Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 302.

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, and welcome to part two of the Unfinished Series. And if you’re wondering, if you’re like, Lindsay, what is the Unfinished Series? Because you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, let me tell you. There’s a big announcement. These 10 episodes that make up the Unfinished Series are the last 10 episodes of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast. But don’t panic. Don’t worry. Something new is coming and it will be in this very feed. But after these 10 episodes, there will be a big reveal, a new name, a new brand, a new feel, but don’t worry, still for you, still for coaches. So this is a bit of a simultaneous off-ramp and on-ramp to what’s coming.

And let me just say right now, there are lots of surprises coming. I’m having a really hard time not just telling you all of them today. But some of the things and some of the links aren’t quite ready yet. So I’m going to keep my mouth closed for maybe one more week.

Before we dive into today’s episode, I have a favor, a big one. Are you ready? I would love to hear your questions because one of these 10 episodes is going to be a listener Q&A, and I would much rather dig into your current questions that are on your mind right now. They can be about coaching. They can be about the industry. They can be personal about me. They can be about my business. They could be about your business. What do I think you should do about something in your business? They could be looking for advice. They could be something you’ve just always wondered about me. I think that covers all of it.

So we will put a link in the show notes. Please, please, please, I’m literally begging you, go there, click the link, and submit your questions. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it and how much fun it will be for me to record an episode answering all of the real things that you would love to hear about right now. And if you’re curious what some of these episodes might look like, don’t worry, this is not just 10 episodes of me saying this podcast is ending. My goal is to pack these with as much value as possible to maybe even make them the 10 most valuable episodes of the last 300.

So, I’ll give you a couple of teasers of what you can expect, what’s coming. A few episodes I’ll be recording, an interview with the very first person I interviewed on this podcast. Also an interview with a mentor that I have been working pretty closely with for a while now. And an episode about one of the Mastering Coaching Skills episodes that I wish I had never put out into the world that I wish I could take back or redo. I’ve already been working on this one. I actually feel pretty excited about it. So I think you’ll love it.

For now, let’s dig into today’s topic. And what I did for this episode is I went back and looked at all of my episodes and I thought about, first, I looked at the actual stats, which few episodes had the most listens out of all 300 episodes of this podcast. Then, out of the few that I found, I looked at, like, which one is the one that I hear people talk about the most or that I get asked about the most or that comes up, you know, in coaching sessions. And what would I add to it? How would I redo it? Not because I think the first one isn’t great, but because it is now six years later, and surely there’s something I could add.

Now, in order to do this, we have to go in the wayback machine all the way back to December 22nd of 2020. The episode is what to do when your client comes to coaching sessions with nothing to be coached on. And I’m really excited to talk about this today because I went back and listened. I relistened to the episode and I immediately had a bunch of notes of how I would record it differently today.

So you don’t have to go back and listen, although you can if you want to. We will put the link in the show notes. But if you’d rather listen to this one first and then listen to the other one later, you can do that, or just let this one stand on its own.

The main thing I want to say about that episode is that for the most part, everything I said still stands. There’s nothing that I would say, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that today,” or “I wouldn’t do that.” But there are two main changes that I want to make. What is going to happen in today’s episode is I’m going to first tell you what those two main changes are. I’m going to give you some new strategies on what to do when your client comes to sessions with nothing to be coached on. I’m going to give you kind of the hot takes for 2026 on this topic, and there’ll be a slight shift in the episode structure from how I presented this last time.

So first, let’s talk about the changes. In 2020, in Episode 8, I said kind of the main thought around the whole thing is that nothing has gone wrong. When your client comes to a session, they don’t know what they want coaching on, nothing has gone wrong. This is not a problem. I still stand by that, but I want to make a change. First, I want to make it clear what I mean by that. What I’m saying, what I’m meaning when I say that, is that a good mindset to have around this is it’s not a problem. Nothing has gone wrong. Sometimes clients just show up like that.

But I would like to also add it is also information. It’s telling you something. Sometimes it could be a problem, just not one you need to panic about. But it might be something worth solving, worth looking at and saying, why is this happening? Especially if it is a pattern. So it’s not a problem and it’s also information.

