March 26, 2025 • 39 mins
In this engaging conversation, Claire Pedrick and Mike Porteous delve into the transformative world of confidence-centered coaching. Mike shares his inspiring journey from sports coaching to a philosophy that prioritises belief, inner growth, and the ambitions of each individual. Discover how this approach redefines success and empowers people to achieve beyond expectations.
Takeaways
- Mike's coaching journey began with a personal transformation through running.
- Confidence-centered coaching emphasizes individual feelings and ambitions.
- Success in coaching is measured by people’s experience, not just outcomes.
- Treating people’s ambitions as precious gifts fosters growth.
- Inner work is essential for both coach and athlete.
- Coaching is about creating a supportive environment, not just techniques.
If you have an alternative name for coaching, please email your idea to info@3dcoaching.com with the heading Podcast Gift. We will pick someone to get a free copy of Mike’s book
- Buy Mike’s book: Beyond Belief: The Art of Confidence Centred Coaching
- Contact Mike via his website https://www.zigzagconfidence.com/
- Contact Claire by emailing info@3dcoaching.com or checking out her 3D Coaching Supervision Community
If you like this episode, subscribe or follow The Coaching Inn on your podcast platform or our YouTube Channel to hear or see new episodes as they drop.
If you’d like to find out more about 3D Coaching, you can get all our new ideas and offers in our weekly email.
Coming Up:
- Join Claire for an Open House at The Coaching Inn on Friday 28th March 2025 08.00-18.00 (UK). Come when you like. Stay as long as you like. Book here
Key Words
coaching, confidence-centered coaching, personal journey, belief, sports coaching, Mike Porteous, Claire Pedrick, coaching philosophy, inner journey, coaching techniques
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn I'm your host, ClairePedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Mike Porteous, who I met a couple of years
ago.
And I invited him to The Coaching Inn ages ago, and we're here because his book is aboutto come out, Beyond Belief, The Art of Confident Centred Coaching.
(00:37):
If you want access to The Coaching Inn every week,
remember to subscribe or follow on your podcast platform.
And also if you want to see it on video, we're on YouTube on the 3D Coaching YouTubechannel.
So Mike, hello.
Hi there, hi.
Thanks so much for having me.
(00:58):
Ah, and it's such a delight to see you again when the copies are hard and real andbeautiful.
you
So before we get onto the book, which we will of course talk about, tell us a bit aboutyour journey into coaching.
Okay.
(01:18):
Well, the first thing I should say is I'm a sports coach.
This is different from probably most of your audience.
And maybe that's one of the things we can pick up as we go along.
You know, what's different, what's the same, how you get lessons from one to the other.
(01:41):
But yeah, so I'm a sports coach.
work with people going for quite big endurance events, particularly triathlon, but alsothings like long distance swimming, long distance cycling, marathons, ultramarathons,
(02:01):
anything long and potentially painful.
It seems to be my niche.
How did I get into coaching?
I was mapping this out recently.
And of course, you can just keep going further and further and further back.
(02:24):
I won't go through the full story, I was never a sporty person.
That's probably the first thing to say.
You know, was quite skinny.
not particularly talented, useless at football, although absolutely desperate to be pickedas part of teams, but always one of the last to be picked.
(02:55):
And through a series of events, I managed to get into running.
And so my first experience of being coached was at my local athletic club.
(03:15):
where someone spotted this kind of rather skinny shy, not particularly good novice andjust showed, basically just showed an interest.
And when I think back to it, I think he prescribed quite a lot of detailed things for meto do, quite a lot of which I didn't actually follow.
(03:43):
But just the fact of this person showing an interest in someone who had never been thoughtof as, if you like, worthy of interest.
Wow, I think that's like one of the
those key moments that you look back on and you think, oh yeah, that affected how I becamea coach and how I want to be as a coach.
(04:12):
how you became a human.
Yeah, well, that whole experience of getting into running was really, really important forme because I'd had a pretty unhealthy, rather unhappy sort of adolescence and younger
(04:33):
period.
And running was just, it just sort of took me to this place where suddenly I felt like,you know, wow, I'm not just, I'm quite good at this.
but I really enjoy this.
I'm finding something in myself that I didn't know was there.
There's like this kind of thrilled sense of discovery almost.
(04:59):
How good could I be?
And again, I think that's something that's really important for the way in which I'vedeveloped my coaching.
It's much less about the results as in measured by
times or places or medals.
It's much more about how can I help myself and how can I help the people I'm coaching.
(05:28):
There's a phrase I often use, surprise ourselves with what we can do.
Take ourselves to a place where you're just thinking, wow, I don't believe, I neverbelieved I could do this.
So again, that's really quite a profound element in that journey to becoming a coach.
(05:56):
I actually became a qualified coach much, much later.
I went through what's nicely called a life change in my early 50s.
Left what people would call a sensible, proper job.
And I first started with a friend, a mountain bike business, where the idea was...
(06:24):
We would help people who had never ridden a mountain bike before, take them on tours.
We did some super deals with hotels along the South Downs Way to take people from one endto the other.
As an idea, it was beautiful.
(06:44):
As a business, it was hopeless.
I love your honesty.
