignore it, we're trying to deny, we're trying to pretend it's not happening. We're trying to say that "I'm not afraid" so we try to push, deny, ignore, avoid fear and that's actually not the solution to our problems.
It actually keeps us stuck in fear. So instead of never pushing away fear and not denying and not putting it down but instead, focusing on freedom, focusing on towards where we want to go. Where we want to go, where do we want to go and that's one of the things that I train my Coaches to do, is it's not about what you're not doing, it's about what you are doing. It's not about how well you're doing something. The question is, do you do it or not? So it's not about perfection, it's not even about excellence at this point. It's about where are you moving forward? How are you moving forward?
[00:06:34] So it's not about getting that fear away, it's about moving into freedom and in the movement towards freedom, fear dissolves, fear surrenders, fear lets go. So we want to go towards something, we always want to go toward something. We don't want to tell our Clients to not do something, I never ever, ever, ever tell my Client not to complain. Never, I would never tell my Client not to do something, I would never tell them to quit beating yourself up, don't do that. Never, never, never, never, never, it is not about pushing away fear, it is about moving towards freedom. So instead of me saying, "Don't, you got to quit complaining."
[00:07:16] I'm going to ask, "So, I want you to guess homework assignment. I'll give you a sample homework assignment. I want you to keep a cleaning Journal." My Client comes to me, "I complain too much, I know I complain too much I got to give it up right." I don't say quit complaining, instead I say, "well, what do you mean? How many complaints do you have? What are your complaints about?" So they go, "I don't know, my complaints are about my marriage. My complaints about my boss, and my complaints are my coworker, my mother and my family, la, la, la." "Okay, great. I want you to write down every complaint." "What?" "I want you to write down every complaint." "What?" "I want you to write down every complaint." What? Okay."
[00:07:50] So they write down every complaint. The first time they turn it in, they have 30 and I go, "Keep doing it." They get to 50 and then they get to 80, and then they get to 100. They go, "Oh my God, I can't believe it. I'm a horrible person, I have 100 complaints." I say, "You are an aware person, because you are waking up to what's moving through you. You are not pretending it's not happening, you are actually awake to it. So coming up with 100 complaints is awesome. Awesome, good for you." They're looking at me like I'm a crazy person of course, if they haven't worked with me. They don't understand that I'm not trying to get them to stop something, that's what they've been trying to do for decades.
No, instead I'm going to move them towards freedom, not away from fear but towards freedom. So my Client does 100 complaints and then I say, "Great, next week keep track of your complaints too." The next time they come, instead of 100 complaints, it's 99 complaints. They go, "Oh my God, oh my God, I'm still complaining 99 times." I say, "Woo-hoo, you only complain 99 times. That's amazing you got it better, it was 100 now it's 99. That's great, that's moving forward." They're looking at me like, "But I'm still doing it 99 times." I go, "Yes and it's one less than last week. That means you are getting it, soon it will be 80 and then 70 and then 50, and then it will get down to 20 really quickly. Then it will disappear, so you are moving forward."
[00:09:16] My Client looks at me like, "You're right, I did do better this week." Yes, you did. Congratulations. See because I'm moving my Client towards where they want to go, not away from what they don't. Knocked out not telling my Client not to do something, quit eating sugar. I'm not going to tell them to do that, I'm going to actually tell them, "Okay, great. I want you to increase your vegetable and your fat content, and let's talk about the good fat and let's talk about what protein looks like, and how much protein. Let's talk about that, let's talk about what you want to do."
Then their goal and their worksheet isn't about no sugar, crossing off no sugar because I'll assume they're going to see sugar, and what does our brain do? Our brain doesn't hear 'not', our brain doesn't hear 'no', our brain doesn't hear 'don't', it doesn't hear don't eat sugar. It hears eat sugar. It doesn't hear no sugar, it hears sugar. So 'don't, not, stop' all of those things, negate what we're really trying to do. They do not help us move our Clients and ourselves forward. So if my Client wants to give up sugar I go, "Great, what are you going to [inaudible 00:10:26], let's focus on that." Then we focus on that and their cravings for sugar will decrease as they start feeding themselves the vitamins, the herbs, the nutrients, the enzymes, et cetera, that they need in order to fill in those spots.
Side note, this is a side note I'll never forget when I had no more cravings for sugar. Excuse me, no more cravings for chocolate. I was not trying to give up chocolate especially dark chocolate, I used to eat like 90% dark chocolate which is everyone says, "It's so good for you." I wasn't trying to give it up at all but I was eating healthier and healthier, and taking these herbs and vitamins that I was prescribed by my functional medicine doctor, which by the way everyone should be going to functional medicine doctor (side note) and I woke up one morning, I'll never forget it. I woke up one morning and made myself some eggs with some more vegetables, and just this amazing breakfast.
