​Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (00:02)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the eight domains of human potential, a podcast designed for professionals committed to elevating their wellbeing and success as a whole person. I'm Laurel Elders, founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. We're an ICF accredited certification provider where it's our passion to elevate human potential through both the art and the science of masterful coaching. I have with me today, Carrie Sackett.

For over 25 years, Carrie has been practicing a boldly transformative approach to emotional wellness and personal growth in the coach's chair and outside the coach's office as a Fortune 500 global change leader and award-winning employee engagement professional. She is the author of Social Therapeutic Coaching, a Practical Guide to Group and Couples Work. Welcome, Carrie.

Carrie (01:00)
Hi, Laurel.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (01:01)
So good to be with you today.

Carrie (01:03)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (01:08)
Me too, me too, especially after Michael introduced us just not that long ago. So I'm really, really excited. So for those tuning in today's topic is focused on the relational domain. This includes our relationship to ourselves, to others, to what is and to what is not, but it's also about examining the role of relationship within ourselves.

within our families, within our companies, our teams, and our communities. So I could not think of a better person to be talking with today than Carrie. And Carrie, let's just dive right in. Can you share your definition of social therapeutics so that we have an understanding?

Carrie (01:53)
Yep, the definition is that social therapeutics is a group-based approach to emotional well-being and personal growth, and it helps people build up their relational muscles so they have the tools to build meaningful connections with others and are empowered.

to create that sense of community and belonging that many, many of us are craving.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (02:26)
Especially, gosh, in this day and age, how we can, we barely, some of us barely know our neighbors. You know, and we're trying to tune in to figure out where can we be more in community.

Yeah. And where does, where does social therapeutics originate?

Carrie (02:50)
Social therapeutics and coaching have a similar historical timeline. Both came out of the social motion of the 60s and 70s. And both went about innovating, doing something different than what was then psychotherapy or psychiatry. So social therapeutics in particular, its origins come from a multiracial grouping of community-faced activists.

who were trying to innovate tactics and social justice. And the leader of that grouping, Fred Newman, was a PhD in the philosophy of science from Stanford. And he recognized that for everyone to be out in the field and trying to create something new and doing very hard work, everybody needed emotional support. So he started creating these groups.

and social therapeutics grew out of that in the sense that it was a fusion of doing and observing what's happening in these groups that's helpful to people and then putting some language to it. So he and his collaborator, Lois Holtzman in the 90s.

wrote several books that put the multidisciplinary intellectual foundations of social therapeutics on the page. So that's where it comes out of.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (04:16)
Okay, and you are looking at this through a coaching lens. Does the origins of it have a coaching lens or is it broader?

Carrie (04:24)
Yes.

I would say the origins was in creating a new approach to human development. And I would argue that coaching has those same roots.

And coaching and social therapeutics are both grounded in co-creation with the client. That was also a big break in its day with psychotherapy. And we also share that commitment to growth and transformation. So social therapeutics has some methodological, what I would call advances, but social therapeutics and coaching come out of the same place. Back in the nineties, the word coaching was just

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (04:43)
Thank

Carrie (05:13)
emerging so it's not baked into the title social therapeutics but therapeutic in this sense and I believe that's how it was intended by the founders is in our human capacity to go and grow beyond ourselves in order to create something new with others.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (05:33)
I really appreciate that because you know my my initial reaction when I see the word therapeutic I think counseling I think healing and Now that we're we're kind of looking at it through a coaching lens. I see it may be closing gaps Okay, yeah

Carrie (05:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to say more of what you mean by closing gaps?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (05:58)
Like pulling together pulling people together in relationship Leave in looking within ourselves to see where we might make more connections within ourselves

Carrie (06:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (06:12)
Nice. And I

know at least with our school, I'm not sure about other programs out there, but we talk about how coaching, the coaching approach is, you know, helping someone develop their own wisdom and insights. And yet the coaching process can be therapeutic, even though it's not therapy.

Carrie (06:31)
Yes, yes. I think it's important what you're saying because I think, again, back when coaching was founded...

psychotherapy, the APA was attacking coaching as it like a turf fight. And so when coaching started, it was like, no, we're we do we only do this, we swear we don't do any of that stuff. But it's 30 years later. And frankly, the innovation of coaching has had a huge impact on psychotherapy. And so I think there's more under of an understanding today that the realm of emotions, the realm

of relationships and relationality, it doesn't belong to anybody. That's part of who we are as humans. And we all have the capacity to grow and develop. And I don't think that that lies in anyone's, nobody can own that territory. We're humans, we can all go and develop.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (07:34)
Yeah.

