Values, Regrets & Psychological Flexibility with Dr. Diana Hill

Dr. Diana Hill delves into the essence of psychological flexibility,

exploring how presence, values, and a keen understanding of our

internal world can revolutionize client relationships and personal

growth.

 

Dr. Hill shares insights from her book, 'Wise Effort,' and offers

actionable strategies to integrate mindfulness and values into

everyday practice. As Dr. Diana puts it, 'It's not about avoiding regret,

but learning from it to uncover what truly matters.' This episode is your

guide to unlocking a life of purpose, meaning, and impactful coaching.

 

Episode Overview:

0:00 Intro

3:20 Understanding Psychological Flexibility

8:50 Exploring Choice Points and Values

16:40 Connecting Values to Client Goals

24:45 The Power of Regret in Coaching

34:55 Struggling with Identifying Values

38:15 Exploring the Concept of Integrity

36:40 The Power of Regret and Values

42:20 Self-Compassion and Behavior Change

45:10 The Art of Coaching and Presence

51:30 Personal Genius in Coaching

54:55 The Importance of Presence in Coaching

 

Connect with Diana on:

Website: https://drdianahill.com

Wise Effort book: https://drdianahill.com/wise-effort-book

Dr. Diana’s podcast: https://drdianahill.com/podcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdianahill/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/drdianahill

 

Ready to turn your passion for health into lasting impact?

Health Coach Radio is your backstage pass into the world of health and fitness coaching, hoste

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This conversation with Dr.
Diana Hill is so powerful for health coaches.
I'm just putting that out there.
Listen to it twice, listen to it five times, put some of these practices into action, and then, whatever you do, track down Dr.
Diana Hill and learn everything you can from
She teaches frameworks around acceptance and commitment therapy.

(00:26):
And this framework, this concept is
Incredibly powerful for coaches and actually in the purview of how we can work with clients.
So I'll tell you what, I am immediately changing how I engage with my clients after having this conversation with Dr.
Diana Hill.
I want you to listen to it.
I want you to figure out how to apply it to your coaching relationships as well.
So, Dr.

(00:46):
Diana Hill is a clinical psychologist and leading expert on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ACT.
With four books, including her latest book called Wise Effort, she blends psychological research, contemplative practice, and real-life application.
Her work has appeared in NPR, Psychology Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Real Simple.

(01:06):
She also hosts the Wise Effort podcast and teaches internationally on mindfulness-based psychological skills.
Once again, you are going to get a tremendous amount of benefit from learning from Dr.
Diana Hill.
I can't wait for you to listen.
Please enjoy.
Let us know what you think.
Hi, I'm Erin Power.
I'm a health coach, a health coaching educator and mentor, and your host of Health Coach Radio.

(01:29):
This podcast delves into the art, science, and business of health coaching.
Whether you're aspiring to land a coaching dream job or to embark on your own entrepreneurial adventure, we cover it all
Our mission is to help you grow your career, elevate your income, change the lives of the clients who need your help, and leave a lasting mark in this rapidly growing field.

(01:50):
It's time for health coaches to make an impact.
It's time for Health Coach Radio.
Okay, Dr.
Diana Hill, I'm really, really looking forward to learning from you.
There's so much that I think you're going to be able to teach us
coaches, things we can think through and learn more about as it pertains to supporting our clients through change, as most podcasts do.

(02:13):
I'd love for you to start with an introduction.
Tell us why you're here.
Yeah, I'm a clinical psychologist.
I specialize in an approach to coaching and therapy that's called ACT or acceptance and commitment therapy.
I'm a trainer of trainers.
And involved is sort of behind the scenes in the research there.
But I am all about energy use.
How are we using our energy?

(02:34):
How can we use it more wisely?
How can we be psychologically flexible in the workplace, but also support
our clients in becoming psychologically flexible so that they can pursue what is important to them, have impact in the world, and do so without burning out, and do so with a sense of meaning and purpose.
Ooh, you've got that down to an art.

(02:56):
I'm already obsessed with this idea of psychological flexibility.
Can you say more about that?
Well, psychological flexibility is a term that was developed over about 40 years ago.
There's over 2,000 randomized controlled trials in ACT on this concept of psychological flexibility.
And it turns out it may be probably the most important psychological skill that you can have across all sorts of domains.

(03:24):
People who are psychologically flexible.
Are more likely to maintain their health behaviors.
People who are more psychologically flexible also have reduced anxiety and depression.
People who are psychologically flexible are also more affected in relationships and in the workpl
What it is, is it's your capacity to stay present in the here and now, to open up to discomfort, to be able to be with discomfort.

(03:50):
And pursue what you value, know what's important to you, and take committed action towards those values, even in the face of all the inner stuff, the thoughts, the feelings.
That I can't do it, that I'm not good enough, that show up along the way.
And there's been, there was actually a recent trial where they looked at 55,000 studies, pretty much all the studies they could look at in the field of psychology.

(04:15):
As to why people change, what is it that's happening in the therapy realm when people change or in the coaching realm?
And what they found was that psychological flexibility
was the key ingredient, the key mechanism for change.
So no matter how you're going about it, what intervention you're doing, if your client is becoming more psychologically flexible, they are more likely to change their behavior over time.

(04:37):
Wow.
Oh my gosh.
Fascinating.
It just seems so important for those of us in the call it the behavior change industry to understand this concept more.
So when I hear that, my automatic assumption is that this is an inherent quality that some people have.
That's my assumption
But it sounds to me like perhaps it can be learned or cultivated.

(05:00):
Oh, it absolutely can be learned and cultivated.
And it takes practice like anything that you want to learn and cultivate.
There are six core components.
to psychological flexibility, you can learn and practice how to be more present.
That's one component.
Like that attentional flexibility.
Our attention is being pulled in all sorts of directions.
How do we help our clients focus their attention?

(05:22):
We know, even something like a bicep curl.
If you're paying attention to the contraction of your muscle while you're doing the bicep curl, it's going to actually show up in the strengthening of your muscle fibers, right?
We know that as well as our happiness.
If we can pay attention and shift our attention towards what we are grateful for or what's going good in our life.
there's positive neuroplasticity, and you're more likely to see what's going well in your life.

(05:46):
So that's one component, and you can do that through practice.
Helping your clients do attentional shifting.
When you're at the gym, are you focusing on what everyone else is doing?
Or are you focusing on maybe the sensations in your body of moving?
Or are you focusing on the feeling of pride for getting yourself there?

(06:08):
Another component, or what we call process and act, they're considered processes, but another component of psychological flexibility is your ability to step back from
and get a little distance from your thoughts.
And that's something else you can train.
So most of us just have thoughts going on in our head all day long.
We just think that they're true.

(06:29):
We don't even notice that we're thinking, but we're constantly thinking.
Like, Erin, even as I'm talking, you have a whole like if I could like put a megaphone to your head, one, you'd be horrified.
Yep.
But there'll be so many thoughts that are going on in there.
Some of those thoughts are helpful thoughts.
They're like useful to your interview with me

(06:51):
Some of those thoughts are really unhelpful thoughts.
They're totally distracting.
They're negative about you.
They're critical about me.
They're whatever, thinking about what you're going to make for dinner, right?
You need to be a master of your own mind and be able to notice that, yeah, you got all these thoughts going on, but you are the chooser as to which ones are helpful.
That's part of psychological flexibility, flexibility with your thoughts.

