Coaching Lessons

This is episode 212 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Well, hello there, empowered humans. Welcome to another episode and we are going to dive into coaching today. Yes, it's true, I've been coached, and I think you might have been coached sometime in your life, too. And I'm going to dive into how coaching has changed my life and then really take a look at the five major aspects of coaching that can change your life. And typically one of them is going to be more profound than another based on wherever you are in your life. So here we go. How coaching, how getting coached, actually getting coached has changed my life. Coaching has grown me in ways than levels that I never, ever could have imagined. It has profoundly changed the fiber of who I am, who I've chosen to create myself as, and the trajectory of my life. And I never, ever could have predicted what my life would have looked like had it not been for the, I guess, the interjections of the coaching that came along at various times. Coaching that either was unexpected or coaching that was intentional, where I sought out the coaching. So there's a number of ways that I've been coached over the years, but it has been the cause of forgiving and releasing significant amounts of pain and past traumas. It has helped bring me to the top 1% of health and performance. And when I say top 1%, I'm talking in the world. This is for my age or my husband's age. The kind of health and performance that we have is not normal for where the world standards are at this point. Coaching has saved my marriage. Coaching has produced business and contribution in my life that have benefited me and those around me. It has also brought me so much more fulfillment and happiness that would not have been available without it, but based on how I was living, how I was thinking, and who I was being before getting coached. So I'm going to go into a few categories of coaching so you can kind of take a look at your life from the perspective of what I want. Would I need that type of coaching? And this isn't anything formal. This is just some categories that I've created. Two of them are a little more formal, but the rest of the categories are these five. Five are more of what I've categorized as what help most people. What I've seen in over 25 years of being in a profession of coaching. But what I see really helps people a lot. So years ago I was a little kid and most of us were little kids years ago and I was, was in figure skating. My mother put me in figure skating and I didn't want to go. And she basically said just try it for at least a year, one season. And so I had to, I knew I had to do it for that long. And away I went. And I had the general lessons and I wasn't very good. But there was this coach, her name was Kim Orr and. And she wasn't from that town, she wasn't from this little town in northwestern Ontario. She was from somewhere else. And she was so nice, she had an amazing smile, she was so fit. And she was this incredible example that I had never seen before. I had two parents who smoked and were interested in sport and things like that, but didn't really do a lot themselves. They did a lot of things, they worked a lot, but they weren't into sport or they weren't into fitness for themselves personally, other than maybe some recreational things. And I was in this figure skating, these lessons. And I was in the general lessons and I was embarrassed because my parents wouldn't pay for the private lessons. And most of my friends who were in the general lessons, they would also have private lessons so they could be competitive. And I never got those one on one lessons with her. And every once in a while she would give me some extra tips and pointers and coaching. But what it really was, and this is what I learned, it was the environment of coaching. It was that that coach showed me another level of what was possible, not just in figure skating, but also in other areas of life. Eventually, years later, she came to the high school. Her and her partner presented to the high school students about weight training and about fitness. And so that person just went on to be an example of what was possible. And I hadn't seen something like that prior. So sometimes the environment of coaching puts us in the proximity of other people, not just the coach, but other people who are looking to learn and up level as well. So whether it's a gym coaching group, whether it's a mastermind in business, it puts us in the proximity of others who aren't satisfied with status quo, who are looking to grow and looking to learn something different. And that's what I found at a very young age with one of my first experiences with coaching. And that person influenced me so much that it was my first example of understanding what being coachable really was. I would do what I was told, but there was a Big difference between doing what you're told with one coach or one teacher versus really wanting to do what they're asking. That level of coachability was a whole other level. So now if I flash forward to where we are right now, I see this still occurring in how I'm choosing who to be coached by. Because I don't naturally want to be coached by people that I don't respect. They may know something that I don't know. They may have information that I don't have. But if I don't respect them or their methods, then I really have a hard time receiving coaching from that type of person. However they are showing up. And that leads me to number two. And it's a higher standard that coaching creates. The bar is continually raised. There was a point in time where I was the