But that process of being with people, particularly people who'd never ridden a mountainbike before, or who were in this new place for them on the South Downs, again, that took
(07:07):
me to this place of thinking, how can I help someone who's feeling completely out ofplace?
Some of the clients who came, they'd been, in inverted commas, gifted.
a session with us, know, a well-meaning partner had said, you know, you don't likecycling, here's a voucher, go with these people.
(07:36):
And people kept saying, know, I felt so confident, you I came full of fear.
And I'd be thinking, know, what is it I'm doing?
And how can I capture it?
(07:57):
Again, it was that element of kind of surprising myself as a mountain bike instructor byseeing that there was somewhere working that I wasn't quite sure of that really seemed to
help people and thinking also, what's the most important thing here?
(08:22):
Is it about teaching particular techniques?
Or is it about making someone feel really comfortable in the place that they're in so thatthey can find for themselves what works and they can find for themselves the excitement of
where it takes them?
(08:45):
But as I said, as a business, it didn't work.
So after a couple of years or so, think, by chance again, I got into triathlon coaching.
There was a new club just started up here in Brighton near where I lived.
(09:08):
And they needed coaches until I kind of went through all the coaching.
coaching qualifications and then from that also got on to swim coaching and obviously oneand cycling.
But very, very early on I just thought there's something missing here.
(09:32):
The way in which I'm being taught to be a coach, it's all about kind of...
how I communicate down my technical expertise.
I know what you should be doing.
(09:52):
so here's a set of ways of being a coach, of commanding the space, of being the expert inthe room.
And if it doesn't work, well, it's probably your problem because you're not reallylistening carefully enough or you're not following through.
Yeah.
And I just thought, isn't, and again, I think it was back to that mountain bikeexperience.
(10:17):
It made me think, it has to be something about the way in which I'm feeling in the momentand the way in which this person is feeling.
And so from that, eventually created what I'm now calling confidence-centered coaching.
(10:39):
Nice.
And yeah, we'll see with the book how far it goes.
I love that what you've just described about the mountain biking and about the triathlonwork is really a replication of your own experience with that first running coach that it
(11:00):
was the believing in that was much more important than the technical.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is this is a key principle for me in confidence centered coaching.
It's to treat the ambitions of the person in front of you as if it's the most preciousgift you could possibly be asked to share.
(11:28):
You treat it with utmost respect.
Even though you might be thinking
you know, why can't this person ride a bike?
Where have they been?
Or, you know, sometimes I'll have people come who have ambitions that in the moment don'tactually seem that realistic.
(11:56):
But I have to kind of almost work myself through a process of saying, no, find out more.
What's behind this?
And treat that ambition, like I say, as something which is, it's worthy of more respect.
And I'll give you an example, if I may.
(12:23):
It's one that I tell other people, other coaches, when I'm talking about this approach.
But there was this guy came to me some years ago who's very, very built up.
He'd obviously spent hours and hours and hours in a gym.
(12:45):
a really big solid man.
But he got in touch and he said he wanted to do an Ironman triathlon, which is pretty muchthe longest, most arduous event there is in triathlon.
It's pure endurance.
It's not the kind of sport that you would think of, you know, a kind of bodybuilding typeperson to do.
(13:15):
So we sat down and he said he wanted to do this Ironman and then he said, I know all thetime I'm kind of looking at him thinking, Blimey, this is not the shape of your typical
Ironman triathlete.
(13:38):
And then he said, and by the way I want to do it.
in effectively about 10 months time and I don't want to do any triathlon before.
So I was sat there and I could see the thoughts going around in my head thinking wellthat's not how we do it you know.
(14:01):
I thought about my own experience you know I started doing sprints and then the followingyear I did bit longer and then a bit longer and eventually got to
think after about five years did an Ironman.
So I'm thinking, that's not how we do it.
And it's, and by the way I can't swim, so you need to teach me to swim.
(14:30):
Yes, and I go, oh wow.
Fortunately, I stopped myself from the, don't do it like that.
Or, what on earth are you thinking of?
And we just talked a bit about, you know, what was it that excited him about this idea?
(14:52):
And how much time would he have with his work and family commitments and what wasimportant for him?
because it's a pretty, pretty big challenge.
It must be something.
And the more we talk, the more I think I'd say, I don't know if this is going to bepossible.
(15:17):
But wow, is it going to be exciting?
And is it going to be a big challenge for me to see where we go?
And so we did.
And he did his, I'm out.
But when a bit later when we talked through which ones to go for, of course he opted forone of the most difficult, sort of mountainous ones out there.
(15:49):
But again, that was part of what was driving him.
So I had to think, show respect for the ambition and always be curious.
Always ask yourself.
I need to know more here before I jump in with some judgment.
(16:10):
I absolutely love the honesty in you of the journey that you had to go in on from really?
Ha
Extraordinary.
Thank you for sharing that.
But do you find that in your work that you could have someone in front of you and you'rethinking, my God, this isn't realistic or?
(16:37):
But I think what's different and really useful about what you're describing, Mike, is thatthere is a visible output at the end of these people's goals.
So often in the coaching that I do, it's about more this, more that.
I mean, it might be about changing a job, but often the outcome is not as measurable asthe outcome that you've just described.
