S03E06 - The Triggered Coach - Full Transcript

From Fear to Freedom
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[00:00:53] Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for this Episode because we're going to talk about the triggered Coach and that my friend is you. Because if you're a Coach, if you're a therapist, if you're a helping professional. I know, in the course of your work you get triggered for lots of different reasons. But I want to talk about how do you know you're triggered. Because a lot of times we can be really quick to avoid even facing our own triggers. If you're like me, one of my top values is learning and growing. That's why I love to Coach. Not only do I love to learn and grow personally, but I also like to facilitate learning and growing and others, again, it's one of my highest values. Look in my library sometime.

[00:01:33]                     Let's talk about what triggering, being triggered in a Session might look like for you. To help you identify the places where you may be tricking yourself and not really owning up to the fact that something is going on underneath the surface in your life that may be impacting your Session. First of all, if you are afraid of upsetting the Client. If you're afraid of upsetting the Client, if you're afraid of avoiding conflict, right? If you want to avoid conflict, then you know you're triggered. Avoiding conflict, not wanting that Client upset that's all about you. Two, you start arguing with the Client. You start arguing because you don't agree with what they're about to do and you want them to do the “right thing” because you're doing number three, which is judging. You're judging your Client's goals, dreams, plans, decisions, choices because you've lived your life one way. You've made decisions a particular way with a certain set of values, and you're afraid your Client is making the wrong choice.

[00:02:42]                     Now, I know that you know that Coaches don't get to decide what their Clients do, those are consultants. We as Coaches are asking our Clients to decide for themselves to help them, whatever works for them. So we don't have to have the same value system, we don't have to have the same religion, we don't have to have the same belief systems because we're here to facilitate them becoming more awake and aware of what's going on inside of them, not that we agree. If you're judging, if you're arguing, you know that you're triggered. If you're missing or avoiding emotions in the conversation. If a Client brings up a feeling or makes up a statement and you just whitewash it and don't recognize the importance of that feeling, and you just let it go by and not address it, then you know that you're triggered.

S03E06-The-Triggered-Coach

[00:03:36]                     If you get in your head and start thinking. See, if I'm in my head I know I'm not listening, so if I'm thinking I'm not listening. If you're in your head, if you're thinking about the Session in the middle of the Session, you're not present. You're triggered. If you share too many personal stories, share too much about yourself, whether that's getting them off point or thinking that your stories are more important than theirs or you're not sure what question to ask so you're just going to share a story. You're probably triggered. If you get off tangent, they’re talking about A, and you start talking about B because A, makes you feel uncomfortable, but you don't want to admit it. Then if you switch subjects, then you're triggered.

[00:04:21]                     If you just get distracted, and start daydreaming, get on your phone, look at your computer, you're triggered. If you're unable to acknowledge your Client, I see this all the time. We want to empower our Clients, we want to support our Clients, but we have a hard time acknowledging our Clients because we want them secretly to do better more, faster, etc. We have a difficult time acknowledging them because we have a difficult time acknowledging ourselves. Also, when you get into silence. Another way to know that you may be triggered is that you go quiet. You don't know what to say. You don't know what's going on, you've lost your way. That means you're triggered.

[00:05:02]                     Also, another way to know if you're triggered is the feelings before the Session or after the Session, and yes, even during. If you're walking into a Session with a particular feeling about the Client or about the Session, if you're dreading the Session, if you don't like the Client for whatever reason, i.e., you're triggered. After the Session, if you're having a lot of feelings that are not empowering to yourself and empowering for the Client, you know you're triggered. Those are just some of the ways that you know you're triggered. I bet you have more too. So think about all the ways that you get triggered in a Session. The more you can identify where you get triggered inside a Session, the more you can grow and shift your own life, expand your own consciousness, move through your own comfort zone and get into the unknown so that you can be comfortable in the uncomfortable because that's the point.

[00:05:57]                     You must be able to sit with your Client no matter what's going on inside of them in order to support them, to accept them, to believe in them. If you're getting triggered, you're not with the Client. You're with yourself. Now again, is it going to happen? Yes. Is it going to happen even if you've been coaching for 20 years? Yes. Let's think of the frequency, the length, and intensity in which it lasts. If you don't address it, if you don't go get support from your own Coach, your own mentor or your therapist, etc., then that is going to continue to trigger you. We're always as Coaches, cleaning up our own mess, cleaning up our own stories, cleaning up our own past, healing it, releasing it, letting it go. So we have the courage and the ability to be present with our Clients. Again, if you're triggered inside a Session, it doesn't mean you're a bad Coach, it just means that you're triggered. Go get some support and go get some help so that you can do something about it.

