June 22, 2024 • 27 mins
Mastering the Balance: Intuitive Coaching vs. Consulting | Aligned and Magnetic Podcast
In this episode of the Aligned and Magnetic podcast, we dive into the challenges and nuances of balancing intuitive gifts, coaching, and being the expert aka consulting.
Host Lauren Ashley shares insights and questions from a recent three-day coaching mastery course. Lauren emphasizes the importance of sticking to a coaching approach to foster client empowerment and build new neural pathways. She discusses how to effectively use intuitive skills without leading clients or making assumptions, highlighting the distinction between coaching and consulting.
Tune in to learn strategies for balancing these roles and enhancing the client experience.
Connect with Lauren Ashley here: https://www.instagram.com/coachlaurenashley/
Join Lauren’s free Facebook or Telegram community and receive my weekly Newsletter with tips to help you build an Aligned, Magnetic and Profitable™ business here: https://coachlaurenashley.com/?tcb_lightbox=lightbox-homepage
00:00 Welcome Back and Podcast Update
01:16 Moving to Montreal: A New Beginning
01:31 Furnishing on a Budget: The $1000 Challenge
05:16 Coaching Mastery: Insights from our 3-day Coaching Mastery Retreat
07:32 Balancing Intuition and Coaching
11:28 The Importance of Asking Questions
15:34 Combining Coaching with Consulting
18:09 Empowering Clients Through Coaching
24:42 Engage and Share Your Thoughts
In this episode of the Aligned and Magnetic podcast, we dive into the challenges and nuances of balancing intuitive gifts, coaching, and being the expert aka consulting.
Host Lauren Ashley shares insights and questions from a recent three-day coaching mastery course. Lauren emphasizes the importance of sticking to a coaching approach to foster client empowerment and build new neural pathways. She discusses how to effectively use intuitive skills without leading clients or making assumptions, highlighting the distinction between coaching and consulting.
Tune in to learn strategies for balancing these roles and enhancing the client experience.
Connect with Lauren Ashley here: https://www.instagram.com/coachlaurenashley/
Join Lauren’s free Facebook or Telegram community and receive my weekly Newsletter with tips to help you build an Aligned, Magnetic and Profitable™ business here: https://coachlaurenashley.com/?tcb_lightbox=lightbox-homepage
00:00 Welcome Back and Podcast Update
01:16 Moving to Montreal: A New Beginning
01:31 Furnishing on a Budget: The $1000 Challenge
05:16 Coaching Mastery: Insights from our 3-day Coaching Mastery Retreat
07:32 Balancing Intuition and Coaching
11:28 The Importance of Asking Questions
15:34 Combining Coaching with Consulting
18:09 Empowering Clients Through Coaching
24:42 Engage and Share Your Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Aligned and Magnetic Podcast. I'm your host,
Laura Ashley, intuitive business coach, certified by the International Coaching Federation,
and they call me the Money, Mindset and Manifestation Queen.
I take a spiritual and practical approach that's backed by
neuroscience to help you make your vision a reality, but
(00:25):
more importantly, doing.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It in a way that lights you the fuck up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
If you're ready to create an aligned, magnetic and profitable
business so you can live a life and do the
work you are absolutely in love with, You're in.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The right place.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Get ready to hear the powerful questions and raw lessons
that you need to create success your way.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much for being here. Let's dive in. Hey, hey, love,
Welcome back to another episode of the Aligned and Magnetic Podcast.
I am so so stoked that you're here and totally
recognized it's been a minute since I posted an episode.
I have not been super great with my schedule this
(01:09):
year in season two, just because there's been so much movement,
and I really did try to get ahead, but there's
been a lot going on. So I wanted to give you,
I guess like a little bit of an update, and
then I want to go into something that came up
in a three day coaching Mastery course session what do
(01:34):
we call it, coport program that we ran with the
Coach Approach Leadership Academy earlier this May, and I've been
reflecting on it, so I really want to share more
about my thoughts on that with you around how do
we use our I guess strengths and skills and intuitive
abilities in the context of coaching where we're not meant
(01:58):
to be leading the conversation or making assumptions about clients
and about situations and all of that stuff. So first
of all, you might notice my background is a little
bit different. I'm in my new office in Montreal. We
just moved here at the beginning of April, and super
(02:19):
stoked about it. So one of my goals that I
was actually sharing with a lot of my clients and
people who were invested in my story is that my
goal was to furnish our apartment under one thousand dollars.
And it's so funny because my wife and I have
like a disagreement or a debate about what it means
(02:40):
to furnish an apartment. So in my mind, I was like, Okay,
I'm going to buy all of our furniture for under
a grand or around a grand, like that's cool. And
the whole idea around this was like I didn't want
to buy all brand new stuff. I wanted to really
like repurpose and lean into recycled idea, especially because we
(03:02):
spent so much money furnishing our home in Mexico and
all of our like good furniture is there, and we
don't know how long we're going to be in Montreal
for this is very much an experiment, and so even
though we totally could have dropped a lot more money
on furniture, I didn't want to. I really wanted to
(03:22):
leverage my resources and use my resources in a more
like in a way that made more sense as an investment,
you know, really taking a business minded approach. Anyway, So
I'll get into that a little bit, but I am
happy to report that we did, aside from our bed,
(03:44):
we did get most of our furniture all under that
one thousand dollars budget umbrella. Now I say aside from
our bed, because I realized, like halfway through this plan,
I was really like thinking about it and visualizing and manifesting.
