Episode 50: Why Professional Coaching Deserves a Bad Rap (with Veterans)

Man, I can't believe it. I think this is like episode number 50. If I've counted these things right, I think this is episode number 50. And man, after this one, it may be my last one. Who knows? Because I'm going to hit something that is really controversial. I know I'm going to piss off people. Today we're going to talk about coaching. In a way that most coaches won't talk about it. And I'm gonna bring up 8 points, 8 points, and number 4 is where people are just gonna go nuts on it. What I'm gonna talk about— oh, real quick, my name is Rob Anderson and I am a certified professional coach. I'm an ICF member. I've been trained in CliftonStrengths, Emergenetics, Ramsey Financial. All these are legitimate coaching programs. And that's just, that's just to name a few. Today what I want to talk about is why coaching has a bad reputation and specifically, specifically why coaching has a bad reputation with veterans. I'm also going to talk about why the right coaching changes everything. And I'm going to tell you what, as an industry, we deserve a bad rap. We deserve distrust. And let me tell you something, there are people out there today— this is an unregulated field, and we're trying desperately to get it regulated, but it's a completely unregulated field. There are people, there are people who are out there that will just get a business card printed. They may or may not file an LLC. They may or may not file with their Secretary of State office, and they call themselves coaches. So today's topic is a tough one. It's why life coaching, transition coaching, financial coaching, leadership coaching, performance coaching They have such a bad reputation among military members. And I get it. I understand it. There's, there's a lot of different understandable reasons. But I'm also going to give you a counterpoint for each concern. I'm going to call out fake or self-ordained coaches who damage the field. And I'm going to give you a counterpoint for each concern. And I'm going to show you what real coaching looks like when it's done right. And at the end of this, man, if this resonates with you and you want to take the next step, you want to be with a real coach, I'll tell you exactly how to do that. No surprises, full transparency. I'm going to let you— I'm going to let you know up front that at the end of this, I'm going to tell you how to connect with me. How to connect with me for a free coaching call. Over the years, I've sat with a lot of veterans on dive boats, around a fire pit, in coffee shops, doing transition workshops, financial coaching, doing communication skills workshops. And every time Coaching comes up, there's at least one person that shakes their head and they're like, nope, coaching, it's not for me. That's not part of my world. And I get it. Most of us didn't have warm experiences with anything that even resembled coaching. We had mandatory resiliency briefings. There was PowerPoints where somebody read word for word off the slide. We had outside consultants come in. They came out of base, they had zero understanding of the culture. All that skepticism, it's earned. But here's what I've discovered, specifically working with veterans, but also out there in the civilian world working with leaders, high performers. The problem isn't coaching. The problem is what many people think coaching is, and that's both from the coachee As well as the coach. And today what I want to do is I want to break down those misunderstandings one by one, and I want to rebuild them with truth, with strength, and with respect. The first one, self-reliance versus vulnerability. One of the biggest reasons coaching gets dismissed with veterans and military members is because the culture rewards self-reliance. Reliance. In the military, come on, think back to it. Or if you're not, I want you to, I want you to hear me out here. You're taught how to push through, stay tough, embrace the suck, rub some dirt on it, drink some water, take some Motrin, handle your own problems. Don't complain. Don't show cracks in the armor. In that environment, asking for help feels dangerous. And it feels like weakness. But here's the counterpoint. Real coaching doesn't ask you to be weak. It asks you to be strategic. You see, coaching isn't dependency. Coaching is performance optimization. It's a force multiplier. It's not an I can't. It's I can do this even better with clarity, with structure, and with direction. You see, you don't have to become less of a warrior by sharpening your tools. You actually become more effective. Second point, mandatory programs Damaged our trust. Think about it. A lot of vets associate coaching with all those check-the-box type trainings. All you know, I mentioned resiliency briefings, suicide prevention PowerPoints, leadership courses, NCO courses. Safety courses where the instructor, they just, they read off of a script. That's not coaching. That's