[00:06:56]                     Now, another way that trigger shows up for us is avoiding conflict. I talked about not wanting to upset the Client, avoiding conflict. Well, I want to tease that out a little bit more, I want to expand that list just about avoiding conflict because we as Coaches, because we can get caught up in people pleasing and caretaking, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute. We can unconsciously be avoiding conflict. Again, if we're avoiding conflict, what are we? Triggered. Let's talk about all the ways that you may be avoiding conflict, that you're not even aware of. One: you do not charge fees that are appropriate for your work. You don't want to deal with the Client going, "That's too much. I don't know. That's so expensive. Are you worth it?" You don't want to deal with any of that. So you charge fees very low, so you only go, "Wow, that's amazing. I never knew I could get you for that cheap." You don't want to deal with somebody apprehension about paying your fees. You're avoiding conflict.

[00:08:00]                     If you miss appointments, don't address missing appointments for your Client. Client misses appointments, and you don't address it, you're avoiding conflict. What about if you're not billing your Clients on time or if they are billed and they don't pay on time, you don't bring it up. Remember in our last Episode we talked about what happens when a Client is triggered. They may not pay their bills on time; they may not pay your fees on time, if you're having a monthly retainer because maybe in month three they're wanting more results or they're starting to get triggered and therefore they're trying to get out of coaching with you, i.e. try to slip into the sunset so to speak. If there are money issues, billing issues, you must have the courage to address them. Otherwise, you're avoiding conflict.

[00:08:48]                     If you make Sessions over time, if you stay on with a Client too long or you cut off a Session, you're avoiding conflict. If you're not bringing up the appropriate topics, not bringing up different topics, not tying things together, but you're staying shallow and on the surface, you're avoiding conflict. Also, if you're staying with the general questions, just general, never ask anything too deep, never ask anything too confronting, never ask anything really intimate. I cannot tell you how many Coaches that I train are afraid to ask questions about sex or questions about money or questions about past relationships because they feel like they're being nosy. Now, we talked a lot about this in Season One. If this is you, I invite you to go listen to Season One to get some more tools and some more tricks on how to, what to do about it. But if you are avoiding conflict, if you're doing any of the things I just mentioned, then you, my friend are triggered. These are things that as a professional, as a professional Coach, you must have the courage and ability and confidence to address.

[00:09:54]                     Now, I want to bring up one other little topic before we move onto caretaking and people pleasing because yes, let's address that because we were talking about being triggered and we're talking about avoiding conflict. I bet that somewhere inside of you there might be a little people pleasing and caretaking going on. But before we get there, I just want to talk about one other emotion that so many times we just put under the carpet, and that's anger. Our Clients anger and our anger, we don't know what to do with it. If a Client gets angry on the phone, not even at us, but maybe about somebody else in the story they're telling, or they do get angry at you, we don't know, so many Coaches don't know how to be with that. It triggers them.

[00:10:37]                     Your opportunity as a coach is to really start embracing your anger and start understanding how anger works for you. Because when you are triggered as a Coach, and your Client doesn't have a safe place to get angry, and you're judging them, or basically I was going to say judging them and thinking that their anger is wrong, bad, should not be happening right now, then you're taking away their ability to learn what to do with that anger and how to filter it in a powerful, positive way. Because most people, myself included, grew up in a family that anger was not welcome. Either so many people grow up in an angry family and don't know how to process anger or like me, grew up in a family that never felt anything and never definitely got angry.

[00:11:26]                     So, when you don't grow up in a family that has a healthy regard for anger and know what to do with that anger, then what you lose is your ability to own your power and have appropriate assertiveness. If you're not comfortable with anger, your anger, your Client's anger, then that means that you have a challenge, and what I dare say an opportunity to embrace more power in your life, your own personal power. As well as start looking at what does assertiveness look like in this area? If you're a people pleaser and caretaker, you know that's tough for you because God forbid you're assertive because that just feels plain mean. Well, we're not talking about mean, we're talking about assertive. There's a big difference.

[00:12:14]                     Again, just to repeat myself, if you aren't comfortable with anger, you're not going to feel comfortable with power. As a Coach, you my friend, I want you to be masterful with power, your own and your Clients. If this has been tough and you're sitting there going, "Oh, Rhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda, I have a problem with power, and I'm not really sure about this assertive thing because I think it's aggressive and I think it's mean." Then you're probably a people pleaser or a caretaker, and most Coaches are because we're healing professional because we're a helping professional. We care about people and people who care about people many times are highly sensitive people. Again, you may or may not be HSP, that's called Highly Sensitive Person. If you are a highly sensitive person, then you are going to have a higher perhaps intuition, a higher sensitivity to what's going on in the other person as well as yourself. You get triggered more easily because if you're not aware of it and if you don't become masterful with it, you have less tolerance for it. You as a helping healing professional probably have some qualities of people pleaser, caretaker and highly sensitive person.