I was like, Okay, I'm going to manifest this amount
of money and that will go toward you know, our
(04:07):
furniture and all of that stuff. This is what we're
going to find and I just had a lot of
fun with it. I envisioned like what my desk would
look like. Literally got the perfect desk for like one
hundred bucks. Anyway, it's been such a fun experiment to
play with. And so the bed. While I was envisioning
(04:27):
all of this, I was like, Okay, we could totally
get like a used bed. The more he thought about
sleeping in a used bed from somebody that I don't know,
the more I got grossed out. And not just that,
but comfort in the thing. Like we're getting older. I
turned thirty last year, and I definitely need a comfortable
(04:48):
place to sleep otherwise I am not particularly happy. And
we had a couple experiences over the past couple of
years where like the bed just wasn't comfortable. So I
was like, you know what, let's just get something that's
going to work for us. Let's get something that's comfortable. However,
I did manifest a really good deal on the bed.
It came with a free duvet, free sheets, free pillows,
(05:11):
free mattress cover, all of that, so I think we
did pretty good. And I also manifested a interest free
payment plan, so we're paying like eighty bucks a month
for our really comfortable king size mattress and I love it, okay,
So aside from that, and maybe we'll do like a
more in depth update on the move to Montreal and
(05:34):
how it all happened, because that is really an incredible
story to tell as well. And I really want to
kind of paint the picture of what it means to
lean into your desires and to really go for what
it is that you want with confidence and courage and
(05:55):
feeling like empowered rather than really like hold yourself back
and I guess confining yourself to the limits of your
current reality. So that'll be a story for another day.
But what I wanted to tell you about today is
this whole idea around like how do I use my
gifts and how do I do something that comes so
(06:19):
naturally to me in the coaching context. Right, So at
the beginning of May, I was in Niagra taging our
three day Mastery Coaching Mastery training, which is an ICF
International Coaching Federation accredited training, So anyone who comes through
our Academy can get their coach certification with the International
(06:40):
Coaching Federation. That's what we do. We train coaches, we
train leaders, and we train organizations to build coaching cultures
and train like personal coaches, life coaches, like people who
want to really take this approach in their business. Right,
whether you want to coach on help or coach on
(07:02):
leadership or coach on business, whatever it is, we give
you a process to have really transformational conversations. And the
potency of the transformation in that three day life was
absolutely incredible. Like you could literally feel and see the
change in these women's body language and their way of
(07:26):
being in their conversations, and it was so powerful. So
something came up though, because there's this one really talented
woman in that copor and I remember her saying one
day like, oh my god, I just you know, woke
up and had the plans for one of her peers's house,
(07:47):
like her house plans. She wanted to like share her
vision that she had with this client, and so it
kind of sparked this discussion of like, Okay, I have
this really brilliant mind, I have these really brilliant ideas,
and when I hear people talk about their business and
creating this business plan in my head. But how do
I bring that into coaching? Because if you bring that
(08:08):
into coaching, that's considered leading and you'll fail your ic
like recording your performance evaluation. So how do we bring
our intuitive gifts into the coaching context? Now? I want
to say that when it comes to learning coaching skills,
(08:28):
coaching is something that we are so like, it's not
a natural skill for people. Okay, So if anyone's listening
to this thinking like, oh, anyone can be a coach, like, no,
it's not true. And on top of that, years of
experience in any particular field even doesn't give make you
a good candidate to be a coach. Coaching requires a
(08:52):
lot of skill, a lot of undoing, and a lot
of refinement and focused effort to be able to have
coaching conversations and not just like any coaching conversation, but
a successful coaching conversation. And there is actually a method,
There is a method to having successful coaching conversations in
(09:13):
a way that helps your clients get the best results possible. Now,
whenever we are talking, whenever I'm talking to a new coach,
a beginner coach, my recommendation is to not to learn
how to silence those I don't want to say silence
(09:35):
to your gifts, but learn how to silence that part
of your brain that always wants to know the answer
or always wants to problem solve. Coaching is the absolute
opposite of problem solving. When I'm in the coaching seat,
my job isn't necessarily to solve problems. If you are
solving problems, that is probably more of a consultant role.
(09:57):
And there's nothing wrong with consulting. It's just that there's
usually a reason that clients come to us or coaching,
and it is our rule to kind of stand that
coaching hat. That being said, in your evolution as a coach,
there will come a point in time when you are
so comfortable with the coaching conversation, you are so comfortable
(10:19):
with the core competencies and what it means to embody
coaching that you can clearly distinguish for yourself the difference
between this is what it feels like when I'm in
the coaching seat, and this is what it feels like
when I'm consulting or you know, having some inspired ideas
and all of that stuff. In the beginning stages. Like
I said, I very much urge new coaches to not
(10:42):
even play with that second part because that second part
comes naturally to us. Usually that second part comes because
of years of experience in business or years of experience
in an industry, and we our brain becomes wired to
detect I guess holes, or to piece puzzle pieces together
(11:02):
to create a solution for a problem. That can issue
a very great consultant. Right. However, when we're in a
coaching conversation, there's no areas to really bring that into
the conversation. So if you're a newer coach, I recommend
practicing peer coaching only so that you can master your
(11:23):
coaching skills. Otherwise the likes become very blurry and it's
kind of hard to tell, like when am I consulting
whenever I'm actually coaching, And that can kind of set
you up for failure when it comes to your performance evaluation,
because if at any point in your performance evaluation, or
if you're applying for a credential with the International Coaching Federation,
(11:45):
if you do consult or lead a conversation or you're
not going to pass the exam. So that being said,
once you're certified, Where are the lives BETWEL coaching, consulting?