Lovely. So in terms of, you know, we're speaking about the eight domains and the relational domain. So our capacity as human beings to develop in relationship, be in relationship and thrive in relationship. I'm just curious, what does, what do you see social therapeutics, what does this teach us about the relational domain?

Carrie (08:03)
Yeah, I love that question. maybe I'll give a short answer and then we'll have a conversation, because I think here's where we're going to discover things and get to know each other. Relationality and social therapeutics is derived from quantum physics in the way that it broke with modern science.

So relationality in social therapeutics, it's an activity that people do together. And so there's a set of tools around that that I trained coaches in. And part of that is seeing, being able to see that we are in relation.

with others all the time, whether we feel it or not. We're a social species. We all live on this planet together. We all impact on each other and are impacted on by each other. when I train coaches on asking relational questions, I see that as people building up their muscles to do.

more meaningful intimate activities with each other. So that's one kind of avenue of that.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (09:23)
I love that. it reminds me of years ago, I had this, this realization that, you know, we're, we're all what you were just saying, we're all connected, whether or not we're conscious of it. And the fact that I can, I can say this about somebody, I don't have any connection with that person. Something about maybe something they said or did rubbed me the wrong way. And so just the fact that I'm impacted showed me

there is a connection, right? Because we're impacting each other. And, yeah.

Carrie (09:53)
Right. Exactly. Yes.

Yes. And so, yeah.

It's hard for us to see, especially in American culture, because we're being really organized. We're already an individualist culture, but we're really being organized now to only see me, think me. I think other people would agree that it's harder for us to see that we're all organically connected.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (10:28)
Yeah. And feel that really feel it. And it's so fascinating to me too, because I'm noticing that, you know, with the cancel culture, it's like, people just automatically reject something and just ignore it and splinter off instead of getting curious. And, know, I'm, to me, this is just my opinion and thought and theory is that, you know, we've got these extremes coming up in society and

If truth's in the middle, how are we gonna get there unless we're open to saying, well, wait, what is really going on? How come that person, if I perceive someone as having an extreme thought or position, how come they got there? What is going on? that, you know, and just wondering about your thoughts on that.

Carrie (11:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, one of the ways that I help my clients, I lead, I do a lot of group work. I lead something called Life Development Groups. And it's all different people, all different walks of life, all different points of view on the world. And one of the things we create together in our groups is the, and the way I help clients build up their relational muscles is to be able to ask questions.

not even so much on the understanding of how they got there, but on the experiential. Like, are you curious how this is impacting on me? I'm curious to hear what are you hearing in what I'm saying? Are you, you know, when is your example of, you know, you realize somebody irritated you.

Wow, what if we had more of a capacity to ask each other, hey, are you curious of how I'm experiencing you right now? We can't know. That's not even a moral judgment about because the other person's doing something good or bad. It's because methodologically, we sit inside of ourselves. It's others who see us operating in the world, and those others

help us can be very helpful to us in seeing who we are, where our gaps are, where we might be able to grow, or how we impact on people. We can't know it just in here. We can know it here.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (13:01)
Yeah, yeah. And I'm curious too, how, what drew you to social therapeutics work? So, you know, I know you, you became a coach. and then, yeah, I'd love to hear more about your story.

Carrie (13:17)
Yeah. thank you. Well, I left college seeking out social and political innovators.

So that was a very self-conscious choice. And going back to what we were saying earlier, I did study psychology in college and I had some disagreements and I saw some limitations. And then I decided I'm not going to go that but I do want to find some innovators. And so ultimately I did find Fred Newman and Lois Holtzman and this multiracial grouping of people that was out trying to innovate. And so I did both. I was a community organizer and I trained

with the founders of social therapeutics. And once I trained, I was ready to have a practice and group work and building up a client base. And I realized that I could not imagine sitting in the same chair in the same office all day long in New York City. Like...

I was young and I liked to be out in the world and I just couldn't imagine it so I didn't do it. I put all that on hold and I went into the corporate world, you know, because you can get out of your chair all day long and go to meetings and walk down the halls and go to the water cooler. And what I discovered is that the social therapeutic method is very flexible and it really made me an excellent.

professional when it came to seeing and relating to groups, change management, employee engagement. And back in those days that wasn't linked with coaching. And I actually didn't even run into coaching until, you know, 15 years ago I was like, well, I think I'm old enough now to sit in a chair all day. I think I could do that. Maybe I'll go back to my roots and go back to doing this work. And that's when I discovered coaching and it was like,

It was like finding your long lost cousin. And then off of that, I have now built a full-time practice where I see individuals and couples and families, and then I lead these life development groups. so, yeah, that's a little bit of my journey. To ask a relational question, how was that for you to get to know me a little bit?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (15:41)
that's great.