manager of strength and conditioning with the Canadian Sport Institute in Manitoba, and I was working with high performance athletes. There were some coaches at the university who were in the sport of track and one of them approached me to bring, to create a program for them personally. They had gone through some injuries they wanted to work out, and so I did that. And I did it more or less. I don't even think I was paid for it. I think I just. I might have been paid for it a small amount, but I made them this program specific to them, their injuries customized. And then in subsequent weeks I saw my program about three different times. And that program that I made for that person, their name was blotted out and then someone else's name was put in and that coach was using that program for their athletes. And I was trying to talk myself into believing that that was a, a form of flattery and something that I should feel flattered by or thankful that they really liked my programming. But in a university setting, I saw it mostly as plagiarism. And they were, they were pawning it off as their own program. They put their name on it, they put the other athlete's name on it. And I completely lost respect for someone that I really liked, actually. And one of the things I realized is that as I was around those higher performing environments, there's still those elements of loss of integrity, lack of respect, decisions that could be questionable. And I realized that it made my standard even higher. And when you get coached and you get coached by someone you respect and someone who really holds the standard high, coaching keeps elevating that standard because the more someone is coached, and I don't care if it is in a business setting or a sports setting or a. Or A professional, tactical setting. It doesn't matter what the setting is. What really matters is that a coach creates a standard that continues to go higher because they can see in you, in me, what we can't see in ourselves. And the reason that's so profound is that if we never take the risk, if we never actually get brave enough to ask for another pair of eyes to ask for someone else's input, then we never see what we're truly capable of because we're not seeing it within ourselves. So coaching, number two, really creates that higher standard. And number three, and this is action coaching. So action coaching is a category of coaching that most people are looking for when they're first seeking out a coach. Most people are looking for a coach for their business, for themselves, personally, that says tell me what to do. And this is a fantastic form of coaching because it's a DIY or a DI w y. So it's a do it yourself or do it with you. And what that looks like is. When I started my business initially in Winnipeg, Manitoba, I knew that I wanted someone to keep the books really, really clean, really well. I didn't want to be bothered with that. So I sought out a bookkeeper. And that bookkeeper was a D I F Y, which is a do it for you. So that bookkeeper was doing everything for me. I was getting no coaching other than give me these things. Yes, I would comply. I would do exactly what she said, give her what she needed, and then she would do all the things. Now, eventually, when I went to move my business to London, Ontario, she said she wasn't going to continue to do my bookkeeping. It was too challenging with the way she did it to do anything remotely. She did things in person with paper, and so she did it with me. She spent a couple of months where we would do it together so that it was a diwy. Do it with you. So she was coaching me, telling me what to do, but while she was coaching this action coaching, she was doing it with me so that she would do the action, then tell me what to do and I'd do the action. And she'd do the action and then tell me what to do and I'd do the action. So not only was I watching her, she was telling me what to do and then I would do it. And it was a fantastic way for me to learn because then she would just tell me what to do and she wouldn't show me what to do and I wouldn't watch her. So this is a form of coaching that A lot of people look for, they want action coaching, they want to be told what to do. And yet it can be something that is ineffective. If that's not the right coaching for the situation, what ends up happening is that if it's the wrong type of coaching for the situation, someone keeps doing what they're told. But then when that coach leaves, they can never recreate what they were asked to do by the coach or what the coach showed them to do. They might recreate it once, but not consistently. And it's not sustainable. Whereas people who are at a level that they know that they're going to do the things they know they can do them by themselves. They just need to be told exactly what to do. And that's someone who's ideal for action coaching. And that's why action coaching was ideal for me with my bookkeeper in heading to a different city, because she knew I could do it, she knew I was motivated to do it. And then I did it for a number, probably about two years before I hired somebody else. The reason I kept doing it for two years is I wanted to know myself around the numbers, learn the business around the numbers and then hand it off to someone else. So that's an example of action coaching. But the thing about action coaching is that it's a beautiful thing when you know that you are going to do the things. You just need to be told exactly what to do. So it can be an ideal situation. However, if the thing happens that as soon as that coach is gone, you won't do the things and you can't do it without a