I was like, "Wow." Then I went to go have my normal dark chocolate treat, and I had zero craving for it. Zero, zero, so what did I do with myself that I had zero craving for dark chocolate, is that I fed myself the nutrients and the enzymes that I needed in order to eliminate the craving. It's not that I tried to get rid of chocolate, chocolate just has not held anything for me since. That was gosh, maybe five years ago now and I still to this day, still to this day ... Don't get me wrong, I eat chocolate once in a while but it's not like I'm like chocolate like I used to be, "Chocolate, I want chocolate." Doesn't do anything for me anymore.
[00:12:07] Again, not that I don't eat it once in a while but it doesn't do anything for me. So I didn't try to give up chocolate, I tried to do move myself forward in other ways. Same with love, so think about a Client and their love relationship. Quit yelling at your partner, quit putting them down, quit telling them what to do. No, you want to tell your Client what to do. What do you want the person to? How do you want them to practice? You're going to talk to your mate, your family, your friends, your Clients, about what you want, not what you don't want. What you want, not what you don't want. So in line 12 when I say never push away fear, that's what we're doing.
We're not nodding ourselves, we're not doing the not, the don't, the stop, cut it out, quit. Instead, we're devoted to ushering in freedom where we want to go, what we do want to experience in our lives. Now let's go to the first part of the line 13. "A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment." Embraces humanity, see I fundamentally believe and I really believe it in the core of my being. It's not just a cliché but I really, really, really believe that people are not evil. I believe that people do things they're not proud of, and that they regret and have embarrassment by, and shame, and blame et cetera. All those things, because they don't know any other way to do it, and they're driven by fear.
[00:13:44] They don't know they have fear, they don't know worry is a symptom of fear. They don't know that overwhelm is a symptom of fear, they don't know that anxiety is a symptom of fear. They don't know the way they see their partner, or the way they see their boss is a symptom of their own protection, their own fear. They don't know that instead, they look through the world and go, "My boss is mean and my partner doesn't understand me, and my kids are selfish." They label everybody out there and they're the ones that are doing the work, and trying hard and don't they have a Coach, but everybody out there is messed up. Well that's not seeing humanity, that's actually again seeing through the filter of fear, seeing through the eyes of fear.
Then your Client, your Client continuously creates better names for those people but they don't actually surrender it as a way of being. So when I talk about humanity, I'm talking about that I truly believe at the core of my being that people are not evil, people are not bad, people are not rude, people are not purposely being unappreciative or misunderstanding you. They're not purposely consciously trying to do it, they may be doing it but they don't have an evil plan to misunderstand you. They don't have an evil plan to keep you down, they don't have that evil plan. They're just afraid and they don't know it, so that's their defense mechanisms. That's their protection mechanisms, that's how they respond when fear is on patrol.
So whenever a Client is talking to me, a Master Coach embraces humanity, mine and my Clients. When a Client tells me and is ashamed of something, or tells me something embarrassing, or tells me something maybe that I morally don't approve of, like I'm like, "You shouldn't have affairs." Whatever it is that you believe fundamentally, I absolutely know to the core of my being that my Clients bad behavior, or self judgment, or self betrayal, isn't purposeful. It is a symptom of fear being in charge. So there's a word that I want to teach you, and again I might talk more about this in season two because we're going to go through the Eight Coaching Skills.
[00:16:07] There's a word called resistant. I fundamentally believe that my Clients are not resistant. I know shocking, because most of us ask our Clients, "Well, what are you resisting?" I don't ask my Clients that. Not that it doesn't pop up once in a while, coming up with a different word, might not be able to find it but I don't believe my Clients are resisting more money, or resisting more love, or resisting better health. I think they're scared to bejeebers and have been trained, and have trained themselves, and have been trained by their family, friends, environment, et cetera, and their DNA by the way. They don't know how to do it differently.
They don't have the skills and they don't have the trust in themselves. So maybe you as a health Coach say, "Well this is what you do. You drink eight glasses of water a day and you eat this many carbs, and this many proteins and this many good fats, and this much blah, blah, blah, blah." You tell them the formula for good health, but they don't do it. Again it's not that they're resisting, it's that they have that visceral that we talked about last week. The visceral feeling that how can I do this? I don't know how to do this, and do I "deserve" it, am I worthy of it, am I okay with it. What's going to happen if I do this? Am I going to lose my family and friends because they are all alcoholics, and eat Domino's Pizza? Nothing wrong with Domino's Pizza, but you get my point.
