Ep #39: What Makes a Great Coach?

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 39.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hello friends, how are you today? I am so excited you are here listening to my podcast, hanging out with me. I love to just picture that we’re all just sitting together in a room talking about coaching, having the best time ever.

I’m answering all your questions, I’m asking you all the questions. We’re friends, right? This is what I picture when I’m sitting in my closet by myself recording my podcast. Sometimes, sometimes not though because that would probably make me a little nervous being in a room with all of you at once, as fun as it would be. Maybe someday, you never know.

So, what I want to talk about today, today’s going to be pretty short. It’s going to be a little bit of a pep talk for every coach no matter where you are. All of you out there doing this work in the industry, I just have a pep talk, a little gift for you today.

This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about and I have talked about it on here before but today I want to talk about it just a little bit differently. And that is what makes a coach a great coach. And a little bit of my philosophy about coaching and about being a coach.

So this is something I’ve talked about before, as I’ve already mentioned, and it’s also what I teach in my mastermind, how to be a great coach. So I get this question a lot and recently I’ve gotten a lot more clear on what does that mean to me being a great coach. And my answer might be a little different than you think it’s going to be.

So this is a little bit of how can you be the best coach? And how I think about coaching is a little different than maybe other people think about coaching.

So, when I think about coaching I think, first of all my goal in life, one of them, I have other goals in life obviously. But one of my goals in life is to help coaches love what they do. Coaching the clients that they want to coach and feeling amazing doing it. Because to me, and this is super cheesy, don’t even care, coaching changes the world.

I really believe this 100%. And it drives me to make sure coaches know what they’re doing so that they keep going. Because if it feels awful, even if you have 100 clients, some people think that once you’re making all of the money and you have all of the clients that you’re coaching just automatically feels amazing. And guess what? It doesn’t. All that really does is amplifies the problems.

So wherever you are in your business right now, if you have thoughts that your coaching isn’t amazing or whether you have two clients or 100, yes, you do get better with experience. Yes, if you keep going your coaching is inevitably going to get better. But if in the back of your mind you’re always questioning “Am I a good coach?” The more clients you have, the more that’s going to compound and unfortunately, making money doesn’t make that go away.

I want you to think about this for a second, when you work with just one client, just one, helping one client feel better in their skin. Live a happier life, go after dreams that they think are impossible, be better parents, be a better partner. Whatever it is, that person shows up in their life completely differently because you are their coach. Think about that for a second, let it sink in.

Just one person shows up in their life completely differently. And when that one person becomes happier, healthier, all the things. It affects every single human they come in contact with. But that’s just from working with one client, this is why I’m so obsessed with what I do. Because when I think of that, the return on what I do, to me, feels exponential in the world. It is a ripple that I am obsessed with. So obsessed, like literally I think about this all the time.

Now imagine if you worked with thousands of clients. What is the ripple that creates? It’s insane, right? And so to piggyback on this a little bit, I want to just talk a little bit about my coaching philosophy and how I really truly think about being the best coach for your clients.

So there are a few things that I find coaches think they need to be the best coach. And most of them just aren’t true. Here’s what I think you need to be the best coach. You need basic knowledge on coaching. Basic tools to help your clients with the things that I’ve talked about already on this podcast.

Basic tools to help your clients with awareness, with goals, setting goals and meeting them, working towards them. And I guess coming back to awareness, really awareness around your thoughts, around your emotions. Just around all the things happening in your body and your brain that most humans just go about their day thinking they don’t have control over. So powerful, right?

Again, setting goals, reaching goals, working towards goals, helping your clients make decisions. This is huge in coaching, I did a whole episode on it. But it’s so big, I don’t think that coaches think enough about how important it is to help clients make decisions.

All clients come to us with decisions of some sort. And part of our job is to say, “Let’s look at how you’re making this decision.” Not to make it for them, not to tell them which decision to make. But just a simple decision making process and really learning to show your clients how they’re thinking about it is what’s making the decision hard.

Asking great questions and being super curious. I’ve talked about that on the podcast too. And then really knowing what your strategies are in coaching and what they aren’t.

Some of you have a lot of strategies. Some of you have a couple simple ones. And really just knowing what they are, sticking to them and knowing how to use them. Those are the basics of being an amazing coach.

And if right now you’re thinking, “Yeah, Lindsay, but what about this other thing that I do or this other thing that I do?” Those are all amazing. And most of the things that you do in your coaching business when you’re working with clients probably fit into one of the things I just talked about. I’m sure we could find some things that are outside of that, but I also think those things are extras.

So when I think, again, coming back to what I think is a great coach, is someone who knows the basics of all the things I just said. Who really leans into “It can be simple, this is all I need to work with my clients.” And then actively practices getting better and better at these things.