(17:07):
And the gap is less apparent.
So we might imagine there's a gap, but actually what you're describing is that you saw
this shape body of somebody who couldn't swim and then you saw the ambition and so there'sa lot of looking there isn't there and actually seeing well I can see where you are now
(17:32):
and we will be able to see when you've done the thing and he did it didn't he?
Of course he did.
Yes, he surprised me and he surprised himself with what he could do.
But there's something important here that about.
(17:58):
If I'm a coach and I'm operating as I'm taught to be a coach, then success gets measuredby, has this chap done it?
Or has this other athlete got on the podium or got into the Great Britain team thatthey're looking to qualify for?
(18:23):
But if I'm operating more thinking in the way I've developed with confidence andself-belief at the very heart of everything that we do.
then that doesn't become the definition of success.
The definition of success becomes how does that person feel at the start line?
(18:49):
How are they feeling in the moment between the start line and the finish?
And the results, as in, you know, measured in that rather narrow objective way, they'lltake care of themselves.
Yeah.
So I don't see his success just in terms of, he did it.
(19:16):
I do it, I think of it more, this particular person, I'm thinking more, he just got soexcited about swimming that he went on to say, you know, I want to swim the channel.
Can you help me swim the channel?
I haven't been able to do because of various things, particularly COVID got in the way.
(19:43):
But his sense of what he could do just went so far beyond where he'd started out from,even though he'd started with actually a quite extraordinary challenge.
That for me is more rewarding than the medal he got at the end, even though that is quiteamazing.
(20:10):
Yeah, so it's the inner journey.
Yeah, how we feel.
And as a coach, I want that too.
I want to measure my kind of, if you like, success, my performance in terms of how am Ileft feeling?
Do I feel a kind of easiness in the moment where I just, there's no clutter in my headabout what I should say or how to analyze, you know, whatever it might be.
(20:44):
Does it just, do I finish a session and I think, wow, where did the time go?
And where did that idea come up from?
And yeah.
So you're a coach in an industry of coaches who teach technique and you don't teachtechnique.
(21:08):
I'm a coach in an industry where people who come to us often think we'll give themtechniques and we won't.
So what should we call ourselves if we're not calling ourselves coaches, Mike?
The eternal question.
Hmm.
Yes, I'm not sure.
(21:33):
This is the big challenge and this is what I think, well, I already know I'm facing whenI've given workshops to coaches or shared some of the ideas in informal groups that I
belong to.
I've had people say, well, why would anyone come to us?
(22:00):
All your lovely...
touchy feely stuff, Mike.
If it's all about feel, why would they come?
Because we think, traditionally, we think of certainly a sports coach as being the expert.
We have the expert knowledge.
(22:20):
Now I do need that expert knowledge.
I'm not saying you just forget.
I need to teach that guy how to swim.
But I do it from a point of view of starting with, well, how does he feel when he's in thewomb?
you know, does he feel like he's in a fight with the water or does he just feel panicky orwhen I see him getting frustrated that it's just not working?
(22:52):
I have to do more than just say, well, you need to get your arm over like this.
Or you need to bubble out this way.
And I have to do it in a way where I'm not kind of positioning myself as the owner of theright way.
(23:12):
There's a phrase I like using, who owns the right way?
If I'm helping someone with their swimming,
I first have to understand what's going on for them when they're in the water.
(23:33):
Before I'd say anything about, you should bubble out this way, or you should have your armcome in here.
Even though those are the right things, technically, to get to.
So I'm probably, well, I know I can be quite a frustrating coach for some people.
(23:59):
Cause they'll, we'll be working on, yeah, we'll be working on a particular technique, youknow, and I've suggested, know, why not try this out?
See if it works for you.
Tell me how it feels when you get to the end.
So they swim a couple of lengths.
(24:19):
pop the heads up and the very first thing that often people would say is, how did I look?
which effectively is like saying, did I do it right?
By your expert view.
And rather irritatingly, I always say, I'm not going to tell you.
(24:41):
Tell me first, how did it feel?
Did you feel smoother?
Did you feel more relaxed?
Could you feel the water in your hands more?
And N, and only then might I then say, I think we could take it a bit further.
(25:04):
Yeah.
Or maybe, brilliant, hang on to that feeling.
Keep going with that feeling.
because they're the person who has to own the right way.
It's with them, it's not with me.
Even though I am in this relationship, I am the expert.
(25:28):
I'm not the expert in how they feel.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I want to put a challenge out to our listeners, Mike.
What should we be calling ourselves?
What could, no, that's, I don't like that question.
What could we be calling ourselves?
(25:49):
What could Mike be calling himself?
If it's not coach, what is it?
So why don't we set a challenge?
So if you email, if you email me and then I'll pass them on to Mike.
So email info at 3dcoaching.com.
with Mike in the title, then we'll know it's about this podcast.
(26:10):
And Mike will pick one and we'll let you have a free copy of his book.
We'll get that sent out to you.
And the book's called Beyond Belief, the Art of Confidence Centred Coaching.
So we'd love to hear your view, because so many times in conversations here at thecoaching in or in trainings, I hear people go,
(26:32):
Coaching's not the right word for this thing, is it?