[00:13:36]                     Let's talk about how that might show up in your life and in your coaching Sessions. One: Is this you? Do you give at the expense of yourself? Do you give to others at the expense of you? Yes or no? Do you give too much and not ask for help? Do you give to others but don't accept their help? People pleaser, just saying. Do you make appointments at any time that, anytime anybody wants one? Let's say that you have something to do Saturday day or Sunday day and your Client's like, "Oh, can we meet Saturday or Sunday?" And you're like, "Sure." And, you change your plans. If you're willing to meet a Client whenever, whenever they want to make it convenient for them, and it's inconvenient for you and you're not able to speak out, then you, my friend are a people-pleasing Coach.

[00:14:30]                     Three, you refuse to accept help from others because you're of the belief that if you want something done, you got to do it yourself. Is that you? That it's easier for you to do it than to actually build up a team or ask for help or get support. If somebody actually offers you support and offers you help, you actually say no. Ask yourself, how many times have you said no to help? I'm talking about little help or big help. I'm talking about moving a chair, opening a door and moving. Think about how often you accept and ask for help. If it's not very frequently. If you say no, people pleaser. If people want a lot from you but you don't feel they reciprocate. They want a lot from you, but you don't feel they reciprocate, then you're a people pleaser.

[00:15:26]                     I always say that people pleasers make other people's lives easier because you solve their problems. They need the dog walked, and you're willing to do it. Great. They don't have to hire a dog walker. Awesome. Remember, people pleasers, make other people's lives easier, just not their own. If you surround yourself with people who want a lot from you, but you don't feel that they reciprocate, you're probably a people pleaser. If it's hard to say no, and you find yourself saying yes when you really want to say no, you're a people pleaser. If your last relationships are exhausting and you don't want to be social, you would just love to isolate, and you know, sit in a cocoon by yourself. You're probably overused, overwrought and exhausted from being pulled and pushed. You might even say that people take advantage of you will remember the old adage: No one can take advantage of you without your permission. So if you don't know how to say no, then people will "take advantage of you" because you are offering to be taken advantage of.

[00:16:33]                     You have full permission to say no, but if you don't feel like you have full permission, then you're probably a people pleaser or caretaker, and you're going to be able to see probably right about now. How that triggers you in Sessions. How that gives you full permission to avoid conflict. It takes away your permission to have power, to be assertive, and to really be the best Coach you can be. Being a people pleaser and a caretaker may be part of your personality, may be part of how you're wired, but you can still do something about it. You can still start practicing putting yourself first, gosh, let me take that back. As we say in Fearless Living®, my needs equal your needs. I'm not even going to ask you to put yourself first. I'm just asking you to include yourself and your relationships. If you do that, that's a win.

[00:17:22]                     If you just include yourself in your relationships, if you just include yourself in your relationships, if you just include yourself in your relationships, you're ahead of the game. I bet you get caught in…I'm going to read my list that I wrote down because it's so good. If you get caught in perfectionism, being light, avoiding conflict, that you think negative emotions are bad. If you protect others from emotions, you don't want them to feel bad. You don't want them to feel that. You don't want to put them through that, yeah, people pleasing, caretaking. If you don't have very many needs, like you go, "Oh no, my needs, no I don't have any many needs." You don't have any strong opinions, you don't have strong opinions, if you feel totally responsible for your Client's success. If you think your coaching is the key to your Client's success, you're probably a people pleaser and caretaker. If you get caught stain in your head, if you give advice instead of coach or if you get stuck in silence, you're probably a people pleaser.

[00:18:26]                     Now hopefully you can see all the places. I mean there's a whole list here. It's a huge whole list of how people pleasers and caretakers show up. Then we've got a whole list of all the ways you get triggered, and we've got a whole list of ways that you avoid conflict. If you do any of these things, which if you are a Coach of any medal, I bet some of this if not much of it relates to you. Then we have a lot of opportunity to grow so we can become masterful not only of our own lives but also masterful and coaching Sessions and becoming a Master Coach. What's the solution to all this? Well, I happened to have that as well. The first thing to do, I'm just going to offer what I've said before just a minute ago. My needs equal your needs, including yourself in your own life, including yourself in the Session. Because working with Clients isn't about ignoring yourself or pretending you don't exist. It is about including yourself, having your water handy.

[00:19:28]                     Number two is self-care. My needs equal your needs, their needs are not more important than yours. If you have a need to go to the restroom or cough or get a drink, you need to address that and you'd say, 'Oh, I need to grab a drink,” or “Let me stop for a second and I need to fix this, my chair." That's including yourself in the Session. So my needs equal your needs. Number Two is self-care. Drink your water, get some sleep, eat some vegetables, take care of yourself because you my friend, the better you take care of yourself, the more that you can give in a way that's true for you, to your Clients. The more you can share your light with the world. If you're not caring for yourself. Again, I know you know this, I know you've heard this a hundred times. Heck, I know you've told yourself a hundred times, but if you're not doing it that means it's really ingrained in you, and it's really triggering any time you try to take yourself out of it and actually start caring for yourself.

