Ep #67: The Most Helpful Coaching Thought

Hi, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 67.

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, coach. Okay, today I’m going to do something a little different. And I know I said I’d be back with more thoughts about thoughts that aren’t useful in your coaching. But I decided to take one week break and do something a little different, which is share with you something I think is very important that I’m so grateful one of my clients pointed out to me today that I never would have thought – I mean, I’m sure I would have thought of it eventually, but I hadn’t thought about how important this is to share with you.

So I said this on last week’s podcast, but I recently had the opportunity to go be coached, to go instruct for a week in my coach’s mastermind. And I was able to be there in person for the last day. Part of the last day actually, not even the full last day.

And I was there the at very end of the last day, there was an award ceremony. Now, this is very awkward for me, I have realized how much I do not love to be, I don’t know, celebrated isn’t the right word. But I guess like recognized, or the center of attention, or whatever. I’ll get some coaching on that, don’t you worry. Or maybe not, I can just accept this about myself. I just get kind of awkward and I get uncomfortable being sometimes the center of attention.

But here’s what happens, they announce how much you made that year, this is for last year, for 2021. And then you get an award for making money. And then you walk across the stage and you say thank you. And then you say like, what is the thought, what is one of your favorite thoughts that has helped you get here, that has helped you create this business that you love.

And so I just want to share with you what my answer was and why. And go a little more in depth because on the stage, I mean, I don’t know, for me I black out. I don’t even know exactly what I said. Like I said, I get just a little nervous and weirded out by that type of situation. But I always make it through and it’s getting better each time. But you just share one sentence. And I thought it could be interesting to tell you, my audience, why this thought has been so useful for me.

So today, just kind of off the cuff, it’s going to be probably a short episode. But I just want to dive into what is one of my favorite thoughts about my business and what does that have to do with you? What does that have to do with this podcast, Mastering Coaching Skills? And what does it have to do with coaching skills in general?

So the thought that I shared is, it was kind of a two-parter. So it was my clients are my favorite part of my business and I love what I do. And then I think I said something after that, and I don’t know if it made sense or not. Like I said, I just love to like black out in those situations and not know what’s happening until I’m off the stage.

But what I tried to say, or what I was meaning to say in that moment was that might seem obvious, right? Like when I am on stage, I’m accepting award for making a lot of money. My mind is blown, a lot of money. And everyone is watching and I’m saying I love my clients and my clients are my favorite part of my business. I love my business. That’s like, yeah, of course, why not, right?

Because in that moment it’s like everything is perfect. From the outside looking in you’re just seeing like, oh, she made a lot of money. Of course she loves her clients, of course she loves her business. But here’s what I will tell you, is that as you grow your business or just spend lots of time coaching clients. Even if you don’t have your own coaching business and you’re just doing a lot of coaching, or you have a career in coaching,
that part can be easy to gloss over.

Because when you are focused on hitting goals, and focused on what’s my growth, and just focused on really showing up and delivering for your people it can be easy to go to like what’s not working. Because brains, right? It’s what brains do. And it doesn’t matter if you are making $50, $50,000, $500,000, $5 million, I don’t care. It can still be hard some days.

You’re still going to have times that you don’t hit your goals. You’re still going to have times that you miss deadlines. That you are creating something and it just isn’t flowing out of you. That you said you were going to write an email and then you sit down at the computer and you black out just like I did on stage, right? Stuff like that happens. And it happens at every single level.

Of course, you get better at it, you get better and better. And of course, you also learn that it’s normal so it just doesn’t feel as bad. But when I say my clients are my favorite part of my business, for me my favorite part of that thought is thinking it on a day that’s not going as planned, right?

The day I don’t hit my goal, the day I can’t write the email, the day I’m late getting my podcast in. Sorry, Pavel, you guys are the best. The day, I am just not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Not usually because I choose to because that doesn’t usually feel bad, right? But when it just isn’t working.

There are still days that it just doesn’t work. But grounding myself in that thought of my clients are my favorite part of my business can immediately turn it all around. So let’s say I do a launch, right? I just had a mastermind launch, I ended up a couple spots short of my goal and I could be disappointed in that. Or I could just learn from it, which is what I chose to do.

And I could remember my clients are my favorite part of my business and I’m going to over deliver the crap out of this mastermind for the people who are there. I can come to the day that I am recording my podcast a day late and I could feel really bad about that, and I could judge myself, and I could pressure myself to just get the podcast done. Or I could remember my clients are my favorite part of my business and I could just sit down at the computer and talk to them, talk to you.

When I say clients, I mean all clients. I think about my future clients, my current clients, my past clients. Sometimes I still spend time thinking about my very first client. I did not coach coaches in the beginning, she is not a coach, I doubt she listens to my podcast. I still think about her all the time. I learned so much from her as a coach. I know she learned a ton from me and we still talk. But I learned so much from her.

