Talking about Coaching

It is not uncommon that coaches have dual relationships with their clients. The coaching client may also be a colleague, a parent from the community, or a friend of a friend that they sometimes meet in social circles. Some coaches even coach family members or close friends. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell at what point we’re crossing the line between being a friend and coaching a friend. In this episode our resident coaches Ni...

Many coaches are thinking about, or experimenting with scaling their coaching business to reach more people. But once we market at scale, many of us coaches find ourselves stretched too thin in the face of having to create content, write, sell, and engage a growing social media. If you’re committed to still be the one who’s delivering the work, it can feel impossible grow the business unless you’re working with a team. And once you...

Working with a coaching supervisor is the gold standard of maintaining professional standards, figuring out ethical dilemmas, and to continuously grow as a coach. Most coaches look up to their supervisor as someone that they respect and whose approach to working with people they would want to emanate. You could say that a coach doesn’t have to have experience in their client’s area in order to coach them well. Could you also say th...

Daniel asked us whether coaching still works if the clients aren’t paying any money for the coaching. This applies to pro-bono coaching and also to circumstances like Daniel’s where it’s not appropriate to charge due to how coaching has been set up within the organisation or institution. In this episode of Talking about Coaching, Nicki, Siawash and Yannick hence discuss the crucial importance of commitment in the coaching relations...

Metaphors can be a powerful way to unlock your clients’ thinking and progress in a coaching session. In this episode, our resident coaches Nicki, Siawash and Yannick discuss how to work with metaphors in coaching. 


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Following question was sent in: “Hi guys. Would love to hear your take on "money back guarantee" policy for your coaching. And possibly why you choose to implement it in a particular way.” So here we are, talking about whether money back guarantees are a great way to create the kind of confidence that gets clients through the door, or whether they add a huge weight to coaches and make it difficult to stay present and let ...

Welcome to this episode of Talking about Coaching, the podcast from coaches for coaches. 

This episode is one of Yannick's deep dives into one topic or person and we're talking to Clare Norman. 

"With over 20 years of coaching experience, Clare is highly sought after by other expert coaches, as well as successful coach training companies as a Master Mentor Coach. Clare looks to continually sharpen individuals’ coaching...

Sounds a little click-baitey perhaps, but we thought it was time to tackle this question head-on. With a number of episodes on related topics you will find plenty of practical tips on how to grow your business, and we may well do a more classical series of practical advice on how to get 6 figures in your coaching business, but today we wanted to shine a light on the question itself, what it means to be a 6-figure coach, why that ma...

Here’s the full question we’ve received from SY, which I took some editorial liberty with. They asked: “I feel like a fraud sometimes when I'm coaching others on topics that I personally struggle with. I know my coachees are the expert of their own life and I am not a mentor, but can't help feeling a little ashamed/ fear of being judged when I am not at a flourishing, thriving state.”

So here we are talking about feeling l...

The question came up in a recent Coaching Cabinet and lots of helpful advice was offered to a coach who’s just starting out, so we figured we’d add to that list and share a few rounds of things we would have liked to have known when we started out as coaches, and some learnings that we’ve gathered along the way. 

See also:

Episode 01 - Is it important to be qualified, accredited and certified?
Episode 05 - How much should I ...

Our colleague Steffano asked us about what to do differently when clients seem excited about working together, but then fall off the bandwagon in the weeks following the consultation. So in this episode of Talking about Coaching our resident coaches Siawash, Nicki and Yannick discuss the DOs and DON’Ts of that first conversation with a prospective client. We share a very much non-exhaustive list of relevant theory mixed with our ow...

Stephen brought up the question around preparing for coaching sessions. While it can be helpful to have a set of questions, tools or exercises on hand, it can also distract from being fully present. Moving beyond how to prepare yourself as a coach mentally for a session (see episode 19), in today’s session our resident coaches Yannick, Siawash and Nicki are discussing the benefits and pitfalls of preparing content and questions for...

What does coaching look like 'in the real world' (beyond theory and what coaching schools teach us)? Who really is a clean coach (e.g. fully ICF competency compliant or steady within a specific school of thought or particular coaching approach)? What am I allowed and not allowed to do once I’m qualified and “out there”? Inspired by, and celebrating the public launch of the next evolution of Yannick’s Coaching Lab, TaC res...

Most coaching schools teach us to be neutral, not to share our opinions, to work client-led. Coaching in the face of the climate crisis has challenged this perspective. Can coaches also be activists? Is it ever possible not to influence a client? And shouldn’t we be a positive influence in our clients’ lives anyway? How can I be authentic AND neutral? And how might attempting to stay neutral benefit or hinder the coaching process? 

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There’s been a lot of talk about ChatGPT recently, especially since it coached a few people reasonably well. In a recent study, AI coaches performed better than human coaches on weight loss metrics. The development of AI i exponential, so we can expect huge shifts in quality and ability. So it’s a good time to discuss whether we need to be concerned about AI replacing human coaches, and how we might (need to) partner with AI to del...

Some clients just really need to hear that they’re on the right path, or that their idea is a good one, or that they’re worthy as human being. It’s a powerful thing to experience, and a gratifying gift to give. Yet, there’s a dark side to validation that our resident coaches Yannick, Siawash and Nicki point to in today’s episode. We chat about getting sucked into “validation games”, when it is and isn’t helpful for a client to vali...

Most coaches commit to showing up for their clients. Some do so much so that they’re coaching clients even when they’re really quite ill or would much rather hide under a blanket for one reason or another. What’s your threshold for cancelling a coaching session? How ill do you need to get to say “I can’t make it today”. What might the fallout be? And how might we make those decisions? Due to present circumstances, this and more is ...

We learn and grow so much when we’re coaching clients who are very different to us. Similarly, clients benefit a lot when they work with a coach who is different to them. We probably all appreciate that diversity leads to more innovation, yet most experts will tell us to speak to a very specific kind of person when marketing our coaching businesses, with the inevitable effect that we’re, by definition, reducing diversity in our cli...

On some level I always think “what are you hiding?” when I see someone with a blurred or virtual background. Imagine that’s what your client thinks when they first meet you? Does it inspire trust? Not really. On the other hand there are many reasons why a coach may choose not to reveal what’s happening behind them. Same goes for clients, and even if we can see their full frame clearly, we have no idea what’s happening outside of th...