Ep #37: Why You’re Already a Great Life Coach

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 37.

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, hello. I’m so happy you’re here today. Today I want to talk about something that I feel pretty passionate about. And it seems pretty obvious, I think, when we just go through it. But this is something that I think is fun and interesting to talk about.

It’s something I talk about in my mastermind and I spend a lot of time talking about it with my clients. So maybe it’s not as obvious as I think it is. Which is why I love to spend some time planting these seeds, letting you think about this for yourself.

One thing that I think sometimes gets in the way of you believing that you’re already a great coach, is how much time you spend thinking about things that you need to change about yourself. Or things that you think need to be different in order for you to be a better coach for your clients.

So today I’m just going to invite you to just a light exercise where we’re going to do the opposite. Again, this is something I teach in my mastermind. And what we’re going to do here today is just kind of a condensed version of what I do there.

So, I want you to take a second and think about yourself. Think about a personality trait or traits that you have that are just natural that you love about yourself. Or that you just know about yourself. Maybe you have a love hate relationship with it. Maybe there are some things you love about it, some things you don’t love about it.

And obviously, since we’re here on the podcast maybe you’re driving, maybe you’re doing something else, just go with whichever one just pops into your mind first. Then you can always come back to this later. I know you guys do this, because you tell me.

It might be one of those episodes where you come back later. Like you just listen now all the way through. Then you come back later when you can pay more attention, when you can pause it and really think about this for yourself.

So whatever just popped into your mind. And I don’t mean the personality traits that you wish you had more of. I’m talking about the ones that are just natural. They’re just part of who you are. Maybe if we asked your best friend or your mom this would be something that she would say, that he would say. Just, of course, this person is this way, right?

Maybe something that came to your mind was that you’re funny, or you’re smart, you’re serious, honest, loving, punctual. Whatever it is, whatever came up for you. Now I want you to ask yourself a few things about this personality trait that you have. And you might want to just listen. Like I said, just listen to the questions, you can come back later and go through them again.

You can ask yourself, how does that show up in your coaching? You knew I was going there, right? Because that’s what we talk about here, how to be a better coach, how to be a great coach. How does that show up in your coaching? How do you bring this to your coaching?

And then the next level even, is how is it a superpower for you as a coach? How could you nurture more of it with your clients? How could you nurture this part of yourself when you’re working with your clients? How does it make you the perfect coach for your clients? Why do your clients love this about you?

These questions are really powerful to spend some time with, especially if you ever find yourself doubting that these certain things about your personality make you not a great coach. I’m going to give you some examples. I’m going to walk you through a couple of examples. Some of them are mine, some of them are ones I hear a lot in my mastermind from my clients. And then you can do this on your own with your example. Or you can do it in your head as we go.

So one example of my own that I come up with is that I’m understanding. And I have a tendency, and it really drives my husband crazy, maybe it drives a couple of my friends crazy. You know who you are if you’re listening. I just assume the best of people. I’m just very understanding for all of the humans. People I know, people I don’t know.

This isn’t true across the board all the time, of course. I’m not like, “Oh, I’m the perfect human. I love everyone.” Not true. I judge sometimes, as we all do. But I usually assume that people are doing the best they can. And I’m just understanding of all situations.

So like a funny kind of example of that is when someone pulls in front of us in traffic. My husband loses his mind. Not always, but sometimes. And I’m like, “They’re probably in a hurry.” I don’t know why but that makes him crazy. Now, I’ve tried to stop doing it. I have self-awareness, I’m like, “Oh, he doesn’t like it when I say that, maybe I’ll try not to say it.”

But that’s just always where my brain goes. It’s like, “They’re probably doing their best. They probably didn’t see us.” Some of you right now that are listening are probably like, “God, I hate that.” And that’s okay. There are things about that personality trait that are annoying to other people or that even I think are not the best.

But when it comes to my coaching, when I know that this is just a piece of me that is just there. I don’t have to cultivate it. I don’t have to work on it. It’s just like this is just who I am. When I think about how does this affect my coaching, this means I’m just able to be very open and loving with all of my clients.