How do I bring in my gifts? How do I
bring in this part of me that I know can
help people without tainting the coaching experience. Right now, before
(12:08):
getting into that, I want to say, it's so important
to know these clear distinctions between like, Okay, why are
you coaching? When are you consulting? In all of that
because research has shown that when we take a coach approach,
we are helping our clients to build new neural pathways
(12:29):
in their brain. The other thing that I want to
point out, and this kind of builds on a past
episode that I did, but it is so easy as
a person to make assumptions about a client's experience, and
it's just because our brain is wired to do that.
Our brain is wired to detect patterns and to fill
in the gap. And when we make assumptions or fill
(12:50):
in those gaps, we risk giving our clients the wrong information,
like information that maybe would be good for us but
not necessarily good for them. So we risk making assumptions
about our client are their experience, what they know, and
when we make those assumptions, we also risk undermining their knowledge,
(13:13):
their experience, and their expertise. In coaching, we hold our
clients capable of being the expert of their field, of
their niche, of their whatever it is that they're bringing
to the table. And just because our brain is coming
up with really great ideas does not always mean that
that's the right idea for your client. Right. I know,
(13:34):
trust and believe that you are a great problem solver
and that you have really incredible ideas, and also they're
not always the right ones to share with others, okay, So,
and the only reason for that is, you know, as
a leader and someone who has been in coaching for
(13:55):
a while, who has a ton of my own ideas,
and who knows a lot about business, my business and
specific I have worked with coaches before who have given
me advice and tried to solve my problems, but they
didn't ask me enough questions before going ahead and solving
the problem, and so I kind of just ended up
(14:18):
sitting there like hearing a solution that I've already card
or tried in the past. Right, There's nothing more frustrating
than just sitting there wasting time hearing someone else trying
to give you advice that maybe wasn't warranted, Maybe wasn't
needed or asked for, and so this is what we
want to try to avoid. Your clients are coming to
(14:38):
not necessarily to always get you to solve their problems
unless they are. If they are, then that's going to
be clear in your contract and agreements. However, when it
comes to coaching and blending it with either consulting or
mentoring or your intuitive gifts as a healer, what we
want to do is make sure that we are kind
(15:00):
of exhausting our resources or exhausting our options in the
contonent of coaching. And what this means is asking enough
questions so that you know if what you are about
to say is actually going to add value to your conversation,
(15:21):
or if it's just going to piss off your client,
or if it's just going to be like, oh, yeah,
I've already done that, or I already know that now.
One of the ways that you're going to experiment with
this and play with this is by actually trying it
on ver size. I'm definitely experienced moments before where I
have offered a solution that a client already thought of,
(15:43):
or offered a piece of advice that someone's already thought of.
And those are the moments for me where I'm like,
oh yeah, okay, Lauren, come back into coaching. Remember to
ask the questions first and get a really good lay
of the land before diving into a slow because often
what happens, like I mentioned earlier, is that we'll come
(16:05):
up with a solution that might actually be missing information
and it might not actually be the best solution for
our clients. So what we always want to do is
ask our clients enough questions and try to get them
to get to their own solution before incerting your own ideas. Now,
if what you're doing in your container is offering consulting.
(16:30):
For example, I started out in my coaching career purely coaching,
right like our conversations. My conversations with my clients would
be largely focused around coaching. Now, in the past year,
I have shifted slightly and offered I still offer peer coaching,
so for the person who is like an expert in
(16:52):
their area and but once you know, coaching around their leadership,
their mindset and business, we do that. However, I do
also offer consulting and done with these services, and that
requires me to be an expert in a certain capacity.
Now I blend the two I blend my coaching questions
(17:12):
with consulting with my ideas, with my intuitive nudges and
my experience, because the coaching will give me. The coaching
questions give me enough information to know, like, Okay, what
is the best solution for this client. And also sometimes
it'll help my clients to come up with their own
answers and have those light bulblilments that ultimately for that
(17:36):
are going to be far more impactful than something that
I'm going to say. Now. The reason being again comes
back to the neuroscience. When we just tell people how
to do things, we are shutting off their brain. We
are just giving them a path, giving them a solution,
and even if it's the best idea, even if it's
the path for that person, doesn't always mean that they're
(17:58):
going to actually own that idea and take that project on.
The more that we contribute our own ideas to a project,
the less ownership we are giving our clients. So the
more that we take a piece of the project, the
more that we take a piece of the pie, the
more we are becoming responsible for that project for that pie. Now,
(18:19):
what we want to do, and this is what using
a coach approach can really help with is put a
lot of that onto our clients. Right. We want them
to own the project. Then we want them to own
the outcut solutions. We want them to take full responsibility.
