In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews coaching pioneer Alan Fine, founder of Inside Out Development. The conversation centers on the "inside‑out" philosophy that high performance emerges by removing internal blocks rather than adding external skills. Fine explains the origin of his company’s name, describing his shift from a traditional expert‑to‑learner model to one that uncovers and clears internal obstacles. He introduces his core framework of Faith, Fire, and Focus: Faith (the beliefs we hold about ourselves and others), Fire (the energy, passion, and discretionary effort that fuels action), and Focus (the conscious choice of attention that drives transformation). The dialogue links these elements, showing how beliefs shape focus, focus amplifies fire, and fire enables learning. Practical takeaways include: (1) creating a gap between stimulus and response by consciously choosing what to focus on, thereby separating self‑talk from events; (2) adopting an "inside‑out mindset" that assumes every person is a phenomenal learner, which shifts coaching behavior toward support rather than judgment. The episode closes with resources for listeners to explore Fine’s work and Andersen’s upcoming book, "Change from the Inside Out."
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You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Alan Fine, founder and president of Inside Out Development and bestselling author of You Already Know How to Be Great. Alan is considered a pioneer of the modern-day coaching movement and is the co-creator of the widely recognized GROW model. An acronym for Goal, Realities, Options, Way Forward. So welcome to the show, Alan.
Thank you for having me here.
I'm very excited because you and I have so many weird intersections on our paths. So we both worked with and benefited from Tim Gallwey and his inner game concepts in the '70s and '80s. And you're originally from Wales, which is a place that my listeners know I find fascinating, and which I used for the frame story in my book Being Strategic. But I, but I think the most interesting kind of convergence is the inside-out one, that we both operate on the assumption that high performance starts with discovering how to take best advantage of the power that's already within us, within each of us. And that's reflected in the name of your company, Inside Out Development, which we'll talk about, and the name of my upcoming book, which is called Change from the Inside Out. So, you know, let's dig in. Let's explore this together. Okay, so as I noted, your company is called Inside Out Development. So what's the significance of that, of the name?
Well, it was— it goes back to an old friend of mine who was looking, thinking about the work that I was doing, or the transition I'd gone through in those days as a tennis coach. And I was very— I thought I was reasonably successful. And the approach I would take was, I know, you don't. I'm an expert, I'm trained, right? You're not. So I'm going to put into you whatever it is you're missing. And as a result, you're going to do better, which I think is how most of us are raised and educated and trained to go about performance improvement. And as he watched the transition I went through, sparked by Tim Gallwey, he said, you know, what you're really doing is you're taking an inside-out approach with people. What you're doing is removing that which blocks them from doing their best stuff. And it so resonated with me. That's how we ended up naming the company Inside Out Development because, you know, in the end, you know, I've come to believe that you can't really— you can't put into people what isn't there.
Yes.
So, you know, it's a little— it was kind of— I was on a treadmill in the way I was trying to go about raising performance. As I moved to thinking about removing what's in the way, the results changed for, first of all, my tennis players. Then I got asked to work with other sports and with musicians, you know, and eventually executives. So it actually changed that. I didn't know it would at the time, but it changed the path of my life.
Man, I love that. And it would be hard for me to agree with you more I remind— as you were speaking, I'm reminded of, and it may have been Tim that told me this, that the root of the word education is educare, which in Latin means to draw out.
Yeah.
Well, so let's, you know, in wandering around on your great website and reading some of your work, I came to you talking about the importance of faith, fire, and focus. So those are 3 powerful words just on their own. And I'd love for you to tell us what you mean by those things and why they're so critical. Sure.
Well, first of all, they're critical because if I went back to what I think of as my old paradigm, that I'm an expert and I'm going to put knowledge into people and then they're going to do better. If that was the whole truth, we could all read the book about whatever we want to be better at and we'd all be world champions.
Right.
And I've read a lot of books and I'm not a world champion at anything. So there have to be some other factors. And those 3 things came together out of some work I was doing with a psychological assessment, was the best way to describe it, in parallel with, as we were trying to write the book, I was being put through an experience I can only describe as— in fact, the journalist described it as crossfire.
Mm-hmm.
So he heard me speak and he said, I want to challenge you because when you're challenged, you seem to think more clearly. So when I got over my resentment at that remark, we went through that. And what emerged was these 3 things that I was looking back kind of anecdotally at. What do I do when I'm trying to coach people, whether it's an athlete or a musician or an executive? And these 3 things kept coming up all the time.
Hmm.
So what they represent— faith is about Well, first of all, I should say faith is not religious faith.
Okay.
I'm talking about it as what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about others if we're trying to help others.
Ah, okay.
And I'm no academic, but I get stuff handed to me all the time, research about how important what our beliefs are, how much they drive what we do.
Yeah, yeah.
So faith was one component, and it came out of when I listened to people, one of the things I would often hear is that, um, I don't think I can do this.
Right.
I know what to do, but I doubt my ability to do it. And it was— it just kept coming up. So we just put a label on it as faith.
Yeah, yeah.
Fire was about energy, passion, commitment, um, you know, discretionary effort, willingness to go the extra mile. And it was very evident that in the coaching process, you can see folks sometimes you do what you know are all the right things, you talk about them and you look at them and they're going, eh, right? There's something else going on and they're not motivated to do it. And it was often what would surface is, are you willing to pay the price? Are you willing to do what it takes in order to get what you say you want?
Right.