forced compliance education. This is what I've learned as being someone who's been coached as well as someone who provides coaching. It's not forced compliance education. Real coaching is meant for you as an individual, even if that means that you're doing group coaching. That group, that cohort is working together. If you're doing one-on-ones, that coaching's private. And whether it's group or individual, it's tailored for you, for your transition, for your goals. A real coaching session should not feel like a classroom. It should not feel like a workshop. It should feel like a strategy session. And if the military had delivered coaching the way coaching is meant to be done, the reputation would be completely different. But we've had these— this mandatory stuff put on us again and again and again. Coaching isn't mandatory. Coaching's a choice. When I run a coaching session, I don't tell my clients what they ought to do. We discover that for each client, discovers that on their own. It's tailored to you. It's tailored to your goals, where you want to be. Point number 3, it's confusion. It's awfully confused, or it's often confused with therapy, with counseling, with mentorship, with Consulting. It's not therapy. It's not mentorship. It's not counseling. It's not consulting. See, a lot of military members, they lump coaching in the very same category as they put chaplains and career counselors and therapy or therapists, mentors, getting guidance from a senior officer or senior NCO. And coaching isn't any of those. Coaching is future-focused. Coaching is action-oriented. Coaching is strengths-based. Therapy heals the past. If you think about it in these terms, between a wound, a scab, and a scar. You know, wound, it's still bleeding, it's still, you know, maybe has infection in it, it's open, it can catch infection. Well, that's where therapy and counseling come in. If it's a scab, it's somewhat healed over, and we can coach as long as that scab stays in place. But the minute, the moment That, that scab starts to come off and show that wound again. That's where coaching stops and therapy and counseling starts. I'm not a counselor and I'm not a therapist. If it's a scar, then it's been healed over, it's had some time, and now we're thinking going towards the future. That's where coaching comes in. Future-focused, action-oriented, strengths-based. Therapy, counseling, all that, that's all about past. We are looking to activate the future. And this distinction is huge. You see, there's a lot of coaches, and I'll talk about this in a second, but there's a lot of coaches who pretend to be therapists or advice givers or consultants. As a coach working with a veteran, I'm not going to diagnose. See, a veteran doesn't need diagnosis in the coaching phase. They need to seek— they need someone to work with them to seek direction and purpose and mission. See, that's what coaching is all about. And number 4, this is where people in my audience are going to get pissed off. This is where I've got counterparts out there that are going to get pissed off. But I'm calling you out. I want to talk about the elephant in the room, and that's fake coaches, self-ordained coaches, people who go out and get a business card, people go out and get a website. You're lucky if they file with the Secretary of State office. They don't seek ICF membership. See, ICF, International Coaching Federation, that is the gold standard. Of coaching, they have a set of ethics. They have a set of standards. I've seen people who go out and watch YouTube videos, or they'll take a class through Udemy, or they find something on Facebook. Become a life coach in two days. Just one of my classes, Essentials of Coaching, which is an ICF-based coach or coaching class. Just one of those, 43 hours of curriculum. And on top of that, I'm required to do peer coaching outside of class, which gets evaluated. And then after I go through that, then you go through a coaching skills workshop, which is about 20 hours. Where you learn more about coaching and you're observed by a master certified coach. Then after that, I go into another coaching curriculum where I'm working one-on-one. You can't become a coach in 2 days. You can't become a coach in a week. And I've seen that one-week, 2-week classes. They're making great consultants. But they're not ICF affiliated. People going out there watching YouTube videos. Now I'm a life coach. People who don't have training, no supervision, no ethics, no understanding of principles and what you should be doing, what you're in the areas that you need to stay out of. People who promise breakthroughs, but they— all they do is they deliver recycled quotes and a lot of hype. And they've, they've actually harmed veterans. They've— and not just veterans, they've harmed people. They've created distrust, they've caused confusion, and they've given coaching a reputation that honestly is not deserved. But our industry is eating its own. I am all