[00:20:35]                     If you're getting triggered with self-care, what are you going to do? Go to your Coach, go to your therapist, take a class, come to the Fearless Conversations Workshop™ so that you can learn the Eight Coaching Skills so that you can do some of these things and know, that you can do them without fear. Right? So number one, my needs equal your needs. Number two, self-care. And, I'm going to take a drink. Be attentive to how you select your Clients. Are you just picking any Client from anywhere? Just cause you, you need to do it. Now, I do get that in the beginning and when I first started my practice. I took any Client cause I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know who I wanted to work with. I didn't know what kind of Clients I liked. I didn't know what kind of Clients like me. I didn't know what turned me on. I didn't know what really I was about yet. I didn't know my niche as they say today or niche. Once you start understanding what works for you, what kind of Clients work for you, then be attentive to your Clients. Make sure that you have that application for private coaching so that you get to know your Clients. Definitely, have that discovery call or something that you can feel that energetic and check yourself to see if this is the right Client for you.

[00:21:48]                     Stay awake. Stay awake. I believe we're on number five. My needs equal your needs. Self-care. No, I didn't say know your limits. That's it. Okay. Number one, my needs equal your needs. Two, self-care. The one I skipped was Three: Know your limits, i.e., know your limits. If Friday at five o'clock, that is your limit, no longer have Clients at that time. Know your limits. Most coaches work 20 hours a week with Clients, private Clients. There's other things to do besides the one on one Sessions. There's notes. There's the business of your business. If you don't know your limits, again, you're going to schedule anybody anytime, and you're going to work nights, and mornings, and weekends, etc. Know your limits, that's number three. Number Four is: Select your Clients, which I just talked about. And Number Five is: Stay awake. Stay awake. What works for you and what doesn't work for you. What worked for you last year may not work for you this year.

[00:22:48]                     Stay awake to how you're feeling, to your body sensations, to what's going on inside of you, your spiritual life. Stay awake. If you leave God behind your spirit, your divine, your soul, your source, a part of you is not going to be tapped in to get that energetic. Now again, I'm not saying that you have to believe in God or have to believe in a source, but there has to be something larger than yourself that you believe in, even if that's your beliefs. Even if that's your belief that the world is for you or against you, and I'm hoping that you believe the world is for you and stay awake. Lastly, know the ethics of a coaching relationship. Make sure you know the ethics because that's going to help you "avoid” being that people pleaser or caretaker and really put this coaching practice as a business.

[00:23:43]                     Now in our next Episode, we're going to talk about the different ways that you can use coaching and different jobs you could get, etc. We're going to talk about some of the mechanics of coaching or the confidentiality contract, etc. But until then, I want you to focus on this Episode and I want you to: my needs equal your needs, self-care, know your limits, select your Clients, do that application, that discovery call, stay awake, pay attention to what's yours and what's theirs. Everything that goes on the Session is not theirs. It's actually some of it's yours. So what's yours and what's theirs. Number Six: know the ethics of a coaching relationship. Know your ethics. What works for you and what doesn't work for you. This is all about the triggered Coach. This isn't an opportunity to beat yourself and put yourself down that you get triggered. It's an opportunity to give yourself deep compassion and know that you're just human. Just like me, we're all just human and just attempting to do the best we can to grow and become a more masterful Coach.

00:24:47                     QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Before we sign off let's do the coaching question of the day. “Rhonda, can you coach someone through something you haven't figured out yet or experienced?” The answer is yes. Yes, you can. Because this is the key component of coaching regardless of what you've experienced and what they've experienced. Now, if you've listened to Master Coach Mindset for a while, if you listened to Season One and Season Two, then you know that part of being a great Coach is actually attempting to be ahead of your Client. You want to be a little ahead and have experienced many of the things they've experienced, but that's not always going to be true because you're not going to have the same religion, maybe the same culture, maybe the same environment have grown and made the same schooling, etc.

[00:25:38]                     You're never going to have all the same experiences and you can still coach somebody because if you have the basic coaching skills, the ones that I teach in the Fearless Conversations Workshop, if you know how to support your Client, then you know how to support your Client with something you know or something you don't know because we're all humans. When this question comes up right now, I think of the difference between content and coaching skills. Let's say you're a Health Coach and somebody asks you a business question. Well, you may or may not be able to answer their business question, but you definitely can coach them to get their business question answered. Absolutely. But, this is about content. This is about content. If you're a Health Coach and your Client asked a business question, how you coach them is through coaching skills. You may not know the answer to their question, but you definitely know how to coach them.

[00:26:37]                     This question brings up the difference between content and coaching skills. You can have any content you want, that might be your niche, your niche or that might be your expertise. But, if you know how to coach, then you can coach anything. You just have to have the coaching skills, and you have to have the awareness. You have the skills, the tools, and the awareness. When you have those three things, you can pretty much coach anything. I look forward to seeing you in the next Episode, and in that Episode, we're going to be talking about confidentiality agreements and some of the mechanics and the logistics of being a Coach.

Until then, go check out MasterCoachMindset.com and remember, Be Fearless.