(07:14):
You can think about that with your clients.
How helpful it would be if they didn't listen to their mind all the time.
I can share more of the other processes, but I'll want to kind of stop there because those are two big ones that are more related to sort of the mental aspects of mental flexibility, which are key for wise effort and key for behavior change.
Yeah, I'm glad we're stopping for a little break there because I was in my own head.

(07:36):
You're right.
I was thinking.
One of the things I was thinking.
Wait, wait.
So, we want to know what were you thinking?
I know, I know.
Yeah, I was thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner now that you mention it.
Yeah.
As you were describing that, I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking, how can I ask the next question that will help this be useful for coaches in practice with their clients?
And I'm thinking, how am I going to use this with my clients?

(07:59):
So I want to actually ask the next question from that thinking.
There's a lot more, obviously, thoughts going on in my head besides those two things.
So for example, my clients are women my age, so call it late 40s or into their 50s
And we work on weight loss, which is a very fraught topic for women in my generation because of the whole Gen X upbringing and the 90s and 2000s and what that did to us.

(08:19):
I'm not going to get into the weeds on that
So presence and distance from thought are the first two that we talked about.
Now I'm trying to think with presence.
A lot of my clients, for example, come to the coaching calls and they're apologizing for what happened.
In a manner of speaking.
Oh, I was really bad this weekend.
I had way too much wine and a couple too many snacks.

(08:40):
And anyway, here I am starting again on Monday.
Starting again on Monday
And one of the tools that I try to do with them is to like actually run the tape back.
Let's go back into the weekend and run it back and just see what was happening when you were making the decision to have the third glass of wine or the second helping of cheesecake
I'm trying, I've done this for years and years, to sort of shrink the gap between what happened and where we are now, sort of bringing them into presence.

(09:08):
Does that feel like a useful frame?
Yeah, the way that I talk about it in Wise Effort is getting present with choice points.
Choice points.
So all day long we have choice points.
Right now, I have a choice in how I'm going to move my body or what I'm going to get up to get something in the fridge, or even when I open the fridge

(09:29):
It's another choice point, right?
And we've all had that experience of like you open the fridge, you see it, this is a choice point.
Oh my gosh, I'm going here for because I'm stressed
I can notice stress in my body.
I'm being present with noticing stress in my body and my habit energy is to go to the fridge when I feel stressed.
This is a choice point.
What are my values?
What do I care about?

(09:49):
Close the fridge.
Act on those.
So what being present does is it helps us be more attuned to what's happening in the here and now that is often very automatic
And then we're not aware of because we've just done it a million times.
Every time I'm anxious, I go to the fridge.
Or every time I feel, this is the fun one with body image and weight

(10:11):
Every time I feel bad about my body, I eat.
It's like, so wow, the wires aren't getting crossed there, but it makes sense, right?
So that's a choice point.
I feel bad about my body.
What am I going to do here instead?
Maybe I'm going to practice self-compassion.
Maybe I'm actually going to remember that I care about this body.

(10:32):
And I care about the person that's inhabiting it.
And I'm going to practice radical self-compassion and do something really kind for this body, which usually isn't like go eat, right?
It's maybe I need to lie down.
Maybe I want to go for a walk outside.
Maybe I.
Need to some music, maybe I need to have sex, maybe like all the other things that we can do to take care of our body.
So there's

(10:54):
The present moment focus is like a simple one.
We've all heard of mindfulness.
We're like blah, blah, blah, mick mindfulness.
But it's actually a very powerful practice when you use it to notice those choice points.
So you can go back over the week.
I mean, really.
Simple coaching skill would be go back over the week, or even better, pick a day.
Go back over the day and tell me the five choice points from your day.

(11:18):
And which did you choose
Which direction was your values?
This is a choice point, and to the right was to your values, and to the left was away from your values.
Which direction do you choose?
And then you say, okay, I bet you're anticipating that there'll be five more choice points for the rest of today.
What do you want to choose at those choice points?
Because we know, oh, I'm going to go to that party, or oh, I'm going to be at that work function, or oh, I'm going to have that stressful sub stack I need to write, whatever it is.

(11:44):
Those are all choice points where you tend to automatically go in one direction that's away from your values in relationship to your health and fitness.
What if you were to choose something different here

And that's really the foundation of change (11:53):
choosing something different.
Often it's like just choosing anything different, and then we can get more sophisticated in what we're choosing, you know.
But anything but eating that thing in the fridge, anything but that.
Yeah.
That's really good.
So I want to just like reflect that back.
So let's imagine the client.
And I'm just going to zero in on the woman's weight loss client because that's what I know

(12:15):
She did the thing.
She went to the fridge because she was bored.
She grabbed the can of whipped cream, did a couple of squirts in her mouth, came to the coaching call, was apologetic about it.
So I can say to her, Sally.
Take me back to that moment standing at the fridge.
That was her choice point.
And then I'll say, well, I say something like
Tell me, what will I say?

(12:36):
I'm trying to think.
Then I would say, okay, so you're perfect.
You're great.
You're spot on.
Take me to that moment in the fridge.
And then you would help her get present with that moment.
What was happening in your body?
Okay.
What did it feel like?
Did you have an urge?
Was it what did you could you could you feel the urge rising?
We can have urges without acting on urges.
There's this whole skill around surfing urges

(12:58):
Surf the wave.
It's going to come back down.
You can watch the race, the wave of the urge, rise and rise and rise, and you feel like, oh no, I'm never, this is going to kill me.
I've never met anyone that's died of an urge, ever.
I have met people who have died.
Or have gotten very sick from giving in to urges, but no one's ever died.
So, what happened?
So, what are you feeling in your body?

(13:18):
What were you noticing?
Was there an urge?
Was there a sensation?
What were you feeling emotionally?
Was there some kind of emotion driving this?
Was there stress of the day?
What were you noticing about just your habit energy?
Like you always do this one thing, right?
If you were to pause there, that's your choice point.
Get them present in their body.
And then what you do is you help them figure out what are your value.

(13:42):
What do you values in this moment?
Which is another one of those processes we talked about too.
We talked about being present.
We talked about noticing thoughts
The third one is knowing your values.
If you could go back and meet the whipped cream squirter and tell her
And remind her what is so important to her that is clear for you now, but was not clear for her then, what is so important to her about her weight loss goals, and that weight loss is not a value.

(14:09):
Right.
It is not a value.
What will losing weight open up for you that you care about in your life?
Because when we're in the moment with the whipped cream, we forget that.
We have the tendency to just only remember the good feeling of the whipped cream.
That's going to also get rid of the bad feelings of the urge and the stress.
So, in that moment, we need to bring up closer your values.