So here's your challenge, lovely listeners.
What might the right word be?
Do you know, the whole time we've been talking, Mike, I have been in my head, standing onthe north coast of Spain with a sign that said Santiago, 700 kilometres.
(27:01):
And thinking about, as you've been talking, I've been thinking, you know, the journey of athousand miles begins with a single step.
Well, the journey of 700 kilometers certainly begins with a single step.
And I just love what you've been describing about the inner journey.
(27:26):
big things.
Hmm.
What's your hope?
Well, the book forms part of an attempt to, in a sense, kind of shake up the sportscoaching world.
(27:49):
Like I said, I just think we're missing something so important.
So my hope is to be able to get into the big sports organizations and
And basically I asked that question, I recently did a workshop for people in UK coachingand I positioned it, the very first thing was what if, what if we made confidence the
(28:23):
centre of coaching.
Not because I'm saying I have all the detailed answers here by the book.
More just to open up a different way of thinking to really challenge ourselves.
(28:44):
I'm, well, I know different people will come up with different answers, but if we couldjust get away from this sense of a coach
is a coach's success is measured by the performance of the people that they're workingwith.
(29:06):
This imbalance of the relationship, who's the expert, who owns the right wing.
In the process, I think we need to just completely rethink how we understand confidence.
I think the ways in which we typically think and talk about confidence is just deeplyunhelpful.
(29:31):
We think of it as a thing that some people have and some don't.
And if they don't, they really should be fixed.
So we send them off to an expert to do it.
or there's some clever set of words that will fix this thing called confidence.
And I just don't believe it.
(29:54):
I think it starts again with the feeling, how I feel, how I feel in the moment.
how the people I'm working with feel about our relationship, the relationships of trustthat we want to develop.
(30:15):
And then how I can help people at the very first step of the Santa, you on the path toSantiago or wherever, whatever it might be.
How can I help people in that moment feel
What I think is a kind of deeper, in a sense, sort of sensation-based understanding thatwe then later on come to call confidence.
(30:49):
There's something that you said, I think you've said, that you haven't said, but I thinkyou have said.
When you said it's not just a set of special words.
All the way through this conversation, the theme that I've noticed is.
(31:11):
somebody believes in somebody else.
And that's where the journey starts.
Somebody else believed in you.
You believed in Iron Man.
And what was beautiful about that story is you had to do some work.
(31:31):
You had to do some work in order to believe in that person.
And it feels like the inner work is shared.
So there's inner work for the coach in service of that inner work developing in the personthat you're coaching.
(31:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's very, very true.
in order to create that, I call it an assured space in which the coaching will flow.
in order to create that space where we're both feeling at ease.
(32:21):
I have to come as myself.
I can't come pretending to be something I'm not.
And nor can I come with my head cluttered up with, here are the five things that a coachshould do.
Yeah.
And as you say, that takes work.
(32:42):
Brene Brown would say, doing the work, I have to develop a sense of myself, aself-awareness, a sense of what I really believe in, what my values are.
And yeah, Brennan Brown would talk about it as being authentic, being true to yourself.
(33:07):
And I think a lovely thing is that if I'm coming like that, which will almost inevitablyinclude a big, big element of hesitancy, I don't know if I can help that guy in the 10
months he's gone.
(33:30):
but it has like a kind of a ripple effect.
It seems to allow the other person to be themselves.
If I'm not pretending to be something I'm not, my authenticity in a way makes, is part ofhelping create that, that, that easiness between us.
(33:57):
and it helps create an environment as well where I can really listen to what's happening.
again, because I'm not trying to be something that I'm not.
My attention can be so more, more kind of single mindedly focused on the person in frontof me.
(34:21):
What a beautiful description of humility, Mike.
You might not own the word, but I want to offer the word.
Mm-hmm.
I loved when you said, and I don't know if we can do that.
Because that's the truth, isn't it?
(34:43):
There are no guarantees.
And we're travelling together with somebody else.
Hmm.
What wonderful thing to talk to you and I want to, I've read Mike's book and I want to sayI love it in many ways.
(35:04):
And one of the ways that I commend to you lovely listeners is that sometimes reading abook about a craft isn't exactly ours, but is ours, can give us insights into the way we
work in a way that an in industry book doesn't.
So I really recommend it.
So beyond belief.
the art of confidence-centered coaching and do email us info at 3dcoaching.com with whatshould we be calling ourselves.
(35:33):
With Mike in the subject line, that'd be great.
So Mike, if people want to talk to you about this, how do they get in contact with you?
directly, I think.
And I'd by Mike at zigzagconfidence.com.
(35:55):
Mike at SigSig Confidence.
And there's also a website, which is zigzagconfidence.com, where there's lots more ofthese ideas and lots of blogs and links to how to put in a pre-order for the book.
That's not too much of a commercial plug.
(36:20):
But I...
Mike's website.
There you are, team.
But I really love to hear from people outside of sport.
In the book, as you know, there's quite a few conversations with people with nothing to dowith sport.
(36:41):
Because I think, you know, I can learn and sports coaches can learn so much from, forexample, there's a piece
where I interviewed a psychotherapist who works with quite challenging young people.