In the last episode, I also shared there were two main reasons that this happens. Either things are going great, your client is just moving forward. They’re not really sure what they need coaching on because they’re just killing it and they’re, you know, like, I don’t know. I don’t have any problems. They’re thinking they need a problem to coach on. Or they are kind of stuck. They’re not moving forward. They’re not creating the results that they want.

And for this episode, I want to add one more option. And that option is that they are just kind of processing. They are in process. They are not stuck, but they don’t really feel huge momentum either. But they’re not ignoring things. They’re doing the work and they’re just kind of in the process of it all. And sometimes maybe even they need a minute to process all of the shifts that have already happened. That can be a thing as well that I didn’t address last time. So I want to make sure to add it today.

And for this episode, I’m going to break this into three, actually four, sections. The first one is how to handle this before a call. How to handle this in the moment when you’re actually in a session with your client when they come with nothing to be coached on. How to handle it when you notice that it’s a pattern with maybe a single client or with all of your clients. And then finally, this is kind of a tack on at the end, is what about in groups? What changes on this topic when you’re coaching in a group? Because that can look sometimes very different than when you’re coaching one-on-one. And this was not addressed at all in the previous episode.

So let’s start with before the call even happens. So you have not had a call with a client, they haven’t actually come and they haven’t said to you, I don’t know what to coach on today. There are two ways I want you to think about this. The first one is, do you have a process to tell your clients what to expect? How to be prepared? What getting coached in coaching sessions looks like? How they can best show up for the coaching. If this isn’t a thing, if you haven’t explicitly told them, especially if they’ve never worked with a coach or if they aren’t a coach and you are fully in control of the conversations, if you haven’t told them, then they are just guessing.

So this isn’t useful just before a single client session. This can be useful before you ever have any client session. Just think about how do you communicate with your clients, what it looks like for them to show up each week and what they can expect.

The second reason this might be showing up before a call when no one has actually come to a call yet and told you they don’t have anything to coach on is that this is just a fear that you’re carrying around with you. It hasn’t actually happened. You’re just afraid it might or that you’ve heard that it could happen and you feel like you might panic if it does.

And just know, you just don’t want to carry that fear with you into your calls. It doesn’t make any sense, especially since sometimes clients show up like this, remember, and nothing has gone wrong. But you really just don’t want the client to feel that fear, to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t want it to show up in your coaching.

So to just get out of the fear, one thing you can do is to just get out of your head and into your body, right? Just kind of chill out. Maybe that looks like listening to some music, doing some quick EFT tapping, going for a walk, shaking your body if you just have 30 seconds, doing some stretching.

Literally just anything that just gets you out of your head and out of the obsessing over things that could possibly go wrong in a session. And then just remind yourself, you’ve got this. You know what you’re doing. You can handle anything that comes up.

And even if you don’t believe that when I say it right now, because maybe you’re a brand-brand-new coach, just know I promise you, you can. I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of coaches and they all make it through. I remember back to some of my very first coaching sessions. No problem. I didn’t die. I made it through. I’m sure there are many things I would do differently now, but that’s okay. You just learn as you go.

Okay, so before the call, remember, two things you can do. Make sure you’re prepared with a clear process that your client knows about. And notice when it’s just a fear and kind of work that out of your body before you’re on a call with a client and remind yourself you’ve got this.

Now, let’s talk about what you can do in the moment. So close your eyes for a second. Imagine this. You’re in a coaching session, you and your client are bantering back and forth. You’re doing whatever you do at the beginning of your calls, and then you say, “So what would you love coaching on today?” Or whatever your form of that is. And your client just looks at you with a blank stare and says, “I don’t know, actually.” Or “I was afraid you were going to ask me that.” and they laugh nervously. Or I have no idea. Or “Hmm. Yeah, I don’t know,” right? So some form of that.

Here’s what you do. Again, don’t panic. Nothing has gone wrong. And remind yourself, it’s okay to think for a second. You are never being silent for nearly as long as you think you are. I promise you. It might feel like an eon to your body, but your client might not even know that you’re taking a second to think.

