WHAT DOES A COACHING SESSION LOOK LIKE?

EP #12



“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 12, with Rhiannon Bush



Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.



Hello, my friends. I hope you're having a sensational day today. I am pumping through work and loving it. I find often with work, I start off going like, “Oh, I really need to get that done.” And whether I'm looking forward to it or not, it's still one of those pressurized things on my to-do list that I need to commit to and focus and get dedicated time to just pump out and get finished.



So, one of the questions I often ask my clients is, are you good at starting, maintaining or finishing things? And I'm really good at starting things, I'm okay at maintaining, but finishing the thing is usually the struggle. Finishing things is usually like “right, focus, commit, get it done”. And sometimes, not always but sometimes, there's a little bit of an incentive required. It's like, “Okay, well if you finish that, you get to then do this.” So I try to manipulate my own brain that way. I don’t know if any of you do that too, but sometimes that helps with motivation.



Today I am really looking forward to running you through what a coaching session looks like. It's really, really hard to understand or anticipate when you're unfamiliar and I've been in this industry now for a long time. I was trying to work it out today. It was 2015, 2016 when I started, so what… for 6… 6-7 years I've been in this space and loving it. It’s something that I live and I breathe and I think about all the time, every day and while I absolutely appreciate it's not everybody's cup of tea, there is an absolute way it can serve you, just even with where you're at right now.



But the, the chances of you actually taking that up and actually utilizing a coach or hiring one can often be put off if you don't know what to expect. People, typically, and this is a core needs thing, which I'm going to run through in future podcasts, but basically as a human being we've got six core needs.



It's based on Maslow's hierarchy plus a whole bunch of psychological and hierarchical needs that we have. But there are four needs of the personality, and then there are two needs of the spirit, and they're sort of sitting on opposite ends of the spectrum. Tony Robbins talks about it a lot. I'll put the link in the show notes.



We have love and connection on one end of the spectrum, so love is pretty scary in today's age you know, we are very focused on how things look and societal expectations, et cetera, et cetera, and we're influenced a lot externally with access to information and social media and whatnot. But if we don't have love, we'll crave connection and we need a certain amount of that.



We also need significance. So significance is very ego driven and it's a almost a need to stand out in the group. But then you've got love and connection that we need for survival and we congregate in, you know, cities or communities because it's safer and we need to be part of tribe. We're a tribal species. So those two really contradict each other because in that tribe, we need to stand out. We have needs to feel special and to feel unique, but we also need the safety of tribe. And if you ever are questioning that, think about teenagers that you see that all wear the same thing. That is a need to fit in, especially at an age when they're going through so much developmentally, not only neurologically, but hormonally, and all the rest. I don't know if you had great times as a teenager. I remember a lot of great times. There was also a lot of very trying times. I know most people feel traumatized in some way from high school. If you see groups of teenagers, you will often see them look the same because they, they want to fit in.



It's also of when we have a group of friends maybe that we are questioning whether, you know, it really serves us to be there. Especially if you're very much on the personal development bandwagon. A lot of people that are striving for personal development and to, you know, live their most impactful life and follow people like Tony Robbins and others.



One of the things that we are taught is that you are the common denominator of the five people you spend the most time with. I know Dr. D Martini actually spoke about having an apartment in Trump Tower and he actually moved apartments just to be up three more floors because three more floors meant higher status, more significance and so he made that move. To me that was like, what?! It was a little bit on the ludicrous scale. His point was that the higher your status, the more you surround yourself with people that you want to be like or that you are aspiring to be like, the more you will be able to match that in terms of that coming back to this core need for significance and also love and connection.



When we need love and connection, if we are attached to a group and we feel like we've done something wrong, we're going to be kicked out. We, as a society, usually have a ritual to get back into that group to feel that acceptance. It's also another reason public speaking is considered so terrifying because public speaking, you are not only speaking, which kind of gives you the significance because you have the special sole spotlight on you kind of scenario but you are also spatially and very, very clearly segregated from the group. So it's why public speaking is one of the most scary, statistically speaking things that people are afraid to do.



