Ep #65: Unhelpful Coaching Thoughts – Part 2: They’re Doing it Wrong

Hi, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 65.

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.

Well hello, happy – I always want to say Happy Tuesday, but then you’re probably not even listening on a Tuesday. So I don’t know, I’m still working on what to say. Let me know. Instead of telling me what I shouldn’t say, you know what would be fun? If you just messaged me, find me on Instagram, follow me first, obviously. Then send me a message and be like, “Hey, here’s what you should say.”

Wouldn’t it be fun if I said what you told me to say? I think it’d be fun. I don’t even have to say your name. I’ll just like say some random thing that you told me to say. And people will be like, “Why is she saying that?” It’s fine.

Okay, let’s get serious. Let’s focus. Apparently, my brain is a little crazy today too, like last time. That’s okay. What I want to talk to you about today is another thought that gets in the way of you being an amazing coach. This one might seem a little like wait a minute, what? What does that have to do with me being a good coach? And I’m going to tell you.

The thought is some form of that other coach is doing it wrong, or those other coaches are doing it wrong, or this is a wrong way to coach. And I’m going to tell you why. Not because that it is like impossible that there are bad ways to coach. There could be, I’m sure that I could find some coaching that I would think, “Whoa, let’s not do that.”

But the more time you spend thinking about what other people are doing, the less time you’re spending being better at what you are doing. So even if you think there’s something in this industry that you don’t like, which there probably is. There are things in this industry that I don’t like. But you know what you’ll never hear me talk about? Any of those things because I’m focused on what I’m doing.

I’m focused on me being the best coach I can be. Helping as many clients as I can also be the best coaches. Right? What is so interesting about this thought, those coaches are doing it wrong, that coach is doing it wrong, however that shows up for you. It might feel – And listen, if you’ve had this thought, it’s okay. All right? We can just hit reset today and carry on.

But the reason it’s tricky, it might feel very helpful for you. It might feel like to you, you might think you’re doing a good thing. You’re like protecting the people, or you are, I don’t know what it is. Whatever you think you’re doing. First, you’re probably not because if there are people that love that type of coaching, whatever it is, they’re not going to care what you say, right? You can go tell all of them.

It’s like, if you walked up to a group of people who love apples, just love apples so much. And you walked up to them and said, “Listen, apples are really not that good for you. You should be eating oranges. Oranges are the best, here’s why.” Tell them all the reasons. The people that you walk up to to say that are going to be like, “Yeah, and I still love apples. So thank you. And no thank you.” Right?

So what you’re really doing is you’re just doing yourself a disservice. Now, the other reason it might feel like you’re doing a good thing is because some people will agree with you and they will come along with you. And they will say like, “Yes, you are right.” Now there’s like a whole group of people focused on this thing that they don’t like.

Now, again, I feel like I already said this, but I do just want to have one caveat here, which is I am not talking about – I don’t even know what you would call it. I’m not talking about actual injustices in the world. I’m going to give you some examples of what I am talking about so that you can understand. But I don’t want you to think I’m saying you can never be out in the world saying that this thing is bad or it’s actually hurting people. That’s different.

What I am saying is that the more time you’re spending focused on the thing that you don’t like, you’re still focusing on the thing you don’t like. Instead of being better and better and better at what you love, at what you are good at, and at what your clients need.

This might be my opinion, but it feels like a truth of the world to me, different clients may actually need different styles of coaching. I have seen coaches talk about styles of coaching that they think are bad, or that they think people shouldn’t be doing this, or like my way is better.

And sometimes I see that and I think, “Oh, no, I know that’s not true because I’ve experienced that type of coaching and it was everything for me.” Or I know someone who has had a coach like that, and they loved it. This is how we know coaching is not a one size fits all modality.

I think of coaching as a healing modality, as a self-awareness tool, as a way to move forward in ways that you want to to hit your goals, to achieve your dreams. There are so many different ways we could describe coaching. And different styles of coaching are completely appropriate for different types of coaches.

I’ve seen lots of coaches being out on Instagram, on the socials saying things like every coach must have these tools. Every coach must, you know, fill in the blank. I kind of disagree. I think every coach should have awareness of certain things like they should know their limits, right?

They should know if a client comes to them and has stuff going on that they don’t know how to handle, yeah, you should not coach a client that you don’t know how to coach, or that feels like it’s outside of your realm of expertise or skills. It’s okay to say this is too much for me. I don’t know how to do this. And refer them out or help them find the kind of help they need. That’s fine.

But let’s come back to the thought, those coaches are doing it wrong. It’s just never useful. What happens when you’re thinking that is you spend so much time, I’ve already said this, but you spend so much time focused on that. And it may even feel like you’re focused on what you do because you’re thinking like “Why is yours better?”