(14:33):
What does weight loss open up for you that's important to you, that matters to you?
Is it because, and everyone's going to be different.
Is it because you want to just be more physically active with your kids?
You want to have more energy at work?
You want to be more focused
You really actually like are really excited about an event coming up, and you want to feel fabulous about that event, and you want to wear that thing that you know you can wear and rock.

(14:56):
Like, whatever those things are for you, everyone's different.
I want you to bring them right up in front of you, right next to that whipped cream bottle.
And you now have a choice point.
To the left is the whipped cream, to the right is those values.
And you get to choose.
You choose the values.

So that's how I would work with them on it (15:14):
getting them present in the inner world
And then also bringing those values a little closer to them in that choice point so that they have a little practice around that.
And then we say, okay.
Well, you're going to have that same scenario four hours from now.
Right.
What are you going to choose?

(15:35):
Yeah.
I love that.
It is so usable for coaches.
A couple of things that come up.
So I love that we're bringing them bringing our client back to that moment and trying to get them to connect to what was happening in that moment.
And then we
sort of future cast and say, when this inevitably comes up for you again, what will you choose?
And you know, they may or may not knock that out of the park.

(15:55):
It may take, you know, I think it takes people a few false starts to get the hang of this kind of presence
I just think we're very lacking presence generally culturally, so it's a muscle we haven't trained in a long time.
Connection to values is
Critical.
I always want to share one thing and see what you think about this.
When I'm training health coaches, I really do encourage them to get clear on their clients' values in the intake process.

(16:19):
Okay, so
If you're doing weight loss or you're doing performance or postpartum or whatever your niche is, fitness, that could be nutrition, anything.
You have to get clear on the client's main health dream, outcome, goal, whatever we're going to call it.
What is the desired outcome they want?
That's the outcome goal at the top of the staircase
That we're going to march them up the staircase toward, and then ask them, why is that important?

(16:43):
This is the old why.
I know this is very trite, but like, why is that?
In my intake form, I say, what do you want?
Why is that important to you?
And why is that important to you?
I just go two whys deep.
And I have that in their client record, and I bring it back every session.
I remind them why they said they wanted this.
That's their values ultimately

And I actually think it's one of the most valuable things on the intake form (17:03):
is why are we even doing this?
Yeah.
There was a study done by Steve Hayes and colleagues at the University of Reno, Nevada, where they looked at SMART goals
versus SMART goals plus values.
Now these were college students that were setting SMART goals at the beginning of a semester, then they were looking at their grades at the end of the semester.

(17:24):
Those that set SMART goals at the beginning of the semester did not show any improvement in their grades.
Those that set SMART goals plus values.
Just a brief writing assignment about why is it important for you to get better grades.
And everybody is different in terms of their values, right?
They saw a significant increase in their GPAs.

(17:45):
Why?
Because values are intrinsic motivators.
Extrinsic motivators like weight loss or grades.
Don't always map onto the effort that you're putting in.
I can think about the courses that I did, like that I got the worst grades in, I probably worked the hardest in, and then my easy A's
Like, I didn't put a lot of effort into, right?

(18:06):
Same thing with weight loss.
You may be working your behind off for, you know, all week and you're not going to see it show up on the scale.
So, does that mean you give up on the goal?
There has to be something intrinsic deeper inside.
Stephen Covey, who wrote the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, this is like old school.
You'll find it at like the used bookstore book.
He used to talk about before you climb a ladder, you got to look at what wall it's against.

(18:30):
And I like that model, but I don't think it's enough.
Because I actually think that we need to, yes, we need to look at what wall our ladder is against.
What are our goals and why?
That's the why of values.
Why are we doing this?
But there's another really important part of values that I talk about in Wise Effort, which is the how.
When you are climbing that ladder.

(18:50):
to wherever it is you want to go.
The ladder to weight loss, the ladder to higher performance in the workplace, the ladder to getting more clients or being having more impact in the world.
When you are climbing it, how are you climbing it?
Are you climbing it with compassion?
Are you climbing it honestly?
Are you climbing it in an adventurous or fun way?
These are all values.

(19:11):
If someone were watching your climb, how would they describe your climb?
In the here and now.
Because what often people get tripped up at with goals on, or even smart goals, is that there's some time off in the future that we're going to get that thing
That finish line is going to always move forward.
So, what I'm more interested in is how are you living out your values in the here and now in relationship to whatever your goals are.

(19:38):
And that's the how.
Are you stepping on other people in that climb?
Who are you stepping on to get there?
These are all have to do with these types of values questions.
So we can bring, if we're thinking about the gym, we can bring our values
To the gym with us.
You know, I always just had a workout.
I do an early morning workout.

(19:58):
It's like 5:30 class twice a wee
And you know, there's the people that have the little wipey things that are wiping down the equipment after they move from one weight to the next.
There's the people that are giving people high fives.
There's the people that are kind of like grooving and dancing while they're doing the hit training.
There's the, you know, you can see the how, how they're showing up.

(20:19):
Those are their values, right?
And if we could bring those to our 5:30 a.
class, then we can leave the class being like, hey, I lived out my values while I was exercising, right?
So that's really important when you do the values work.
There's sort of this tendency to want to get our five values down onto post-it notes and then put them on our computer and be like, these are my values for life.

(20:39):
And I don't think values mean a whole lot unless you're living them out in the here and now.
And unless people could say, at the end of this podcast with Aaron and Diana, I have a clear sense of what Diana's values are and what Aaron's values are because they showed it and how they showed up.
And you can apply that anywhere.
You can apply that to your coaching.
You, as a coach, need to know your values.

(21:00):
And you need to show up with them in every client that you work with.
And they'll feel it.
Yeah.
I mean, you bring up a good point, which is that the act of identifying our values has become kind of
I don't know what the word is, systematized or influenced, I guess.

(21:20):
You know, I value integrity, honesty.
You know, we just spout these values-sounding words that
seem kind of meaningless.
And we do it in the interest of like, okay, first things first, I got to get my values oriented.
Okay, check, got that.
Now I've got to build my website or whatever.
Like we it's on this to do list of things we have to do.

(21:41):
And do you have any advice?
For coaches listening to I don't know if there's a way to to guide somebody to really reach in and
Figure out their values.
And also, I think for me, because I'm a language nerd, I always think about the words we use.
It doesn't have to be some sound-bitey word
Integrity.

(22:01):
Everybody puts that on their list.
It's like, what do you mean?
Like, why is that on your list?
Right.
Do you have any sort of insight or advice as to how to guide people to connect what their values might be in case they forgot how to do that?
Yeah.
Well, I have a whole chapter on values in the Wise Effort book, and what I guide people to do in it is I talk about two avenues
What brings you vitality?

(22:21):
What brings you pain?
So you could start with the what brings you vitality.
If you were to look back over yesterday.
And you were to highlight with a highlight reel a part of your day where you feel like you had a tremendous amount of vitality.
You felt alive.
You felt like your best version of you.

(22:43):
You felt that uplifting of energy of like, this is what life is about.
This is when life is its most lifey.
Tell me the snapshot of what that was.
And like for me, if I think about yesterday, so weird, like, but that the thing about my day, I mean, I had like clients, I had interviews, I had stuff.
The thing about the day that was that brought me the most vitality was making ice cream with my 12-year-old son in the kitchen.