for regulating the coaching industry. I'm all for a set of unified standards. I'm all for having coaches to at least submit paperwork and proof of training through an accredited facility to their state Or actually, I'd rather see it be a national board instead of state boards. You see, real coaches are trained. They're credentialed ethical coaches. You know, they do something very specific. They stay in scope. They ask powerful questions. They partner with a client. They hold space. They don't pretend to be therapists. They don't pretend to be counselors. They don't offer solutions. They walk the journey with that client to create results that are going to stick. Veterans deserve real coaching, not hype, not hustle, not empty motivation. And I'm going to tell you straight up, if So we have a program now where Stan Schur and Neptune Warrior are partnering together that we're going to provide coaches nationwide. And if that coach is not an ICF member, if that coach does not have at least 60 hours of ICF-certified training, and if that coach is not a veteran, they're not working with vets. I don't care how many suicide prevention briefings you've given. I don't care what kind of Facebook or Udemy course that you've been through. Veterans deserve real coaching. All right, number 5. I'll get off that because I'm getting— actually getting a little sweat around the brow because that one gets me riled up. I hate seeing fake coaches out there. I hate seeing fake service dogs. I hate seeing fake coaches. How about this one? Why pay when I have a free VA resource? And that question comes up a lot, and this is one of the barriers. And, and here's the thing, I've got scholarships for, for veterans so they don't have to pay. I've got package deals where someone can buy a coaching package, and when they do it, we do a one-for-one. We'll match it. If they buy a 1-month coaching package, Then in our scholarship, I put a one-month coaching package for a veteran. But that question comes up a lot and is valid. You know, the VA is free. There's a lot of nonprofits that are free. I'm gonna tell you straight up: you get what you pay for. A lot of those services are clinical. A lot of those services have coaches; they're not true ICF coaches. Now, there's a lot that are. There's a lot of— now, I don't want to take away from organizations who are doing good things. I don't want to pull away from that. But a lot of those services are either clinical or they're clinical mindset. Let's take this into the VA. So first of all, the VA does not do coaching. They do counseling. They do therapy. I want you to think of the VA as a hospital. In our metaphor, the VA is a hospital. Coaching is a gym. Counseling, therapy, that stabilizes you. Coaching strengthens you. They're 2 different tools, but they're both valuable. Now, by the way, I want to go back to number 4 just a little bit here because I can't get off that one. If you have a coach who's giving you advice, If you have a coach who is doing things that are prescriptive, they're the ones who are giving you the challenges. If you have a coach that they are the only accountability partner that you have in the long term, that's not a coach, that's a consultant. Coaching strengthens you. Coaching is about clarity, identity, purpose, goals, accountability, forward momentum. It's about rebuilding life after the service and not managing the systems. Again, it's not counseling, it's not therapy, it's not mentorship, it's not consulting. Going on to number 6 here, and that's fear of being labeled or even impacting clearance. A lot of military members fear that talking openly could affect their career or clearance. Coaching doesn't generate clinical notes. Coaching isn't part of your medical record. Coaching isn't reportable. Now, coaching is confidential and we sign confidentiality agreements with our clients, but it's confidential. It's not clinical. It's a safe container for problem solving. It's a great place for reflection. It's someplace where you can do decision-making without the fear of consequence. And by the way, a lot of the veterans I'm working with that are still current military, this alone opens up in ways— it gets veterans to open up in ways they've never experienced, or maybe they haven't experienced it in decades. Number 7, and you know, this one doesn't really pertain to me, but I do want to bring it up because it's something to think about. Now granted, with our scholarship program, our Cordy Gator Rice Scholarship Program, I'm requiring those coaches to have a military background. But number 7, civilian coaches don't understand military culture. And I'll tell you straight up, vets, your coach doesn't have to be military. It's, it's a valid concern because military culture is unique. The humor is different. The trauma is different. The identity is different. The tribe is different. The transition is different. So when a veteran sits down with a coach who doesn't understand that, it