So in terms of love and connection and significance, they are two needs of the personality. The other is also certainty and variety or uncertainty. So I personally never understood people that after high school stayed in their small town and never went anywhere and loved it. I was someone that was like, “Oh, get me out of here” and I left at 18. I was like, “I just need to explore who I am, and do it without people that have known me my whole life, and I need to do it my way and make mistakes my way”. So that was my contribution to myself really, to get out and just explore who I was without people that I'd known my whole life witnessing that.



And then on the flip side of that, the certainty was for me that I knew I could always come home. I could always come back and it was always here. And luckily, and it's something I love now because I have actually moved back to Tassie. It's something I love because it's still the same. It doesn't change, which is really nice in a life that, you know, the seasons that we go through in our lives change very frequently and very dramatically, so that's really awesome.



So love and connection and significance is on one spectrum. That's core needs one and two. Core needs three and four: certainty and variety, and we'll go through this as I've said later on, but there are surveys that you can do to work out what level of certainty and variety you need. What are your core needs?



Once we've met all of those four core needs, Love and connection, significance, certainty, variety, then we hit needs of the spirit and they are higher order needs and we need both of them. And one of those is contribution, and the other is growth. So growth and contribution, and I want you to think about a scenario where you were really fighting against it. It may have been in a relationship or it may have been in a work setting where you were in it and you were just like, “Oh, I just feel like I'm going against the grain here”. There would've been one of those core needs that you weren't getting. I believe everyone needs growth and everyone needs to contribute. That is just part of our spirit and part of being human. But if you haven't got your needs for love and connection and significance, certainty, and variety, then you're not going to hit those higher order needs. It's also important because with the four personality needs, we all need them in almost a fingerprint specific way for us, and it will change depending on the circumstance.



So for me, having certainty and variety in my workplace will be different to the levels of certainty and variety that I need in my social life, for instance. So it will vary and it will change, but it will be very specific to you. And the more you think about it, the more you'll know what you need. So the today's session about what a coaching session looks like is to give you some more certainty so you feel confident in, “Okay, well if I engage with a coach, this is the way that it may pan out” and I can't speak for every coach, so I'll take you through a little bit of what I know and the process that I follow and we'll go from there. So, if you're super new to coaching or you've heard about it but you have no real idea of what it may be like, this will help you understand what to expect around the process, and so it doesn't feel like it's this black hole or this complete unknown that you're never going to come out of the same, okay. Especially when so many people refer to this as a big life changing experience. It's important to understand that you are going in and you're going to be okay.



Even if you're not sure, even if you've heard it's a good thing, doesn't mean you have that feeling of assuredness going in. So I'm hoping that today we'll give you that. Please know. The process I will take you through today is used by a lot of the coaches that I've worked with as a client. It's also the process that I have used, and also a lot of my fellow coaches, colleagues also use this process.



That doesn't mean everybody uses it or follows it. Okay. . So this is more of a ‘this is just what I've experienced and what I would expect’ type of conversation, and this is when you choose to work with more experienced coaches, which usually will charge in the thousands of dollars for their programs to work with them.



So when I first began working with paying clients, I had none of the following setup, I just had sessions and I would charge for say, six or eight or 12 sessions. They were the numbers and I worked it out as I went. So for some clients I worked with, I do still do that because it's less prescriptive and it just depends on what that client needs and also what that client wants. For my sales coaching clients, I have a 350-page manual that the client gets sent plus two weekly group training sessions, one on sales, one on mindset, two weekly check-ins, plus their monthly coaching session, and that that goes for six months.