(23:10):
And we were broil we were making s'mores ice cream.
This is like not for weight loss.
We were broiling marshmallows together.
And it was so fun to watch the little broil happen across the marshmallows and his little eyes light up as they were like, oh my gosh, they're perfect.
And just that excite
So, what does that say about my values?
It says that I love, I value engaging with my kids.

(23:32):
I value the creative process.
I value teaching him about skills like cooking, right?
So, you could take that value
Engagement, creative process, cooking skills.
And you could apply that to your weight loss goals.
How could you also teach your son
About cooking foods that are nourishing.

(23:52):
Yeah, there's like fun foods.
We're having an ice cream party.
This is not a usual thing that we do.
There's like the fun foods.
But then there's also like, could you bring that to how you, you know, saute vegetables or how you do stuff in the garden together or cooking some foods from scratch?
Right.
So
Once you identify the values, then you can apply it to their health goals.

(24:12):
So that's the vitality part.
The other side of it is what brings you pain.
What do you regret?
Daniel Pink wrote this book called The Power of Regret, and I interviewed him on the Wise Effer podcast a number of years ago, and it always stuck with me because
He studied in the American Regrets Survey.
He surveyed over 4,000 people, just asking them the simple question, what is it that you regret in your life?

(24:39):
And the regrets he categorized into these main categories of connection regrets, like I regret, like.
That rift that I had with that friend that I never repaired, or the rift I had with my parent and they died, you know, connection regrets.
People had boldness regrets, like I regret.
Not asking that person out, or I regret not going for that job, right?

(25:01):
People had moral regrets.
I regret drinking and driving, right?
And people also had foundational regrets.
Which were the accumulation of regrets over time.
Like, I regret not wearing sunscreen and all those tanning beds I did in college.
Keto, carnivore, paleo, AIP, SCD, low FODMAP, so many diets, so much confusion.

(25:24):
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(25:46):
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(26:07):
Okay, so you identify people's regrets and then that pain point.
Tells you what they care about.
Because that which you have pain around is that which is most important to you.
And you can use that regret as a motivator for how you're going to act in the here and now.
What do you regret about how you've cared for your body up to this point?

(26:29):
And what does that tell you about how you want to care for your body?
So if you look back over yesterday, you'll have the vitality things, but then you also may have some regrets.
The key is not to get stuck in the regret or even
You know, rehash and ruminate on the regret.
The key is to help the client identify, or when you hear it, you'll hear them talk about their regrets.

(26:50):
Oh, I totally regret eating all the hook
S'mores ice cream at the ice cream party.
Then you'd be like, Yeah, then you'll be like, okay, so what does that connect to about what you value?
Because maybe the regret.
Was that I felt sick afterwards and I didn't really connect with people at the party or I was like so obsessing about the ice cream, I wasn't like hanging out with my friends that were there, right?

(27:11):
I was so into my mind.
So, you care about hanging out with your friends.
How can we bring that to the forefront?
And make your decisions around ice cream next time so that actually you're hanging out with your friends and you don't regret that feeling, so we can avoid our regrets
You avoid your regrets in the here and now by acting on your values.
And that's a really powerful skill to teach people to use the pain.

(27:34):
As a pointer, an arrow towards what they care about.
Yeah, it is a powerful tool.
I just think because, and I don't want to generalize, but when I think through all the hundreds and hundreds of coaching conversations I've had over the years,
For better or worse, many of them are conversations around all this self-sabotage I did, all the ways I screwed up, all the regrets I have about my behaviors that are getting in the way of my goals.

(28:00):
So for like as much as I do it in my coaching calls with my clients, try to and not do this in a cheesy way, but like share something that's going well.
Let's just set the tone here.
Let's get a good
energy going and then and then where where are you struggling?
What are your struggles?
And the struggles inevitably are some kind of pain or regret.
And so if I think about my client who ate all this More's ice cream, and if I were to say

(28:21):
I want to get into this because I wonder this comes to me into the realm of like the lost skill of presence.
If I say to my client, well, what about that?
What do you regret about that?
Or what is that regret?
They'll say something to the effect, something very just sort of hair trigger, like, well, I always do this.

(28:41):
I always self-sabotage.
That's what they're gonna say.
Like, out of the gate, that's what they'll say.
And then I think my job as the coach is to ask for more, ask for more, ask for more.
What is the regret?
And they might say something that's extrinsic, like, well, the regret is I got this cruise coming up in two weeks, and I'm never going to look at the bikini.
Perfect.
Then I can come back to what they shared in their intake form, remind them of that, I suppose.

(29:05):
Stay with the bikini.
Okay.
So you stay with the bikini, and you're like, why do you care about looking good in your bikini?
Well, I want to feel good by the pool.
I want to feel comfortable in my body.
I don't want to be so stuck in this body shame that I don't want to put my towel down and walk to the pool and show my behind.

(29:29):
Like all the things that we limit ourselves and our life around because of our negative body image, we don't swim, we don't walk to the ocean.
Okay, so why do you care about that?
Well, I kind of care about having fun, living my life, feeling free.
Oh, so you have a value around personal freedom to move your body.

(29:51):
Or maybe it's about something else.
Maybe it's about your relationship with your partner.
I want to be able to.
Like be in a bikini because I want to feel awesome with my partner and you know, like kind of bring back to life our relationship a little bit.
We're going on vacation and like this is like our channel.
I mean, I've been in sweats like for the last four months, and I want, you know, I want him or her to feel.
You know, like we want to feel sexy and good again.

(30:12):
And so, okay, why is that important?
Because I care about my connection with, okay, you care about the connection to your partner.
So, when you are, you're about to scoop that s'mores ice cream, choice point.
I want you to remember your connection to your partner and your feeling of freedom in your body to move your body and enjoy your body.

(30:33):
Those taste so much better than any s'mores ice cream you will ever eat.
I want you to remember that.
You know that.
But you don't remember it when the s'mores is there.
Right?
So that's how you use you just keep on like keep on following the trail until you actually start to hear the heart
And when you hear the heart, then you're onto something because that there is nothing more motivating than something like that.

(30:56):
And I will often say that, like, nothing tastes better than that, hu
Right.
Right.
And they'll be like, yeah, no, nothing tastes better.
Like, sorry, s'more's ice cream cannot compete with that.
In the moment, maybe.
But that's what our brain does.
Our brain will always prioritize short-term satisfaction and dopamine and all that good stuff over the long-term life that we really want.

(31:18):
And we as humans, as skillful, psychologically flexible humans, need to develop the skills with practice to choose the bigger picture, to choose the values, to choose the life that we want.
And every time we do that, we set up the path
To having that life in the here and now.
Amazing.
Interesting.

(31:39):
I love this concept of
Connecting to values through regret.
I don't know why I love it so much.
I'm very interested in this topic, and I'm immediately going to read this book.
I'm finding this book, The Power of Regret.
In my phone, I have this is, I don't know if this is dark or what, I have my phone in my notes app, I have a note that's called regrets.

