Mastering the Three Core Coaching Skills

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Ever wondered what separates good coaches from truly transformational ones? The answer lies in three foundational skills that can revolutionize your coaching practice while dramatically boosting your confidence.

Throughout this episode, we unpack the first critical skill: presence. This goes far beyond physically showing up—it's about being mentally and emotionally available without judgment or agenda. We explore why so many coaches struggle with true presence, often because we've been conditioned to believe leadership means providing all the answers. When you master presence, you'll stop missing crucial client information and create space for authentic transformation.

The second skill—clarity—transforms how you guide clients through their challenges. Rather than mapping their entire journey, effective coaches help clients see just their next clear step. Like navigating through fog, clarity isn't about illuminating the entire path but focusing on what's immediately ahead. Through deep listening and powerful questioning, you'll help clients discover their own answers rather than imposing your solutions.

Perhaps most crucial is the third skill: integration. This is where many coaching relationships fall short. Clients experience powerful breakthroughs during sessions but struggle to translate them into changed behaviors or new habits. We share practical approaches for helping clients integrate insights into their busy lives through concrete actions, bridging the gap between ephemeral "aha" moments and lasting transformation.

We also tackle a critical insight: learning to diagnose your client's true challenge rather than the problem they think they have. Clients often request what feels comfortable rather than what they truly need. The art of coaching lies in seeing beyond the presenting issue to the root cause, then tailoring your approach accordingly.

Ready to transform your coaching practice? Master these three foundational skills and watch as your clients achieve faster breakthroughs, clearer direction, and most importantly—lasting results that change their lives forever.

Want a personalized strategy session for free? Book a free call with Marc or Teresa: https://www.modernleadership.us/apply

Whether you're going through a challenge, or working on a powerful goal, join Marc or Teresa for a 20-minute strategy session and leave the call with a plan to make it happen!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is going on?
My people, good morning Today.
We have a really powerfulsession for you today.
So if you're somebody who's acoach, you want to have more
confidence.
You want to be able to know andhave that complete clarity that
you can help anybody who bringsanything to you.
What we found is the threeskills that we're going to dive
into today.
It's kind of like these are thefoundations of everything.
When you bring these threeskills to the forefront, not

(00:23):
only do you help peopletransform quicker and actually
get the results that they camefor, but you will feel
incredibly confident because youknow you can help somebody
through anything.
And I'm gonna be honest, thesethings that we're gonna talk
about today if I didn't havethem into today's session, oh,
it would have gone way different.
And at the end, everybody waslike I've never felt more

(00:44):
connected, more clarity on whatthe next steps are and why we're
doing this, and the energy andthe excitement was off the
charts.
And that's what you can do whenyou lean into these three
things.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, so we're actually going to dive right
into skill number one, and thatis presence.
So let me ask you a questionabout this.
Okay, what does being fullypresent mean to you?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Okay, I really want you to think about, maybe, a
time when you have been fullypresent with somebody and what
the not only results came out ofit, but how you felt when you
were fully present.
Now, when we say present,people are like well being in a
place, both physically andmentally and emotionally, all in
that moment, right.
But when we describe it, whenit comes to coaching, it is

(01:26):
being and giving your full-timeattention and focus on your
client, the person that you arethere to coach, without bringing
in any of your judgments, yourthoughts and the plan that you
think is going to work best foryour client.
Now, the reason why we say thisis because when we bring our
own stuff into our clientsessions, we sometimes implant
limiting beliefs, we sometimesgive people our plan instead of

(01:47):
helping them find their plan,and they leave the session
actually feeling overwhelmedinstead of what we want to
really do is connect with them,give them clarity which you'll
find out a little bit later butbe fully present.
So, going back to what Ioriginally said, have you ever
had that moment where you'represent, both physically and
mentally, like with your kids orwith a client, with a friend,

(02:10):
and you're not thinking aboutwhat you're going to talk about
next.
You're not thinking about thenext question that you're going
to answer.
You are there, present, you'refocused and you're paying
attention, because you don'twant to miss things in a session
, and we've seen that happen alot.
People will miss things becausethey're thinking about the next
thing for them to say or forthem to do.
As a coach, we need to bepresent physically, mentally,
and make sure that all of thesethoughts that we have about our

(02:31):
client, all the thoughts aboutwhat they should or shouldn't do
, never make it into the session.
Easier said than done, right.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think I find that coaches have trouble doing this.
So my next question is why doyou think that coaches struggle
with this so much?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, we were kind of talking about this before we
actually went live and that islike there's this thought that
if they give the answers, that'swhat leadership is.
It's me talking in the front,pointing direction, sharing like
all of the directions that Ithink they should go, and from
an early age we kind of likehave been structured that way
right, Like the teachers.
You know, teachers are up atthe front, they're giving

(03:05):
direction, they're telling youwhat to do, and it's really not,
there's not a lot of likethinking on your own, but it
kind of like plants thesethoughts of like I really want
to, if I really want to helpthese persons, then I have to
tell them what to do, Right, andso they kind of get stuck in
that.
And it's like I really want tomake an impact here.
So what can I say or do to makethis person have this

(03:27):
breakthrough or do all thisstuff?
But that's pressure on you andyou're not present with them.
So that's why it's so hard,because we really we call
ourselves heart-led coaches hereon Modern Leadership and we're
heart-led coaches.
We really want to help peopleand sometimes what that
translates into is giving themthe steps.
Skill number two is clarity.
All right, it's clarity.
So can you describe for themwhat we mean by giving your