 

From Fear to Freedom
From Fear to Freedom GUIDE topaz enhance sharpen hiresDOWNLOAD GUIDE

Listen to the full episode here.

[00:00:53] Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for this Episode because we're going to talk about the triggered Coach and that my friend is you. Because if you're a Coach, if you're a therapist, if you're a helping professional. I know, in the course of your work you get triggered for lots of different reasons. But I want to talk about how do you know you're triggered. Because a lot of times we can be really quick to avoid even facing our own triggers. If you're like me, one of my top values is learning and growing. That's why I love to Coach. Not only do I love to learn and grow personally, but I also like to facilitate learning and growing and others, again, it's one of my highest values. Look in my library sometime.

[00:01:33]                     Let's talk about what triggering, being triggered in a Session might look like for you. To help you identify the places where you may be tricking yourself and not really owning up to the fact that something is going on underneath the surface in your life that may be impacting your Session. First of all, if you are afraid of upsetting the Client. If you're afraid of upsetting the Client, if you're afraid of avoiding conflict, right? If you want to avoid conflict, then you know you're triggered. Avoiding conflict, not wanting that Client upset that's all about you. Two, you start arguing with the Client. You start arguing because you don't agree with what they're about to do and you want them to do the “right thing” because you're doing number three, which is judging. You're judging your Client's goals, dreams, plans, decisions, choices because you've lived your life one way. You've made decisions a particular way with a certain set of values, and you're afraid your Client is making the wrong choice.

[00:02:42]                     Now, I know that you know that Coaches don't get to decide what their Clients do, those are consultants. We as Coaches are asking our Clients to decide for themselves to help them, whatever works for them. So we don't have to have the same value system, we don't have to have the same religion, we don't have to have the same belief systems because we're here to facilitate them becoming more awake and aware of what's going on inside of them, not that we agree. If you're judging, if you're arguing, you know that you're triggered. If you're missing or avoiding emotions in the conversation. If a Client brings up a feeling or makes up a statement and you just whitewash it and don't recognize the importance of that feeling, and you just let it go by and not address it, then you know that you're triggered.

S03E06-The-Triggered-Coach

[00:03:36]                     If you get in your head and start thinking. See, if I'm in my head I know I'm not listening, so if I'm thinking I'm not listening. If you're in your head, if you're thinking about the Session in the middle of the Session, you're not present. You're triggered. If you share too many personal stories, share too much about yourself, whether that's getting them off point or thinking that your stories are more important than theirs or you're not sure what question to ask so you're just going to share a story. You're probably triggered. If you get off tangent, they’re talking about A, and you start talking about B because A, makes you feel uncomfortable, but you don't want to admit it. Then if you switch subjects, then you're triggered.

[00:04:21]                     If you just get distracted, and start daydreaming, get on your phone, look at your computer, you're triggered. If you're unable to acknowledge your Client, I see this all the time. We want to empower our Clients, we want to support our Clients, but we have a hard time acknowledging our Clients because we want them secretly to do better more, faster, etc. We have a difficult time acknowledging them because we have a difficult time acknowledging ourselves. Also, when you get into silence. Another way to know that you may be triggered is that you go quiet. You don't know what to say. You don't know what's going on, you've lost your way. That means you're triggered.

[00:05:02]                     Also, another way to know if you're triggered is the feelings before the Session or after the Session, and yes, even during. If you're walking into a Session with a particular feeling about the Client or about the Session, if you're dreading the Session, if you don't like the Client for whatever reason, i.e., you're triggered. After the Session, if you're having a lot of feelings that are not empowering to yourself and empowering for the Client, you know you're triggered. Those are just some of the ways that you know you're triggered. I bet you have more too. So think about all the ways that you get triggered in a Session. The more you can identify where you get triggered inside a Session, the more you can grow and shift your own life, expand your own consciousness, move through your own comfort zone and get into the unknown so that you can be comfortable in the uncomfortable because that's the point.

[00:05:57]                     You must be able to sit with your Client no matter what's going on inside of them in order to support them, to accept them, to believe in them. If you're getting triggered, you're not with the Client. You're with yourself. Now again, is it going to happen? Yes. Is it going to happen even if you've been coaching for 20 years? Yes. Let's think of the frequency, the length, and intensity in which it lasts. If you don't address it, if you don't go get support from your own Coach, your own mentor or your therapist, etc., then that is going to continue to trigger you. We're always as Coaches, cleaning up our own mess, cleaning up our own stories, cleaning up our own past, healing it, releasing it, letting it go. So we have the courage and the ability to be present with our Clients. Again, if you're triggered inside a Session, it doesn't mean you're a bad Coach, it just means that you're triggered. Go get some support and go get some help so that you can do something about it.