coach, then sometimes it's worth, and not all the time. Sometimes you just want to keep an action coach around all the time. So that might be a. That may be someone who oversees the business in certain ways. A business coach. It might be a. A physical coach. It might be someone who is guiding you in learning how to fly an airplane. And you want that coach there every single time because you're not looking to get your pilot's license to another rating. You just want that coach with you all the time. So whatever the situation is, action coaching can be very useful. However, causal coaching is the type of coaching that goes much deeper. It's the discovering why we think or do what we do and that is what's creating our actions. Oftentimes when we don't know why we're doing what we're doing, we keep doing it. If we don't know why we are choosing to eat certain things. If we don't know why we lead or treat our employees a certain way, then we keep taking those actions. And they may not be getting the results that we want. But when we discover why we're doing can be very profound. Because when we see it, we can't unsee it, we can't unhear it, we can't unknow it. And once we understand it, it can make profound and immediate changes in our lives. There was a point when this was several years back. I went to an event and this event was called Landmark. And. And I did not seek out this event. This event was gifted to me and gifted to Paul from Lululemon. And we didn't have any idea what we were going to experience at this Landmark event. And it was a three or four day event and Paul was kind enough to go and do the event himself and tell me nothing about it so I could have my own experience, which was just fine. But it was kind of funny because I had no idea what I was walking into. And these people were talking about, you know, that we're meaning making machines and we're the ones that. That make the meaning out of the thing that happened. And the thing that happened is really actually neutral and blah, blah, blah. And I ended up standing up and saying how the situation from my past, from my childhood was not neutral, it was awful, it was traumatic and it was wrong. And. And I went on and they asked me to tell about it and I gave a couple of details and I got coached. I got coached on the spot. I got coached really hard for quite some time until I could see that I was making the meaning out of the things that happened. And of course I'd make that meaning because it was a child's version of what happened. And it profoundly changed my entire view of the world. It profoundly changed the entire view of my entire life. It unleashed and unloaded so much old past, so much old trauma and pain that I felt like I had released the massive weight off my shoulders. And it was the beginning of me understanding that despite the work I thought I had done myself on letting go of my past or healing my past and creating what I wanted for my future, that it really opened up so much more than I couldn't see. And it was the beginning of me being able to grow in profound ways that I wouldn't have been able to without that intervention. And that leads me to more of an accountability coaching number five. And accountability coaching is very, very powerful. And the reason I say that is because when we say we're going to do something because we live with ourselves and we take ourselves for granted. So often, day in and day out, we tend not to honor our own word to ourselves. So accountability coaching is really answering the question, what does it really take to get the results that you want? And I was in a situation not long ago, just over a year ago, where I was coached really intensely by Tony Robbins. Now, despite what you may think about Tony Robbins, whether you think he's amazing or you think he's right out there, it doesn't really matter. What I know is that is what I experienced in being coached by him, and it was incredibly powerful and I was being incredibly stubborn. And yet one thing that I know from that, despite the various approaches that he took, is that the time he spent with me made me want to be accountable to him. The 800 people, I don't know if it was 500, 600, 800, but a lot of people over 500 people that I was coached in front of made me want to be accountable to them and not step back into ways of thinking that weren't serving me and my husband. And so accountability can be extremely powerful because of our deep desire to want to stay with people, to not be rejected from our tribe, to want to please people even and even more than being accountable to ourselves. So much more than being accountable to ourselves. So the environment of coaching, that's the proximity, the higher standing, the higher standard that coaching creates, that's that next level, the action coaching that we might need, that how to the skill set, the tactics, the strategy, the causal coaching, understanding why we're doing what's not working, why we're doing what is working. And the accountability coaching are such powerful, powerful ways to get the results that we want in our life or to go in a direction that is another level that actually opens up what we had no idea what was possible. So, so powerful. Every major turning point in my life that I have been in control of came from coaching in some way. And when I say that, I mean that of course there were events in my life that were circumstances I had zero control over. But the ones that I've been in control over, the biggest turning points came when I received some form of coaching. And sometimes I wasn't very receptive to it, but someone was a stand for me and a stand for my higher