There's also an online membership portal where they can access all the information and the recordings if they can't make a training so it's amazing value for money for what the client gets. But as you can imagine, it's sales coaching. So it's not about the unknowns of “Oh, what am I going to get?” It is for a very, very specific outcome. When I work with other clients that come to me and say, “I want to work with you. But I don't really know what it is that I want” that's when I use a less prescriptive approach and I can tailor their sessions and where we go from each session. I have the skill and the ability to do that because I've been coaching a long time and it's something that I continually develop in myself in terms of my skill set, and also because I have such a love for it that I actually want to know more and more and more about it to serve my clients better.



So that's one thing I would say about any service provider you use and it was something I recently discovered with an architect. We were working with an architect and he said something that made me think, “that doesn’t fill me with reassurance” and basically he said, “oh, you don't want to be an architect”. And I was like, I don't want my architect not liking the fact that they're an architect, because if you've got somebody who's really passionate about what they do, then they've got an interest in it. Whether they've got clients, whether they have great clients, or they charge a lot of money, whether they don't, they are still going to work hard for you because they themselves get something from it. And so when you've got someone who's just churning through, I'd just be very hesitant to work with a coach who doesn't have a passion for coaching.



When you speak with a coach, you'll be able to tell whether they're interested in it, whether they know their staff, and you'll know that because you won't be in the same place at the end after talking to them that you were in the beginning.



Honestly, on every single client call that I have, my clients do not leave the way that they arrived and it's something that I actually find so invigorating and I absolutely love because it's given them new thoughts, which has reinspired them and if you listen to staying engaged, the episode I did, I'll talk much more about that.



So let's kick off this process. So again, I've done episodes on before you hire a coach, what to look for mainly in the episode on the coach-client relationship, the four pillars to look for and it's also about doing your due diligence.



Again, I've talked quite extensively about what to look for and what you can do to ensure that you get what you need. The part of it I probably haven't addressed is knowing what you want and even if you don't know what you want, own it. So I've had many clients, many, many clients come to me and go, I don't know what I'm looking for. I'm like, “Okay, well let's just have a chat. I'll see if this works, and if it does, we'll kick on. And if it doesn't, we won't”. And sometimes it hasn't. Sometimes we've gotten to the end of the session and I'm like, “You know what? It sounds like today’s session has got you all you need, so kick on and then if you need to come back and actually have a program with me or multiple sessions, let's do that”. But it's really important that no matter where you are at, you kind of go, “Okay, I just feel stuck”, or just identify how you're feeling and identify what's going on for you. Use the A to B worksheet from podcast episode one, again, it's available on the website.



Have a go at it, because when you can start to answer those questions for yourself, then you can at least give yourself the guidelines for finding a coach that's going to serve you best. When you begin, say you've done all your due diligence and you know what you're looking for and you are ready to hire a coach, reach out to them and say, “I'd really like you to coach me”.



So for me, if you, my clients want to work with me, they go to my website. There's a form, like a ‘Contact me’. They do that and there's a button that says, ‘I want to work with you as a coach’. They tick it, they submit, and then I contact them. It's really, really simple. Other coaches will have ads and lead magnets online - use them. What I think it's good to have some faith in is that if you are looking for a coach, the right coach will find you. Or if you're listening to this podcast, maybe I'm that coach? I don't know, but you can at least get the help you need and you're not going to know until you've actually spoken to that coach, whether they are or are not the coach for you.



So you've made the decision you want a coach, you kind of know what it is about - whether it's just stuck, whether it's feeling yucky all the time, whether you just want to feel better, whether you want to know what life's sort of meaning is for you, whether it's a specific outcome at work, at home, in a relationship, weight loss, whatever it might be for you at the time, but you've worked out that you don't want to feel the way you're feeling anymore.



That's probably the biggest indicator: I'm sick of feeling like I'm feeling and I want to fix that. Where do I start? There's a thousand ways you can fix. A coach is probably the way you're going to get the result the fastest. It's not the only avenue by any means, but you will get really, really fast, surprisingly fast results by working with a coach.