What doesn’t make someone a better coach, or a great coach is adding more and more and more things, more tools to your toolbox, right? So when I think about that, like what are tools? Tools might be adding more specific coaching techniques.

So, for example, I am certified through the Life Coach School, I use the model. I don’t use it exclusively in my coaching, but it is one tool that I have. I can get it out when I need it, it’s such an amazing tool for awareness.

But when I think about coaching, I think there’s so much more to coaching than this one thing. And I think sometimes I see a lot of my clients, a lot of you guys, think about coaching, like, “Oh, there’s this one thing and I have to be so good at it.” That’s not true, there’s so many other things.

Of course, you want to be good at the tools that you use. But adding more and more and more and more and more tools doesn’t actually make you a better coach.

So when I think about when is the right time to add more tools, I think about a couple things. One, it’s when I want to, because it just sounds fun. Which is very different than like, “I need to do this thing because it’s going to help me make more money.” Or it’s going to make me a better coach, or I’m not signing clients now so if I do this other thing then I’ll be able to sign more clients. None of those things are true. If you have the basic tools, that is all you need.

Now, if it sounds fun and you want to add another tool, absolutely 100% do it. I personally love learning. So sometimes I have to reel it in because I have a limit. I’m only allowed to learn one new thing at a time. And I can only do it just because I want to and because it’s fun. And because maybe I think it’s important.

So for example, I just enrolled in actually a new coach certification that I’m pretty excited about. It is a certification that is going to help me get super clear on how diversity, equity, and inclusion plays a part in my life and in my coaching business. I feel like it’s something that I love to focus on. It has been on my radar for a while.

And recently I saw this new certification that popped up and I thought, “Yes, this is the one for me.” I feel so great about it. But I don’t let this allow me to believe I’m not already an amazing coach. That’s the difference.

I didn’t sign up for this new certification because I’m not good enough until I get it. I think it’s important. I think it’s so fun that I get to do it. But I can believe that right now I’m an amazing coach. And so I want to offer that to you. No matter where you are in your journey, just believing right now you’re doing it. You’re doing a good job, keep going. That’s the first thing.

The second thing that doesn’t make you a better coach is learning to coach exactly like someone else. I have really learned in this last round of my mastermind that I’m doing right now, I’ve learned a lot about myself as a coach. And one thing that I’ve learned is that I don’t help my clients be better at using one specific coaching technique that I learned through a training or a certification that I’ve done.

I don’t help clients coach exactly like me. I help coaches determine what their best coaching styles are, and really believing that that is the best for their clients. I might teach some new skills if the basics, if some of those are things you haven’t covered before. Yes, I do teach those and I teach new skills.

But mostly I just help coaches embrace the coach that they want to be and figure out how to be that for their clients. That’s my favorite thing. I’m obsessed with it. Just going to tell on myself, I’m literally obsessed with it. I think about it all the time.

The next thing is I don’t want you to coach like everyone else. You are a coach who is you. I’ve talked about this, of course, in other episodes, part of being you is what makes you the best coach. How boring would it be if we were all exactly the same? What if there was only one coaching tool and that’s all we used? That coaching would be like, okay. It wouldn’t be great for everyone, right?

There is a coach for everyone but you cannot be the coach for everyone. You can’t be the coach for everyone in the world. People need different types of coaching. Some people aren’t going to resonate with your style. That doesn’t mean that you need to go get more certifications or do more learning to be a better coach for them. It might just mean you’re not the coach for them and that’s okay.

I know this is true, because first I’ve coached hundreds of clients, maybe thousands of clients at this point. I’m not really sure. And I do believe I’m an amazing coach but sometimes I have clients that quit. That’s okay. I don’t make it mean anything about myself. Sometimes I have clients that are like, “Hey, I don’t like this, what you’re doing.” I don’t make that mean anything about myself.

Now, I do look at it and say, “What am I going to learn from this? What is my takeaway? Is there something I want to work on here? Do I need to be better in this area? Is this something I need to address?” Sometimes the answer is yes. But sometimes the answer is, No, I am just not the right coach for this person. And not only that, this is really going to blow your mind, I’m also happy to help them find the coach for them.

I recently had someone quit coaching masters. And the only reason I tell you this is to tell you like, truly clients quit. And that is okay. You are not the coach for everyone. It’s impossible. And the longer you spend trying to be the coach for everyone the more time you’re taking away from thinking about how to be the best coach for your people.

Some people just aren’t going to be your people. And those clients, those aren’t going to be your favorite clients, either. Your clients who love you, you will love working with them. Your work will resonate with them. So just keep that in mind.