We are fundamentally afraid viscerally of losing our friends, our family, our job, and it's so fascinating because you ask your Clients, "Well are you afraid to do that?" They might say yes, they might say no, they might not even be aware of it but using the word resistance implies guilt to your Client. Implies that they're purposely doing something against themselves and I, thousands and thousands and thousands of Coaches, excuse me Clients I've coached. When they say, "Well what's wrong with me, I'm just resisting doing it." I go, "Are you? Are you purposely not doing it? Are you coming up with a plan to purposely sabotage yourself? Are you purposely, purposely trying to self betray, betray yourself? Are you purposely coming up with an evil plan? Are you purposely doing this ahead of time, planning it out?"
You know what the answer always is? "No." So you're not purposely creating a plan to sabotage yourself to make sure you never have loved, and you're purposely not creating a plan to eat poorly, so you hate staying in poor health. You're not purposely doing that? No, well maybe there's another reason you're doing it then. So what could you say about yourself? What if you could no longer use the word self-betrayal? What if you could no longer use the word resistance? What if you could no longer? What if you chose a different way to see yourself? A different word to use? What could you say? So again, I'm moving my Client towards freedom.
I'm creating a space for my Client to go, "you're right, I'm not purposely resisting. You're right, I'm not purposely betraying myself. I'm not purposely sabotaging." It feels that way, it feels that it's happening. It feels like I'm resisting, it feels like I'm sabotaging but I don't have a plan to do it. Yeah, it's the result. It's what you're doing and the result is that feeling but you're not doing it purposely. So let's come up, let's work together. Let's work together to figure out that visceral solution, and we talked about visceral prom, visceral solution in episode 12. So do you see how I want my Client to embrace their humanity? We're going to end season 1, excuse me season 2, talk about innocence which is a portion, part of this.
We're going to talk a lot about innocence in an episode in season 2 coming up. So allowing your Client to give themselves the space that they're not guilty, they're not bad, they're not purposely doing it, it's the result based on a visceral problem that they can't see because fears in charge. Does this make sense? So question of the day, here's my question. Thank you for your questions by the way, and if you have a question for me go to MasterCoachMindset.com and ask me a question. At the bottom of the homepage, you can hit the record button and just record your question. I can't wait to answer your questions. I love questions, I literally love questions, it's what I love best.
[00:21:08] The more questions, the better. Ask away, ask away any question no matter how little, no matter how big, no matter what it is, ask me a question that you have about being a Coach. Ask me a question about your Client, ask me what you need to do, ask me anything about Coaches, Clients, family, any situation, any scenario, ask me because we're all going to learn together. So go to MasterCoachmMindset.com, go to the bottom of the page, hit record and ask me your question. So this is one question I've received from a listener.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
"Rhonda, what are good questions to ask to help a Client remember how far they've come, and then grounding their answers so they don't brush off the small but important improvements they've made?"
We've been talking a little bit about this but let's break it down, because it applies to this conversation we're having about humanity. It applies to no, we're not going to try to get rid of fear, we're just going to move towards freedom. That's what we want to do. So a Client will minimize, Clients minimize, "I haven't done enough, I'm still complaining 100 times. I'm still eating chocolate everyday, I'm still doing it." Okay, and your job is to move to the one to 10 questions. The percentage question, the tell me one insight question. Again, this is where you're going to tease out and we talked a lot about this I believe in episode 11. How to tease that out, how to pull that string.
[00:22:36] If a Client says to me 100 complaints and they get it down to 99, I'm like "woo-hoo party down," and I ask this question. "Tell me how you did that? Tell me one way you did that. Tell me something that you did." "Well I don't know". Well make it up. I tell my Clients, make it up. "Make it up, tell me what do you think, let's just guess." "Guess?" "Yeah, just guess" because what I've determined is that when my Clients guess, they're pretty right on. When they try, they're right on. When they guess, they're right on. So when my Client is afraid to give the wrong answer, I want to give the perfect answer Client, Client wants to get the perfect answer.
[00:23:16] When the Client wants to give the perfect answer, I'm always like, "Guess, just guess, just guess." They're like, "Guess?" I'm like, "Yeah, guess." "Well I ate breakfast every morning and that gave me a better attitude." Awesome, so you've recognized so let me if I hear you correctly. Again you're going to reflect back. If I've heard you correctly, that eating breakfast lessened you're complaining. Is that what I'm hearing? That you got 99. "Yeah, maybe I guess so." Sounds good, so what could happen if you ate breakfast everyday, and what could happen if you ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner? What could happen if you had a snack? Just talk about their food intake and what that would look like, and how it improved their life, and what does it do for their attitude and their depression, and their sadness, et cetera, et cetera.