can feel invalidating or just plain off. I got to tell you, in 30 years of coaching, oftentimes I sit down with a leader, might be an executive, might be a senior leader, might be an entrepreneur. I don't have to understand their business, but I will tell you that for me, I enjoy Coaching veterans. And all those points that are brought up about tribe being different, transition being different, identity being different— that's why veteran coaches exist. And again, as long as they're true coaches, they're not consultants, they're not trying to play therapist, they're not trying to play counselor, they're not trying to be a mentor. I enjoy it because I understand the language. I understand the lifestyle. I understand the pressure, the grief, the identity shift. But as a coach, you know, when it comes to things like PTSD, and I coach people with PTSD, I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not trying to get to the root of their problem. I'm not doing that counselor stuff. I'm not doing the therapy stuff. And so, you know, it's not about excluding civilians. And I've had a coach that I walked through a couple journeys in life that is not— was not prior military, and they were great. But I enjoy coaching veterans because I do have that experience. But I've also got the corporate experience, and that's why I do leadership coaching. Management coaching, individual coaching, life coaching. So it's not about excluding civilians, but it's about having someone who truly gets your lived experiences. Number 8, the identity clash, the whole mission to meaning. The hardest part about transition isn't rewriting your resume, and I do a lot of resume help. I probably do, I don't know, 6 to 8 resumes a week. It's rewriting your identity. You see, in the military, they've given you a rank, they've given you a role, a mission, a unit, a status, a tribe, a structure. A lot of my work around this has been a Neptune Warrior. You know, one day, you know, transition. Let's just take transition to loss of tribe. One day you're on post, you know where the grocery store is, you know, the commissary, the BX, your friends, your unit. You even kind of know where you stand as far as status because of either rank that's on you or the badges of the cool schools that you've been to, the rank that's on your sleeve or on your chest. But man, when you leave, all that goes away. And you're not just losing a job. I'm walking the path right now with a couple of vets that's going— that are going through this right now. It's not about losing a job. It's losing a version of yourself. And honestly, most veterans don't need therapy for that. Most veterans don't need counseling for that. They need structured process to rebuild identity, to rebuild mission, values, strengths, as well as direction. And that's coaching. Coaching restores purpose for you as an individual where the military used to provide that for you. It took me 6 years to realize that I didn't have to stay in San Antonio, Texas. Because that's where the military put me. And so one day I woke up. I mean, I literally woke up one day and said, we're moving to Idaho. And that's exactly what we did. It was crazy. First, the first week when I came out of the military, not knowing what to wear. I didn't get up in the morning, put that uniform on. I mean, I was kind of used to the, you know, having clothes that matched top and bottom. I just had to pick out the difference between summer weight and winter weight. Coaching restores purpose where the military once provided that for you. Hey, if you've been skeptical about coaching, you're not wrong. Your experiences shaped that. But if today's conversation opened that door even just a little bit, If you're ready to rebuild clarity, identity, confidence, and purpose, then here's your invitation. I told you at the beginning I'd have an invitation at the end. I didn't want to hide that. What I'd like for you to do is book a free discovery call for me. And what we're going to do is we're going to, we're going to talk through where you are, where you want to go, and how coaching can support that mission. There's no pressure. I'm not going to give you a pitch. If at the end you don't want to do coaching, you don't want to try to get a scholarship, then hey, great. We had a great 30-minute conversation. I got to know you, you got to know me. No pressure, no pitch, just partnership and forward momentum. Because as a veteran, you deserve more than survival. You deserve way more than survival. And just day to day where you have to get through and you just have to survive. You deserve to thrive. Check out the website, www.stansurecoaching.com. And you know what? If if you just want some daily motivation, sign up over on Patreon. Do the free stuff, www.patreon.com/stansurecoaching. I would love to get an opportunity to talk to you. Book a call. Let's just get an opportunity to have a good conversation. I'd like to learn more about you. Thank you.