(37:02):
Wow, what an amazing lesson in empathy and listening and again, creating a space wheresomeone can just open up.
There's also a chapter that draws very, very heavily on my partner's experience.
(37:23):
She's a dance artist and a choreographer.
And just learning from her how she creates beautiful, imaginative work that draws inpeople with no background in the arts world or in dance.
Wow, these are lessons in creativity.
(37:45):
so far beyond what you're ever taught on a sports coaching qualification.
So yes, that was a long winded way of saying, please get in touch.
I'd be so interested in finding out how different people do these kinds of things indifferent
(38:13):
with different aims or different contexts.
Brilliant.
So get in touch with Mike, think of the name and we'll be back next week at the CoachingInn.
Thank you, Mike, for coming.
What an absolute delight to talk to you.
Thank you so much.
and thank you for listening.
(38:33):
Bye bye.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn I'm your host, ClairePedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Mike Porteous, who I met a couple of years
ago.
And I invited him to The Coaching Inn ages ago, and we're here because his book is aboutto come out, Beyond Belief, The Art of Confident Centred Coaching.
(00:37):
If you want access to The Coaching Inn every week,
remember to subscribe or follow on your podcast platform.
And also if you want to see it on video, we're on YouTube on the 3D Coaching YouTubechannel.
So Mike, hello.
Hi there, hi.
Thanks so much for having me.
(00:58):
Ah, and it's such a delight to see you again when the copies are hard and real andbeautiful.
you
So before we get onto the book, which we will of course talk about, tell us a bit aboutyour journey into coaching.
Okay.
(01:18):
Well, the first thing I should say is I'm a sports coach.
This is different from probably most of your audience.
And maybe that's one of the things we can pick up as we go along.
You know, what's different, what's the same, how you get lessons from one to the other.
(01:41):
But yeah, so I'm a sports coach.
work with people going for quite big endurance events, particularly triathlon, but alsothings like long distance swimming, long distance cycling, marathons, ultramarathons,
(02:01):
anything long and potentially painful.
It seems to be my niche.
How did I get into coaching?
I was mapping this out recently.
And of course, you can just keep going further and further and further back.
(02:24):
I won't go through the full story, I was never a sporty person.
That's probably the first thing to say.
You know, was quite skinny.
not particularly talented, useless at football, although absolutely desperate to be pickedas part of teams, but always one of the last to be picked.
(02:55):
And through a series of events, I managed to get into running.
And so my first experience of being coached was at my local athletic club.
(03:15):
where someone spotted this kind of rather skinny shy, not particularly good novice andjust showed, basically just showed an interest.
And when I think back to it, I think he prescribed quite a lot of detailed things for meto do, quite a lot of which I didn't actually follow.
(03:43):
But just the fact of this person showing an interest in someone who had never been thoughtof as, if you like, worthy of interest.
Wow, I think that's like one of the
those key moments that you look back on and you think, oh yeah, that affected how I becamea coach and how I want to be as a coach.
(04:12):
how you became a human.
Yeah, well, that whole experience of getting into running was really, really important forme because I'd had a pretty unhealthy, rather unhappy sort of adolescence and younger
(04:33):
period.
And running was just, it just sort of took me to this place where suddenly I felt like,you know, wow, I'm not just, I'm quite good at this.
but I really enjoy this.
I'm finding something in myself that I didn't know was there.
There's like this kind of thrilled sense of discovery almost.
(04:59):
How good could I be?
And again, I think that's something that's really important for the way in which I'vedeveloped my coaching.
It's much less about the results as in measured by
times or places or medals.
It's much more about how can I help myself and how can I help the people I'm coaching.
(05:28):
There's a phrase I often use, surprise ourselves with what we can do.
Take ourselves to a place where you're just thinking, wow, I don't believe, I neverbelieved I could do this.
So again, that's really quite a profound element in that journey to becoming a coach.
(05:56):
I actually became a qualified coach much, much later.
I went through what's nicely called a life change in my early 50s.
Left what people would call a sensible, proper job.
And I first started with a friend, a mountain bike business, where the idea was...
(06:24):
We would help people who had never ridden a mountain bike before, take them on tours.
We did some super deals with hotels along the South Downs Way to take people from one endto the other.
As an idea, it was beautiful.
(06:44):
As a business, it was hopeless.
I love your honesty.
But that process of being with people, particularly people who'd never ridden a mountainbike before, or who were in this new place for them on the South Downs, again, that took
(07:07):
me to this place of thinking, how can I help someone who's feeling completely out ofplace?
Some of the clients who came, they'd been, in inverted commas, gifted.
a session with us, know, a well-meaning partner had said, you know, you don't likecycling, here's a voucher, go with these people.
(07:36):
And people kept saying, know, I felt so confident, you I came full of fear.
And I'd be thinking, know, what is it I'm doing?
And how can I capture it?
(07:57):
Again, it was that element of kind of surprising myself as a mountain bike instructor byseeing that there was somewhere working that I wasn't quite sure of that really seemed to
help people and thinking also, what's the most important thing here?
(08:22):
Is it about teaching particular techniques?
Or is it about making someone feel really comfortable in the place that they're in so thatthey can find for themselves what works and they can find for themselves the excitement of
where it takes them?