(32:03):
And it might be, I stayed up way too late scrolling and buying crap off Amazon last night, or I should have said yes to that social outing because I stayed home and I was kind of sad.
Little things that I just regretted in the moment.
I don't know why I'm cataloging them.
I have no idea why I'm doing that.
But I do think there's power.
In her grab, but I've never actually thought about it this way.
This is really, really powerful for coaches.

So, here's what I do with clients around that (32:23):
I have them take out a note card.
And I have them write the regret on one side of the card.
I'll do this in groups sometimes too, and it's really powerful in groups if you're doing a coaching group.
Write on one side of the note card.
What was one of them?
I stayed up too late watching?
Scrolling and buying random crap off Amazon.
Okay.
So if you put I stayed up too late scrolling a random crack on crap on Amazon.

(32:46):
What we do that is not helpful with regrets.
Aaron, I'm going to take you to the next level with these regrets because what we do is we can imagine that regret is like the note card that's in our palm, and we just hold it up in front of our face
And we just get what's in act, we call it fused.
We get fused with the regret.
We remind ourselves of the things that we did.

(33:07):
That we regret, and we feel bad, and we feel worse about ourselves, and we're like, Yeah, and then that like that, that's going to motivate us out of this.
Like, if I just keep on remembering this regret, then I won't do it again.
But that's not what I want you to do.
I want you to take it to the next level, which is write the regret down.
You get it, I'm going to open another note, or it could be in the same note.
But we take that note card and you flip it over.

(33:31):
And you write on the other side, why does this matter to me?
What are my values here that make this a regret?
So, Erin, why does that matter to you?
What are your values there that make the staying up too late?
What is the value underneath that for you?
What do you care about?
So in that particular regret, it's because it's interesting because it's like I'm way up past my bedtime, which makes me unproductive the next day.

(33:54):
And I value productivity and competency.
Yeah.
Also, then there's the spending money on random things.
So there's a money piece to a financial sort of hang up there, too.
But the value behind the money, spending money, I value it.
That's a tough one to answer, actually.
Do you ever get people who struggle with understanding what their own values are?

(34:15):
Just stay with a little longer, so we can just ask another question.
When I spend money on stuff, is it stuff that you don't matter?
Does it matter to you?
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Because I value, I want to use my money for what?
Or because what is it that you want to use your money for?

(34:39):
Or is it that you don't want to use money in that way to escape from feelings?
Yes.
Is that it?
Yeah, that feels a little closer to where I'm at.
It's the act of the random scroll and spend, the soothing of that.
Yeah.
I don't like soothing in that way.
Why am I soothing?
What am I soothing?
Yeah, I don't like soothing in that way because I want to soothe myself in what ways?

(35:00):
What is it that you value?
I value sleep, I value nourishing food, I value movement, I value
I truly value my robust wellness.
I value my wellness.
Yeah.
There's also something in there, my guess is like, because sleep isn't a value as much as like the like, like actually a val

(35:24):
I'm gonna call it out here.
Like maybe you value practicing what you preach or you value being in integrity.
Oh my god, integrity.
You value in those moments not escaping what you're trying to escape, but actually being with.
In a more, you know, sort of authentic way with yourself.
I don't know that there's something in there.
Like, you're not liking the escapee quality of that?

(35:47):
And it could be scrolling, it could be alcohol, it could be food, it could be binge watching something stupid.
That sort of self-abandonment that happens when we experientially avoid.
This sort of junk food of life, scrolling.
That's the new thing.
So, that other side of the note card, what I would have you do is, I'd want you to write down

(36:09):
Your own version of what that value is for you.
And it could be, I value my well-being, but it's like deeper than that.
I think it's like more sophisticated.
So do you have a line yet?
I mean, maybe not land on.
So I'm between competency and integrity.
It's crazy that it came back to integrity because I was literally just ragging on that 15 minutes ago.

(36:30):
Oh, integrity.
But it is the walking my talk integrity piece.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The word is just a symbol.
It's just letters put together.
You feel it in your body.
Integrity is a feeling state.
Right.
And that's what values are, right?
Like it's a demo of the how.

(36:50):
So, what I would want you to do is you have this note card.

One side is (36:53):
I regret scrolling late at night
The other side is, I value integrity.
And you can go around all day with the regret in front of your eyes.
But what I'd rather you do is pull that out and flip it over and remember integrity.
And integrity is what guides my choices.

(37:16):
And then, if I were doing that in a group, I would have everyone not share their regret because that's like, you know, and you could even say, you don't have to tell me what your regret is
I just want to know what your value is that's behind the regret because that's going to guide our work together.
If for you it's integrity, then that means you remember integrity in that moment and it's a powerful force for you because the regret is a powerful regret.

(37:40):
Wow.
They're connected.
That's interesting.
I really like that.

Simply because, I mean, this is the point I think you were getting at (37:46):
is we
Get a little fixated and overwhelmed by the lack, the regret, the thing we screwed up, and then we're proceeding with that energy.
But all we have to do is flip the card and proceed with this more productive energy

(38:06):
of values.
And it's more it's like this idea of like a approach versus avoidance goals.
We talk about that a lot in coaching
It's not, I don't want to look fat on the beach.
I don't want to be embarrassed at my family reunion.
I don't want to that's the avoidance goal.

But the approach goal is (38:21):
well, what do you want?
Like, if a client comes to me and writes down a bunch of a
Avoidance goals, I need them to reframe those in terms of what they do want.
Right.
So it's kind of in a similar vein.
Yeah, it's the approach goal, but making it much deeper than I want to look good on the beach
Yes.
It's I want to feel integrity or I want to feel freedom or I want to feel, you know, I want to be in a space of self-compassion or whatever it is.

(38:45):
And I think that the big mistake that a lot of coaches and therapists make is that someone brings up the regret, and we do one of two things.
We also have to look at our own psychological inflexibility as a coach
And as a therapist, so we are uncomfortable with their regret.
Yes, we don't like that they feel bad.
We become psychologically inflexible, and here's what we do to avoid that.

(39:08):
I don't like that you're having this regret about you staying up late at night, Erin.
So, what I tell you is, it's not that bad.
Everybody's, you know, like, you shouldn't feel bad about that.
We'd rescue them.
Yes.
Or we jump right over it into problem solving it without lingering in it and actually going into it to find and sift for the gold, which is their value in the regret.

(39:32):
There is gold in every dark feeling.
There is something important whenever you feel that your client is coming up against a resistance or a negative feeling or hurt in some way.
You want to stay there a little longer.
And that requires your psychological flexibility as a coach to be able to tolerate that.

(39:56):
I've been confronted by a very specific use case.
of this.
I think this is really interesting.
I'm fully feeling highly self aware of some things I can improve on in my coaching.
All of us
So for example, this happens a lot in my coaching calls.
And I do group coaching with my clients.
So small groups, it's amazing.
Just kind of gals gabbing about their weight loss journey.