Food affects mood. So they have mood challenges, it might be a food issue. That's why I believe in functional medicine. So you want to when the question is, how far they've come and they ground their answers, my job is to tease that out to find the one thing they did, and then praise the heck out of them. Not from a cheerleader perspective like, "Yay, you're amazing." No, but like, "Wow, you did that? Wow, congratulations." So here's a question that I asked my Clients. "Three months ago, when we first started coaching would you have done that?" "No." "Wow, so three months ago now, you can say in the neck last three months, you have learned to blah, blah, blah?" "Yes." "Congratulations. Now imagine if we keep coaching for another three months?"
"I know, it could be amazing." "Yeah, it could be." So I ask them to reflect, I ask them to reflect about their past before they coached with me, to how they got here, how did they do it and then I acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge. Acknowledgment particularly way that I do it, I'm going to be talking about in season 2 of Master Coach Mindset because acknowledgements sounds easy, but it's actually really difficult for most of the Coaches going through my program. For many Coaches, it's one of the hardest skills they learn because they don't know the difference between cheerleading, and how do I acknowledge from a place of authenticity and humanity. How do I do that, so we're going be talking more about this in season 2.
00:26:07 Again, you want to maybe compare before coaching and after, you want to tease out. I talked a lot about it in episode 11, but you want to basically give them like, "Wow, you did this. You did it."
"I guess I did. Well I didn't do it perfect."
"I didn't ask that. Did you do it or not do it?" Closed-ended question.
"I did it."
"Yes, you did. You did it."
"Well I want to get better."
"Got it and this is what you did this time, this is amazing. Imagine if you keep going."
"I could get better."
"Yes, you could, congratulations."
TIP OF THE DAY:
So the tip, the tip, the tip of the day is to embrace your own humanity. See your Clients as innocent, see yourself as innocent. Your Client isn't purposely resisting and purposely sabotaging, or purposely doing self-betrayal. It feels that way but it's not true, they're not pre-planning this. It's just what's happening because they're on automatic pilot, because fear is in charge. So this is your opportunity and this is your task. One of the greatest things we can do for our Clients is to see their innocence, and we're going to talk about that in season 2.
So go on over to MasterCoachMindset.com and grab your Fearbuster Coaching™ Toolkit, and of course if you haven't already become a member, to grab your worksheet of the week. Do that so that you can become a member, and grab the worksheet that I create for you to help you embody every tool that I share here in Master Coach Mindset. I cannot wait to see you at our Fearless Conversations Workshop, because I know it's going to blow your mind, and help you embody the skills that I talked about here at Master Coach Mindset.
So until next time, until season 2, be fearless.
Listen to the full episode here.
00:00:47 Welcome to Master Coach Mindset™. Hi, my name is Rhonda Britten, your host and Master Coach to support you in becoming the best Coach you can be. Taking Coaches from beginning Coaches, to good Coaches, to great Coaches, to Master Coach, because I want you to have as much confidence and influence and impact as you desire. Personally for me, I think the key is becoming better, becoming a better Coach, becoming a more confident Coach, having the skills and tools underneath you, as well as the mindset to support you and knowing that you can change lives.
[00:01:18] I don't think most Coaches problems are because they don't have a pretty website, or because they don't have that perfect everything, or they don't get their funnel right. I actually think it has to do with the confidence and their coaching ability, because if you know you can coach, well then Clients are everywhere. So today is episode 13, the last episode of this season. So don't worry, don't worry, we're going to be continuing with season 2. Season 2 is going to talk about the Eight Coaching Skills that I train my Coaches, my Certified Fearless Living Coaches and that is really the foundation of our entire coaching program.
You're going to find and discover what those Eight Coaching Skills are, and I'm going to show you how they can impact your Clients and you as a Coach. So that is season 2 coming up shortly, but today is episode 13 of season 1. As we've been doing each and every week, we've been doing a line by line of the Master Coach Manifesto. If you have not heard the Master Coach Manifesto and want to listen to the whole thing, go to episode 00, and I read the whole Master Coach Manifesto for you and of course, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and download the manifesto as part of the Fearbuster Coaching™ Toolkit.
[00:02:34] You actually get a copy of the manifesto and I really encourage you to grab it, put it on as a screensaver on your computer. Either download it and print it, and put it somewhere in your office so that you see it on a regular basis, because this is going to remind you what your job is as a Coach, because it's more than just changing lives. In order to change lives for me personally, these 13 lines, these 13 phrases are critical for me to be ready, and able, and confident, to give my Coaches, to give my Clients, the best Coach I can be. Without these 13 phrases and lines, I'm going to maybe play-act coaching.