[00:06:56]                     Now, another way that trigger shows up for us is avoiding conflict. I talked about not wanting to upset the Client, avoiding conflict. Well, I want to tease that out a little bit more, I want to expand that list just about avoiding conflict because we as Coaches, because we can get caught up in people pleasing and caretaking, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute. We can unconsciously be avoiding conflict. Again, if we're avoiding conflict, what are we? Triggered. Let's talk about all the ways that you may be avoiding conflict, that you're not even aware of. One: you do not charge fees that are appropriate for your work. You don't want to deal with the Client going, "That's too much. I don't know. That's so expensive. Are you worth it?" You don't want to deal with any of that. So you charge fees very low, so you only go, "Wow, that's amazing. I never knew I could get you for that cheap." You don't want to deal with somebody apprehension about paying your fees. You're avoiding conflict.

[00:08:00]                     If you miss appointments, don't address missing appointments for your Client. Client misses appointments, and you don't address it, you're avoiding conflict. What about if you're not billing your Clients on time or if they are billed and they don't pay on time, you don't bring it up. Remember in our last Episode we talked about what happens when a Client is triggered. They may not pay their bills on time; they may not pay your fees on time, if you're having a monthly retainer because maybe in month three they're wanting more results or they're starting to get triggered and therefore they're trying to get out of coaching with you, i.e. try to slip into the sunset so to speak. If there are money issues, billing issues, you must have the courage to address them. Otherwise, you're avoiding conflict.

[00:08:48]                     If you make Sessions over time, if you stay on with a Client too long or you cut off a Session, you're avoiding conflict. If you're not bringing up the appropriate topics, not bringing up different topics, not tying things together, but you're staying shallow and on the surface, you're avoiding conflict. Also, if you're staying with the general questions, just general, never ask anything too deep, never ask anything too confronting, never ask anything really intimate. I cannot tell you how many Coaches that I train are afraid to ask questions about sex or questions about money or questions about past relationships because they feel like they're being nosy. Now, we talked a lot about this in Season One. If this is you, I invite you to go listen to Season One to get some more tools and some more tricks on how to, what to do about it. But if you are avoiding conflict, if you're doing any of the things I just mentioned, then you, my friend are triggered. These are things that as a professional, as a professional Coach, you must have the courage and ability and confidence to address.

[00:09:54]                     Now, I want to bring up one other little topic before we move onto caretaking and people pleasing because yes, let's address that because we were talking about being triggered and we're talking about avoiding conflict. I bet that somewhere inside of you there might be a little people pleasing and caretaking going on. But before we get there, I just want to talk about one other emotion that so many times we just put under the carpet, and that's anger. Our Clients anger and our anger, we don't know what to do with it. If a Client gets angry on the phone, not even at us, but maybe about somebody else in the story they're telling, or they do get angry at you, we don't know, so many Coaches don't know how to be with that. It triggers them.

[00:10:37]                     Your opportunity as a coach is to really start embracing your anger and start understanding how anger works for you. Because when you are triggered as a Coach, and your Client doesn't have a safe place to get angry, and you're judging them, or basically I was going to say judging them and thinking that their anger is wrong, bad, should not be happening right now, then you're taking away their ability to learn what to do with that anger and how to filter it in a powerful, positive way. Because most people, myself included, grew up in a family that anger was not welcome. Either so many people grow up in an angry family and don't know how to process anger or like me, grew up in a family that never felt anything and never definitely got angry.

[00:11:26]                     So, when you don't grow up in a family that has a healthy regard for anger and know what to do with that anger, then what you lose is your ability to own your power and have appropriate assertiveness. If you're not comfortable with anger, your anger, your Client's anger, then that means that you have a challenge, and what I dare say an opportunity to embrace more power in your life, your own personal power. As well as start looking at what does assertiveness look like in this area? If you're a people pleaser and caretaker, you know that's tough for you because God forbid you're assertive because that just feels plain mean. Well, we're not talking about mean, we're talking about assertive. There's a big difference.

[00:12:14]                     Again, just to repeat myself, if you aren't comfortable with anger, you're not going to feel comfortable with power. As a Coach, you my friend, I want you to be masterful with power, your own and your Clients. If this has been tough and you're sitting there going, "Oh, Rhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda, I have a problem with power, and I'm not really sure about this assertive thing because I think it's aggressive and I think it's mean." Then you're probably a people pleaser or a caretaker, and most Coaches are because we're healing professional because we're a helping professional. We care about people and people who care about people many times are highly sensitive people. Again, you may or may not be HSP, that's called Highly Sensitive Person. If you are a highly sensitive person, then you are going to have a higher perhaps intuition, a higher sensitivity to what's going on in the other person as well as yourself. You get triggered more easily because if you're not aware of it and if you don't become masterful with it, you have less tolerance for it. You as a helping healing professional probably have some qualities of people pleaser, caretaker and highly sensitive person.