Then we reach out to that coach. So you've done a research, you've found like 10 different coaches or maybe even just one - whatever you are comfortable with, whatever process works for you, and you've found one that really resonates with you. Yay, great! You reach out. “Hey, I really want to talk to you.” That coach usually will say, “Yeah, perfect. Love to have a chat”, and they might get you to do some work.



So when I was super busy, my client book was full, I would actually send three questions to a prospective client first, and those questions were things like, what are the biggest problems that you're experiencing? What are 21 things that, (yes, I did 21 things) that would change if this wasn't a problem… The reason I asked for 21 was because it showed the commitment level of the client. Very, very few people did it, but when they did, it was profound. It was really, really good and we had a really great relationship. We had a great relationship when they didn't, but it just, there's a difference in the mindset around that that shows me where you're at. And the third question that I asked was, how do you want me to be as your coach? Because that then gives me sort of personality characteristics and indicators to make me sort of think, “okay, so you may be this personality type, behavioural profiling is one of the things that I do, uh, and that's where that's going to fit” and it just helped me sort of piece the way that it went, or I could then contact another coach of mine, fellow coach, I mean, and say, “Hey, I've got this client. They're looking for somebody. I don't think they're a good fit for me, but I think they'd be perfect for you”. Off we go and reach out to the coach.



The coach may then call you, set up a time to talk, send you some pre-work to do. Do it. Enjoy it because it's actually part of the process. And by doing that you will learn a lot about that coach. For me, sending you three questions. Guess what? If I was a client and a coach that I'd never spoken to but wanted to work with sent me three questions, all of a sudden I'd be like, “Okay, that's pretty full on” and whether I was ready for that level of commitment or not as a client, I'm going to either really embrace it and do it, or I'm going to stop and go, mm bit full on for me and move on, okay? So remember that in this process, you are interviewing the coach as much as the coach is interviewing you. All right?



This is the initial step - can we work together? Do we have trust? Do I like you? Can I trust you? Do I feel comfortable? Are you pushing my buttons in a way that actually serves me get where I want to get to? These are all things for you to consider. Eventually, and it may not be the first coach you come across, but eventually you'll find one that you love and you're like, “Yes, that's who I want”.



Then in that initial session, that initial conversation, your coach really should pitch to you pricing. So that initial session is almost like an initial strategy session, but it's also like a sales conversation for the coach. So then you work out how much they're going to charge you and the payment method and then you make the financial commitment to actually step in, right?



And they may give you some time to make that decision, or they may put the pressure on and say, “Nope, let's make that decision right now. And then you jump in, or you jump out - you get off the fence. Basically, we don't like clients on the fence in terms of anything, whether it's working with us, whether it's not because you work with a coach to take action, to make decisions, to move forward, and also to fail in a way. And by failing you learn a lot about you. You can get over that hurdle onto the next thing to get to where you want to be. All with the love and support of your coach there backing you up and then helping guide you through that.



Okay, so you may be like, “mmm, nope” off the fence, or you may be like “let's go” and you pay. Or, “Okay, go and have a think about it”. And then the coach will typically just, yeah, move on. Once you've made the commitment, usually what will happen is you'll get some terms and conditions, and you need to read them. Absolutely. Make sure you understand them. Any questions you have, you should always feel like you can go to the coach and ask. Do not sign them if you do not understand them. Okay? That's what I'll say, because it's a legal document, it's a legally binding commitment. So read your terms and conditions, understand your terms and conditions, and make the payment or sign the terms and conditions after getting that clarification from your coach.



At that point I would then say, “You'll get access to online materials. You'll be sent some things to do…”, but you will be given some work to do because that way you can start thinking about what it is that you want, next steps, and that is your coach really giving you, it's starting to do that work right then and there.