[00:03:18] Do you ever feel like a fake coaching? I think that's one of the big things that Coaches deal with, feeling like a fake and feeling like not they're not good enough, and that's because they're not embodying these 13 lines. So I really encourage you to grab the Fearbuster Coaching Toolkit and grab the manifesto, so you have a copy for yourself. Of course, go listen to episode 00 and go listen to me talk about the 13 lines. Like I said, every episode takes one line at a time. So this is episode 13, we're on line 13. We're on the last line of the manifesto, yay.
I am so excited because this is my favorite line. Of course, it sums it all up. Now some people might ask me like, "Well, how did you get this manifesto?" It downloaded through me, I said like "What is a Master Coach?" I just started scribbling, started writing as fast as I could and I shared it with my Coaches. They're like, "Oh my God, can I have a copy of it? Can I download it?" I said yes, so I made a pretty copy and now I'm sharing it with you. It was one of the reasons why I decided to a podcast actually, is writing these 13 lines of the Master Coach Manifesto. So I am super excited to be on episode 13, to talk to you about this last line. So shall we get to it? I think so.
[00:04:37] There's a really good question too today, I love it. You're going to love it too. If you ever want to ask me a question because I answer a question in every episode to help you become the best Coach you can be, and answer the questions that are on your mind, go to MasterCoachMindset.com and you can record a question for me, and the more questions the better. I love questions, so ask away. I cannot wait to hear your questions and I love all the questions I've gotten so far. So join in, ask me a question. All right, line 13. You ready?
[00:05:12] "A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment, never pushing away fear but devoted to ushering in freedom." So let me read that again. A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment, never pushing away fear. Listen to that line, never pushes away fear but devoted to ushering in freedom. So usually what we're trying to do is get away from fear. We're trying to ignore it, we're trying to deny, we're trying to pretend it's not happening. We're trying to say that "I'm not afraid" so we try to push, deny, ignore, avoid fear and that's actually not the solution to our problems.
It actually keeps us stuck in fear. So instead of never pushing away fear and not denying and not putting it down but instead, focusing on freedom, focusing on towards where we want to go. Where we want to go, where do we want to go and that's one of the things that I train my Coaches to do, is it's not about what you're not doing, it's about what you are doing. It's not about how well you're doing something. The question is, do you do it or not? So it's not about perfection, it's not even about excellence at this point. It's about where are you moving forward? How are you moving forward?
[00:06:34] So it's not about getting that fear away, it's about moving into freedom and in the movement towards freedom, fear dissolves, fear surrenders, fear lets go. So we want to go towards something, we always want to go toward something. We don't want to tell our Clients to not do something, I never ever, ever, ever tell my Client not to complain. Never, I would never tell my Client not to do something, I would never tell them to quit beating yourself up, don't do that. Never, never, never, never, never, it is not about pushing away fear, it is about moving towards freedom. So instead of me saying, "Don't, you got to quit complaining."
[00:07:16] I'm going to ask, "So, I want you to guess homework assignment. I'll give you a sample homework assignment. I want you to keep a cleaning Journal." My Client comes to me, "I complain too much, I know I complain too much I got to give it up right." I don't say quit complaining, instead I say, "well, what do you mean? How many complaints do you have? What are your complaints about?" So they go, "I don't know, my complaints are about my marriage. My complaints about my boss, and my complaints are my coworker, my mother and my family, la, la, la." "Okay, great. I want you to write down every complaint." "What?" "I want you to write down every complaint." "What?" "I want you to write down every complaint." What? Okay."
[00:07:50] So they write down every complaint. The first time they turn it in, they have 30 and I go, "Keep doing it." They get to 50 and then they get to 80, and then they get to 100. They go, "Oh my God, I can't believe it. I'm a horrible person, I have 100 complaints." I say, "You are an aware person, because you are waking up to what's moving through you. You are not pretending it's not happening, you are actually awake to it. So coming up with 100 complaints is awesome. Awesome, good for you." They're looking at me like I'm a crazy person of course, if they haven't worked with me. They don't understand that I'm not trying to get them to stop something, that's what they've been trying to do for decades.
No, instead I'm going to move them towards freedom, not away from fear but towards freedom. So my Client does 100 complaints and then I say, "Great, next week keep track of your complaints too." The next time they come, instead of 100 complaints, it's 99 complaints. They go, "Oh my God, oh my God, I'm still complaining 99 times." I say, "Woo-hoo, you only complain 99 times. That's amazing you got it better, it was 100 now it's 99. That's great, that's moving forward." They're looking at me like, "But I'm still doing it 99 times." I go, "Yes and it's one less than last week. That means you are getting it, soon it will be 80 and then 70 and then 50, and then it will get down to 20 really quickly. Then it will disappear, so you are moving forward."