[00:13:36]                     Let's talk about how that might show up in your life and in your coaching Sessions. One: Is this you? Do you give at the expense of yourself? Do you give to others at the expense of you? Yes or no? Do you give too much and not ask for help? Do you give to others but don't accept their help? People pleaser, just saying. Do you make appointments at any time that, anytime anybody wants one? Let's say that you have something to do Saturday day or Sunday day and your Client's like, "Oh, can we meet Saturday or Sunday?" And you're like, "Sure." And, you change your plans. If you're willing to meet a Client whenever, whenever they want to make it convenient for them, and it's inconvenient for you and you're not able to speak out, then you, my friend are a people-pleasing Coach.

[00:14:30]                     Three, you refuse to accept help from others because you're of the belief that if you want something done, you got to do it yourself. Is that you? That it's easier for you to do it than to actually build up a team or ask for help or get support. If somebody actually offers you support and offers you help, you actually say no. Ask yourself, how many times have you said no to help? I'm talking about little help or big help. I'm talking about moving a chair, opening a door and moving. Think about how often you accept and ask for help. If it's not very frequently. If you say no, people pleaser. If people want a lot from you but you don't feel they reciprocate. They want a lot from you, but you don't feel they reciprocate, then you're a people pleaser.

[00:15:26]                     I always say that people pleasers make other people's lives easier because you solve their problems. They need the dog walked, and you're willing to do it. Great. They don't have to hire a dog walker. Awesome. Remember, people pleasers, make other people's lives easier, just not their own. If you surround yourself with people who want a lot from you, but you don't feel that they reciprocate, you're probably a people pleaser. If it's hard to say no, and you find yourself saying yes when you really want to say no, you're a people pleaser. If your last relationships are exhausting and you don't want to be social, you would just love to isolate, and you know, sit in a cocoon by yourself. You're probably overused, overwrought and exhausted from being pulled and pushed. You might even say that people take advantage of you will remember the old adage: No one can take advantage of you without your permission. So if you don't know how to say no, then people will "take advantage of you" because you are offering to be taken advantage of.

[00:16:33]                     You have full permission to say no, but if you don't feel like you have full permission, then you're probably a people pleaser or caretaker, and you're going to be able to see probably right about now. How that triggers you in Sessions. How that gives you full permission to avoid conflict. It takes away your permission to have power, to be assertive, and to really be the best Coach you can be. Being a people pleaser and a caretaker may be part of your personality, may be part of how you're wired, but you can still do something about it. You can still start practicing putting yourself first, gosh, let me take that back. As we say in Fearless Living®, my needs equal your needs. I'm not even going to ask you to put yourself first. I'm just asking you to include yourself and your relationships. If you do that, that's a win.

[00:17:22]                     If you just include yourself in your relationships, if you just include yourself in your relationships, if you just include yourself in your relationships, you're ahead of the game. I bet you get caught in…I'm going to read my list that I wrote down because it's so good. If you get caught in perfectionism, being light, avoiding conflict, that you think negative emotions are bad. If you protect others from emotions, you don't want them to feel bad. You don't want them to feel that. You don't want to put them through that, yeah, people pleasing, caretaking. If you don't have very many needs, like you go, "Oh no, my needs, no I don't have any many needs." You don't have any strong opinions, you don't have strong opinions, if you feel totally responsible for your Client's success. If you think your coaching is the key to your Client's success, you're probably a people pleaser and caretaker. If you get caught stain in your head, if you give advice instead of coach or if you get stuck in silence, you're probably a people pleaser.

[00:18:26]                     Now hopefully you can see all the places. I mean there's a whole list here. It's a huge whole list of how people pleasers and caretakers show up. Then we've got a whole list of all the ways you get triggered, and we've got a whole list of ways that you avoid conflict. If you do any of these things, which if you are a Coach of any medal, I bet some of this if not much of it relates to you. Then we have a lot of opportunity to grow so we can become masterful not only of our own lives but also masterful and coaching Sessions and becoming a Master Coach. What's the solution to all this? Well, I happened to have that as well. The first thing to do, I'm just going to offer what I've said before just a minute ago. My needs equal your needs, including yourself in your own life, including yourself in the Session. Because working with Clients isn't about ignoring yourself or pretending you don't exist. It is about including yourself, having your water handy.

[00:19:28]                     Number two is self-care. My needs equal your needs, their needs are not more important than yours. If you have a need to go to the restroom or cough or get a drink, you need to address that and you'd say, 'Oh, I need to grab a drink,” or “Let me stop for a second and I need to fix this, my chair." That's including yourself in the Session. So my needs equal your needs. Number Two is self-care. Drink your water, get some sleep, eat some vegetables, take care of yourself because you my friend, the better you take care of yourself, the more that you can give in a way that's true for you, to your Clients. The more you can share your light with the world. If you're not caring for yourself. Again, I know you know this, I know you've heard this a hundred times. Heck, I know you've told yourself a hundred times, but if you're not doing it that means it's really ingrained in you, and it's really triggering any time you try to take yourself out of it and actually start caring for yourself.