The next thing you can do, if you don’t already know the answer to this, is you can remind yourself or tell yourself, I have one job right now. Let’s figure out which one of those three things I mentioned earlier my client is experiencing. Are they stuck and not moving at all on things that they, you know, maybe last week you made a plan, an action plan they were going to work through, maybe you gave them some homework, maybe they’re like, “I haven’t even thought about coaching since our last call.” Right? They’re just kind of like in a, either things aren’t working or kind of, I don’t know, I’m not even thinking about it mode.

Or are they killing it? Are things going really well? Are they working towards their goals and feeling great about it? Or are they processing? Are they kind of in between those two? They’re not stuck. They’re also not necessarily hitting every goal, but you can tell they’re in it, right? They’re emotionally invested. They have been thinking about things since your last call. You can definitely tell the difference in my experience between a client who’s just stuck or not doing anything and a client that’s kind of processing all the things they’ve been working on.

So in the moment when they’re stuck, a couple of things you can try. First, take a deep breath and remind yourself this isn’t a problem and don’t be weird. Right? Don’t let your energy get all wonky because now you’re really nervous. Just ask them, “Oh, what do you think is going on?” Or why do you think you didn’t get to the plan that you made? Or what do you think is getting in the way of doing the work that we decided on? Or, you know, some form of that question.

Another thing you can do is lean into strategy. Now, I know some of you are mindset coaches, mind-body coaches, somatic coaches, and you love to live in that area and operate from there, which is fine. But sometimes if you have clients who aren’t as self-aware as honestly many coaches usually are, they might not have spent the whole week thinking about their thinking or thinking about how they felt all week, right?

So when you lean into strategy and you lean into, okay, how are we going to solve this? Or what is the plan we made last week? When you have a more concrete plan, even if it’s one that they are creating on their own, and you start talking through it, that will almost always expose something. It will expose what’s in the way or where they’re getting stuck, the obstacles that they are facing, or it’ll expose why they just aren’t taking action at all and why they’ve been putting it off. And that will give you a really great place to start with the coaching.

Now, in the moment, if you know your client is killing it, they’re hitting all the goals, they’re feeling pretty great, a couple options is you can, first, you can show them how they created what they have currently created, so that later in the future, when they have dips or when they’re having off days, they will remember how to get back to where they are right now, to feeling the way they do in this moment.

Another thing you can try is, okay, that’s all going great. Let’s explore what else is going on. What else has changed? What are the ripples that are showing up because of these new results that you have? Or what questions do you have now that you have kind of shifted some of the things that you were wanting to work on?

And then maybe you make them or offer for them to slow down enough to really celebrate. And not just like, “Okay, yeah, here are a few celebrations,” but like deeply celebrate it and celebrate the person they are becoming, the growth that they have had, and just all of the things. That can be equally as powerful as coaching them through something they’re stuck on.

And then if you find that they are in the process, they’re just kind of in that, I would call it like almost a neutral space kind of, let the call be part of the integration. Talk through, how can we further integrate what you’ve been working on? Start naming some of the shifts that you see or have them name the shifts that they see that can feel a little different than celebrations because they might not necessarily feel on a high from them. They might just be like, here are some things I’m noticing.

And definitely, in this stage, you want to resist inventing a problem to solve. Don’t keep digging and digging and digging, looking for something like there has to be something under there, a problem that we could just get to. Don’t do that. Resist the urge.

And then no matter which of those places they’re in, here are a few more things you can try, simple solutions. One, hold the silence. Sometimes that can actually be a coaching tool. You just feel calm, feel relaxed, just sit in silence for a minute. If you do that, often a client will start thinking through, okay, what questions do I have? What do I want to talk about right now? And it forces them to do some of the work. Now, use that when it feels right for you and for that particular client in the moment.

Another one is have your favorite questions ready where you can see them. If you know this is a thing that happens sometimes, or if you’re just afraid it will, have some questions written down. Have them on a sticky note on your computer or have them in your notes app and have that pulled up while you’re coaching. Just so that they’re there like a security blanket, right? Just a tool that you can lean on in this scenario.