[00:09:16] My Client looks at me like, "You're right, I did do better this week." Yes, you did. Congratulations. See because I'm moving my Client towards where they want to go, not away from what they don't. Knocked out not telling my Client not to do something, quit eating sugar. I'm not going to tell them to do that, I'm going to actually tell them, "Okay, great. I want you to increase your vegetable and your fat content, and let's talk about the good fat and let's talk about what protein looks like, and how much protein. Let's talk about that, let's talk about what you want to do."
Then their goal and their worksheet isn't about no sugar, crossing off no sugar because I'll assume they're going to see sugar, and what does our brain do? Our brain doesn't hear 'not', our brain doesn't hear 'no', our brain doesn't hear 'don't', it doesn't hear don't eat sugar. It hears eat sugar. It doesn't hear no sugar, it hears sugar. So 'don't, not, stop' all of those things, negate what we're really trying to do. They do not help us move our Clients and ourselves forward. So if my Client wants to give up sugar I go, "Great, what are you going to [inaudible 00:10:26], let's focus on that." Then we focus on that and their cravings for sugar will decrease as they start feeding themselves the vitamins, the herbs, the nutrients, the enzymes, et cetera, that they need in order to fill in those spots.
Side note, this is a side note I'll never forget when I had no more cravings for sugar. Excuse me, no more cravings for chocolate. I was not trying to give up chocolate especially dark chocolate, I used to eat like 90% dark chocolate which is everyone says, "It's so good for you." I wasn't trying to give it up at all but I was eating healthier and healthier, and taking these herbs and vitamins that I was prescribed by my functional medicine doctor, which by the way everyone should be going to functional medicine doctor (side note) and I woke up one morning, I'll never forget it. I woke up one morning and made myself some eggs with some more vegetables, and just this amazing breakfast.
I was like, "Wow." Then I went to go have my normal dark chocolate treat, and I had zero craving for it. Zero, zero, so what did I do with myself that I had zero craving for dark chocolate, is that I fed myself the nutrients and the enzymes that I needed in order to eliminate the craving. It's not that I tried to get rid of chocolate, chocolate just has not held anything for me since. That was gosh, maybe five years ago now and I still to this day, still to this day ... Don't get me wrong, I eat chocolate once in a while but it's not like I'm like chocolate like I used to be, "Chocolate, I want chocolate." Doesn't do anything for me anymore.
[00:12:07] Again, not that I don't eat it once in a while but it doesn't do anything for me. So I didn't try to give up chocolate, I tried to do move myself forward in other ways. Same with love, so think about a Client and their love relationship. Quit yelling at your partner, quit putting them down, quit telling them what to do. No, you want to tell your Client what to do. What do you want the person to? How do you want them to practice? You're going to talk to your mate, your family, your friends, your Clients, about what you want, not what you don't want. What you want, not what you don't want. So in line 12 when I say never push away fear, that's what we're doing.
We're not nodding ourselves, we're not doing the not, the don't, the stop, cut it out, quit. Instead, we're devoted to ushering in freedom where we want to go, what we do want to experience in our lives. Now let's go to the first part of the line 13. "A Master Coach embraces humanity and sees the miracle in every moment." Embraces humanity, see I fundamentally believe and I really believe it in the core of my being. It's not just a cliché but I really, really, really believe that people are not evil. I believe that people do things they're not proud of, and that they regret and have embarrassment by, and shame, and blame et cetera. All those things, because they don't know any other way to do it, and they're driven by fear.
[00:13:44] They don't know they have fear, they don't know worry is a symptom of fear. They don't know that overwhelm is a symptom of fear, they don't know that anxiety is a symptom of fear. They don't know the way they see their partner, or the way they see their boss is a symptom of their own protection, their own fear. They don't know that instead, they look through the world and go, "My boss is mean and my partner doesn't understand me, and my kids are selfish." They label everybody out there and they're the ones that are doing the work, and trying hard and don't they have a Coach, but everybody out there is messed up. Well that's not seeing humanity, that's actually again seeing through the filter of fear, seeing through the eyes of fear.
Then your Client, your Client continuously creates better names for those people but they don't actually surrender it as a way of being. So when I talk about humanity, I'm talking about that I truly believe at the core of my being that people are not evil, people are not bad, people are not rude, people are not purposely being unappreciative or misunderstanding you. They're not purposely consciously trying to do it, they may be doing it but they don't have an evil plan to misunderstand you. They don't have an evil plan to keep you down, they don't have that evil plan. They're just afraid and they don't know it, so that's their defense mechanisms. That's their protection mechanisms, that's how they respond when fear is on patrol.