I'll usually have that initial session. We'll cover everything. We'll discuss pricing. I'll send you some terms and conditions. You'll then ask me questions. Eventually you'll sign them, and then we have, in an initial session, you'll have your first session pretty much straight away. In that session, we decide exactly what you want, how we're going to get there, the roadmap that we're going to follow. How we're going to overcome any negatives or yucky stuff as it comes up, as we go along, and things you may not even recognize are there, that are holding you back. I will then, if it's a less prescriptive method that I'm using, whatever comes up in that initial session, I will then devise for you and send it through after the session for you to do before your next session. Or if it's a really structured approach, then it's like, this is step one, this is step two, this is step three, and these are the ways that you can contact me for support if you need. After that, you're off really. After that, you've got work to do, and because you've made the commitment to yourself by getting a coach, you've also made the commitment to your coach.



Then you just do the work. If you find you are not doing the work, then you simply have that conversation with your coach. You simply say, “I'm really struggling to fit this into my schedule”, or “This is not resonating with me. I'm not enjoying this” or “I don't know where to start”, and your coach is there as your support team, as your cheerleader to help you through it.



If you're reluctant to do it, there are secondary gains that are holding you back from achieving that, and that is exactly what your coach is there to work with you on because if that is something that you are not happy to commit to and actually address, then there are going to be other things in your life that you're doing exactly the same thing with. That is exactly where your coach adds the most value to you. Where you are like, “I don't want to do that” and your coach goes, “Okay, great. Let's talk about that”, and they'll delve into it with you. They will do a lot of clearing work. They will share a lot of frameworks. They'll use their questioning techniques to help you see what really is going on, why it is that you are holding yourself back, and then they will give you great insights and they will help you find those insights within yourself to move forward. And that my friend, is where everything changes because when you can work with a coach in that capacity, it not only impacts the work you're doing and trying to achieve by having that coach, it impacts every other aspect of your life, which is why it's such a profound experience. It's also why everyone can use a coach, okay?



So you may have signed up with a coach. You'll learn in that initial session because your coach will share it with you that the terms and conditions conversation and how many sessions you have, when you can have them. I'm pretty big on you've got 10 minutes from the start of your session time to get on the phone or zoom or however it is that we're having the session. If you're not, I'm gone. I am not hanging around longer than 10 minutes. If you're 10 minutes late, that's it for the session. Usually I can be lenient when I have heads up that somebody cannot make their session. I'm happy to reschedule, but if I am there and I am waiting for you and you do not show up, I don't like that. I find that incredibly disrespectful but your coach will outline that and how they conduct their sessions like that and how they deal with that in their terms and conditions, okay? And obviously when things happen, things happen. So sometimes there might have been an emergency or an accident, God forbid, or whatever and of course you're going to take those conversations as they come. While I'm talking about this in a very prescriptive way, your coach is a very, very approachable person. Your coach is someone you should be able to feel comfortable enough to pick up the phone and be like, “Hey, sorry, this is what's happening and I'm not going to make tonight” and then your coach will make their call.



It is also a professional relationship. You're paying them. Your coach has clients, they need to pay their bills. You know, there's a bit of to-ing and fro-ing there, but your coach is someone that you can always talk to and you can always just be like, “Hey, I'm really sorry this has happened. Can we reschedule?” But that will all be outlined very, very clearly in their terms and conditions along with the number of sessions that you're going to have. So whether you are going through a very, very structured program, or whether you're going through a very free flowing, let's see, bespoke program will depend on the coach and on the conversations that you had from the outset. And you will have the number of sessions and it will be absolutely transformational. It just will be. There's no way it can't be because I know coaches and I know coach training, and I also know what your coach is really hoping to achieve with you, and that is that you get to the end of your sessions, you are raving, you refer everyone you know to that coach because you're like, “Oh my God, you have to work with her. She's amazing.” And that just fares well for everybody. Really, as a coach, I know that my client's success, in a way, is my success. Like, I didn't help. I mean, I helped my client get there, but they did it by themselves. And that is what enables me to be a successful coach when my clients get what they want out of it.