And then the last one, this is my probably my absolute favorite question. But before I tell you what it is, you can only use this, you’re only allowed to use this, if you, you feel confident that you have set the process up, that your client knows what they’re doing, like what they are supposed to be doing on calls, that you have properly onboarded them, you know, that you know they know what it means to show up to a call and so the way they’re showing up today is more out of the ordinary.

Here’s what you can ask. It’s so simple, yet so powerful, and has created honestly some of my favorite coaching sessions ever. “How would you like to use our time today?” And then pause. This might be a space where you hold that silence because they didn’t come prepared probably to answer that question. They really might have to think about it for a minute.

And overall, what you want to avoid is any kind of tone to your voice that sounds like you’re irritated or that you’re shaming them or that you are, you know, frustrated that they don’t have something to coach on. You get to be the leader in your coaching sessions. Don’t make them feel shame or, you know, anything like that for something that is easily solvable, because that will just add on to the weight and confusion in the moment for them when they already know that they don’t know what they want coaching on.

Okay, let’s talk about what to do when you notice this is a pattern. You might notice it’s a pattern with one single client, or you might even notice it’s a pattern with all of your clients. So we’ll talk about both of those. A one-off is neutral. It’s not a problem. Clients have busy weeks, they have bad weeks, they have sick weeks, they have weeks where they just forget to do the thing, where they don’t know, you know, they forget to ask themselves what they want coaching on before they come to the call. That’s okay. If it’s one time, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. Just use one of the techniques that I mentioned and carry on.

But when it happens every week with one client or with all of your clients, that is the part that’s information. Here’s some of the things that it could be telling you when it’s happening every week. Again, I mentioned this already, it could be your process, right? You forgot to tell them what it looks like to show up each week for the call. It could be that their goal isn’t clear, so they’re, they don’t have an anchor. I think of the goal is like the thing that they are anchored to that they know they’re working towards. If that’s not clear, then it kind of throws all the coaching off and can make both of you a little lost and confused or dazed and confused.

It could also be that the particular client you’re working with is just not a great fit for the work that you do. Like maybe there’s a mismatch somehow. Somehow they got through your onboarding process, they signed up as a client, and it’s just not a great fit. They want to do one thing, you want to do another. Nobody is enjoying themselves. That’s okay. That is just a conversation to have. Or it could actually be a problem that’s happening in your marketing. If you notice that all of your clients are often coming to their sessions with this issue, you might look at your marketing. It could be that something’s happening in your marketing that’s calling in a big group of clients that think they are there to do work that is different than what you actually do.

Here are a couple simple ways you can fix this when you notice it’s a pattern. First, you bridge that onboarding gap. You make sure your process is clear. I’ve already mentioned that. Next, if you notice this is happening each week with one client or even with all of your clients, you could think of a couple very open-ended questions or prompts and put them in your call reminder emails if you send them. Or if you don’t, maybe send them so that you have a place to put these questions. Not super specific questions, but just questions that get their brain going.

So for example, if I were coaching a client on their business and I wanted to have a couple questions that I was sending them in a reminder email, they might be something like, “What is your main goal in your business this week? And what is one obstacle that’s keeping you from achieving that goal?”

They’re very simple but very generic. But it’s just going to have my client thinking about, oh, right, yeah, let me focus my brain. What am I working on this week? What’s the most important thing? As I’m working on it, what’s getting in the way? That’s going to bring up just all the stuff. And if they even just read those 30 seconds before the call, it’s going to make it a lot more likely that they’re coming with something to coach on.

You could ask questions like, “What’s something that went really well this week? And what’s something that didn’t go the way you wanted it to?” Those are very open-ended questions that you could literally use for any coaching niche. Feel free to steal them. But here’s the reason I say it’s important that they’re open-ended. What you don’t want to do is get in the habit of doing the mental work for your clients.