So whenever a Client is talking to me, a Master Coach embraces humanity, mine and my Clients. When a Client tells me and is ashamed of something, or tells me something embarrassing, or tells me something maybe that I morally don't approve of, like I'm like, "You shouldn't have affairs." Whatever it is that you believe fundamentally, I absolutely know to the core of my being that my Clients bad behavior, or self judgment, or self betrayal, isn't purposeful. It is a symptom of fear being in charge. So there's a word that I want to teach you, and again I might talk more about this in season two because we're going to go through the Eight Coaching Skills.
[00:16:07] There's a word called resistant. I fundamentally believe that my Clients are not resistant. I know shocking, because most of us ask our Clients, "Well, what are you resisting?" I don't ask my Clients that. Not that it doesn't pop up once in a while, coming up with a different word, might not be able to find it but I don't believe my Clients are resisting more money, or resisting more love, or resisting better health. I think they're scared to bejeebers and have been trained, and have trained themselves, and have been trained by their family, friends, environment, et cetera, and their DNA by the way. They don't know how to do it differently.
They don't have the skills and they don't have the trust in themselves. So maybe you as a health Coach say, "Well this is what you do. You drink eight glasses of water a day and you eat this many carbs, and this many proteins and this many good fats, and this much blah, blah, blah, blah." You tell them the formula for good health, but they don't do it. Again it's not that they're resisting, it's that they have that visceral that we talked about last week. The visceral feeling that how can I do this? I don't know how to do this, and do I "deserve" it, am I worthy of it, am I okay with it. What's going to happen if I do this? Am I going to lose my family and friends because they are all alcoholics, and eat Domino's Pizza? Nothing wrong with Domino's Pizza, but you get my point.
We are fundamentally afraid viscerally of losing our friends, our family, our job, and it's so fascinating because you ask your Clients, "Well are you afraid to do that?" They might say yes, they might say no, they might not even be aware of it but using the word resistance implies guilt to your Client. Implies that they're purposely doing something against themselves and I, thousands and thousands and thousands of Coaches, excuse me Clients I've coached. When they say, "Well what's wrong with me, I'm just resisting doing it." I go, "Are you? Are you purposely not doing it? Are you coming up with a plan to purposely sabotage yourself? Are you purposely, purposely trying to self betray, betray yourself? Are you purposely coming up with an evil plan? Are you purposely doing this ahead of time, planning it out?"
You know what the answer always is? "No." So you're not purposely creating a plan to sabotage yourself to make sure you never have loved, and you're purposely not creating a plan to eat poorly, so you hate staying in poor health. You're not purposely doing that? No, well maybe there's another reason you're doing it then. So what could you say about yourself? What if you could no longer use the word self-betrayal? What if you could no longer use the word resistance? What if you could no longer? What if you chose a different way to see yourself? A different word to use? What could you say? So again, I'm moving my Client towards freedom.
I'm creating a space for my Client to go, "you're right, I'm not purposely resisting. You're right, I'm not purposely betraying myself. I'm not purposely sabotaging." It feels that way, it feels that it's happening. It feels like I'm resisting, it feels like I'm sabotaging but I don't have a plan to do it. Yeah, it's the result. It's what you're doing and the result is that feeling but you're not doing it purposely. So let's come up, let's work together. Let's work together to figure out that visceral solution, and we talked about visceral prom, visceral solution in episode 12. So do you see how I want my Client to embrace their humanity? We're going to end season 1, excuse me season 2, talk about innocence which is a portion, part of this.
We're going to talk a lot about innocence in an episode in season 2 coming up. So allowing your Client to give themselves the space that they're not guilty, they're not bad, they're not purposely doing it, it's the result based on a visceral problem that they can't see because fears in charge. Does this make sense? So question of the day, here's my question. Thank you for your questions by the way, and if you have a question for me go to MasterCoachMindset.com and ask me a question. At the bottom of the homepage, you can hit the record button and just record your question. I can't wait to answer your questions. I love questions, I literally love questions, it's what I love best.
[00:21:08] The more questions, the better. Ask away, ask away any question no matter how little, no matter how big, no matter what it is, ask me a question that you have about being a Coach. Ask me a question about your Client, ask me what you need to do, ask me anything about Coaches, Clients, family, any situation, any scenario, ask me because we're all going to learn together. So go to MasterCoachmMindset.com, go to the bottom of the page, hit record and ask me your question. So this is one question I've received from a listener.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
"Rhonda, what are good questions to ask to help a Client remember how far they've come, and then grounding their answers so they don't brush off the small but important improvements they've made?"