What is even greater for me is when I have a client, 18 months after we've finished coaching together, turn around and go, “Hey, I really want to work with you again. Something else has come up. Are you free?” And I'm like, “Yes”. Or “I know we haven't spoken in ages, but this thing happened and it just reminded me of that session that we did”, and it still has an impact on me that when my clients do that, that is amazing.



I was at a book club night the other day, and one of my clients is in book club with me. So we had a lot of conversations around, “Hey, are you happy for me to come to Book club? Yes. Call, no, that I will not say anything. It's confidential, blah, blah”. So it was really, really great. And she was like, “No, no. Come to book club.”



It came out recently that, yeah, I'm a coach and I have a podcast, and all the girls are like, “Oh, really?” And then my client was like, “Yeah, she's an amazing coach”. And someone said, “Oh, did you have a life coach?” And my client was like, “Yeah, Rhiannon”. And they were all like, “Really?” And my client was like, “Yeah, she's an amazing coach.”



And I was like, “Oh, that I just, I never get sick of”. I mean, I do feel like I'm a really, really great coach, but it never feels the same as when one of my clients, you know, actually outrightly says it. So I felt very, very honored and, you know, in that same week, I had a client I had two years ago reach out and say, “Hey, I need to see you as a coach again. I'd like another six month program. When can I sign up?”.



So, just know that by not knowing in the beginning what a coaching session is going to look like, that's okay. That's completely normal. But taking action to actually speak to a coach is the first step because by speaking to a coach, you will get the sense or not of whether you want to continue, and from there you'll have the faith in them and their process and their experience to continue and have the same results that they've had with many other clients before you or not. Sometimes you'll get a brand new coach. It is still, because it's such a self exploration process, will be a really, really beautiful experience. So I implore you do the research.



And in terms of the actual coaching session, usually my kickoff is somewhat questioning really. So I just ask you some questions about how things have been, how you are feeling, good things that have happened. I'll do some questioning in the beginning just to remind my client as well that, you know, sometimes I'm going to interrupt because we are on a tight timeframe. My sessions always go over, I'm rarely sticking to an hour. Like one of the questions I ask is, “Do you have a hard finish? Yes or no?” and if the answer's yes, then I really interrupt because I've got to keep moving. My behavioral profiling sessions are two hours. They are massive sessions. They normally go two and a half but I've also had to run them in corporate environments where I've had them be 45 minutes. So really it depends on what comes up for them and I like to give my client the time and space that it needs a lot of the time to organically unfold and get them to their next step, to move on, and then go and process what's happened, and then take the action steps that they need to take before their next session. So usually the kickoff will be a few questions and then the client will tell me what they're experiencing, how it's been for them and then usually even my sales coaching clients, it is a very bespoke session.



I never know where the session's going to go, because whatever the client is experiencing is what they're experiencing. And so I can't predict that. I just have to know the right tool to use for the right problem that's going to help my client move that emotional momentum from a place of stagnation to a positive one, focused in the right direction to move them forward to where they want to be. End of the session, I always do like a meditative, sort of future pacing is what we call it, where we just take a minute to be really calm, really still, really internal, and I find it's a beautiful finish to a session.



So the middle of the session, that's when a lot of processing, questioning techniques, catharsis is happening. A lot of analysis and that self-exploration. So that's very two way and the beginning and the end is very one way. It's very questions based. And then I run that last bit of the session and then we finish up. The client has somethings that they have to do always before their next session and sometimes by the way that is just processing what's happened. That's just processing how they've been feeling through the session. Or if we've done what's like a matrix therapy technique for anyone who knows Matrix, very cathartic, very, very emotionally releasing, um, and can be very exhausting. A lot neurologically changes in that process so a lot of the time after that, there isn't any work to be done. It's just to sit, to rest, recoup, and then we pick up the action steps in the next session.