(40:18):
It's a really, really nice container
And a lot of times a woman will come in and say, well, my win, because I always try to frame it that let's take me through the win.
What do you feel great about?
And they'll say,
By the way, I'm open to if there's a better way of kicking off the session than what do you feel good about?
What do you want to work on?
Like, if there's something better that you can offer, I'm all ears.
But a client might come in and say, Well, I had a really bad weekend, I way overdid it on this, that, or the other thing.

(40:42):
But I didn't beat myself up over it.
And I think, okay, well, that's ultimately good.
And then my
My compulsion just to say, great, moving on.
What do you want to work on this week?
But instead, we just swept that under the rug.
And now I'm seeing that I'm just.

(41:02):
Ignoring it or jumping to, I'm jumping away from the regret they were feeling because they decided to sweep it under the rug and I was cool with that.
Like, okay, yeah, we're going to move on.
You didn't beat yourself up.
So, like, this
I think this is so interesting because it's like, now what I think I should do is say, well, great.
I'm so glad you didn't beat yourself before that.
But let's bring it back into the spotlight just for a second and see if we can learn something from it.

(41:25):
How would you approach that?
How do you think I should approach that, for example?
Oh, see, as you're saying that, I would actually go after that I didn't beat myself up.
And I would dissect that to the nth degree.
When somebody is showing you a little bit of a behavior.
That you want them to expand on.
We know that self-compassion is linked to greater health habits.

(41:48):
There's like a.
There is so much research on self-compassion.
I have a whole book on self-compassion.
This is like a side interest of mine that's incorporated into Wise Effort.
But we know that folks that are more self-compassionate actually end up exercising more and having better health habits.
Self-compassion is not letting yourself off the hook.
Self-compassion is caring about yourself in the same way you would care for your kid or your best friend.

(42:14):
When your client says, I had this regret, but I didn't beat myself up, you could go in both directions.
You could go to the regret and unpack the value
But I'm also interested in the behavior change that they're telling you that they were successful at, and I'd like to know exactly what that looks like for them.
What does not beating yourself up look like?
If I were to climb inside your head and I were to listen to the thoughts that you were saying to yourself, what would I hear?

(42:39):
Tell me what that is, not beating yourself up.
If I were to watch you in your behavior,
After you had this episode of whatever you did that you feel bad about, and I were to see you acting on not beating yourself up, what would that behavior be?
Oftentimes, it's getting back on track.
Right away.
It's like letting it go and move on.
New moment, new, new, begin anew.
It's here and now.

(42:59):
So when we see behavior change that's in the direction we want our clients to go, we need to be strong reinforcers of it.
And this is the science of behavior change.
Reinforcement is what strengthens repetition and reinforcement is what strengthens behaviors.
So, not getting too hooked up on just like I think sometimes as coaches and therapists, we always feel like we need to like move on to the, we need to like

(43:22):
We have this big.
This is what I'm going to do today.
I'm going to bring it in.
Your client is bringing in plenty for you to work with, just like this podcast.
You're bringing plenty for in the present moment for us to work with.
And your teaching is to meet them with what they're bringing in.
Because if they bring something in and you move on to your agenda, you've lost them.

(43:46):
The momentum is what's important to them that they're bringing to
And you go with that.
You could go with the regret too, but this is a little bit of the art of coaching.
It's like you kind of, you got to feel your way.
There's a little bit of intuitive.
Practice to it.
Like, get out of your head and get into the experience with the client and kind of follow their flow a little bit.
Where are they inflexible?

(44:07):
Where are they flexible?
Where they're inflexible, I want to support them in opening up.
where they are flexible, I want to support them in staying open and reinforce the heck out of it.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it c so in practice, it's sort of it's the simplest of active listening techniques in this in this example that I gave.
Oh, you didn't beat yourself up over it.

(44:27):
Say more about that.
I simply have to reflect back what they said.
But I wrote down in my notes here, I literally wrote down
Cheerleader camp.
Okay, here's what I mean by that.
Sometimes I think that coaches get into this habit where the client comes in and says, I had a bad weekend, but I didn't beat myself up.
And it's like, great job.
You did it.
And there's just not a lot of growth.

(44:48):
in cheerleader camp, in cheerleading.
So I think, you know, despite how despite the fact that we have an hour-long group call, we have to get through everybody, it's
absolutely in service to our client to just ask for more, ask for more, so they can have a true growth or something or a moment of

(45:10):
Awareness rather than just sharing the thing, I didn't beat myself up and then we move on.
I'm cheating that client out of having a sort of a deeper next level experience of this of growth.
Cheerleaders are extrinsic motivators.
Yeah.
If you set it up so that your client is coming in to get your great job.
Right.

(45:31):
What about the days when they don't get your great job?
Or they know they're going to come in and it isn't a great job.
They will share with you 60%.
Yeah.
The 60% that you will cheerlead.
And they will leave the other 40% just, you know, tucked away in the back pocket.
which is actually the forty percent that really needs you as a coach to help them through, right?

(45:53):
So there is a danger in being a cheerleader
It is one, you're stealing the cheerleading from them.
I would love for them to be cheerleading themselves from the inside out and kind of
You know, it's like if my coach is happy about that or not, that's not why I'm here.
It's just about my relationship with me and living my life and living out my values and whatever that is that's you know reflected is important to me.

(46:18):
We don't want to get in the habit like resurrecting our relationship with our parents.
Showing them our good grades and then hiding the rest.
So we want it to be authentic.
We want it to be anything comes and that everything that they bring to you is an opportunity for growth.
The successes

(46:38):
Our opportunity for growth is because we get to learn what sets you up to be successful.
I want to reinforce those.
I want to like
Keep that going with you.
I want to keep that ball, you know, dribbling down the field.
And the things that you don't that aren't successful are as equally important.
And I am excited about both and all of it
Because I'm just excited to work with you.
Like you are I mean, I think that and this is a strong word to use, but I use this with my clients and I use it in my training of therapist

(47:06):
Which is every client that comes in the door, you want to have a feeling of like love.
Like, I love working with you.
This is like this hour together is like so precious.
It's so meaningful.
It's high impact for both of us, and we are feeling engaged and like.
in the moment with each other, digging in.

(47:28):
And when you have that engagement with your client, then they will be more open to share the successes and the failures.
But cheerleading
Time and place, but not a I wouldn't say that's your number one tool to use.
Okay, so just to squeeze every drop out of this amazing

(47:48):
Tool that you're giving us here, a set of tools.
I'm thinking through this again.
I'm very, very into the weeds of my own coaching practice.
This will be usable for everybody listening who's also a coach, right?
So
If I go into session, when I go into session with my clients, yes, I want to acknowledge their successes.

(48:09):
Where do you feel like you succeeded?
And what did you learn potentially?
Like, let's absolutely
Explore that.

And then my second question is (48:17):
and instead of saying, Where are you struggling?
Although that's fine, it's fine to say that.
It's just a choice of words, it's not the end of the world.
Like, where are your struggles?
Where are you hung up?
I could even ask and then guide the conversation around what do you regret about that struggle and then flip the script and try to get them not flip the script, but flip the metaphorical card and try to get them to connect to the value.