Otherwise what happens is they can and they don't do
(18:40):
this on purpose. It's like part of the brain and
the mechanics. Right. But you might notice that your clients
are following through all what they said that they would do,
or they continuously come back to the coaching sessions say
ye know, I have it completed that or I want
this other direction instead. That's like just to give contexts
so that the purpose of me saying this is that
(19:02):
there is a time and place for your leadership, for
your experience or your expertise in whatever you are doing,
whether that's in business, whether you are a spiritual healer.
But what I find is very supportive for me in
how I do this is that I primarily take my
(19:24):
coach approach. Whether I'm consulting, whether I am marketing, whether
I am doing something for somebody, I primarily take a
coach approach, and I ask them a ton of questions
to get all of the information that I can possibly get.
Then once I have asked all of those questions. I
will ask them like, well, what do you want to
(19:44):
do about this? What do you think the best path
forward is?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And if and when I have a brilliant idea or
a solution or an intuitive nudge, what I do is
I pause, and I will ask for permission to fill
them in on whatever idea I have. Usually they'll always
say yes, right, But when you ask for permission, it
(20:10):
opens up a different way of hearing the information, if
that makes sense, right, you are when you're asking for
permission instead of just inserting yourself in your solution and
coming in as like you are, you know, the keeper
of all of the knowledge and all of the recipes
and stuff like that. Instead, asking for permission is demonstrating
(20:34):
a partnership, a co creation, and so asking for permission
they can either accept or reject that idea. Right, they
can either accept or reject whatever it is that you
have to say. And that piece is so important because
we as coaches and healers, although we can be very
(20:54):
insightful and very intuitive and pick up on things, we
don't necessarily want to condition our clients, and we definitely
want to encourage their own responsibility, their own decision making
and their own self trust so that they can do
whatever they want with the information that they just received.
(21:14):
Does that make sense? So to come back like circle
back to this whole you know, I'm having all of
these ideas about how someone can run a business and
do the thing. If somebody wanted like a business plan
or a solution for their question, they can just go
into chat GPT and like type in how to blah
blah blah blah blah. But people generally speaking don't have
(21:38):
trouble with creating plans, creating solutions, creating a strategy. Although yes,
there is some learning there, but once you have a
foundation and a sense of like how to do something,
you can be off to the races. And generally speaking,
when it comes to working with people who are pretty
(21:59):
experience instant life like leaders, CEO, people who have had
a very successful career path, they don't always need new
ways to do things. We can often leverage or build
on what we already know from before. So by asking
coaching questions and by leaning on coaching as the first approach,
(22:24):
we are pulling from them what they already know and
we are able to then see like, Okay, what's actually
getting in the way here, because sometimes clients don't actually
realize that it's not about that they don't know something,
they don't know how to do something. It's more about
that they're afraid or that there's some sort of underlying
(22:46):
belief there about how they're showing up. And this was
demonstrated so perfectly in a coaching demo in our three
day masteret where one of our coaches who did have
the business plan, like one of her. One of the
coaches was talking about what she wants to do with
her coaching business and how she wants to get the
word out there, and the coach was like mapping out
(23:09):
in her head the plan and she was like, oh
my god, if you just do this, then you'll be fine.
If you just do this, then you'll be fine. You're
good to go. You already know. But it's not helpful
right for people to be like, well, you already know
how to do this, Like just go do it. The
reason that people typically bring these conversations to the table
is because there's on some level lack of confidence, or
(23:31):
there is a fear, or there's something that they just
need to get off their chest, work through, move through
so that they can take action and proceed. So the coach,
you know, this was like a really big moment for her,
and I remember in her like debrief only gave them feedback.
She was like, yeah, I was definitely thinking of all
(23:52):
of the things that I would do and all the
ways that you could and all of this and that
and that and that. And while she totally could have
said that, it would have shut down her clients thinking,
it would have shut down her brain and it would
have probably like sent her walking off feeling like okay,
like yeah, I can do it, I can do it.
But then when it actually comes down to taking action,
(24:15):
they're putting it off, they're procrastinating, they don't they don't
take the action right. And so what the coach actually
did was she put that off to the side and
she just continued to stay present and to ask questions.
And what we can always do is reflect back to
our client, like, Hey, I'm hearing that this is a
(24:35):
thing for you. I'm hearing that this has come up
for you several times. And I also know that you
are a very knowledgeable coach, so that you've done something
like this before. So what's worked really well for you
in the past About that what would you like to do?
Different language, way forward? How can you lean on your resources? Right?
And by asking these types of questions and helping them
(25:00):
to really tune into their internal power, we're actually doing
exactly that. We're helping them tune into their internal power,
their motivation, their piece of the pie. We're helping them
own it instead of stay in victim mentality, instead of
stay in like, oh yeah, well I have all this knowledge,
I can do it, but I don't feel ready or
whatever it is. And when we verbally process, we can
(25:23):
clear the energy, clear the thing that's holding us back,
and move forward with confidence, with empowerment, with motivation. So
I want to hear from you how this resonated today.
I know that this episode is going to be very
niche to the coaches and healers that are listening to
the podcast, But let me know what do you struggle
(25:45):
with when it comes to sharing your intuitive gifts and
then coaching like asking those empowering, curious, exploratory questions, and
what do you struggle with when it comes to coupling them.