It was so fun because

I actually could really relate to what you're sharing. I too started out going down therapy path and had some, some, or saw some, limitations. So, yeah, definitely helped me understand your perspective and also the passion where your passion comes from as well. Yeah. The roots of that.

Carrie (16:09)
Yeah, yeah, it's in my blood.

Fred Newman used to say, well, you've grown up with this. It's like water to you. And so now my job, I wrote the book, Social Therapeutic Coaching, to take those intellectual foundations and bring them down and make them more practical. And now I'm training coaches and actually some therapists.

in practicing the approach, which is, it's both a big shift and a little shift. A lot of coaches say, wow, you're putting language to some of the things I already do, and at the same time they're saying, whoa, this is paradigm shifting, soul shifting, and they feel very excited and empowered and can see how the method applies to whatever kind of coaching they're doing.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (17:03)
I know Michael, our senior partner here at the Institute, he took your two-day program, I believe it was, and just was, he's like, it was riveting. was really high impact, was so excited.

Carrie (17:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, and the beauty of it again is its flexibility. it's not like everyone has to throw out what they already know and learn this. And also it's not an off-the-shelf kit where you just memorize the things and apply them in the right circumstance. It's continuous relational activity and that we can do everywhere.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (17:43)
Yeah, and I'm just imagining, I mean just knowing what I know about relationships and you know there's certain level of growth that we can't do siloed, right? We can't think our way into more connection. It's it's being in it.

Carrie (17:59)
Great.

Yeah, what you just said seems so simple and obvious, and yet it's so important and powerful because we are living in a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on thinking. And we get a lot of messages to make us think we can think our way out of it. So what you're saying is really significant.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (18:04)
Yeah.

How has, what have you learned as you've embarked on this path as a coach and in this work with social therapeutics? What have you, yeah, what are your internal takeaways, I guess?

Carrie (18:47)
Hmm, there's so many different ones. That's a great question. Part of what I've learned is personal. That, I can do this. I do have something to give to other people.

my God, this is learnable. When you're a founder and you make something, it's yours. I was trained by the founders, but I'm not a founder. So going into all this is, can I give this stuff away? Is this teachable? And it is. And then it's the people that I'm training that are teaching me how to teach social therapeutics. And it keeps getting better and better and better and more.

easily accessible and practical.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (19:39)
How do you see social therapeutics as like an extension within coaching? So for example, your programs are so CCEs for coaches, right? So they're already, they've already got the coaching skills down. So now they're expanding as a coach when they come to you, I can imagine. How do you see this as a really good extension of what coaches are already doing?

Carrie (19:58)
Yes.

Yeah. Well, there's a couple of different ways. One is various really well-known, well-respected coaches right now in the last year or two have been saying, we as an industry need to innovate.

So for example, Jonathan Passmore is saying the future of coaching is group coaching and transformational coaching. The way we're going to survive AI is we go in a direction that AI can't do. Social therapeutics specialize, I mean we specialize in group coaching and in emotional growth, which is transformation. So we're like right there.

Coaches are calling for innovation and we're saying, hey, this is a methodological innovation. It's not only a new idea, like the Lego trainings, a great new idea. What social therapeutics is, is a whole new way of seeing, doing, speaking. It's a whole different kind of culture.

And so that addresses, it's one response to the calls across the board to go beyond goal oriented coaching, which that's what Dr. Richard Boyatzas is talking about, or to go to not negate our core competencies because we need them. That's what forms us as a coach, but to also have more tools to go beyond and to keep going. So there's that piece of it. Other pieces like you

might be familiar with coaches that are running improv trainings for other coaches. So social therapeutics, one of the four pillars of social therapeutics is taking those tools of improv in theater and not only growing ourselves as coaches in that area, but bringing it into the work. So literally there's a metaphor, we use the metaphor in social therapeutics of performance in the sense of the tools of theater.

you can do a new performance, you can try on a new performance. So especially like in my work with...

couples all sometimes integrate in improv exercises into the work or I'll do an improv game with the first session of a group or the first session with an individual. So that's another place that coaching is already there and social therapeutics is saying we don't even have to keep it for ourselves we can bring it into our work.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (22:50)
I love that. Can we go back for a minute? Something you said really touched me or caught my attention. So you said emotional growth because that's the transformation. Now it's so interesting to me because going back to what you're saying earlier about how, know, we're so focused on the mind, like our mindset, we can just think our way through. And yet the research is showing the research I've seen is showing that the emotional, which

Carrie (22:55)
Mm-hmm.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (23:19)
sometimes is maybe there's a lot of myths around emotional, the emotional realm in our society, right? emotions are unreliable. There, you know, all these myths and, and yet that's where the transformation happens. Could you share more about your thoughts on that?