But that’s very different than thinking how do I help my clients with my tools? And that’s all you think about. Can you imagine if that’s all you thought about? How amazing of a coach would you be?

I want to give you an example of one thing that happens that I see coaches do when they have this thought. So the other day I was on Facebook, it was actually longer than the other day, but whatever. I was on Facebook one day and just scrolling, which I rarely do. But I came across this post, it was just on general Facebook, talking about the difference between coaching and should we focus more on feelings and emotions? Or should we focus more on thoughts?

And it was a little combative. And listen, if you think I’m talking about you, I’m probably not because I’ve seen this happen so many times. And I do think this is a very interesting conversation, but the way this was addressed, it wasn’t a conversation. It was a like this is better than this, and if you’re doing this you’re wrong.

And then in the comments, there were all kinds of coaches going back and forth, kind of arguing a little bit. Some people were like, “Yes, I agree. Get it.” And some people were like, “No, that’s not true, here’s why.” And then there were some little arguments. There were arguments with the person that posted and with the commenters. And then there were arguments between some of the commenters. And it just turned into this whole crap show of a post, in my opinion.

And there’s so many things, so many to me cringey things about this as a coach. First of all, I want you to think about this, if you are promoting what you do on social media, and then you’re posting about what you do and arguing with people about it and talking about how some of it is bad and whatever, like some coaches are wrong. All of your audience is watching that. And it might feel very useful when you’re doing it, but it’s not.

I guarantee most of your audience is not reading that thinking, “Oh, wow. She is a really good coach that I want to hire. He is a really good coach that I can’t wait to work with.” They might read it because they think it’s interesting. Or you know, like the GIF with eating popcorn, right? Like I’m just here to watch the comments. But they are not thinking, “Wow, she really knows what she’s talking about.”

When you post from your expertise about what you do, about how you help your clients, that is going to attract your people. They’re going to be like, “Whoa, I have to hire her. She knows exactly what she’s talking about.” When you’re posting the other, it’s not even probably directed usually towards your people. It’s directed towards other coaches and just like creating this weird space in the industry.

Personally, I have experienced both types of coaching. I tend to be a person who can identify usually my thoughts before my feelings. So which comes first? I have no idea and I don’t care.

I think it’s fascinating, I have read many books about all the things. You can go find proof of either if you wanted to. And I think just as a coach for me to say, well, this is what I think, this comes first or this comes first, I think is a grand over generalization that just isn’t useful.

The way I think about it is everyone is different. Everyone’s brains are different, everyone’s reactions to things are different. Your clients are going to be different. And your clients, when you vote if you’re like, “I am a person who immediately I feel it in my body, I experience an emotion in my body, and I have to figure out what I’m thinking.” Great, you’re probably going to attract clients who do the same.

So figure out how to coach people that also experienced that. Or how to coach people that are the opposite or a little more like me sometimes that want to learn how to really tap into that a little bit. And I say that, I say that I’m better at identifying my thoughts, and I am. I would describe myself as a pretty kind of analytical person, I can be very in my head.

But I’ve done so much work on feeling my feelings, identifying my feelings, and really being able to sit kind of in my body as opposed to in my brain. I have had both types of coaching. I think both are incredible. I don’t know why we would ever argue about that.

So that’s just one example. But just think about everything I just said, if you believed that, if you could just take my thought and run with it and believe you’re right, it doesn’t matter. I just want to be really good at what I’m good at. How much better would your coaching be? How much more time would you be able to spend on being amazing at what you do instead of worrying about what anyone else is doing?

I think I just want to leave this, just leave it here. Just with this one short episode on there is never a reason, well not never. I’m not going to say never because there are reasons, there are some things happening in the coaching industry that I would say I don’t agree with. But that is so rare and I would never just over generalize and say this thing is terrible for all the people. Because it’s not, it’s just not.

So I just want to leave you with that today. What if you only had to focus on the style of coaching you love, on the style of coaching that works with your clients? And of course, if you want to learn other methods, learn other tools, learn other styles of coaching to introduce after you’re really good at the one you already know. After you already know this is what I do and here’s another tool that might help.

Not because you think you’re not good at what you do, but because you have spent time studying your clients. You’ve done enough coaching that you know, oh, here’s a really interesting tool that I would love to add to my tool belt or to my whatever, to my collection.

Okay, that is all. That’s all for today. Just consider it. If you feel very emotionally activated by this episode just consider what if you just never, ever, ever again had to think about somebody else doing it wrong? You didn’t have to care, you didn’t have to police them. You didn’t have to solve it for all of the world, right? You could just do what you love to do, focus on your clients, and be out there helping your people. Go do that. That’s my challenge for you.

All right friend, I will see you next week. And send me a message, let me know how should I start the episodes? Do it. 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.