You notice that when you do share intuitive nudges or
thoughts or ideas, that it has a pilotive influence on
(26:07):
your clients, or do you notice that it kind of
maybe shuts them down, or that they don't really do
anything with the intuitive guidance that you've given them. Let
me know. I have a free telegram community where we
can chat about each podcast episode. I would love for
you to come and join and comment on this episode
that is in that community, and we can start having
(26:30):
a conversation around you know, maybe things that you can
try to do differently to help your clients get the
best possible results and help them stay on trap with
what they've committed to. All Right, thank you so much
for tuning in. I hope that this episode was helpful.
I know that it was a little bit of a
different episode this time. And if you're not a coach
(26:53):
or a healer, I hope that this episode gave you
a little bit of inspiration to try asking more open
and curious questions to your clients to help them solve
some of the problems that they might actually be coming
to you for and help them empower Help you to
empower your clients to really step into their confidence and
(27:15):
own what they are really good at. All right, I
will see you in the next episode.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today.
If you like what you heard, I would love it
if you left a review. If you like my vibe,
come and hang with me in my Facebook or Telegram group.
I'll drop the link to my email list below, or
you can get instant access. Make sure you check the
show notes for any other links that I mentioned today,
and until next time, I'm sending you waves of abundance.
Welcome to the Aligned and Magnetic Podcast. I'm your host,
Laura Ashley, intuitive business coach, certified by the International Coaching Federation,
and they call me the Money, Mindset and Manifestation Queen.
I take a spiritual and practical approach that's backed by
neuroscience to help you make your vision a reality, but
(00:25):
more importantly, doing.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It in a way that lights you the fuck up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
If you're ready to create an aligned, magnetic and profitable
business so you can live a life and do the
work you are absolutely in love with, You're in.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
The right place.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Get ready to hear the powerful questions and raw lessons
that you need to create success your way.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much for being here. Let's dive in. Hey, hey, love,
Welcome back to another episode of the Aligned and Magnetic Podcast.
I am so so stoked that you're here and totally
recognized it's been a minute since I posted an episode.
I have not been super great with my schedule this
(01:09):
year in season two, just because there's been so much movement,
and I really did try to get ahead, but there's
been a lot going on. So I wanted to give you,
I guess like a little bit of an update, and
then I want to go into something that came up
in a three day coaching Mastery course session what do
(01:34):
we call it, coport program that we ran with the
Coach Approach Leadership Academy earlier this May, and I've been
reflecting on it, so I really want to share more
about my thoughts on that with you around how do
we use our I guess strengths and skills and intuitive
abilities in the context of coaching where we're not meant
(01:58):
to be leading the conversation or making assumptions about clients
and about situations and all of that stuff. So first
of all, you might notice my background is a little
bit different. I'm in my new office in Montreal. We
just moved here at the beginning of April, and super
(02:19):
stoked about it. So one of my goals that I
was actually sharing with a lot of my clients and
people who were invested in my story is that my
goal was to furnish our apartment under one thousand dollars.
And it's so funny because my wife and I have
like a disagreement or a debate about what it means
(02:40):
to furnish an apartment. So in my mind, I was like, Okay,
I'm going to buy all of our furniture for under
a grand or around a grand, like that's cool. And
the whole idea around this was like I didn't want
to buy all brand new stuff. I wanted to really
like repurpose and lean into recycled idea, especially because we
(03:02):
spent so much money furnishing our home in Mexico and
all of our like good furniture is there, and we
don't know how long we're going to be in Montreal
for this is very much an experiment, and so even
though we totally could have dropped a lot more money
on furniture, I didn't want to. I really wanted to
(03:22):
leverage my resources and use my resources in a more
like in a way that made more sense as an investment,
you know, really taking a business minded approach. Anyway, So
I'll get into that a little bit, but I am
happy to report that we did, aside from our bed,
(03:44):
we did get most of our furniture all under that
one thousand dollars budget umbrella. Now I say aside from
our bed, because I realized, like halfway through this plan,
I was really like thinking about it and visualizing and manifesting.
I was like, Okay, I'm going to manifest this amount
of money and that will go toward you know, our
(04:07):
furniture and all of that stuff. This is what we're
going to find and I just had a lot of
fun with it. I envisioned like what my desk would
look like. Literally got the perfect desk for like one
hundred bucks. Anyway, it's been such a fun experiment to
play with. And so the bed. While I was envisioning
(04:27):
all of this, I was like, Okay, we could totally
get like a used bed. The more he thought about
sleeping in a used bed from somebody that I don't know,
the more I got grossed out. And not just that,
but comfort in the thing. Like we're getting older. I
turned thirty last year, and I definitely need a comfortable
(04:48):
place to sleep otherwise I am not particularly happy. And
we had a couple experiences over the past couple of
years where like the bed just wasn't comfortable. So I
was like, you know what, let's just get something that's
going to work for us. Let's get something that's comfortable. However,
I did manifest a really good deal on the bed.