The final session is actually more of a calibration of the whole experience. So in the beginning we were here (a), now we are here. How have we felt along the way? Have we achieved what we wanted to achieve? What are the takeaways? How are we going to use this moving forward without me as your coach, how are you going to move forward to keep going from strength to strength and to keep on achieving. A lot of the time, my clients actually don't do their last session. I don’t know what that's about. Many times I've reached out to my clients and said, “You've got one session to go”, and I don't know, it just doesn't seem to happen. And they know that I'm available to them for that final session. But yeah, it's, it's kind of beautiful in a way. They've got what they need, they're ready to move on, or they're not ready to finish up.



So they keep it and then they use it when they're ready. Um, it's a really beautiful way to finish off that coach-client relationship, to kind of let them spread their wings and see how they go on their own and just have a little bit of a plan for that so it's not like they've got a coach one minute and then they don't and then my clients are sort of free falling, going, “Oh my God, what do I do now?” That's not what coaching's about. Coaching is definitely not a co-dependent relationship. It's not meant to be a crutch.



I like a prolonged period to work with a client. I like six months at least, because that way we can get some real change. It's over time, we calibrate, it's step by step by step. It's not a huge chunk all at once. Other coaches will work differently, but that's my preference and then off they go but they do it in a really like staggered, safe way where they've got some techniques and some things that they can use on their own so they're not just free falling, you know, without any kind of safety net really, which is great. So that's the final session



At some point I'll ask for a testimonial. Again, you can see all of my testimonials on my website, of the work that we've done together. That’s my client's way of saying, “Yeah, thank you for the work. It's been amazing and I really want to pay this forward”. That, for me, is what a testimonial's about. And it helps other people who are like, “Oh, maybe I want to work with Rhiannon” but to go there and see it and be like, :Oh, that person had that problem. That's my problem. Rhiannon's the person I need to work with” is great. And other coaches will have testimonials as well that you can look at. Just see if their clients have solved problems that you have been experiencing yourself.



So things you can do for your coach is really think about the things that have changed in the time that you've worked with your coach. I've also had many clients come to me their next session after we've discussed something in a session. They come to me their next session and they're like, I was eating my breakfast the other day, and I just thought to myself, “I am actually really good at that”. And in my mind I'm like, “Yeah, we that. Yep, that's exactly what we spoke about last session”. But the reason that they don't attribute that to is because they are in trance or they're in a hypnosis kind of state where it's very unconscious or subconscious process, and then it clicks in between, you know, while they're having breakfast or while they're in the shower, or why they're at work. So one of the things that you can do for your coach to say thank you at the end of your time together and provided that you're happy and you've got the results that you wanted, is to really think about the changes and what has occurred from point A to point B. How your coach, if it's your coach, has facilitated that change, helped and supported you through it and empowered you along the way because working with someone that boosts you up and helps you feel empowered… that to me is invaluable. I know my coach, I am still so grateful. Even though the work we did was like four or five years ago or more recently with a coach three years ago. I just am so grateful. And you know, one of my friends I was talking to the other day, she, even as a coach, we kind of can't help but coach each other a little bit. And she said something and I just, again, I'm just like, “Wow, you didn't have to say that, but you did. And I'm really, really thankful for that”.



So yeah, think about the changes. What's happened? And just document that for them so other people that were struggling when you, you know, like you were at point A can reach out and get that same help. That's really, really special. Other things you can do for your coach is commit. Commit to the work. When you make that payment to your coach, take it seriously and do it for yourself and also do it for your coach. Don't muck around. Don't put it off - if you are resisting your coach that's actually because you are resisting something and it's not actually a coach. That's how it's coming out. But work with your coach to really get uncomfortable, trust them enough to help you through the things that are making you feel incredibly uncomfortable or unsafe, or that are keeping you stuck. So commit. Trust them. Have faith in them. Have faith in their tools and techniques and their training, and trust them to help you commit. Show up, do the work. Stay focused. Do not be on your phone in a session. You know, put everything away. Give them your 100% focus. And that's exactly what your coach should do for you too.