We've been talking a little bit about this but let's break it down, because it applies to this conversation we're having about humanity. It applies to no, we're not going to try to get rid of fear, we're just going to move towards freedom. That's what we want to do. So a Client will minimize, Clients minimize, "I haven't done enough, I'm still complaining 100 times. I'm still eating chocolate everyday, I'm still doing it." Okay, and your job is to move to the one to 10 questions. The percentage question, the tell me one insight question. Again, this is where you're going to tease out and we talked a lot about this I believe in episode 11. How to tease that out, how to pull that string.
[00:22:36] If a Client says to me 100 complaints and they get it down to 99, I'm like "woo-hoo party down," and I ask this question. "Tell me how you did that? Tell me one way you did that. Tell me something that you did." "Well I don't know". Well make it up. I tell my Clients, make it up. "Make it up, tell me what do you think, let's just guess." "Guess?" "Yeah, just guess" because what I've determined is that when my Clients guess, they're pretty right on. When they try, they're right on. When they guess, they're right on. So when my Client is afraid to give the wrong answer, I want to give the perfect answer Client, Client wants to get the perfect answer.
[00:23:16] When the Client wants to give the perfect answer, I'm always like, "Guess, just guess, just guess." They're like, "Guess?" I'm like, "Yeah, guess." "Well I ate breakfast every morning and that gave me a better attitude." Awesome, so you've recognized so let me if I hear you correctly. Again you're going to reflect back. If I've heard you correctly, that eating breakfast lessened you're complaining. Is that what I'm hearing? That you got 99. "Yeah, maybe I guess so." Sounds good, so what could happen if you ate breakfast everyday, and what could happen if you ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner? What could happen if you had a snack? Just talk about their food intake and what that would look like, and how it improved their life, and what does it do for their attitude and their depression, and their sadness, et cetera, et cetera.
Food affects mood. So they have mood challenges, it might be a food issue. That's why I believe in functional medicine. So you want to when the question is, how far they've come and they ground their answers, my job is to tease that out to find the one thing they did, and then praise the heck out of them. Not from a cheerleader perspective like, "Yay, you're amazing." No, but like, "Wow, you did that? Wow, congratulations." So here's a question that I asked my Clients. "Three months ago, when we first started coaching would you have done that?" "No." "Wow, so three months ago now, you can say in the neck last three months, you have learned to blah, blah, blah?" "Yes." "Congratulations. Now imagine if we keep coaching for another three months?"
"I know, it could be amazing." "Yeah, it could be." So I ask them to reflect, I ask them to reflect about their past before they coached with me, to how they got here, how did they do it and then I acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge. Acknowledgment particularly way that I do it, I'm going to be talking about in season 2 of Master Coach Mindset because acknowledgements sounds easy, but it's actually really difficult for most of the Coaches going through my program. For many Coaches, it's one of the hardest skills they learn because they don't know the difference between cheerleading, and how do I acknowledge from a place of authenticity and humanity. How do I do that, so we're going be talking more about this in season 2.
00:26:07 Again, you want to maybe compare before coaching and after, you want to tease out. I talked a lot about it in episode 11, but you want to basically give them like, "Wow, you did this. You did it."
"I guess I did. Well I didn't do it perfect."
"I didn't ask that. Did you do it or not do it?" Closed-ended question.
"I did it."
"Yes, you did. You did it."
"Well I want to get better."
"Got it and this is what you did this time, this is amazing. Imagine if you keep going."
"I could get better."
"Yes, you could, congratulations."
TIP OF THE DAY:
So the tip, the tip, the tip of the day is to embrace your own humanity. See your Clients as innocent, see yourself as innocent. Your Client isn't purposely resisting and purposely sabotaging, or purposely doing self-betrayal. It feels that way but it's not true, they're not pre-planning this. It's just what's happening because they're on automatic pilot, because fear is in charge. So this is your opportunity and this is your task. One of the greatest things we can do for our Clients is to see their innocence, and we're going to talk about that in season 2.
So go on over to MasterCoachMindset.com and grab your Fearbuster Coaching™ Toolkit, and of course if you haven't already become a member, to grab your worksheet of the week. Do that so that you can become a member, and grab the worksheet that I create for you to help you embody every tool that I share here in Master Coach Mindset. I cannot wait to see you at our Fearless Conversations Workshop, because I know it's going to blow your mind, and help you embody the skills that I talked about here at Master Coach Mindset.
So until next time, until season 2, be fearless.