Carrie (23:23)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah,

well what you're pointing out I really agree with when when I was writing the book chapter four is called seeing emotional growth as the path to transformation and like any good author if that's the title of your book you better be prepared you got to google who else is talking about emotional growth so you have something to say you know hit enter into google there's nothing

emotional growth does not exist as a concept in psychotherapy. That's where it would exist if we found it anywhere. The only place I could find it was in emotional growth of toddlers and young children so that they can sit still in school when they start going to school. That's the only concept out there of it. I would say societally, culturally, as you're saying,

we under appreciate the role that emotionality plays. Going back to the founding of social therapeutics, Fred Newman was running these experiments of taking these community organizers and trying to teach them advanced math.

but not only from a knowing perspective, also asking, checking in on the emotional level of what's the emotionality of trying to learn something that's way beyond your capacity to learn. I don't know how we grow as a species if we don't engage creating with our emotions. Like what we're taught is you have to manage them, know them.

I think that's a limited view of emotionality. Easy way to create with emotions, this comes up all the time. And now my group members will say this to each other. Because once you get going with a group, they're going to pick up on the culture of this. And they take the tools as theirs, which is the way it should be. That is the spirit of coaching. And now someone will come into group and say,

you know, I feel, I feel really down. what do you do when you feel down? What? What kind of question is that? Nobody asks that question.

We can create and play with our emotions. Another group, and this is written about in the book, someone comes in and says, what kind of lonely are all of you? I'm generational lonely. I'm not, my kids aren't gonna have kids, so I'm not gonna have grandkids. And everyone went around the room creating their emotions, meaning they're the ones who made up the name and the meaning of what it was. We are so, our culture is, they, no.

They so preformed, pre-made, take off the shelf, that's me. Social therapeutics gives people the tools to create and say that's me instead of consume and say that's me.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (26:53)
That's really fascinating. Well, and it's what I'm loving here is that we're connecting these dots, right? The eight domains don't exist in a vacuum. They're, fully connected, right? So the emotional and relational, you know, the connections there. And it's so interesting because when I reached out to you first, seeing if you'd like to be on the podcast, I, I was so conflicted. I'm like relational or emotional, like where, because that's so connected, right?

Carrie (27:19)
yeah. Yes.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (27:24)
Now, go ahead.

Carrie (27:24)
Yeah.

Why is it it's all connected. That's the thing. Western science has, listen, we love Western science. We have penicillin, we have cars, we have podcasts, like science, modern science has made a lot of great stuff. And when you take that method and push it onto studying people, it comes up short. So.

on the people realm, everything gets divided up. You have to choose between emotions and relationality. It's always either or in modern science land, and that's its strength. And the world is more complicated. The quantum, next generation science is a break with that stuff and says, no, we can do both and. It's both at the same time.

little thing, huge break with Western culture. Either or has been part of Western culture for a very long time. So we're, it's all, we're all connected. It's how we make our meanings with it.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (28:38)
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, everything you're sharing right now is the heart of integrative intelligence and how we're, we're kind of helping people connect those dots within themselves. And one of our favorite quotes here at the Institute is from Rumi. I know you know this one, even though we haven't talked about it in that for those tuning in, you think, because you understand one, you must also understand two because one and one makes two, but

Carrie (28:43)
Hmm.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (29:07)
You must also understand and.

Carrie (29:11)
That's beautiful.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (29:16)
Well, and it's so interesting to me too that, you know, we, we, in Western thinking, you know, goes back to Descartes and the compartmentalization that was brought forward for scientific purposes. And, know, that's brilliant because it can be so important to understand, this is a, this is a frog that is not poisonous. This one is poisonous. So I know to stay away from, you know, something like that. So there's helpful times and yet.

Now we're studying everything in universities separately. Is that serving us? Right?

Carrie (29:48)
Yes. Yes.

I actually, I got my degree in college in medieval Renaissance studies. So I didn't actually study the Enlightenment ever. And, but what I did study was this.

was the intellectual conceptual shift that occurred from pre-modern times to modern times. So what I studied was this moment in human history when people were radically shifting how they were seeing and being in the world. And you know, that generally gets attributed to people like Galileo and state and, and that

public idea that no, the earth wasn't the center of the universe, it was the sun. And that set off lots of questioning and lots of permissioning to look at things in new ways.

out of those moments came the Enlightenment. I like to say that we're living in another such moment in that those intellectual conceptual tools that we've inherited from the Enlightenment have served us. And now we're like living in this transition period into some new culture and ontological world view.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (31:21)
Yeah.

