The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
Coach: The other way I see it is an enrollment session. It’s a chance for you as the coach to create a gap for them. To really help them see the gap between what they want and what they have, so they are pulled forward and they’re excited. They are lit up. They see, ‘Yes, that’s what I want.’ and ‘Yes, I see it’s possible.’
Client: I don’t know that you’re actually creating the gap, because the gap is always there.
Coach: Well, yes and no. Sometimes they come to you and they’re not even sure what they want or they might want something, but it’s really not lining them up. They think, ‘Oh, this would be good. I want a relationship where we aren’t fighting all the time.’ and you say, ‘Well what would it be like to have a relationship where you are lit up all the time, and you are telling everyone how great your relationship is?’ You’ve just created a gap and that’s your job.
The following is an excerpt of one of David’s coaching sessions in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: Well it’s not quite a plan but it’s the beginning of a plan.
Client: Yeah.
David: Awesome. You got a pen?
Client: Yeah. I’m taking notes.
David: All right, you’re going to love this. Lots of stuff to soak up, so actually I might even send you a copy of the recording because I think there’ll be a lot here. Okay. To start, the writing of the article, I would suggest if you do this you don’t just do one. Writing articles, in fact everything you do here, should be part of a long-term plan. If you’re going to do the article approach, great. Work out when every single month you’re going to sit down and write your article. Have your list of journals or magazines that you’re going to send it to, and cultivate a relationship with them, and get yourself published every month.
Client: Every month?
David: Well, or every quarter or whatever it is, but it’s a system rather than – because it’s so easy to come up with 20 good ideas and try and do them all, but you may not get any impact out of it until the sixth month, when people start to know who you are and they’ve read your second article. So, if you are going to do this one.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
1. Tidy your room (and for a bonus – the apartment/house! Consider getting help doing it.)
2. Get/understand that anything you do above securing food, shelter and clothing, is all entertainment. (You’ve made it dramatic!)
3. Arrive 15 minutes early to all appointments (including those with yourself).
4. Stick to the speed limit (drive with peace…let others overtake you)
5. Schedule BLANK TIME in the day – 1-2 hours where nothing can be scheduled. When it comes, you can use it to walk on the beach, work, make love……. It doesn’t matter.
6. Lower the Bar – Examine what you THINK you need to do this week, and then think again.
7. Drop something. There are 1-3 things you’re about to do this week, which do not support you having peace in your life (or maybe anything good!). TV? Obligation? Draining person? (Oops – can I say that?)
8. Identify what your needs really are, and get them met. (This is easiest using a coach with experience in this area)
9. Handle a drain i.e. something you’re putting up with.
10. Schedule at least two hours per week for YOU. Time where you get to reflect, think, walk, paint, write, and quieten the mind.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
David: Okay. So, I know a really nice model of coaching – I heard this from Laura Berman Fortgang at the ICF conference, and I really like it. Her model that she is using is very simple, and that is to begin each question with the word ‘what’.
So don’t ask them ‘why’. Never ask clients, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ or ‘Why do you feel like that?’ Just ask them ‘what’. You can ask them ‘how’, but again, try to start with what. It was really funny when we did the exercise, we had someone tell us about a problem, and we had to say ‘what’. Like, ‘Okay, what’s the solution?’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I probably need to lose some weight.’ Then I’d say something like, ‘What’s the first step?’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, I probably should go to go to the gym.’ and I’d say, ‘What are you going to do at the gym?’ It was really amazing how it just focused them in, even if they didn’t know the answer. In five ‘what’ questions, they had it.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
- Learn to trust your intuition
- If someone is stuck figuring out what they love, ask them “what do you hate?”
- Remember your mission as a coach: to discover or create who your clients really are.
- Make a list of 10 to 15 powerful fallback questions to help if you ever get stuck in a session. Here’s a couple to get you started:
- How could I best help you with that?
- If you were the coach right now, what coaching would you give yourself on this?
- What’s something that you could do to move forward on this goal?
- Convert more prospects by helping them to clearly see the gap between where they are and what they want. Then get them excited about achieving what they want.
- Exceed the expectations of your clients. Give them more value than they pay you in money.
- Stay educated. Never stop learning about your specialized field. Become an expert.
- To help draw out a client ask them about different areas of their life. Go through the standard areas (relationships, finances, health, and career) and ask them to score each one out of ten. This will help you find out where to start with the client.
- Dealing with resistance: Start with building awareness of the resistance. Set targets you can actually achieve. Try double padding. You set the target for each day; estimate how long each will take and double the time. Another thing is to set spaces in your day, like an hour space in the afternoon.
