The following is an excerpt of an actual transaction between David and a client in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: Yeah. Groovy. Now I want to acknowledge you, too, because I think, yes, you can be hard on yourself. I’m seeing, from this form, that you are aware of what’s happening around you, and you’re making decisions and you’re making movements and you’re looking at your life.
Client: Absolutely.
David: That’s what I want for you, that you’re continually doing that. If you notice any conversation in your head about, ‘Oh, I’m terrible,’ or, ‘I’m not getting stuff done,’ or, ‘I’m not doing enough,’ or like that, firstly you can say, ‘Thanks for sharing,’ and let it go. But secondly, you can do what you’ve done here in the form. This is perfect. Write down the stuff that you intended to do, write down what you didn’t do, and write down what you’re going to do and then do it.
Client: Exactly.
David: That’s perfect.
Client: All right.
David: Great.
The following is an excerpt of an actual transaction between David and a client in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: Yeah. Okay, fair enough. This is great because I know you’ve distinguished here that you’ve wanted to exercise four times a week, but you’ve actually got a structure in your life that’s taking away from that, which is having your boyfriend over a lot. Right?
Client: Mm hmm.
David: Which is wonderful, but it’s just not supporting you in that area of your life, which is exercising and letting your brain switch off, and like that.
Client: Exactly.
David: How would this feel for you if you actually, for the next month, for the next 30 days you exercise four times a week?
Client: I would be a different human being.
David: Okay.
Client: I know this already.
David: Yeah, so we’re on the right track with this, because I like to check in that we’ve got the right goal.
Client: Yes.
David: That sounds wonderful. Now I want to ask you, because we’re almost there – we’re almost there and you’re going to be alone four times a week, so that’s great – now does that feel handled to you, or do you want to keep going in terms of structure? Because there are more structures you can put in place.
The following is a transcription taken from Explode Your Practice.
This takes time – at least 3 months. So you want to do this sooner rather than later. Once you are in the related to anything you want to sell. Then at overture find out which ones are getting searched on. Get your top 5 key words. If you go to Google ads you want to go for all the keywords. But the ones your programmers will put in the Meta tags will be the top 5. You might also, in your excel spreadsheet, say what the product is like, general coaching mission stuff. It’s more complex. But this is the top 3 keywords for this product.
The following is an excerpt of one of David’s coaching sessions in Top Coaching Techniques.
David: If you just try to handle eating alone, that’s not easy because the rest of your life is a little bit in disarray. So if you try exercise alone, that’s not easy because you feel bloated, because you just ate some bad foods. If you take on the whole list… One of my things was to exercise, so I find if I go out and rock climb one night, I am not drinking alcohol, I feel like healthy foods and I am not watching any movies. Plus, I’m spending time with my partner, because she comes with me.
Client: That’s right.
David: So, I’m in this positive cycle, and it’s not even taking any effort. I didn’t even know I was doing it until I just told you the list.
Client: Yeah.
David: So what I invite you to do for this week – and to send me by the end of tomorrow – is the list of the ‘practices that support you’ and the ‘practices that abuse you’. Print it out and put it up on a wall somewhere at home. Maybe give it to your partner as well, as your partner often notices things that you’re doing or that don’t support you.
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
Instead of floundering around, you’re actually working on some exciting, inspiring goals. So, you start with what do you want, and help them. Some questions you can ask that might help elicit that are things like, ‘What’s one thing you’d love to change?’ ‘Is there anything in your life that you hate?’ ‘Is there anything in your life that you’d really love to have more of?’ Another good one is, ‘If there was a goal that might be even too big for you to achieve – but if you could have anything in the world, you’d probably go for it – what would that be?
Client: OK, yeah.
David: OK, now another way to break that down when people are having trouble, is to ask them about different areas of their life and go through the standard areas; relationships, finances, health, career. Go through that and just ask them to maybe score each one out of ten. That will tell you pretty quickly if the client is saying, ‘Oh, I just have no idea what I’d work on with a coach.’ That will tell you pretty quickly which area is not so hot.
Client: Yeah.
David: Then you can work with them on creating a goal. Now a lot of people can tell you what they don’t want. Part of your job is to spin it around. Haven them tell you what they do want that could replace that. So, no negative goals – no, ‘Oh, I want to get rid of my partner, or my relationship.’ You want to turn that around…
The following is an excerpt from Top Coaching Techniques.
Client: Such a huge combination of things – coaching – isn’t it?
David: It really can be, and I told you that I was going to give you three models, but I want to give a fourth one. This is perhaps the most important, and it’s the scariest. So I can understand coaches not using it – well, they have to use it, but not wanting to rely on it – but it’s really fundamental, and that’s simply sharing what comes up for you to share.
This is the ultimate model. What you do is speak the truth, so if the client says, ‘I want to leave my husband.’ you look at what comes up. What comes up might be, ‘Oh, you sounded so happy. Really, I don’t understand. You sounded happy, but you want to leave. Can you say more about that?’ Now that’s not a coaching technique, that’s just intuition. That’s what came up for you. If something comes up like, ‘Oh, are you okay? You know, are you feeling okay? Are you stressed?’ If that’s what comes up, you might ask that. Of course, there are hundreds of things that could come up for you. You may be thinking…
Client: Yeah, I’ll never anticipate everything. So I’ve stopped even trying.
David: That’s the point. The point is, you see what’s natural for you to say – the human being. You will have intuition and things coming up. What stops most coaches doing powerful coaching is they don’t trust that. They think that there should be some magic formula or some magic question that I should ask right now, instead of just being a human being.