It came with a free duvet, free sheets, free pillows,
(05:11):
free mattress cover, all of that, so I think we
did pretty good. And I also manifested a interest free
payment plan, so we're paying like eighty bucks a month
for our really comfortable king size mattress and I love it, okay,
So aside from that, and maybe we'll do like a
more in depth update on the move to Montreal and
(05:34):
how it all happened, because that is really an incredible
story to tell as well. And I really want to
kind of paint the picture of what it means to
lean into your desires and to really go for what
it is that you want with confidence and courage and
(05:55):
feeling like empowered rather than really like hold yourself back
and I guess confining yourself to the limits of your
current reality. So that'll be a story for another day.
But what I wanted to tell you about today is
this whole idea around like how do I use my
gifts and how do I do something that comes so
(06:19):
naturally to me in the coaching context. Right, So at
the beginning of May, I was in Niagra taging our
three day Mastery Coaching Mastery training, which is an ICF
International Coaching Federation accredited training, So anyone who comes through
our Academy can get their coach certification with the International
(06:40):
Coaching Federation. That's what we do. We train coaches, we
train leaders, and we train organizations to build coaching cultures
and train like personal coaches, life coaches, like people who
want to really take this approach in their business. Right,
whether you want to coach on help or coach on
(07:02):
leadership or coach on business, whatever it is, we give
you a process to have really transformational conversations. And the
potency of the transformation in that three day life was
absolutely incredible. Like you could literally feel and see the
change in these women's body language and their way of
(07:26):
being in their conversations, and it was so powerful. So
something came up though, because there's this one really talented
woman in that copor and I remember her saying one
day like, oh my god, I just you know, woke
up and had the plans for one of her peers's house,
(07:47):
like her house plans. She wanted to like share her
vision that she had with this client, and so it
kind of sparked this discussion of like, Okay, I have
this really brilliant mind, I have these really brilliant ideas,
and when I hear people talk about their business and
creating this business plan in my head. But how do
I bring that into coaching? Because if you bring that
(08:08):
into coaching, that's considered leading and you'll fail your ic
like recording your performance evaluation. So how do we bring
our intuitive gifts into the coaching context? Now? I want
to say that when it comes to learning coaching skills,
(08:28):
coaching is something that we are so like, it's not
a natural skill for people. Okay, So if anyone's listening
to this thinking like, oh, anyone can be a coach, like, no,
it's not true. And on top of that, years of
experience in any particular field even doesn't give make you
a good candidate to be a coach. Coaching requires a
(08:52):
lot of skill, a lot of undoing, and a lot
of refinement and focused effort to be able to have
coaching conversations and not just like any coaching conversation, but
a successful coaching conversation. And there is actually a method,
There is a method to having successful coaching conversations in
(09:13):
a way that helps your clients get the best results possible. Now,
whenever we are talking, whenever I'm talking to a new coach,
a beginner coach, my recommendation is to not to learn
how to silence those I don't want to say silence
(09:35):
to your gifts, but learn how to silence that part
of your brain that always wants to know the answer
or always wants to problem solve. Coaching is the absolute
opposite of problem solving. When I'm in the coaching seat,
my job isn't necessarily to solve problems. If you are
solving problems, that is probably more of a consultant role.
(09:57):
And there's nothing wrong with consulting. It's just that there's
usually a reason that clients come to us or coaching,
and it is our rule to kind of stand that
coaching hat. That being said, in your evolution as a coach,
there will come a point in time when you are
so comfortable with the coaching conversation, you are so comfortable
(10:19):
with the core competencies and what it means to embody
coaching that you can clearly distinguish for yourself the difference
between this is what it feels like when I'm in
the coaching seat, and this is what it feels like
when I'm consulting or you know, having some inspired ideas
and all of that stuff. In the beginning stages. Like
I said, I very much urge new coaches to not
(10:42):
even play with that second part because that second part
comes naturally to us. Usually that second part comes because
of years of experience in business or years of experience
in an industry, and we our brain becomes wired to
detect I guess holes, or to piece puzzle pieces together
(11:02):
to create a solution for a problem. That can issue
a very great consultant. Right. However, when we're in a
coaching conversation, there's no areas to really bring that into
the conversation. So if you're a newer coach, I recommend
practicing peer coaching only so that you can master your
(11:23):
coaching skills. Otherwise the likes become very blurry and it's
kind of hard to tell, like when am I consulting
whenever I'm actually coaching, And that can kind of set
you up for failure when it comes to your performance evaluation,
because if at any point in your performance evaluation, or
if you're applying for a credential with the International Coaching Federation,
(11:45):
if you do consult or lead a conversation or you're
not going to pass the exam. So that being said,
once you're certified, Where are the lives BETWEL coaching, consulting?
How do I bring in my gifts? How do I
bring in this part of me that I know can
help people without tainting the coaching experience. Right now, before
(12:08):
getting into that, I want to say, it's so important
to know these clear distinctions between like, Okay, why are
you coaching? When are you consulting? In all of that
because research has shown that when we take a coach approach,
we are helping our clients to build new neural pathways
(12:29):
in their brain. The other thing that I want to
point out, and this kind of builds on a past
episode that I did, but it is so easy as
a person to make assumptions about a client's experience, and
it's just because our brain is wired to do that.