[00:20:35]                     If you're getting triggered with self-care, what are you going to do? Go to your Coach, go to your therapist, take a class, come to the Fearless Conversations Workshop™ so that you can learn the Eight Coaching Skills so that you can do some of these things and know, that you can do them without fear. Right? So number one, my needs equal your needs. Number two, self-care. And, I'm going to take a drink. Be attentive to how you select your Clients. Are you just picking any Client from anywhere? Just cause you, you need to do it. Now, I do get that in the beginning and when I first started my practice. I took any Client cause I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know who I wanted to work with. I didn't know what kind of Clients I liked. I didn't know what kind of Clients like me. I didn't know what turned me on. I didn't know what really I was about yet. I didn't know my niche as they say today or niche. Once you start understanding what works for you, what kind of Clients work for you, then be attentive to your Clients. Make sure that you have that application for private coaching so that you get to know your Clients. Definitely, have that discovery call or something that you can feel that energetic and check yourself to see if this is the right Client for you.

[00:21:48]                     Stay awake. Stay awake. I believe we're on number five. My needs equal your needs. Self-care. No, I didn't say know your limits. That's it. Okay. Number one, my needs equal your needs. Two, self-care. The one I skipped was Three: Know your limits, i.e., know your limits. If Friday at five o'clock, that is your limit, no longer have Clients at that time. Know your limits. Most coaches work 20 hours a week with Clients, private Clients. There's other things to do besides the one on one Sessions. There's notes. There's the business of your business. If you don't know your limits, again, you're going to schedule anybody anytime, and you're going to work nights, and mornings, and weekends, etc. Know your limits, that's number three. Number Four is: Select your Clients, which I just talked about. And Number Five is: Stay awake. Stay awake. What works for you and what doesn't work for you. What worked for you last year may not work for you this year.

[00:22:48]                     Stay awake to how you're feeling, to your body sensations, to what's going on inside of you, your spiritual life. Stay awake. If you leave God behind your spirit, your divine, your soul, your source, a part of you is not going to be tapped in to get that energetic. Now again, I'm not saying that you have to believe in God or have to believe in a source, but there has to be something larger than yourself that you believe in, even if that's your beliefs. Even if that's your belief that the world is for you or against you, and I'm hoping that you believe the world is for you and stay awake. Lastly, know the ethics of a coaching relationship. Make sure you know the ethics because that's going to help you "avoid” being that people pleaser or caretaker and really put this coaching practice as a business.

[00:23:43]                     Now in our next Episode, we're going to talk about the different ways that you can use coaching and different jobs you could get, etc. We're going to talk about some of the mechanics of coaching or the confidentiality contract, etc. But until then, I want you to focus on this Episode and I want you to: my needs equal your needs, self-care, know your limits, select your Clients, do that application, that discovery call, stay awake, pay attention to what's yours and what's theirs. Everything that goes on the Session is not theirs. It's actually some of it's yours. So what's yours and what's theirs. Number Six: know the ethics of a coaching relationship. Know your ethics. What works for you and what doesn't work for you. This is all about the triggered Coach. This isn't an opportunity to beat yourself and put yourself down that you get triggered. It's an opportunity to give yourself deep compassion and know that you're just human. Just like me, we're all just human and just attempting to do the best we can to grow and become a more masterful Coach.

00:24:47                     QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Before we sign off let's do the coaching question of the day. “Rhonda, can you coach someone through something you haven't figured out yet or experienced?” The answer is yes. Yes, you can. Because this is the key component of coaching regardless of what you've experienced and what they've experienced. Now, if you've listened to Master Coach Mindset for a while, if you listened to Season One and Season Two, then you know that part of being a great Coach is actually attempting to be ahead of your Client. You want to be a little ahead and have experienced many of the things they've experienced, but that's not always going to be true because you're not going to have the same religion, maybe the same culture, maybe the same environment have grown and made the same schooling, etc.

[00:25:38]                     You're never going to have all the same experiences and you can still coach somebody because if you have the basic coaching skills, the ones that I teach in the Fearless Conversations Workshop, if you know how to support your Client, then you know how to support your Client with something you know or something you don't know because we're all humans. When this question comes up right now, I think of the difference between content and coaching skills. Let's say you're a Health Coach and somebody asks you a business question. Well, you may or may not be able to answer their business question, but you definitely can coach them to get their business question answered. Absolutely. But, this is about content. This is about content. If you're a Health Coach and your Client asked a business question, how you coach them is through coaching skills. You may not know the answer to their question, but you definitely know how to coach them.

[00:26:37]                     This question brings up the difference between content and coaching skills. You can have any content you want, that might be your niche, your niche or that might be your expertise. But, if you know how to coach, then you can coach anything. You just have to have the coaching skills, and you have to have the awareness. You have the skills, the tools, and the awareness. When you have those three things, you can pretty much coach anything. I look forward to seeing you in the next Episode, and in that Episode, we're going to be talking about confidentiality agreements and some of the mechanics and the logistics of being a Coach.

Until then, go check out MasterCoachMindset.com and remember, Be Fearless.

 

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