Ep #77: How Do You Want to Coach Your Clients?

Hi, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 77.

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.

Hey, Coach. So glad you’re here today. It’s going to be a short and sweet episode about something I’ve just been noticing so often that my clients keep saying to me that I just want to address because if I’m hearing it a lot from them, I’m sure many of you are thinking it as well.

And this is what it is, so I will ask them a question and I will say, you know, they’ll tell me, “Well, I’m doing this in my coaching,” or “I’m doing it like this,” right? And they’ll give me an example. They’re telling me because they’re also having a problem, some sort of problem is happening, right? Like it’s not working or they don’t want to do it that way, they don’t like doing it that way. And so I will ask them, “Okay, well, why are you doing that?” And their answer will be, “Because that’s just what I’m supposed to do.”

And I just want to offer you that if you are a coach who’s running your own business and coaching people on your own terms, you are actually in charge of everything. Your offer, how you work with clients, how you coach your clients, every single thing from the beginning to the end, right? Which is sometimes why people don’t love being entrepreneurs, because they don’t like to be in charge of all the things. It happens to be one thing I love about being an entrepreneur.

If you don’t know this about me, I’m not sure if I mentioned it really on here before, but I think one reason that this always surprises me is because I have a much more rebellious brain. So usually if somebody tells me to do something, my first response to that is like, “Nope, let me think about it. I’m going to think of my own way. I’m going to do it my own way.” And then I have to kind of come back and say like, “Okay, wait, you know, like my work is kind of the opposite.” I’ll get to that also a little bit more in a minute.

But for those of you that ever have that thought like, I’m not allowed to do that, or I’m not supposed to do that, I really want you to question it. And I’m going to kind of tell you like when you should question it, why you should question it, and kind of how to know which direction to go. But the first thing I want to say is there’s a reason that this is happening. And there are actually a couple of reasons. And from my experience, what I see is these top three reasons.

The first one is maybe because you’ve never seen it done that way, right? So maybe your style of coaching or the kind of coach you are, you don’t see a lot in kind of the coaching circles that you’re in. And you’re like, “Oh no, this is different. I don’t know, people aren’t doing it this way so I’m not allowed to do it this way.” That’s one.

The second one is that’s not what the training, like you went to a training, or a certification, or you learned to coach somewhere and that’s not how they told you to do it. Or that’s not what your coach said. And I’ll give you some examples of this in just a second.

And then the third one is maybe you have an idea that you want to change something but you don’t know how. You don’t even know what the other possibilities would be. You’ve just always assumed like, well, no, this is the way I was taught or this is the way I’ve seen it done, so this is what I’m supposed to do.

And I would just offer that maybe, especially if you see this coming up for you a lot, that you start questioning this every time it comes up. And by questioning it, I don’t mean just doing the opposite, right? And saying like, “Oh, no one can tell me what to do.”

This is my go-to and it’s not always very helpful, right? So I’m not suggesting that you just do that and say like, “No one can tell me what to do, I’m just going to do whatever I want.” But to at least ask yourself what you do want.

What do you want to do? How do you want to coach your clients? What container do you want to set for your clients? And just kind of pausing anytime you hear that little voice that comes up that says like, “That’s not what you’re supposed to do,” and just really questioning it starting with what do I want?

And then from there going to, okay, now here’s the way I learned to do it, for example. How is that good? Like why do I think my coach, or my training program, or my certification, why do I think they were telling me to do this? Because sometimes you may find, oh, it makes sense why they were telling me to do this. And also it doesn’t make sense for me, for my clients, or in my business.

Now I do want to pause for a second and give just a caveat here. So for those of you that do work for other coaches or coach in other communities, so either like work full time for a coach and they have a very specific coaching style that they want you to use, or who are guest coaches in coaching communities, right? Like I have guest coaches in my communities on occasion and I give them very specific parameters, right?