(08:45):
But as I said, as a business, it didn't work.
So after a couple of years or so, think, by chance again, I got into triathlon coaching.
There was a new club just started up here in Brighton near where I lived.
(09:08):
And they needed coaches until I kind of went through all the coaching.
coaching qualifications and then from that also got on to swim coaching and obviously oneand cycling.
But very, very early on I just thought there's something missing here.
(09:32):
The way in which I'm being taught to be a coach, it's all about kind of...
how I communicate down my technical expertise.
I know what you should be doing.
(09:52):
so here's a set of ways of being a coach, of commanding the space, of being the expert inthe room.
And if it doesn't work, well, it's probably your problem because you're not reallylistening carefully enough or you're not following through.
Yeah.
And I just thought, isn't, and again, I think it was back to that mountain bikeexperience.
(10:17):
It made me think, it has to be something about the way in which I'm feeling in the momentand the way in which this person is feeling.
And so from that, eventually created what I'm now calling confidence-centered coaching.
(10:39):
Nice.
And yeah, we'll see with the book how far it goes.
I love that what you've just described about the mountain biking and about the triathlonwork is really a replication of your own experience with that first running coach that it
(11:00):
was the believing in that was much more important than the technical.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is this is a key principle for me in confidence centered coaching.
It's to treat the ambitions of the person in front of you as if it's the most preciousgift you could possibly be asked to share.
(11:28):
You treat it with utmost respect.
Even though you might be thinking
you know, why can't this person ride a bike?
Where have they been?
Or, you know, sometimes I'll have people come who have ambitions that in the moment don'tactually seem that realistic.
(11:56):
But I have to kind of almost work myself through a process of saying, no, find out more.
What's behind this?
And treat that ambition, like I say, as something which is, it's worthy of more respect.
And I'll give you an example, if I may.
(12:23):
It's one that I tell other people, other coaches, when I'm talking about this approach.
But there was this guy came to me some years ago who's very, very built up.
He'd obviously spent hours and hours and hours in a gym.
(12:45):
a really big solid man.
But he got in touch and he said he wanted to do an Ironman triathlon, which is pretty muchthe longest, most arduous event there is in triathlon.
It's pure endurance.
It's not the kind of sport that you would think of, you know, a kind of bodybuilding typeperson to do.
(13:15):
So we sat down and he said he wanted to do this Ironman and then he said, I know all thetime I'm kind of looking at him thinking, Blimey, this is not the shape of your typical
Ironman triathlete.
(13:38):
And then he said, and by the way I want to do it.
in effectively about 10 months time and I don't want to do any triathlon before.
So I was sat there and I could see the thoughts going around in my head thinking wellthat's not how we do it you know.
(14:01):
I thought about my own experience you know I started doing sprints and then the followingyear I did bit longer and then a bit longer and eventually got to
think after about five years did an Ironman.
So I'm thinking, that's not how we do it.
And it's, and by the way I can't swim, so you need to teach me to swim.
(14:30):
Yes, and I go, oh wow.
Fortunately, I stopped myself from the, don't do it like that.
Or, what on earth are you thinking of?
And we just talked a bit about, you know, what was it that excited him about this idea?
(14:52):
And how much time would he have with his work and family commitments and what wasimportant for him?
because it's a pretty, pretty big challenge.
It must be something.
And the more we talk, the more I think I'd say, I don't know if this is going to bepossible.
(15:17):
But wow, is it going to be exciting?
And is it going to be a big challenge for me to see where we go?
And so we did.
And he did his, I'm out.
But when a bit later when we talked through which ones to go for, of course he opted forone of the most difficult, sort of mountainous ones out there.
(15:49):
But again, that was part of what was driving him.
So I had to think, show respect for the ambition and always be curious.
Always ask yourself.
I need to know more here before I jump in with some judgment.
(16:10):
I absolutely love the honesty in you of the journey that you had to go in on from really?
Ha
Extraordinary.
Thank you for sharing that.
But do you find that in your work that you could have someone in front of you and you'rethinking, my God, this isn't realistic or?
(16:37):
But I think what's different and really useful about what you're describing, Mike, is thatthere is a visible output at the end of these people's goals.
So often in the coaching that I do, it's about more this, more that.
I mean, it might be about changing a job, but often the outcome is not as measurable asthe outcome that you've just described.
(17:07):
And the gap is less apparent.
So we might imagine there's a gap, but actually what you're describing is that you saw
this shape body of somebody who couldn't swim and then you saw the ambition and so there'sa lot of looking there isn't there and actually seeing well I can see where you are now
(17:32):
and we will be able to see when you've done the thing and he did it didn't he?
Of course he did.
Yes, he surprised me and he surprised himself with what he could do.
But there's something important here that about.
(17:58):
If I'm a coach and I'm operating as I'm taught to be a coach, then success gets measuredby, has this chap done it?
Or has this other athlete got on the podium or got into the Great Britain team thatthey're looking to qualify for?
(18:23):
But if I'm operating more thinking in the way I've developed with confidence andself-belief at the very heart of everything that we do.
then that doesn't become the definition of success.
The definition of success becomes how does that person feel at the start line?
