What's in the Way

Interview with Doc:

"What's in the Way of Coaching"

"How do you sell people coaching?" Listening is the key, because if I just came and said, 'Do this program,' and everyone did the same thing, it would probably only hit the mark haphazardly.

I need to listen to you, ask questions of all sorts, and then design a path with and for you. I've got lots of tools but no cookie cutter.

"Would you want to make coaching accessible to everyone?" Yes, but it’s a relatively new industry. Many people still don’t know what to expect from coaching. And even if they’ve got a basic idea, they have no idea how it actually looks in practice. There’s an experience issue here.

Secondly it’s an investment in oneself, and not many people think about that; most of us are trying to figure out how to feed the family tonight. Even middle class North Americans (the few left) feel like we’d just be spending money on ourselves if we were to get a coach--like buying a watch or something; we don't see that if I invest $1K/mo in coaching today, it’s going to allow me to make $30K in the coming quarter, say.  My job as salesperson is to help folks see the ROI.

In my contract with clients, I offer a moneyback guarantee. It incentivizes us both to make this relationship count. Coaching should increase your wealth, happiness, fulfillment, everything you want, better relationships, better balance between work and life. And if you’re not getting that, you shouldn’t be paying for coaching. 

"What are blocks that prevent people from getting coaching?" A great number of folks have a hard time believing they could have a real breakthrough. We think life is just keep going on the way it has till we die. But the notion that a coach could see something about you that you don’t see, the seeing of which allows you to jump to a whole other level of productivity and satisfaction, seems like magic. And yet it happens.

I myself had the experience of a coach pointing out what I couldn’t see about myself. He acknowledged something I wanted to say and be, but hadn’t articulated yet; that allowed me to create a whole new career and win at it in a way I was not previously on track to do.

The way things look today could be very different tomorrow, out of coaching. That leap of faith is one of the things that holds people back; it seems too good to be true. I’m so excited about life and my coaching career, because I know it’s true.

"What change would you like to see, so that the benefits of coaching would be available to everyone?" A restructuring of relations, organizations, corporations, institutions. Factory-style social structures are giving way to open-floor work rooms, peer reviews, hyper-textual teams, etc. Dictatorial governance is being challenged by millions of people taking to the streets all over the globe.

The industrial revolution has been a great thing for mankind (resources, sciences, well-being) but it came with a dehumanizing and anti-democratic element in the way we relate. In indigenous societies people have coaches, mentors, apprentices. If you’re a hunter, you are on a team of hunters working with master hunters, and they teach you the ways of hunting and life. We don’t have that; we work in separate cubicles, on different floors of the corporation, with little communication from the top to the bottom or vice versa. We’re separated by lines and boxes on an org chart into categories that don’t connect. The biggest change to help everyone have access to coaching and mental health is that we’d have to change these individualist structures. Everyone would embody community, have a home and trusted guides.

"How would that happen, the change from individualistic to community thinking?" It’s already happening. The pandemic hit and we were thrown into family, and we had to learn to connect socially in new ways. You can’t hide in the usual ways now, you have to be there with your peeps.

Groups are finding new ways to come together. I see lots of new organizations forming online to get things done and fill social needs.

Something I’m involved with, The Spiral Method (spiralmethod.com), is all about giving people the opportunity to learn how to be in a group. We are good at isolating, but we need training in connecting. You can see people--in a Spiral Method Circle--learn how to relate long-held community withholds, e.g. around race; and then we get free and become intimate.

My role as coach to FAs is to partner with advisors to produce more satisfying results in financial services. The role has levels: I'm a sounding board, blind-spot revealer, purpose diviner, co-planner, and accountability buddy, among other things. Notice how the firm-supplied coaching you tried doesn’t allow you to freely express your whole self, and therefore doesn’t get at your sorest needs; after all it’s coming from the—albeit well-meaning--corporate structure. However, coaching sprang up because the industrial revolution had taken away something we need:  multi-valent connection. 

***Visit The Coaching Hub (www.ListeningIsTheKey.com), where we are exploring a reality in which relations are what individuals are made of, rather than the other way around.***

I would be happy to guide you in your growth and development, or take up another topic you’d like to bring to coaching, in a Gift Session (i.e. no cost). Call me:  303 747 4449.

Yours truly,

Martin Kettelhut, PhD

ListeningIsTheKey.com

303 747 4449