(48:39):
And then from there, we set goals.
So values-based goal setting, which is the smart plus values that you described earlier, which is amazing.
Just an amazing, just absolutely transformational way to contemplate goal setting.
From there, we can set a values-based goal.
So it's sort of like from the session intention, the intention of the coaching session is let's absolutely collect a win and then let's

(49:01):
Pick some values-based goal to move forward with, but sometimes, in order to get to the value, we have to go through the pain and the struggle.
Okay, Erin, you are a genius at taking
A lot of different concepts and boiling them down into a clear, concrete path.
That is your skill set.
You are a genius at it.

(49:21):
You just did it extremely well.
And so, you are going to be able to do that with your clients.
And now that you have a frame, then you can have the frame and have it be flexible.
So, with every client, so first of all, every coach has a genius.
Yeah.
This is yours.
I just saw it in action.
It's brilliant.
It's beautiful.
So, every coach has their genius, and you want to show up with your genius qualities that reflect in the frame in which you are approaching your session.

(49:48):
The way I approach a session would be so different than that.
It would be, you know, it just is so different than that.
But that it brings my genius into play.
Like, I'm like doing a little
Get in present mindfulness with them at the beginning of a session, right?
So I encourage coaches to bring their genius to the session and do what Erin just did with all the information that you just gathered
But I want you to, the coaches, to make their own frame of how they would take that information and apply it in their unique way to a client.

(50:15):
Once you have the frame,
your theory, your orientation, how you're going to approach the session, then you have flexibility around that based on what the client's bringing in.
Because it may be that you end up only getting to part one of that, you know, and you spend the whole session on this success, or you spend the whole session.
And you don't even get to the values-based goal, or maybe you spend the whole time on values-based goals, right?

(50:39):
It doesn't, but you have the frame of this is how I'm approaching my client
And in the wise effort method, what I start with, and I think it's very important for coaches to start with this too, is what is your personal genius
What is it you bring to the table that's unique to you as a coach?
And I want you to bring that to every session.

(50:59):
And then I also want you to see the genius in your client because they're bringing something to the table too that's genius about them.
And then when we align that genius with the structure, understanding of behavior change and identification of values, then we have the strengths plus the values to help get them to catapult them towards where they want to go.
So yes, that's a beautiful frame.

(51:21):
It's your frame.
But the coaches listening get to come up with their own frame.
Cool.
So like you train.
Therapists, you're a trainer for therapists.
Is the book written for practitioners?
It's for both.
It's for practitioners.
I mean, I this is how.
Look, we need to be doing this work on ourselves.

(51:44):
The best way to learn is to practice your own instrument
Right.
If you've never played guitar, you can teach someone how to play guitar, but you're not going to be a great guitar player.
I mean, guitar teacher.
Right.
So the book is about, Wise Effort is about
First, getting curious about what's keeping you stuck, getting curious what your values are, and getting curious about what your unique genius offering is.

(52:06):
The second part of the book is about opening up.
This is the psychological flexibility aspect of it.
Opening up to thoughts, so opening up your mind, opening up to feelings, how do you open up your sense of self and how do you open up to change?
That's the opening up section
And then the third section of the book is focusing your genius, focusing your energy.
Because we also need to know how to take this life force of ours and not have it just be all over the place, right?

(52:32):
How do we actually focus it up so that it's most effective and most impactful in our relationships, at work, with our body, in our creative pursuits, and in our community?
And that's what the last part of the book is about.
So it's get curious, open up.
And focus your energy.
And the book is a method that I guide people through that's deeply rooted in this practice of act, but I have a lot of contemplative practice in it.

(52:56):
A lot of my background is also in contemplative yogic and Buddhist types of meditations.
It's secular.
but it's sacred.
And so I bring that into the work as well.
And it's a program that you follow for the general public, but also for practitioners.
Ooh, that's I love a method.
I do love a method.
I love a method too.
I know, I can tell.
You're a method generator.

(53:17):
Yeah, you're going to write a book that's going to be your meth
Right.
At some point.
Yeah.
One of the reasons why I wanted to methodize this workup for coaches is because I teach coaches.
I teach in advanced health coaching
course and and and get this you know, I get sixty or seventy five students in this course and I want to teach them a coaching framework.
A framework.
I like the word framework, whatever.
It just feels a little more loose.

(53:38):
Like it's a framework.
You can fit yourself into whatever you like.
But
what I've learned from you is actually going to influence how I structure this framework in future classes.
Just because it really aligns with what we know about motivational interviewing and self-determination theory and all these theories that we're obligated to teach in coaching certifications.
And this it's just it just it just folds in the sort of human lived experience so well.

(54:02):
I actually wanted to generally speak to you about the idea of presence.
And forgive me if this is absolutely nebulous line of questioning, but in your opinion, experience
Are humans struggling with presence more now than ever?
Or has this always been something that humans struggle with?
No, they're struggling with presence more now than ever, of course.

(54:25):
How do we be present with our own inner body, our experience of maybe a yearning to move?
Like sometimes we're irritable, but it's just that we've been sitting too long and looking at a screen too long.
But we don't know what that feeling is anymore because what's causing us, what triggers us to move is our Apple Watch.
We outsource our movement to some kind of digital device that tells us that it's time to move.

(54:50):
But maybe there's also an inner world that knows that you need to move, or hunger and fullness.
My whole master's thesis before I did my PhD
Was on hunger and fullness appetite awareness interoceptive awareness.
How are we aware of what's happening in our body?
Is this fullness or is this anger?
Is this stress or is this hunger?
We've lost track of that because we have some kind of external thing.

(55:12):
And it's not that these external things are good or bad, but they're pulling us out.
And then we had the speed.
So the nature of being present is that it's slow.
We're present with, I go, you know, I spend a lot of time.
I've spent a lot of time studying Udazen.
In my 20s, I went to a monastery in France with Thich Nhat Hanh for the first time.

(55:33):
And he's probably the most influential Zen master in the United States in terms of mindfulness, secular mindfulness that's designed for the West.
And if you walk, if you do a walking meditation, we do a walking meditation every day, an hour-long walk.
And the walk was just about being present, noticing each and every foot placed on the ground, noticing sounds

(55:56):
noticing our breath, noticing the community walking together.
All of a sudden it would be like 700 people walking and all of a sudden you'd stop.
And you're like, why am I stopping?
Why is this stopped?
Well because 300 people in front of you, someone stopped to tie their shoelaces.
And it leads to 300 people back coming to a stop.
You're getting present with our impact on each other, our interconnection, right?

(56:19):
You can bring that into an exercise class.
What if you were present with when I do my yoga class, my yoga practice, instead of noticing, like criticizing my camel pose or my sun salutation?
I noticed and was aware of the whole group moving their arms up and moving their arms down and moving through a sun salutation.
It's one of those beautiful things you can be part of.

(56:42):
That requires slowness.
It requires not being on to the next thing because the next thing is not this thing
And our life happens in the present moment.
It doesn't happen in the next thing.
So, yes, people have digital distraction, they have attention economy where everything is trying to draw attention.