(03:50):
clients clarity?
What do we mean by clarity?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, the way that I see it is that you're kind of
guiding and helping your clientget crystal clear on what that
next step is.
So it's not about helping themfind that entire path, it's
really only about giving themclarity on what that next step
is for them.
I kind of see it as like, ifyou're walking down a path

(04:15):
that's like super foggy, youcan't see what's far away.
However, you can see what yournext step is, and that's what I
see when I try to help myclients gain that clarity is
just allowing them to reallyexplore what that next step is
for themselves.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
How do you do that?
How do you help them find whatwe term as like their answers?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
but to help give them that clarity, yeah, so one of
the things is listening deeplyand asking the right questions.
And you might be thinking, okay, well, how do I know what
questions to ask?
And that is actually somethingthat we really dive into in the
coach certification, because wedon't even know, like, what

(05:00):
questions to ask.
But we've learned through thatprocess and I think that asking
the right questions is reallyallowing your client to find
those answers for themselves,because it's not about fixing a
problem.
It's really about exploringwhat is going on and helping
your client get to that pointwhere they don't see the whole

(05:22):
path.
It's really just about what isthat next step that's actually
going to allow them to moveforward?
Okay, so let's move on to skillnumber three.
Okay, and that is integration.
Why is integration often likethe missing link, like when
you're having conversations?

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah.
So I find this with coaches whostart to coach people.
They start to have theirclients have breakthroughs, but
it doesn't translate into changeof behavior or habits.
And this is where, like, you'reintegrating, like the mindset
piece of things, the clarity,right, but you're also
integrating it into getting themto take a different action, to

(05:59):
show up differently and to getthe results they want.
This whole entire process oflike learning just what you need
in this moment not learning atall, not doing it all, but like
literally learning it andimplementing it, because that's
really where the power is right.
And so I see a lot of coacheswho give their clients
breakthroughs, but they don'tknow how to integrate it into

(06:19):
that person's regular life, intoaction and into results.
It's awesome to give peoplethose breakthrough moments.
If you follow skill one andskill two here, you're going to
give them like breakthroughs,right, you're present with them
and you're able to like, reallyhelp them get clear.
They going to give them likebreakthroughs, right, you're
present with them and you'reable to like, really help them
get clear, they're going to havebreakthroughs.
But then you have to askyourself how do I integrate that
into action?

(06:39):
How do I integrate that intotheir busy, whirlwind life.
You have to find a way ofintegrating it into your regular
life, and it's different foreverybody, which is why you
don't just say, hey, this isexactly how you have to
integrate it.
There's a process aroundcoaching that you learn how to
have that mindset with atactical piece too.
I am not here just to givepeople breakthroughs.
I'm here to give thembreakthroughs and have them go

(07:00):
change their life forever.
And that doesn't happen just bya thought change and I know we
want to believe that but itactually takes action and
integration into your life.
If I have a system that haschanged my life forever, I'm not
going to give somebody half ofit.
I refuse to If we lose salesbecause of it or like it doesn't
bother me, because I know thatwhen my life has been changed

(07:22):
forever was having both of thesethings that I need to give this
to other people.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
How do you help someone actually kind of live
that breakthrough rather thanjust kind of have it during the
session?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
When you think about, like helping people through
breakthroughs and getting themto take action, you have to
understand one vital piece ofinformation, and that is you
have to find out what the actualproblem is that your clients
are dealing with.
Because if you jump in and allyou're doing is clarity, mindset
, work and they need steps andcommitment and accountability,

(07:54):
it's just going to be spinningtheir wheels and most times,
believe it or not, people willactually self-sabotage and tell
you what they want, but it's notwhat they need.
They're only telling you basedoff of their comfort zone.
So if they're talking all aboutmindset, they probably don't
need mindset, my friends, butyou have to have a way to get to
the root and diagnose theirproblems.

(08:14):
The same is true if somebody iscoming there like I need all
the steps.
It's probably what we call anadaptive challenge.
It's a challenge that they haveto be able to think differently
in order to be able to achievewhat they want to achieve.
So related to this question islike if you want to help people
have breakthroughs and actuallyimplement and integrate things
into their life, you have tofind out what the actual problem

(08:38):
is.
They're dealing with so manypeople.
They either think they knowwhat their problems are, or they
project what their problems areonto their clients, and they
have no idea how to askquestions, how to get to the
root of what's actually holdingthem back, as opposed to just
trying to solve a problem allone way.
We love frameworks.
We have a framework that weteach.
It's called the growth model,but it is not a one size fit all
thing, even though I would loveto think it is.

(09:00):
No, there are some things outthere that don't fit into all of
that.
Right, it is a big thing thatyou can actually use, but if
you're trying to use that with aproblem of somebody like, let's
say, somebody struggling with,like, finding new clients right,
they're struggling with findingnew clients we have a way that
you can actually figure out whatexactly they're struggling with
.
Are they struggling with, like,I can't reach out to people?

(09:21):
Am I good enough, like am Igood enough to actually ask
somebody to coach?
What if I don't know?
What if I get it wrong?
Or do you need to figure out,like, when do you need to post?
What do you need to say?
How do you create a Facebook adLike here's the thing, maybe
the one that you think right nowis your answer.
Maybe it's not Right, and soyou have to be able to figure

(09:42):
out what your clients actuallyneed from you, and that's one
big thing.
When you go back to like, howdo you help them integrate, you
find out where they'restruggling, actually struggling,
what their challenge is right,sometimes it's both and then you
can help solve those problems.
That's really where the poweris identifying that.