And then the focus one was— and this to me became the most important one of all because I think the focus one is what drives everything else. It's what you pay attention to. It's what you choose to pay attention to. So when I think of focus, I'm thinking about our consciousness.
Right.
And then what— when we choose what we point our attention, our awareness, our consciousness at, That's when transformation happens. So the way I knit them together is what we focus on in our— this is particularly in our early years.
Yeah.
Well, that creates our beliefs. All our different experiences, the input we get from parents, teachers. So those things create our beliefs. And then once we have a belief about the way either ourselves or the way the world works, Well, that directs what we focus on. It filters it. It's what the psychologists call confirmation bias.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you get those pointed in the right direction, fire goes up, we make better use of, and we learn the knowledge we need much more easily.
Yeah, so that makes sense to me. So you see those things as really interdependent.
I do think they're interdependent, but I also believe that everything starts with the choice of what we pay attention to. Because if you wanted to change somebody's belief, you have to entice them, enroll them in paying attention to a different kind of model.
Yes, yes, yes.
If you want to change their fire, well, usually you'd have to change a belief first in order to get at that fire.
Yeah.
If you want to change their knowledge, you've got to get them to pay attention to new knowledge.
Yeah.
So everything starts with that choice of what we pay attention to.
Attention to. Yeah. Boy, I really agree with that. There's a— in fact, I just used this in this most recent book, the Change from the Inside Out book. There's a wonderful poem by A.A. Milne called The Old Sailor. And it's about a guy who gets shipwrecked. And then he just can't decide what to do. He just gets completely stuck in, well, should I build a hut? Or should I make some clothes? Or should I look for food? And he can't do anything. And so in the poem, it says he just wraps himself up in a shawl and just lays down and waits to be saved, you know.
Yeah.
And, and that's lack of focus, right? Yeah, yeah, that's great. Okay, so how do we— the old sailor— how do we get in our way? You're saying that it's in there and we just need to get at it. So what are the key obstacles that we create to our own detriment?
I, I think there's, um, I think we don't consciously choose what we focus on most of the time. It's almost like an abdication. We give up control, we become a victim. And what happens is instead of— so I think that the human experience is we experience events, things happen, and then we attach meaning and feelings to those events and we take action based on that.
Right, right.
And we get lost in the thoughts and feelings, the narrative or the story we have about those events. And that takes us away from reality. Tim Gallwey used to call that the interference.
Right, right.
So all this internal dialogue about things instead of being present with what's actually there. And that to me is the most common way we get in our own way.
That makes complete sense to me, and it's very similar to, you know, I we— I, in Proteus, we talk so much about— and a lot of this is based on things I learned from Tim 40 years ago— about self-talk, how we talk to ourselves. And there are ways in which we all talk to ourselves that are relatively benign, and then there are ways that we talk to ourselves that can really get in the way of our growth, of our happiness, of our learning, all that. Yeah, absolutely. So then, so then let's get practical. I always promise listeners that I will give them some practical takeaways. So what's one thing that you would encourage the folks who are listening to this that they can start doing today to improve their own performance or help others improve theirs?
Can I have several one things?
You got to pick, you got to pick a couple. Okay.
All right. So central to everything in my mind is this choice of what we're going to pay attention to. If I'm thinking about my personal performance, If I exercise my choice, you know, Stephen Covey used to talk about the gap between stimulus and response.
Yes.
If I pay attention to that gap, if I can separate my self-talk, my thoughts and feelings from the actual events, I can begin to see the events more clearly and I will respond more appropriately. So if I'm in a dialogue You know, an everyday dialogue, for instance, might be my wife says, you're home late. And then I've got a— I make that mean she's criticizing me. And from that, I then respond with, well, you're often late as well. If I can create this separation and go, she said I'm home late. What else might she mean by that? What's going on for her instead of just a knee-jerk reaction? Then I can change the outcome. And I would— I believe that that goes on in all these organizations. Every conversation we have is an opportunity to have an impact. And lots of times they go awry because we don't create that separation. We misinterpret things.
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
That would be one thing. I think when I, when I think about leadership or management or parenting, I think what, what I like to call the inside-out mindset, which is a belief that everybody is a phenomenal learner. I think when we come at people from that point of view, it changes.
Yes.
How we interpret what they say, how we interact with them. And the way I try to get people thinking about it is nobody wants to work with a coach whose belief is that you suck.
Right.
I mean, that gets communicated and that just, that lowers our fire.
Absolutely.
Holding that mindset when we're interacting with people, seeing the best in them instead of the worst.
Yes.
I think it's transformational.
Oh, I completely agree. We say a very similar thing. We call the coach mindset believing in someone's potential and wanting to help them succeed. Yeah, you know, just holding that in your mind. It just, it has such a profound impact.
It changes our behavior.
Yes, yes.
Less judgmental. We become more supportive. And I would preach we become more closer to the truth.
Yes.
I really believe it's a fundamental truth.
Yes, yes. Oh man, thank you so much. We, we could talk on and on, and I always promise that this is going to be short and sweet. So I really love your combination of inspiration and practicality. It's a very powerful combo.
Very kind, thank you.
So thanks. So listeners, if you're interested in finding out more, you can go to Alan's website at alan-fine.com Or his company website at insideoutdev.com. And to find out more about how we at Proteus see change as happening from the inside out, stay tuned for more information in this month's newsletter and each month as we move toward our October publication date for the new Change from the Inside Out book. So thank you all for listening. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.
We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at proudestleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.