self. And when they were, then I was able to finally hear what they had to say. And that has enabled me to expand my business, save my marriage, deal with serious past traumas, and not bring it into my future. It's enabled me to create the life that I want instead of continually recreating significant historic events that don't need to be in my future. It's enabled me to have the discipline and consistency that give me the health that most people don't see in a lifetime, let alone when they're almost 50 years old. Coaching has been one of the most profound things in my life and so many people that I've interacted with that it is an absolute honor to be able to be a coach, to be able to help people to get to their next level, to have them be able to make a difference for other people. So if there's a moment that you're uncertain about getting coached from someone who's a professional, or you are uncertain about your ability to support or coach others, and that might be in your area of expertise, it might be in coaching kids in sport. If you're ever uncertain about that, just take the moment and consider the ripple effects that you can create that can really make a difference for someone else. Because I can easily say that without coaching, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be here today, I wouldn't be in my marriage, I may not be alive. I definitely wouldn't have the business expansion or changes that I've made. These are massive changes that I've made that have been sparked by in person coaching that would have been shelved to another day, that never would have come had I not taken action. And that's what it's done for me. So as you can tell, I believe very, very strongly in taking that action. Not because it's the next neat thing to do, but because if you don't, the likelihood of you doing it next week, next month, in the next six months, minimal. There's the diminished returns as we don't take action. We get further and further away from that thing we were so excited about, that thing we wanted to do for ourselves, that area we wanted to grow in that trip, we wanted to take the next step in our career we wanted to do, we get further and further away from it, unless we actually start stepping into it. And we usually need help. Because I can tell you this, our brains do not want to get uncomfortable. And if you're going to do anything different than you're currently doing, then your brain wants you to not do it. And that's why a coach is so powerful. And the remarkable thing about this is that had I not gone to certain scenarios, like the landmark event, like a huge date with Destiny, Tony Robbin event with my husband, I wouldn't have taken the action that I did, I wouldn't have had a coach on a regular basis. So this is one of the reasons that we run the Zenith retreat. And I know you've heard it on this podcast, you might have heard me mention it to you in person. But it's not the. The Zenith is not something that Paul and I do on the day to day. It's not part of. It's not part of our day to day work career. It's a labor of love. It's something we don't do often and when we do it, it is an absolute passion project. It is an incredible labor of love. It takes an incredible amount of work to get it organized, to get it off the ground, to make it happen. And it's incredibly transformational. It's the type of experience that brings somebody to that next level that they didn't know they had. But we can see that it's there because we've either been there or we've seen it in hundreds, even thousands of other people who couldn't see it in themselves, but we knew it was there. Those same signs, those same signals, that same urge, that same want, that belief that, oh, something could be just better. Maybe it was the health, maybe it was the deeper connection in the relationship, maybe it was the clean eating, knowing you could do it, but you just needed the support. So this is the opportunity for you to take massive action for your life. Not for anyone else, not for anything else, but for your life. Because your life is so impactful to others, we often don't even see it. But I know it. Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're a leader. You're an achiever of some sort. And that means that there are so many people who look to you and who look up to you. So wherever you go, however high you get in terms of your next expansion, that helps them into their next expansion. Whoever you lead, whoever you support, whoever you trust and who trusts you, you impact them. And we invite you to our zenith because if you're the type of person that shows up for others on a consistent basis, really cares about your best health, really wants to get to your next level in your leadership, then we want you at the Zenith. It's very, very intimate. It's very, very magical and exclusive and I really hope you can join us. It is not a relaxing yoga retreat. It is an endeavor of growth. And there's so much self care and relaxation and nourishment and also fun, hard, incredible coaching and excursions and beach time and magic and connection and laughter and joy. It's very, very profound. So if this is up your alley, then join us. Keep playing big. Get coached. At some point or another, if this is something that you're ever interested in, we're here to support you. We've got all kinds of options. And keep being who you are for those that you serve in the world because you really, really matter. I acknowledge you for stepping up and stepping in to playing big in this world. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership Coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more.