I think about her I think about my fifth client, I think about my 10th client. I don’t even know how many clients I’ve had at this point, they’re all my favorite, truly. Even the ones who have quit, who have asked for refunds, who have not shown up the way that I think they should, right? Think about all those things are the reason I’m able to be here and teach you all what I teach you, because of all of those things that I experienced that I had to work through.

So all of those people still get to be my favorite. This is like really true, trust me. And if you’re in the part where it feels really hard and you’re like, “Lindsay, this is impossible. I hate all those things, I hate all the things you’re talking about.” Really go to the place of what if your clients were your favorite part of your business? How would it affect how you’re showing up today?

A lot of you may not make this connection, but I want you to really think about this. How would it affect the way you take care of yourself so that you can show up for your clients in the most powerful way? How would it affect how you treat your time off where you’re resting? Where you’re resting your brain? How would it affect how you set goals and how you think about goals?

It’s always so fascinating to me when I hear coaches say, “Well, I signed 10 clients, but my goal was 15.” And they just say it like it’s the news and like their day is ruined and it’s the worst thing ever. And I always think, would you go tell those 10 clients that they’re not enough? Probably not, right?

When you re-frame it, now I’m not saying just don’t ever pay attention to goals, like who cares if you don’t hit your goals? Not what I’m saying at all right? But just when you’re in that space of it’s not enough, it’s not working, everything is terrible, this is all terrible, like whatever, right?

Maybe some of you don’t have that. But I know a lot of you do because you tell me and because I have that and because we just have human brains and this is what they do sometimes.

So for me, coming back to my clients are my favorite part of my business helps me in so many ways. It’s an amazing thought when I’m having a good day. But it’s an extra amazing thought when I’m having a bad day. Even let’s say I’m sick, and I’m not sick right now, but let’s say I was.

There’s a day that I’m sick, I have a mastermind call and I’m panicking. And I know, I mean, I’m just feeling terrible, this has happened before. Not in a long time because I’ve worked through this, but I used to just panic, right? Like, what are they going to do? I have to be on the call.

I’ve been in bed all day, I don’t feel like I can get out of bed. I’m just so sick and miserable. When I ground myself in my clients are my favorite part of my business and I want to do what’s best for them, it takes me to a surprising place, right? Because when I’m in the drama of it I’m like, “Oh no, I just have to show up no matter what, because they need me.” Which isn’t true, my clients never need me.

When I really lean into and ground myself in my clients are my favorite part of my business, what’s best for them? I allow myself to ask for help. I have someone else show up to the call for me. I cancel the call and reschedule.

My action looks very different because I’m thinking about them and what I really want for them. I don’t necessarily want to show up in a way that’s like, I’m half awake, I’m feeling miserable, I’m very distracted by how I am physically feeling in the moment. And so it just affects the actions that I take.

And I know sometimes this is easy to forget because a lot of times, especially when a lot of clients come to me to work on their coaching and work on their coaching skills. And sometimes they’re in this place where they’re like, none of my clients are getting results. This is terrible. I don’t know what to do. And it can kind of go south a little bit where it’s like my client should be, fill in the blank. My clients should be getting better results so I can feel amazing about my coaching.

If you come back to my clients are my favorite part of my business, that thought changes, right? You can have a client, for example, who’s not getting results and they can still be your favorite. And when they are your favorite, what happens is you change the way you think about them. You change the way you spend time thinking about them. You problem solve for why aren’t they getting results.

Which is very different than going to the place of like, well, she should be getting better results so I can believe I’m a good coach. And, of course, I know that most of you are never thinking that on purpose, right? Some of you might be. But I know at least in my experience of my clients, they’re not usually thinking that. It’s just like a very subtle thing that is playing in the background when they think something has gone wrong in their coaching.

And so I just want to invite you to try on this thought, my clients are my favorite part of my business. And even if you’re a coach and you aren’t the one interacting with your clients in your business every day, because I know some of you are.

Some of you are one-on-one coaches and you’re really the only person interacting with your clients. But some of you I know that listen have huge businesses or making lots of money, millions of dollars and you might not be as hands on with your clients as you used to be. Or maybe that’s how your business has always been.

Your clients can still be your absolute favorite part of your business. So just consider it. Just try this thought on. Just take it with you. Just write it down if you need to. And if in this moment you’re like, actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought that thought. That’s fine, just write it down, put it on a sticky note, put it on your computer.

Every time you find yourself getting frustrated, or irritated, either with your clients or just with your business, coming back to this thought can really help relax you and refocus your brain on what it needs to be focused on. Instead of just the like, but I must do this thing. I have to write this email today. I have to blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, and the freak out, right?

It can really just bring you back to, no, this is why I do this. This is why I’m a coach, because I love my clients. I want all of them to get results. I can’t wait to just work on my process to make this better for them, to launch this new program, to sell a bunch of it because my clients are my favorite.

It’s such a fun thought and it gets me so just excited and worked up and just feeling like even just now as I’m saying it, I feel so happy about it. It totally shifts my mood. It just energizes me in the best way. So I invite you to try it, let me know how it goes. And I will be back for real this time next week with a thought that is not helping you be a better coach. All right, 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.