(18:49):
How are they feeling in the moment between the start line and the finish?
And the results, as in, you know, measured in that rather narrow objective way, they'lltake care of themselves.
Yeah.
So I don't see his success just in terms of, he did it.
(19:16):
I do it, I think of it more, this particular person, I'm thinking more, he just got soexcited about swimming that he went on to say, you know, I want to swim the channel.
Can you help me swim the channel?
I haven't been able to do because of various things, particularly COVID got in the way.
(19:43):
But his sense of what he could do just went so far beyond where he'd started out from,even though he'd started with actually a quite extraordinary challenge.
That for me is more rewarding than the medal he got at the end, even though that is quiteamazing.
(20:10):
Yeah, so it's the inner journey.
Yeah, how we feel.
And as a coach, I want that too.
I want to measure my kind of, if you like, success, my performance in terms of how am Ileft feeling?
Do I feel a kind of easiness in the moment where I just, there's no clutter in my headabout what I should say or how to analyze, you know, whatever it might be.
(20:44):
Does it just, do I finish a session and I think, wow, where did the time go?
And where did that idea come up from?
And yeah.
So you're a coach in an industry of coaches who teach technique and you don't teachtechnique.
(21:08):
I'm a coach in an industry where people who come to us often think we'll give themtechniques and we won't.
So what should we call ourselves if we're not calling ourselves coaches, Mike?
The eternal question.
Hmm.
Yes, I'm not sure.
(21:33):
This is the big challenge and this is what I think, well, I already know I'm facing whenI've given workshops to coaches or shared some of the ideas in informal groups that I
belong to.
I've had people say, well, why would anyone come to us?
(22:00):
All your lovely...
touchy feely stuff, Mike.
If it's all about feel, why would they come?
Because we think, traditionally, we think of certainly a sports coach as being the expert.
We have the expert knowledge.
(22:20):
Now I do need that expert knowledge.
I'm not saying you just forget.
I need to teach that guy how to swim.
But I do it from a point of view of starting with, well, how does he feel when he's in thewomb?
you know, does he feel like he's in a fight with the water or does he just feel panicky orwhen I see him getting frustrated that it's just not working?
(22:52):
I have to do more than just say, well, you need to get your arm over like this.
Or you need to bubble out this way.
And I have to do it in a way where I'm not kind of positioning myself as the owner of theright way.
(23:12):
There's a phrase I like using, who owns the right way?
If I'm helping someone with their swimming,
I first have to understand what's going on for them when they're in the water.
(23:33):
Before I'd say anything about, you should bubble out this way, or you should have your armcome in here.
Even though those are the right things, technically, to get to.
So I'm probably, well, I know I can be quite a frustrating coach for some people.
(23:59):
Cause they'll, we'll be working on, yeah, we'll be working on a particular technique, youknow, and I've suggested, know, why not try this out?
See if it works for you.
Tell me how it feels when you get to the end.
So they swim a couple of lengths.
(24:19):
pop the heads up and the very first thing that often people would say is, how did I look?
which effectively is like saying, did I do it right?
By your expert view.
And rather irritatingly, I always say, I'm not going to tell you.
(24:41):
Tell me first, how did it feel?
Did you feel smoother?
Did you feel more relaxed?
Could you feel the water in your hands more?
And N, and only then might I then say, I think we could take it a bit further.
(25:04):
Yeah.
Or maybe, brilliant, hang on to that feeling.
Keep going with that feeling.
because they're the person who has to own the right way.
It's with them, it's not with me.
Even though I am in this relationship, I am the expert.
(25:28):
I'm not the expert in how they feel.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I want to put a challenge out to our listeners, Mike.
What should we be calling ourselves?
What could, no, that's, I don't like that question.
What could we be calling ourselves?
(25:49):
What could Mike be calling himself?
If it's not coach, what is it?
So why don't we set a challenge?
So if you email, if you email me and then I'll pass them on to Mike.
So email info at 3dcoaching.com.
with Mike in the title, then we'll know it's about this podcast.
(26:10):
And Mike will pick one and we'll let you have a free copy of his book.
We'll get that sent out to you.
And the book's called Beyond Belief, the Art of Confidence Centred Coaching.
So we'd love to hear your view, because so many times in conversations here at thecoaching in or in trainings, I hear people go,
(26:32):
Coaching's not the right word for this thing, is it?
So here's your challenge, lovely listeners.
What might the right word be?
Do you know, the whole time we've been talking, Mike, I have been in my head, standing onthe north coast of Spain with a sign that said Santiago, 700 kilometres.
(27:01):
And thinking about, as you've been talking, I've been thinking, you know, the journey of athousand miles begins with a single step.
Well, the journey of 700 kilometers certainly begins with a single step.
And I just love what you've been describing about the inner journey.
(27:26):
big things.
Hmm.
What's your hope?
Well, the book forms part of an attempt to, in a sense, kind of shake up the sportscoaching world.
(27:49):
Like I said, I just think we're missing something so important.
So my hope is to be able to get into the big sports organizations and
And basically I asked that question, I recently did a workshop for people in UK coachingand I positioned it, the very first thing was what if, what if we made confidence the
(28:23):
centre of coaching.