(57:03):
We're all kind of sick of it.
You know, to be honest, we're sick of our email, we're sick of our Instagram, we're sick of the amount of content that's coming our way.
It's like, I don't want any more content.
And what are we craving?
Presence, time with each other, like you and I are having right now.
We're being present with each other.
It feels pretty good.
Even though we're on a digital device, even though people are listening to this in their ears, it's different.

(57:27):
Than the I'm going to pull you out to the next thing, or I'm selling you something, or I'm, you know, that kind of urgency, striving energy that pulls us out of the present moment.
So it's a practice.
We need to build it back in.
We need to teach our kids how to do it.
We need to put our phone down when we're eating.
I mean, simple stuff that we've lost the art of, to be honest.

(57:48):
Well, I wanted to bring it back to presence because
It's the first thing you mentioned in this concept of psychological flexibility.
And everything we talked about today, the presence was the first thing.
And it is such a fleeting
In some cases, non-existent resource.
So I think, you know, us as individual coaches, we, just like you said earlier, practicing presence ourselves, so we can be a good teacher of presence.

(58:16):
I just I can't help but feel like, and this sounds defeatist, I can't help but feel like we've lost it forever.
It's gone forever.
Apart from going to a
retreat in France, you know, and doing these w you know, like I mean, how can we get it back for the general population?
What are the what are the little hacks or hack is the wrong word because we're hack is the antithesis of productivity, of presence, basically.

(58:43):
It's not a bridge too far because we're craving it.
We're so thirsty for it.
And it is the biggest gift that you can give to another human is to be present with them.
So, number one in coaching.
Get out of your head and get present.
Attune to your client.
What is the tone of their voice?
What are they telling you that they're not telling you through their physical posture?

(59:08):
What's up for them?
Like having that be, you know, we have the framework, but if you're lost in the frame
They feel it.
We've all been in that position where it's like, you're not actually listening to me.
You're just like in your agenda of like getting onto the thing that you have to check off your bo
So stop seeing your client as a box to be checked off or a problem to solve and start seeing them as a sunset to be appreciated.

(59:31):
Be present for them.
And they will feel it and they will want to come back because you will be giving them some medicine that they're not getting in other places.
Now, being present is not enough.
Right?
Sometimes, you know, if like my kid gets a bike, you know, in a bike crash and he comes back and he's got his leg all scraped

(59:52):
I'm not like, hold on, I'm going to go get the.
I'm like, hold him first.
Tell me about what happened, honey.
Tell me about your leg.
Where does it hurt most?
Does it hurt most here or here?
Was it scary?
Right?
And then I say, okay, we're going to take care of this.
We're going to tend to it.
There's some things that you know as a coach that can tend to

(01:00:15):
Whatever place in your clients' lives that they need help with.
You're an expert in this.
So you know about that other parts of the medicine
But we've also lost this as in the healing arts.
We've all felt it in the doctor's office where we're like, oh my gosh, my doctor is like, I don't even want to go because they're not even listening to me.
And they're like.
It's 40 minutes late and they're there for 10 minutes and they're just like, I kind of could have gotten this on WebMD, so I'm kind of doing WebMD anyways.

(01:00:40):
I'm just going there to get the prescription.
That is not a healer.
Right.
Right.
That is a coach.
If we think about the true definition of coach, you are there to support them in becoming the best version of themselves, and that requires you to be present.
With them.
It's a foundational in all of it.
So that's how you bring the art of presence back.
It's not some hack of like, I need to do 20 minutes of meditation in the morning.

(01:01:02):
Yeah, great.
Do that if you can.
If you can't,
Make your meditation your practice.
Like you're with your client and you are fully present, eyes open, present with them.
Yeah.
I love this.
This is so applicable.
And even the anecdote, the example you shared of your son scraping his knee on the bike.
And I think about a medical appointment I had a couple of weeks ago.

(01:01:24):
I got my very first
Filling of my life at age 49.
You dental queen.
I know.
And so with the doctor, the doctor dentist came in to do it, and I was
I don't know what a filling is like.
I've never had one.
And I said, Hey, I've never had one of these before.
What are we doing here?
He's like, Oh, it's no problem.
We do these all the time.
And he didn't even care.
'Cause for him, it's like, I come in, I do fillings, I go home.

(01:01:45):
Like, she probably does 50 fillings a day, but it's my first filling.
And if he had just
Picked up on it.
Yeah.
If he had just picked up on the fact that even though I'm a grown-ass woman, I've never had one before.
And just give me, like.
Are you scared?
Like, yeah.
Am I a little?
Is my identity wrapped up in having perfect teeth?
Yes, a little bit actually.

(01:02:06):
Yeah.
There's a version of that with your client coming in.
We don't know the things that are so easy to us.
And this is the downfall of where our genius becomes a problem.
Your genius, Erin.
is creating frameworks.
It's easy for you.
You just did it like that, boom.
But for your client, it may not be so easy to create a framework from the all of the chaos of their life.

(01:02:29):
And so if your dentist had taken a minute and seen you, I mean, gosh, I would want my dentist, I have a biscuit, so I have a history of bulimia, and going to the dentist is like a trauma.
Like I'm like, I'm opening my mouth and you're seeing all of my history every single time you go in there.
And my dentist knows about it.
And so I, when I go to see him, shout out to Dr.
Henno.
It is like a therapy appointment.

(01:02:50):
I'm like, hey, Dr.
Henno, I'm plugging in my Tara Brock.
I'm doing my deep breathing.
Okay.
And like, he like knows, and like.
Practically, I want to hold his hand through the whole thing, right?
So, your clients that are coming to you that have body image stuff, they have trauma around food, they have histories of like total restrictive eating where they've like
or total overeating where they just abuse their bodies or overexercise or underexercise or just like it is a total shamehole that they're in.

(01:03:18):
They need you to show up the way you wish your doctor had showed up to you, like they're scared.
They're scared.
You know, we're all scared of different things.
At the end of the day, we are.
Yeah.
No, this is wonderfully fascinating.
I we scraped the surface barely on everything that you could t teach us.
Dr.
Diana, any final thought or invitation for our health coach listeners here?

(01:03:42):
Where can they take what they've learned, hear from you and learn more?
Well, if you want to learn more, go to WiseEffort, wiseeffort.
com, wiseeffortbook.
com, Dr.
Diana Hill.
I have a ton of free resources and this book that I have coming out that I'm really excited about because it's finally like
I guess it's something I also want to say for coaches is that there's lots of frames, and it's important to know the frames.

(01:04:07):
No motivational interviewing.
No learn act, it's great.
But make it yours.
And this book is me making it mine.
And I want you to find your voice and make it yours because that is your offering.
You have a unique genius that each and every person out there, if they offer their genius and align it with their values, then the world would be so much of a better place.

(01:04:29):
And your clients
Will feel it.
They'll feel the authenticity and your word, Erin, integrity.
They'll feel the integrity of it when it's aligned with who you are.
So I encourage you to play bigger, use your voice, but know the frames.
Learn the frames first, like you learn the scales before you start to improv.
Yeah.
Amazing.

(01:04:49):
I'm so grateful for this conversation.
Thank you, Dr.
De Anehill.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
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