It means my clients feel generally pretty safe. And it makes it easy for all their walls to come down because I just exude this, kind of like I’m open for anything, bring it. I’m not going to judge you. I’m not even going to make a face when you say it. There’s just nothing that happens in me, like you can bring your worst, I will still love you. There’s just nothing that happens in my brain that’s like, “Ugh!” That wall just doesn’t go up automatically for me.

It’s really a superpower when it comes to coaching. And I’ve learned to harness it in a way that I can really own it and not ever try to change it about myself. I started with this one on purpose, because it’s pretty easy to see how this is a good thing to have as a coach. It’s a good trait to kind of hone in a coaching practice. So I started small, but let’s think about some others.

So I also happen to think that I’m pretty funny. I love to be funny, I love to make people laugh. Humor is my love language. When I first started coaching, I would try to kind of stifle this part of myself. And I would really think that I had to be pretty serious. Once I was on a coaching call or in a coaching session, I had to be serious. Serious only.

Now I want to be really clear, it’s not something that I will always use in coaching with every client. This type of trait, it’s like there are times when it’s very appropriate and there are times when it’s not. But what I have learned over years of coaching is that bringing that part of myself to the table, whether it’s in a coaching session, in my marketing, wherever it shows up, it is a good thing.

By bring in some humor into my coaching calls, what I learned is sometimes it could really help me lighten the mood with my clients. So for example, especially when I was one on one coaching, I just attracted a lot in the beginning, so many clients who are very hard on themselves. Because that’s something I’ve had to work through on my own. That’s something that I do to myself, so of course I attract clients that are like that.

Sometimes humor can really help lighten that mood. It’s probably why I love to use it so much in my own life. But I think I can lighten the mood a little bit, right? It can just loosen their grip on this tight story that they have. And just allow a moment of like, “Okay, actually, it is kind of funny.”

Not ever laughing at them or creating humor around something a client has said. But just in general, allowing some laughter and some lightness in calls. Allowing them to be silly. Allowing myself to be silly. That’s not always a bad thing in coaching.

Here are a couple more examples that come up when we talk about this in my mastermind. So sometimes my clients, and this is one that always surprises me, but they’ll have drama over this. They’ll say, “Oh, so one thing about me is I’m very structured or I’m very organized.” By the way, this is not one of mine, I should be clear. This is actually something I work on a lot.

But when my clients say this, they describe themselves as this. And sometimes they think like, “Oh, this is bad.” But guess what? That’s a huge superpower. As someone who is not super structured and organized, I’m like, “What? I want that give it to me. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” But here’s how. If this is just natural, it’s just who you are. If you love structure and order, why would you fight against that?

You can create specific plans for your clients, for your client sessions. Your clients will always know what’s going to happen. They’ll know what the schedule is, and what you’ll be working on. It helps your clients be very clear about exactly what’s going on. That’s not a bad thing.

We’ll talk about this more in depth in a minute. But you’re going to attract clients who either love that you’re structured, and they are also that way. Or who are the opposite and want more of that.

Here’s another way you can look at it. What if you’re super structured and you’re super organized, and maybe as a coach, you’ve done some work to loosen the reins on that a little bit. You’ve learned to be, in some situations when it’s appropriate, a little more laid back. A little bit not so structured.

Any of that work you have done for yourself on yourself, that will also benefit your clients. It’s a superpower for you to have this trait. Any work that you do on yourself around it will be work that is beneficial to your clients.

The opposite of this is also true. So if you take your brain to the other side of like, what if you’re just naturally unorganized or you don’t like structure? Some of my clients like to make this a big deal. They’re like, “No, this is terrible, I should have more structure. I should be more organized.”

And, sure, just like the other one, it’s like if you are unorganized, you don’t like structure. Yeah, there are probably some things you’re going to have to work on. There are some things you’re going to have to work on, especially in your business and building a business. But there are also ways that this can be very beneficial. And, although it might not seem like it, it can benefit your clients. It’s a superpower because you’re always ready to go with the flow. You’re ready for anything, you’re ready to just be in the coaching.