So if you find yourself before every coaching session, for every client, having to think of very specific questions for that client to get them thinking about their week, that is probably a bigger process issue. I would not spend time doing that. It will take up too much of your time and it’s kind of putting all the work on you.

And I think one of, in my opinion at least, one of the jobs of coaching is to kind of teach your clients how to think strategically for themselves, how to be more self-aware, how to do this work on their own. You don’t want them, I mean, you might want them to work with you forever, but that’s not really the point of coaching.

And then one way to solve this, if it’s one client specifically and you know that they are a good fit as a client, but something about the sessions, like they just keep coming with nothing to coach on and there just seems to be something going on. Before your next session with that client, block off some real time, like 30 minutes, an hour, and just think about that one client. And ask yourself some questions like, what do you think they need? What do you think is happening? Like, why are they showing up that way? What do you think is getting in their way?

And prepare something to get them moving. Maybe you show up with a plan, you’re going to teach them something new, or you’re going to come prepared with some really specific questions if they show up the same way or just something to shake it up so it doesn’t feel like to them and to you, so it doesn’t feel like you are having Groundhog Day, right? Just showing up and doing the same thing over and over and nobody’s moving forward. That’s not fun.

But for most of us, our clients pay us really good money and we should take that seriously. So when it is one client and you know that you want to keep them as a client, you know they’re a good fit, it’s worth spending a little extra time outside of a session to make a plan to move forward and to talk to them about it. Now, again, you don’t want to be doing this every session. That is then just you doing the work for them. But before one session, when you notice that this has become a bit of a pattern, that is a perfectly legitimate way to spend some time to fix this issue.

And then finally, to wrap up this section, sometimes, when it’s a pattern with one individual client, it could mean that the work they came to do with you is simply complete. That is real. That’s not an issue. Again, nothing has gone wrong. So if that’s the case, that’s just a conversation possibly around what do they want to do next? What would they like to focus on now? How would they like to use the rest of their sessions if they have continued sessions with you?

Don’t shy away from asking things like that because you’re afraid they’ll quit. When a client quits is when they feel like you, like it’s a waste of their time to show up to your sessions. But when you lean in and really consider how do we get the most out of the time you have left, that’s what will create real commitment and magic between the two of you.

Okay, and finally, let’s talk about what does it look like when this happens in a group. So you pop on Zoom or wherever you host your calls, you see a bunch of faces looking back at you, you greet them, you do whatever you do at the beginning of your call. Maybe you teach something, if that’s what you do, whatever your particular structure is, then you open it up and you say, “Who would love some coaching?” or “Who has questions?” and all of them just stare back at you in silence.

And here’s what I will tell you, if you don’t have much experience coaching in a group, silence in a group feels so much different than silence on a one-on-one session. If you’re sitting there in silence and no one is raising their hand or volunteering themselves for coaching, it might feel like you have lived and died a hundred lives when five seconds have gone by. Just be aware of that. And again, I’ll say what I said earlier, it doesn’t feel as long to them as it does to you. So just keep that in mind. But it can truly be very activating for you, for your body, like you as the coach in this situation.

So you just really want to be aware of that and keep yourself as calm as you can. I can laugh about it now because I coach in so many groups all the time and I love it and, you know, I’m so used to it. I’ve had so much practice that it’s not a problem at all. I could pop in with 30 seconds notice to probably any group of humans and just figure out what to do, how to get them to start asking questions or asking for coaching. But if I think back to the first time I hosted group sessions, I can actually access in my body right this second what it felt like when they all just stared at me.

So let’s talk about what to do about it. Again, this could be an onboarding thing, right? It could be an onboarding gap. Does everyone know what’s going on? Do they know that they were supposed to bring something for you to coach them on? Do they know the process? If not, that is a very easy fix. Like, fix that and you’re probably good.

I would recommend if you’re running a group and it’s ongoing or, you know, it happens over a certain amount of time, making sure that in that very first session, you’re talking about what does getting coached mean? Like, what does it look like? Give examples even. Tell them how to show up to calls, how to be prepared, what you expect, what they can expect from you. If you do those things, it will just help the sessions go so much smoother.