There should be no distractions. They should be ready to work because the two of you, what you're doing is working. I had a fellow coach say that she coached a client in the car. I would never do it. If you are driving, you're not concentrating on what I'm telling you. It's not happening, and that I, again, Like, if you're going to work with me, work with me. That's not working. That's kind of half, A-S-S-I-N-G it, that's a mum in me. Sorry. But yeah, don't, don't do that. Actually pay attention, give your full focus, and that way you will get your full benefit and you can absolutely expect that your coach should be doing that for you too. There's no way my client, my friend, would be coaching while she was driving.



It's just she's, I know her better than that. There's no way she would do it. So make sure. That you have clear expectations of what you expect and what they expect. And again, that's work I do in that initial session. Actually, I do that before I even get my client their terms and conditions. It's like, these are my expectations. This is what you do for me. This is what I do for you. And that really should happen at the front of that relationship before it's even started. Because that way you've got those clear guidelines and when things fall outside of it, it means for conversation to go, “Hey, wasn't happy with that yet. Let's move on”. Everything is a conversation. Everything is open to be put on the table.



The last thing I want to address is when do you know you're ready to pick back up with your coach? So this is for anybody who has had a coaching relationship and hasn't, it's finished and you've had a really, really great experience, and then you're kind of meandering through life and you haven't seen one since.



The way, in my mind, that you know you need to work with a coach again is if you're not satisfied. If you're not focused, you're not satisfied. They're the two. So when you work with a coach, you get super focused on an outcome and then you get the strategy and the roadmap to get there, and then you get the, the emotional support and calibration on your way through to achieve that goal.



If you are working with a coach, got a great tick 18 months, five years later, however long it's been, it might even be a month. You are sort of walking your way through life going “you know, I'm putting my head on the pillow at night and I feel like I've wasted the day”, or “I'm just not sure if this job is working out for me”, or you're back in that state of lacking focus towards something that you want or you don't know what you want next. That is means to see a coach dissatisfaction. Or other negative emotion and a lack of focus to achieve something moving forward.



So I work with a coach quite frequently when I want something or when I realize exactly that I'm like, “Oh yeah, I'm not moving forward”, or “Nope, I'm not going in the direction that I want to be”, and I'll call my coaches or I'll actually hire a coach and on a very odd occasion, I will hire a new coach. I reluctantly do that because I love the coaches that I've had. The reasons I would do that is because I'm looking for something new or something different, a different approach. And it seems like every time I hire a new coach, it gets more and more expensive, which I'm totally happy to pay for because I definitely see the value it's just, it's always a great experience having a new coach.



I also know that there are coaches that I've had that will give me certain outcomes, and for that I would definitely go and see them. They're typically coaches that have niche in a particular space like leadership or freedom, like internal spirituality, energy, things like that. I have my go-to coaches and I probably wouldn't ever change unless I was really dissatisfied with something that they did, which I can't imagine so.



That's it for me today. I really hope that's given you the clarity around what to expect, not only in the process of having coaching sessions, from hiring a coach, to finishing with a coach, to reengaging a coach, but also in the actual sessions. By knowing this, if you've questioned it, if you're thinking, “Oh yeah, I would really like to work with a coach”, just start by looking around. There are thousands of us, not enough, we can always use more coaches, but there are a lot. Again, you've got the means. Thank God for Google, right? You've also, if you're listening to this, then I'm a resource for you. Have a look, have an explore, and reach out to a coach. See what you find, and then tackle the next.



You don't need to hire one today, but just start the process for you if you're feeling unsatisfied and you're feeling unfocused. Have a beautiful week, my friends and I will talk to you very, very soon. Bye now.











Hey! Before you go, I always find reviews really helpful when looking for new information or insights…



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Please note, this transcription may not be exact.