Not because I'm saying I have all the detailed answers here by the book.
More just to open up a different way of thinking to really challenge ourselves.
(28:44):
I'm, well, I know different people will come up with different answers, but if we couldjust get away from this sense of a coach
is a coach's success is measured by the performance of the people that they're workingwith.
(29:06):
This imbalance of the relationship, who's the expert, who owns the right wing.
In the process, I think we need to just completely rethink how we understand confidence.
I think the ways in which we typically think and talk about confidence is just deeplyunhelpful.
(29:31):
We think of it as a thing that some people have and some don't.
And if they don't, they really should be fixed.
So we send them off to an expert to do it.
or there's some clever set of words that will fix this thing called confidence.
And I just don't believe it.
(29:54):
I think it starts again with the feeling, how I feel, how I feel in the moment.
how the people I'm working with feel about our relationship, the relationships of trustthat we want to develop.
(30:15):
And then how I can help people at the very first step of the Santa, you on the path toSantiago or wherever, whatever it might be.
How can I help people in that moment feel
What I think is a kind of deeper, in a sense, sort of sensation-based understanding thatwe then later on come to call confidence.
(30:49):
There's something that you said, I think you've said, that you haven't said, but I thinkyou have said.
When you said it's not just a set of special words.
All the way through this conversation, the theme that I've noticed is.
(31:11):
somebody believes in somebody else.
And that's where the journey starts.
Somebody else believed in you.
You believed in Iron Man.
And what was beautiful about that story is you had to do some work.
(31:31):
You had to do some work in order to believe in that person.
And it feels like the inner work is shared.
So there's inner work for the coach in service of that inner work developing in the personthat you're coaching.
(31:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's very, very true.
in order to create that, I call it an assured space in which the coaching will flow.
in order to create that space where we're both feeling at ease.
(32:21):
I have to come as myself.
I can't come pretending to be something I'm not.
And nor can I come with my head cluttered up with, here are the five things that a coachshould do.
Yeah.
And as you say, that takes work.
(32:42):
Brene Brown would say, doing the work, I have to develop a sense of myself, aself-awareness, a sense of what I really believe in, what my values are.
And yeah, Brennan Brown would talk about it as being authentic, being true to yourself.
(33:07):
And I think a lovely thing is that if I'm coming like that, which will almost inevitablyinclude a big, big element of hesitancy, I don't know if I can help that guy in the 10
months he's gone.
(33:30):
but it has like a kind of a ripple effect.
It seems to allow the other person to be themselves.
If I'm not pretending to be something I'm not, my authenticity in a way makes, is part ofhelping create that, that, that easiness between us.
(33:57):
and it helps create an environment as well where I can really listen to what's happening.
again, because I'm not trying to be something that I'm not.
My attention can be so more, more kind of single mindedly focused on the person in frontof me.
(34:21):
What a beautiful description of humility, Mike.
You might not own the word, but I want to offer the word.
Mm-hmm.
I loved when you said, and I don't know if we can do that.
Because that's the truth, isn't it?
(34:43):
There are no guarantees.
And we're travelling together with somebody else.
Hmm.
What wonderful thing to talk to you and I want to, I've read Mike's book and I want to sayI love it in many ways.
(35:04):
And one of the ways that I commend to you lovely listeners is that sometimes reading abook about a craft isn't exactly ours, but is ours, can give us insights into the way we
work in a way that an in industry book doesn't.
So I really recommend it.
So beyond belief.
the art of confidence-centered coaching and do email us info at 3dcoaching.com with whatshould we be calling ourselves.
(35:33):
With Mike in the subject line, that'd be great.
So Mike, if people want to talk to you about this, how do they get in contact with you?
directly, I think.
And I'd by Mike at zigzagconfidence.com.
(35:55):
Mike at SigSig Confidence.
And there's also a website, which is zigzagconfidence.com, where there's lots more ofthese ideas and lots of blogs and links to how to put in a pre-order for the book.
That's not too much of a commercial plug.
(36:20):
But I...
Mike's website.
There you are, team.
But I really love to hear from people outside of sport.
In the book, as you know, there's quite a few conversations with people with nothing to dowith sport.
(36:41):
Because I think, you know, I can learn and sports coaches can learn so much from, forexample, there's a piece
where I interviewed a psychotherapist who works with quite challenging young people.
(37:02):
Wow, what an amazing lesson in empathy and listening and again, creating a space wheresomeone can just open up.
There's also a chapter that draws very, very heavily on my partner's experience.
(37:23):
She's a dance artist and a choreographer.
And just learning from her how she creates beautiful, imaginative work that draws inpeople with no background in the arts world or in dance.
Wow, these are lessons in creativity.
(37:45):
so far beyond what you're ever taught on a sports coaching qualification.
So yes, that was a long winded way of saying, please get in touch.
I'd be so interested in finding out how different people do these kinds of things indifferent
(38:13):
with different aims or different contexts.
Brilliant.
So get in touch with Mike, think of the name and we'll be back next week at the CoachingInn.
Thank you, Mike, for coming.
What an absolute delight to talk to you.
Thank you so much.
and thank you for listening.
(38:33):
Bye bye.
Bye.
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