I tell them I want you to coach exactly like you, I want you to coach in your style. And I don’t want you to bring in any kind of tools or philosophies that are completely different from what I teach only because, not because they’re wrong, but because I don’t want my clients getting confused, right?

So when I have my guest coaches coaching in The Coach Lab, and they’re amazing, and I know that my clients can see like these coaches all have very different coaching styles, but we’re all working from the same tools. Even though some of them might have, and I know they do have, different tools that they use in their own businesses outside of The Coach Lab. When it’s not something that I teach, and I’m not even qualified to teach, I don’t want my clients getting distracted of like that coaching was amazing, now I have to go learn this thing.

All right, so if you’re coaching for someone else, this is not for you. Although you can still ask yourself in so many other ways in your life, in your wherever, like where does this apply? Where you’re thinking you don’t have control or you aren’t in charge of what’s going on.

But for those of you who are entrepreneurs and who run your own business, you are actually in charge of every single thing. So what I do when I notice, and again, my thought is like I kind of go the other way of like, “No, watch me, I’m going to do it my way.” But I always come back and I question it. And I ask myself, like, how are they right?

Like whatever it is I’m learning, whatever it is a coach is saying to me, how are they right? And then I ask how am I right? How is my way the right way? And why do I think my way is the right way? And this is maybe one of the most important things, because you really want to be onto yourself as far as the reasons, right?

So right now, if you’re thinking like, “Oh, this is so fun, Lindsay is giving me permission to just do whatever I want.” I am, and there are also times that you’re probably not going to want to do that, right? Because remember in your brain there’s a reason you have a coach, if you have a coach, or you’ve worked with coaches in the past, or you’ve learned these specific methods, right?

If you’re wanting to change things just because the thing you’re doing feels hard, or you don’t really feel like spending time working on it, or you think no one’s going to buy my coaching if I tell them I only do this one way. You know, if it’s just thoughts that are coming from lots of scarcity and fear and not thoughts maybe that you love, that’s a time to look at it and say like, “Oh, okay, well, let’s look at what my coach said. How could she be right? What do I love about her way? What am I scared of when I think about doing it that way? Like what gets in the way of me just believing that this is the best?”

And a lot of times there might even be something in the middle. Right? That’s like, I don’t have to do it exactly like she said, I don’t have to do it exactly like I want to, taking action from just a little bit of fear and scarcity. But what’s the middle thing, right? What is best for my clients? If I just settle into my deepest knowing, how do I want to move forward?

One example of this is that my business coach teaches a very specific way of launching. And one of the things that I did in my last launch is I took her way, which is what I’ve always used. And then because I’ve used it in the past and I’ve used it just like she teaches it and I’ve also used it very much not like she teaches it.

So for the first time when I launched The Coach Lab, I said, “Okay, here’s her way her specific, exact science way of my very logical brain’s interpretation of, here’s the exact way she wants me to do it.” Which actually isn’t true, right? She always says make it your own. But my brain always goes like, “Okay, this is what she expects.” Now, what do I want to do? And where is it different? And why? Do I love my reasons? Do I not love my reasons? Just really exploring it.

So instead of you thinking I’m giving you permission to just go do whatever you want and like blow everything up and start over and, you know, be a rebel and don’t listen to your coaches. Don’t necessarily do that. But just question it and question what you want, and then say like, where are those two things different and why? You know, why do I think I’ve been taught this one thing? And why do I think this other thing that’s different? And just see what’s in between there, right?

Because I think there’s a lot of goodness between those two things, lots of learning and you can use those with your clients too, right? Anytime your clients are telling you like, well, but I couldn’t possibly do that, or I’m not allowed to do that, or some form of those words. You can use this and say like, “Well, why not? Like who says? And why are you letting that just be the authority without questioning it?” There’s nothing wrong with questioning things that people tell you.

One thing that I heard recently, I was presenting at an event and one of the other presenters, I was leading some workshops and one of the presenters, his name is Mark Butler. He’s an incredible coach, and he offered something which I’ve always inherently believed and I just don’t think I had the most perfect words like he did. You know, he got up on stage and I was listening to him talk.