So think about that, if you identify as like, “Structure, blah.” And you make that a bad thing about yourself, what if it’s actually amazing? What if it means you can show up to every coaching session ready for anything a client brings? What if your clients are also like that, and they have lots of thoughts that they should be more organized? When they see it in you, it can help them really embrace it about themselves.

The point of this is, no matter what your natural personality is, it is the right one for coaching. Now, again, like I said earlier, there are times when you’re going to want to hone in a little bit. Or there are times that it’s appropriate or not appropriate. But, no matter what it is, the more you embrace it about yourself. The more you love it about yourself. The more you lean into it and think, “How is this my superpower in my business, in my coaching, for my clients?” The more your clients will also love it about you.

So whatever traits you came up with, I want you to think about this. This is my experience, clients will hire you because of these things for one of two reasons. They will hire you, one, because it’s a trait that they want more of in themselves.

So let’s say you are very unstructured, unorganized, however you would describe it, you might have clients come to you who are the opposite of that, who want a little more of that, right? They see it in you. And they’re like, “Oh, how is she just so laid back all the time? I need some of that. I’ll have what she’s having.”

Or, number two, they’ll love working with you or want to work with you, because they share it with you. Because they also have that common trait. This is also a good thing, right? This is like if they see it in you, they can embrace it more in themselves.

Both of these are great reasons that a client can work with you. So I would think something had gone wrong when clients hired me and I was like, “Whoa, this client’s personality is so different than mine, this is not going to be a good fit.” And then I would let go of that thought and just lean into it and like nope, they’re hiring me for a reason.

And what I would notice, first of all, they’re never totally opposite, right? There are always things that you’ll have in common with your clients. But sometimes there might be some big kind of glaring differences. And that’s not a bad thing. It can be really good for your clients. And it could be a reason that they actually hired you or that they want to work with you. And it makes you a better coach for them, not a worse coach.

Or the other option is, clients won’t hire you because of these traits. Because you’re showing them in your marketing, and your sales, and your coaching relationship on your consult. And that’s also a really good thing. Either way, it’s a win win for everybody.

So just now, if your brain was like, “What? No, that’s not true.” It is true. Because just think about that. Let’s say you are a very serious person and you are doing consults with clients who are very not serious. Very silly, don’t take things super seriously. And they don’t love that about you.

Like they don’t see it in you and think, “Oh, this is something I would really like to work on.” It’s not going to be a good match. It’s not going to feel great the whole time you’re coaching them. It’s okay that those people don’t want to hire you. If they see a trait in you that they’re like, “Nope, don’t like that.”

Maybe you’re like super unfiltered. You probably don’t want people to hire you who are very, what would the word be? Like very straight laced, very serious, like take themselves very serious. And you’re over here like doing your thing, being unfiltered, saying all the things. That might not be a good match if they don’t like that about you.

So I hope this was helpful. I hope you can come back later, listen again. You can start with like, how would your best friend describe you? Just write down like five things. How would your mom describe you? Someone who just like loves you the most in the world?

Maybe not your partner or spouse, you can do that. But a lot of times, when I think about this, whenever I teach this, when I think about kind of the traits that I come up with for myself, sometimes when I think about myself, I’m like, “Yes, my husband, yes, he loves these things about me. But also, they’re probably things that drive him a little crazy”. Sometimes, right? So that might not be the best example to use.

But someone who just kind of like, loves you for you, and loves these things about you. Maybe a parent, maybe a best friend, maybe a sister, maybe someone that you’re just really close with, but don’t quite have that same live with every single day spouse type relationship with because it’s just a little different.

I love you. I am so glad you’re here. I hope this is very helpful. And by the way, my mastermind doors are currently open for the September class of Coaching Masters. If you want more information, you can just head to my website, which will be after this at the end of this podcast. You can find the application. You can find all the information. You can find how to contact me if you have questions. I would love to see you there. All right, see you next week. Bye.

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.