I love to share my experiences, because sometimes I think that some of you or some of my clients get the impression that because this is what I do and because I help coaches be amazing coaches, they think that I never have things that happen in my business like clients quitting or sending me crazy emails sometimes. Like you guys think sometimes I just am living in a fantasy world because I am just an amazing coach for everyone, I never have any problems.

Of course, that’s not true. And I think it’s so important for me to say that because I want to normalize this for everyone. If you have clients that aren’t showing up, if you have clients that quit, if you have clients who are difficult to coach, if you have clients who are late to every call, if you have clients that don’t pay you, if you have clients who pay you and then back out who want refunds, or I could keep going and going and going.

When you work with enough clients this shows up for every coach. I dare you to find a coach who has never experienced any of those things. And maybe it’s true if they’ve had like two or three clients, right? But coaches who work with lots of people, you just learn you’re not the coach for every single person and you can’t control that. And it’s okay.

I told you this is going to be a little pep talk today. But this is just where we are just see it. It’s like my reticular activating system, this keeps showing up for me over the last couple of weeks where I had a client quit, And then I had a couple clients ask me, “What does he even mean to be a great coach?”

And then I just started seeing all these things pop up everywhere, where it’s like, “Oh my gosh, so many coaches need to hear this because they think that once they’re “a good enough coach” these things won’t happen.” That’s not true. We live in a human world where humans act like humans. Even when you work with other coaches.

Some of you think that because I work with other coaches it’s a lot easier for me. No, coaches are also humans. They also have drama and everything else that all of the other humans have.

Okay, so the next thing is, although in my marketing I say I want you to be able to coach any client on anything, and this is true, what I don’t mean by that is that you have to be able to coach every client, always, on all of the things. Even when they’re not your ideal client, even when they don’t want to work with you, even when blah, blah, blah, blah.

Whatever the things are, I don’t want you to get that twisted in your head where you think like, “Oh my gosh, I’m not a great coach if I can’t coach every human on the earth on everything.” That’s not true. I want you to be able to coach all of your people on anything they want coaching on from you, and anything you want to coach them on.

Some of you are taking my words and using them against yourself. Please don’t do that, it makes me feel terrible. My thoughts about it make me feel terrible. But truly, don’t do that. That is not useful. Basically what I’m saying is, I want you to have your own coaching style that feels great to you so you can go into the world and do the work you were meant to do. Period.

Everything past that is extra and optional. And you don’t need to have drama over it. And you don’t need to beat yourself up over experiences that you have with clients. And guess what? I know you don’t want to hear this, but no matter where you are in your coaching journey, we’re all learning. And in the beginning, especially, there’s just a lot of learning that can’t be avoided with the book learning.

You can’t avoid all negative experiences with clients and with coaching and with whatever. The things that come up for you, you can’t certify or train or learn enough so that those things don’t happen. What I help my clients with is knowing what to do when they do happen. To stop making it mean something about you and just move on, learn from it, be the best coach you can be, and keep going because the world needs you.

All right, love, that is it. I hope this was helpful. If you have been in a place where you have been thinking that you’re not the best coach, knock it off. Use this pep talk, listen to it again. You don’t need more things, you don’t need more learning, you can know the basics and be an amazing coach.

And then, I think maybe I already said this but I just want to also say, objectively you can ask yourself, “Are there things I want to work on?” If you remove the drama, and this is something I teach and we do in my mastermind. We just look and say like, “Okay, remove the drama. Stop shaming yourself and beating yourself up, these things happened to everyone.”

Now, what are the actual skills that you want to work on? Do you have some open spaces in your coaching, where you’re like, “Oh, I really want to stop avoiding this thing and work through it.” That’s so much more useful when you can look at it objectively and say like, “Oh, I’m really good at this. I’m so great at helping my clients make decisions. But I have a hard time really helping them find awareness in certain situations.”

That’s useful. That’s like, “I’m good at this. Here’s what I want to work on.” Or “I love helping my clients set goals. I love helping them hit goals. But when lots of deep emotion comes up, I panic and I don’t know what to do.” Great. Now you have something to work on. Right?

This is specifically one of the things we do in coaching masters because I just want to take the drama out of it. It’s like, we go to college, we go to school over our lifetime when we’re young, you know, lifetime like through your 20s, to learn skills to do things in the world. And then some people decide they’re going to be a coach and get one certification, learn how to coach, whatever it is, do a training. And then freak out that they’re not amazing coaches.

It doesn’t make any sense. It is like the opposite of how we do most things. You have to go practice. It’s just what must be done. And there’s no shame in saying “Oh, here are the things I want to work on.” It’s literally why I do what I do. Because I love you and want you out in the world doing your thing, kicking butt.

All right, that really is it. Have an amazing week, I will talk to you next week. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. see you next week.