And his whole talk was about, in the beginning was about how everything that any coach teaches you, we’re just teaching you our thoughts. Which is so true, right? And you’re doing that for your clients. Now, not when you’re coaching, not when you’re looking at your clients’ thoughts, that’s different. But any strategy, or tools, or anything like that that you use, or that you’ve been taught, those are someone else’s thoughts.

So when people come into The Coach Lab, for example, when you join The Coach Lab and you watch the modules that I’ve created, those are just my thoughts about what coaching is. And yes, it’s based on lots of proof, and science, and how I’ve coached over thousands and thousands of hours of coaching, and all the learning I’ve done, and how I’ve made it my own. It’s based on all of that, but it’s all still my thoughts, right?

There is a chance that you, someone listening could come into The Coach Lab and watch a few of the modules and think, “I completely disagree with all of this.” And actually, I know that there would be people that would disagree, because I have talked to so many different coaches from so many different coaching backgrounds who have told me things that they’ve learned in other coach trainings and my thought has been, “Oh, that’s terrible. Don’t ever do that.”

But that’s 100% my thought, right? Neither of us are right. Neither of us are wrong, even though, of course, I think my opinion is right. My opinion is the same thing as my thought, right? Of course I believe I’m right. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be my opinion, but I’m not. So just think about that.

Whenever your coach is teaching you something, you can think, “Oh, this is their thoughts. Do I want to take these on or not? Do I want to question them? Do I want to be curious about why she thinks this is the best way?” Right? Like do I want to be curious about why she teaches it this way? How is this different than what I think?

And I think where sometimes coaches get confused or get, I don’t know what the word is, distracted or where they can end up just kind of following along with what a coach says, is when you forget that your coach is just, any strategy, anything that he or she is teaching you, it is just your coach’s thoughts. That she thinks like, yes, this is the way I did it, or this is the best way. This is the way that I have created and now I’m giving it to you. And you just get to decide, like am I on board with this, right? Do I love this way?

In The Coach Lab I teach there are only really a few tools that you need to be an incredible coach, I teach you those. And I teach a lot of other things, but when it comes to the coaching tools, my philosophy is simple is best. When it comes to creating your coaching process, the more simple the better.

I am positive, you could probably go find a coach who teaches you how to create your coaching process that thinks 27 steps is better than five or three. That can be a thing, right? Actually I know it’s a thing because I have clients who come in, who have worked with other coaches, who just assume, oh, this is the right way to do it because this is what someone taught me. And they’ve never questioned it.

And so now they have this process that feels so out of alignment for them, but they just keep thinking, “Well, this is the right way. So I just have to keep going and figure it out.” And I love it, I love when you come to me and say these things and then I can show you that it’s not necessarily true. But after this podcast, I just hope that you start to question it on your own.

What I think is fun about questioning it, what I love, what my brain does when my brain goes like, “Nope, not doing that.” But then I remember like, oh wait, let’s see if I should, right? Let’s question it all. What I love about it is that when I do question it and when I do figure out like what is my version of this? What is my process? What are my thoughts about this?

Then when I go to execute whatever the thing is that I’m doing, I’m so much more committed to it because I’m not just doing something that someone else told me to do. I’ve fully sold myself on why I’m doing it, why I’m doing it the way I’m doing it, and why it’s the best for my clients.

So, no matter where you’ve learned to coach, no matter what tools you have, and all the things that you have learned over the time that you’ve been working on coaching and working on being a coach, any of them that feel like this is not right for me, or maybe it used to feel right for you and now you’re like, I don’t know, there’s something about this specific method that I just don’t love using with my clients, or my clients don’t resonate with, question it and say, “Do I need it? Is there a different way? How would I love to do it?”

And just go forward. Move forward doing that, trusting yourself, leaning into that. And your clients will love it because they love you, all right? Have an amazing week and 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.