Our brain is wired to detect patterns and to fill
in the gap. And when we make assumptions or fill
(12:50):
in those gaps, we risk giving our clients the wrong information,
like information that maybe would be good for us but
not necessarily good for them. So we risk making assumptions
about our client are their experience, what they know, and
when we make those assumptions, we also risk undermining their knowledge,
(13:13):
their experience, and their expertise. In coaching, we hold our
clients capable of being the expert of their field, of
their niche, of their whatever it is that they're bringing
to the table. And just because our brain is coming
up with really great ideas does not always mean that
that's the right idea for your client. Right. I know,
(13:34):
trust and believe that you are a great problem solver
and that you have really incredible ideas, and also they're
not always the right ones to share with others, okay, So,
and the only reason for that is, you know, as
a leader and someone who has been in coaching for
(13:55):
a while, who has a ton of my own ideas,
and who knows a lot about business, my business and
specific I have worked with coaches before who have given
me advice and tried to solve my problems, but they
didn't ask me enough questions before going ahead and solving
the problem, and so I kind of just ended up
(14:18):
sitting there like hearing a solution that I've already card
or tried in the past. Right, There's nothing more frustrating
than just sitting there wasting time hearing someone else trying
to give you advice that maybe wasn't warranted, Maybe wasn't
needed or asked for, and so this is what we
want to try to avoid. Your clients are coming to
(14:38):
not necessarily to always get you to solve their problems
unless they are. If they are, then that's going to
be clear in your contract and agreements. However, when it
comes to coaching and blending it with either consulting or
mentoring or your intuitive gifts as a healer, what we
want to do is make sure that we are kind
(15:00):
of exhausting our resources or exhausting our options in the
contonent of coaching. And what this means is asking enough
questions so that you know if what you are about
to say is actually going to add value to your conversation,
(15:21):
or if it's just going to piss off your client,
or if it's just going to be like, oh, yeah,
I've already done that, or I already know that now.
One of the ways that you're going to experiment with
this and play with this is by actually trying it
on ver size. I'm definitely experienced moments before where I
have offered a solution that a client already thought of,
(15:43):
or offered a piece of advice that someone's already thought of.
And those are the moments for me where I'm like,
oh yeah, okay, Lauren, come back into coaching. Remember to
ask the questions first and get a really good lay
of the land before diving into a slow because often
what happens, like I mentioned earlier, is that we'll come
(16:05):
up with a solution that might actually be missing information
and it might not actually be the best solution for
our clients. So what we always want to do is
ask our clients enough questions and try to get them
to get to their own solution before incerting your own ideas. Now,
if what you're doing in your container is offering consulting.
(16:30):
For example, I started out in my coaching career purely coaching,
right like our conversations. My conversations with my clients would
be largely focused around coaching. Now, in the past year,
I have shifted slightly and offered I still offer peer coaching,
so for the person who is like an expert in
(16:52):
their area and but once you know, coaching around their leadership,
their mindset and business, we do that. However, I do
also offer consulting and done with these services, and that
requires me to be an expert in a certain capacity.
Now I blend the two I blend my coaching questions
(17:12):
with consulting with my ideas, with my intuitive nudges and
my experience, because the coaching will give me. The coaching
questions give me enough information to know, like, Okay, what
is the best solution for this client. And also sometimes
it'll help my clients to come up with their own
answers and have those light bulblilments that ultimately for that
(17:36):
are going to be far more impactful than something that
I'm going to say. Now. The reason being again comes
back to the neuroscience. When we just tell people how
to do things, we are shutting off their brain. We
are just giving them a path, giving them a solution,
and even if it's the best idea, even if it's
the path for that person, doesn't always mean that they're
(17:58):
going to actually own that idea and take that project on.
The more that we contribute our own ideas to a project,
the less ownership we are giving our clients. So the
more that we take a piece of the project, the
more that we take a piece of the pie, the
more we are becoming responsible for that project for that pie. Now,
(18:19):
what we want to do, and this is what using
a coach approach can really help with is put a
lot of that onto our clients. Right. We want them
to own the project. Then we want them to own
the outcut solutions. We want them to take full responsibility.
Otherwise what happens is they can and they don't do
(18:40):
this on purpose. It's like part of the brain and
the mechanics. Right. But you might notice that your clients
are following through all what they said that they would do,
or they continuously come back to the coaching sessions say
ye know, I have it completed that or I want
this other direction instead. That's like just to give contexts
so that the purpose of me saying this is that
(19:02):
there is a time and place for your leadership, for
your experience or your expertise in whatever you are doing,
whether that's in business, whether you are a spiritual healer.
But what I find is very supportive for me in
how I do this is that I primarily take my
(19:24):
coach approach. Whether I'm consulting, whether I am marketing, whether
I am doing something for somebody, I primarily take a
coach approach, and I ask them a ton of questions
to get all of the information that I can possibly get.
Then once I have asked all of those questions. I
will ask them like, well, what do you want to
(19:44):
do about this? What do you think the best path
forward is?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And if and when I have a brilliant idea or
a solution or an intuitive nudge, what I do is
I pause, and I will ask for permission to fill
them in on whatever idea I have. Usually they'll always
say yes, right, But when you ask for permission, it
(20:10):
opens up a different way of hearing the information, if
that makes sense, right, you are when you're asking for
permission instead of just inserting yourself in your solution and
coming in as like you are, you know, the keeper
of all of the knowledge and all of the recipes
and stuff like that. Instead, asking for permission is demonstrating
(20:34):
a partnership, a co creation, and so asking for permission
they can either accept or reject that idea. Right, they
can either accept or reject whatever it is that you
have to say. And that piece is so important because
we as coaches and healers, although we can be very
(20:54):
insightful and very intuitive and pick up on things, we
don't necessarily want to condition our clients, and we definitely
want to encourage their own responsibility, their own decision making
and their own self trust so that they can do
whatever they want with the information that they just received.