Also, something to note is that not only might you feel more pressure when there’s silence on a group call, but the clients feel different in a group. It can feel a lot more scary. It can feel very vulnerable to say something out loud in a group or to talk about something that’s not working or that they need help with, especially if they’ve never been coached in a group like that before. So keep that in mind. As uncomfortable as you’re feeling, I guarantee you they might be feeling it times 100.

One thing you can do is open with some kind of check-in, something like a silly question, a question that you, it has nothing to do with the coaching to just get them talking and get them, you know, settled into the group. You could also have a question that you ask at the beginning of each call. You could ask them what are they celebrating since last week or what did they notice when they tried the homework, like some kind of check-in that just gets them talking.

Because once they’re talking and they’re opening up, whether it’s in the chat or out loud, normally once you get that energy kind of moving, it’s like the band-aid is ripped off and they’re already talking and it feels easier to then transition into, “Okay, now what questions do you have?” or “What can I help you with?” or “What coaching does everybody need today?”

Another thing you can do since you’re in front of, since they are in front of a group, is remind them that their coaching request or the questions that they have, they don’t have to be perfectly formulated. That sometimes it’s okay if they just start talking about something that’s happening that they would like your help with, because sometimes it’s a bit of a perfectionist thing where it’s like, “I don’t quite know how to ask it,” or “I don’t want to go first,” and taking that pressure off, I have found in my groups really helps. I also kind of like it when my clients show up messy. It doesn’t bother me. So I always say like, “Yeah, just start talking. Don’t worry, I’ll find something to coach you on.”

The next thing you can do is call on someone that you know usually participates and doesn’t mind participating and ask for consent. Right? So if there’s someone in the group that you know usually participates, you might say, “Hey, Jill, what do you think? Or what are you working on this week?” Or, you know, form the question that would make sense for your group. But someone that you have good rapport with, that you know they probably won’t mind being called on.

And you could say, “Would you mind going first?” Or “what’s on your mind this week? Do you mind sharing?” If so, I can move on to someone else. I just thought you might like to tell us. Definitely don’t do that to the same person every week. But sometimes it’s just, again, it’s just ripping the band-aid. It’s getting people talking somehow because normally once people start talking, then other people are going to chime in as well.

If it makes you really uncomfortable to do that, if you have anyone in your group who you feel closer with, who you’ve worked with before, maybe they’ve been your one-on-one client, maybe they’ve been in a group that you’ve offered before, maybe they’re a friend that has joined your group or hired you, you could ask them outside of a call, “Hey, would you mind if every once in a while, if I just called on you? Like, would that make you really uncomfortable?” Because they might just say, “Yeah, of course. Go for it.” Right? Like, they’ll feel like they’re doing you a favor, which to most people will feel good.

The last thing you can do, and with a huge caveat, you can only do this when you are very familiar with the group. Okay, let me be clear. If you’re my client, you’ve heard me do these things, but you know when you’ve seen me do it, it’s because everyone on the calls, they know exactly what’s going on. It’s weird that people are being quiet. I’ve maybe tried some of the other things already. People are still being quiet. This is what I will do. I will say, “Who would love some coaching today?” Or however I ask it. And then it’s silence.

And I’ll say, “No one? Okay. I’ll wait.” And then I will just sit there in silence. Some of you might feel like you have actual bugs crawling on your body hearing me say that, but I promise you, without a, without exception, here is what happens every time I do that. I say that, we sit there for about, I don’t know, three to five seconds. It always feels longer than it is. And then at the same time, five hands go up. And then we have the best coaching ever and we just carry on with the call.

Again, I’m only doing that in spaces where I’m very familiar with the clients and I’m and I am certain and confident that they know what the call is for, that they know why we’re there, that like this is a weird situation and it’s not a situation that I’ve created. This is also a place where you could come prepared to group calls with those two questions like I said earlier, and you could ask them at the beginning of the call and give your clients like two minutes to think about them. And then you open it up for questions.