(21:14):
Does that make sense? So to come back like circle
back to this whole you know, I'm having all of
these ideas about how someone can run a business and
do the thing. If somebody wanted like a business plan
or a solution for their question, they can just go
into chat GPT and like type in how to blah
blah blah blah blah. But people generally speaking don't have
(21:38):
trouble with creating plans, creating solutions, creating a strategy. Although yes,
there is some learning there, but once you have a
foundation and a sense of like how to do something,
you can be off to the races. And generally speaking,
when it comes to working with people who are pretty
(21:59):
experience instant life like leaders, CEO, people who have had
a very successful career path, they don't always need new
ways to do things. We can often leverage or build
on what we already know from before. So by asking
coaching questions and by leaning on coaching as the first approach,
(22:24):
we are pulling from them what they already know and
we are able to then see like, Okay, what's actually
getting in the way here, because sometimes clients don't actually
realize that it's not about that they don't know something,
they don't know how to do something. It's more about
that they're afraid or that there's some sort of underlying
(22:46):
belief there about how they're showing up. And this was
demonstrated so perfectly in a coaching demo in our three
day masteret where one of our coaches who did have
the business plan, like one of her. One of the
coaches was talking about what she wants to do with
her coaching business and how she wants to get the
word out there, and the coach was like mapping out
(23:09):
in her head the plan and she was like, oh
my god, if you just do this, then you'll be fine.
If you just do this, then you'll be fine. You're
good to go. You already know. But it's not helpful
right for people to be like, well, you already know
how to do this, Like just go do it. The
reason that people typically bring these conversations to the table
is because there's on some level lack of confidence, or
(23:31):
there is a fear, or there's something that they just
need to get off their chest, work through, move through
so that they can take action and proceed. So the coach,
you know, this was like a really big moment for her,
and I remember in her like debrief only gave them feedback.
She was like, yeah, I was definitely thinking of all
(23:52):
of the things that I would do and all the
ways that you could and all of this and that
and that and that. And while she totally could have
said that, it would have shut down her clients thinking,
it would have shut down her brain and it would
have probably like sent her walking off feeling like okay,
like yeah, I can do it, I can do it.
But then when it actually comes down to taking action,
(24:15):
they're putting it off, they're procrastinating, they don't they don't
take the action right. And so what the coach actually
did was she put that off to the side and
she just continued to stay present and to ask questions.
And what we can always do is reflect back to
our client, like, Hey, I'm hearing that this is a
(24:35):
thing for you. I'm hearing that this has come up
for you several times. And I also know that you
are a very knowledgeable coach, so that you've done something
like this before. So what's worked really well for you
in the past About that what would you like to do?
Different language, way forward? How can you lean on your resources? Right?
And by asking these types of questions and helping them
(25:00):
to really tune into their internal power, we're actually doing
exactly that. We're helping them tune into their internal power,
their motivation, their piece of the pie. We're helping them
own it instead of stay in victim mentality, instead of
stay in like, oh yeah, well I have all this knowledge,
I can do it, but I don't feel ready or
whatever it is. And when we verbally process, we can
(25:23):
clear the energy, clear the thing that's holding us back,
and move forward with confidence, with empowerment, with motivation. So
I want to hear from you how this resonated today.
I know that this episode is going to be very
niche to the coaches and healers that are listening to
the podcast, But let me know what do you struggle
(25:45):
with when it comes to sharing your intuitive gifts and
then coaching like asking those empowering, curious, exploratory questions, and
what do you struggle with when it comes to coupling them.
You notice that when you do share intuitive nudges or
thoughts or ideas, that it has a pilotive influence on
(26:07):
your clients, or do you notice that it kind of
maybe shuts them down, or that they don't really do
anything with the intuitive guidance that you've given them. Let
me know. I have a free telegram community where we
can chat about each podcast episode. I would love for
you to come and join and comment on this episode
that is in that community, and we can start having
(26:30):
a conversation around you know, maybe things that you can
try to do differently to help your clients get the
best possible results and help them stay on trap with
what they've committed to. All Right, thank you so much
for tuning in. I hope that this episode was helpful.
I know that it was a little bit of a
different episode this time. And if you're not a coach
(26:53):
or a healer, I hope that this episode gave you
a little bit of inspiration to try asking more open
and curious questions to your clients to help them solve
some of the problems that they might actually be coming
to you for and help them empower Help you to
empower your clients to really step into their confidence and
(27:15):
own what they are really good at. All right, I
will see you in the next episode.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today.
If you like what you heard, I would love it
if you left a review. If you like my vibe,
come and hang with me in my Facebook or Telegram group.
I'll drop the link to my email list below, or
you can get instant access. Make sure you check the
show notes for any other links that I mentioned today,
and until next time, I'm sending you waves of abundance.
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