The other thing you can say, this goes along with the, “I’ll wait,” and the long silence. You can just say, “Okay, so everyone here is just feels amazing. You’re hitting all the goals you’ve set and you’re you want to just pop off and I’ll see you next week, I guess?” Again, now, I am very sarcastic. My clients know this about me. It makes everybody laugh. It immediately eases the tension that’s happening.

And again, five hands go up at once or more. You know yourself though and you know your clients. So don’t, do not use those words if you know that they aren’t your words or they aren’t the way that you would say them or that your clients would not receive them well.

Okay, and then to wrap up this section about coaching in a group when nobody knows what they want coaching on, this one is really important. If you coach on something that could be a bit of a sensitive topic, maybe it’s grief or sex or money or just things that people might not want to or might not feel comfortable talking out loud about in front of a group, especially if they don’t know the people in the group very well.

One thing you can try is instead of opening it up for coaching in the session, you can have them submit anonymous questions ahead of time instead of relying on the live volunteering. That can really help people get more comfortable and maybe over time or even from the beginning. If you take this route, you could even do a mix where you have some anonymous and some people that would love to talk about it live in a session.

Because those two things are a little different. If you have them submit things anonymously, the coaching doesn’t really get to go as deep. It’s like you’re just answering a question that they ask. Whereas if you are coaching them in real time live in a session, then you can ask follow-up questions, you know, there’s a lot more you can do. It’s going to feel a lot more like real coaching. But that’s okay.

The anonymous submissions sometimes can go so far, especially in a group where the topics are or can be sensitive. You can even do this if you notice that just some members in your group are more introverted, more shy, more uncomfortable getting coached on any topic out loud. You can offer this to the whole group and that might give them an opportunity to show up and ask some of the questions that they want to ask but feel too scared to say out loud.

Okay. So that’s it. That’s the episode. I would love to hear what you think. If you listen to Episode 8 and you listen to this one, I’m curious what your thoughts are. I’m sure there’s a little overlap, but I definitely included a lot of new material today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned a ton. If you haven’t already, go listen or relisten to Episode 8 to hear some strategies that I talk about there that I didn’t mention in today’s episode. And I know I said I’d one favor at the beginning of the episode, but I have two favors and I want you to do them right now so you don’t forget.

One, don’t forget to submit a question. I’m so serious. I want to hear all of your questions. Nothing is off limits. Just ask away. We’ll put the link in the show notes or you can pop onto Instagram. Find me just at Lindsay Dotzlaf and send me a DM. I will answer them on, in the Q&A episode. And just so you know, when you submit it using the link, there is an option to send it with your voice if you want. So I can actually feature your voice on the podcast. Please do that if you’re willing. Sounds so fun to me.

And there’s also an option to submit anonymously. So if you would love to ask me a question, for some reason you don’t want me to know who you are, obviously then don’t submit it with your voice unless I won’t recognize your voice. But you can do that as well in the link.

And then the second favor, I know this is asking a lot of you today. You have homework. I don’t usually give homework for the podcast. If you’re a regular listener, or if you just recently started listening and you’re curious to know about this whole shift that’s about to happen, please leave me a review. I want to know your favorite parts of all of the Mastering Coaching Skills episodes that you’ve listened to so I can be sure to keep them around.

As I make some changes, I really do want to know what will you miss? Like if I just ended this podcast today, what would be the main things that you would miss? Tell me in your review or send it to me in another form if you want to, so that I can be sure to make note of it.

I cannot wait to tell you all of the announcements, to let you know all of the things that are about to happen. But just so you know, those two things, submitting a question and leaving a review, I’m just going to give you a little insider secret. There might just be some opportunities for some coaching sessions with me that are being given away when I launch the new podcast.

And there’s a chance, and by chance, I mean this is happening, that if you leave a review or if you ask me a question, you will be entered to win one of those sessions. Now, of course, if you do that, I’m going to need to know your name. So if you ask me a question, you’ll have to include your name if you want to be included in the drawing. And if you leave a review, email me and let me know that it was you so I can give you credit and enter you into the drawing.

All right. Thank you so much. I will be back next week for part three of the Unfinished Series because this work is never finished. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. We’re just mixing some things up. 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.