Carrie (31:22)
we're all making together. We're not gonna buy it, we're making it as we go along and at some point we'll have more language and shape to it. So I think that's the moment we're living in. As hard as this moment is and the instability is so upsetting, every once in a while I let myself...

I don't know if enjoy would be the right word, but at least contemplate that we're in the middle of creating something new together as a species and we don't yet know what it is.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (31:53)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm just so relating to what you're sharing and internally what came up for me a couple years ago when I was struggling with, you know, just the discord, the division and all of it and knowing that it need not be this way. And what I realized was the time for linear thinking

linear approaches has run its course. It's done. It's old. And it's time that we start seeing the connection. That's the truth of all that is everything is connected. And until we start to operate with that route, within the reality of that context, you know, that's where, yeah, anyway, I could go on forever about this topic.

Carrie (32:24)
Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (32:52)
So I just wanted to not let this one go. I wanted to ask you more about your thoughts and experiences or anything you'd like to share about moving more from the me to we mindset.

Carrie (33:08)
Well, that ties into, I was almost gonna respond to you just now and I'm like, okay, come on, sack it. I mean, how much are you gonna talk? But maybe I will give a response as a way to moving into the me to the we lens. The we lens is our capacity to see and relate to the group.

In American culture, there are a few places we're allowed to see the group, like sports games, the team. Now, nobody thinks that one person wins a football game. It takes a team to do that. Music is another place, orchestras, bands, choruses. The third place is theater. And there's even a special word for it, the ensemble.

So the shift from me to we is allowing ourselves to hang on to that capacity to see the group even after we leave the theater or the stadium.

And to shift to seeing the we is to be seeing the interconnectedness and as you're saying, moving away from linearity, moving away from seeing only isolated individuals that only aggregate up to a certain number. In group work, the...

The measuring out time for every person to speak is, first of all, group work is always, always, always more powerful than individual work. So I'm not saying this as a critique, but as a methodological thing. The assumption of everyone has two minutes to speak is that everyone is an isolated individual and they're taking a thought out of their head and then it comes out their mouth. And that's it. And they're done. They've got out of them.

Seeing the we, well you might ask the group. Where's the group at? What's the group thinking? Different people will respond. They'll give what they give. Some people won't talk, some people will talk. But what we're attending to is that sum that's greater than the individual parts. So that's.

That's part of the shift from me to we and what that looks like in group work. And what you were talking about before around linearity, another one of the pillars of social therapeutics is this 20th century child psychologist innovator Lev Vygotsky. Any one of your listeners, watchers who is in the field of education at all would probably know him.

He was a contemporary of Piaget. Lev Vygotsky was a contemporary of Piaget. And Lev Vygotsky said children learn language not linearly, but because they're in a wee environment where everyone's at different levels of development.

creating a conversation together. And of course the speakers are, they're acting as if they're performing as if the baby is making sense. So all that to say the difference with Piaget, Piaget said children's cognitive developments happen in four stages and you can define them like this and you can measure them like this and they go through linearly from one to the next to the next. And then Piaget says,

and all that development happens inside the child. Classic enlightenment science. And this other guy, Piaget, is saying, actually, we grow in groups. Actually, we grow and we grow and learn things because somebody's relating to us as if we were, Vygotsky's words, a head taller, as if we were ahead of ourselves. And that's how we grow.

So maybe that's a long answer to your question. Maybe that's a long answer to your question, but that's what I was thinking of in response from the shift from me to we.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (37:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

That's great. I'm imagining just doing work in the realm of leadership coaching, leadership development. Leaders that are me-focused fail pretty fast until they start to move into the we and see, OK, what is my impact here?

Carrie (37:39)
Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yeah, that's really important and it is, it doesn't come naturally to us anymore in our culture. So they are muscles that have to be reignited. They're there, you just gotta reignite them.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (38:04)
Yeah, I love that you said that because, know, having kids, watching them grow up where cell phones and media, they have just in their forefront and this shift from having more opportunities to be internally tuned in now being more externally distracted, you know, and seeing some of the consequences of that and, and the

anxiety levels go up around relating to other human beings.

Carrie (38:41)
I actually see, so I have a practice as well, I think we mentioned that, and I see actually a lot of teenagers and teenage girls in particular who have a lot of anxiety and that's what we work on. We work on being radically present with each other and playing emotional, emotions games, so I do a lot of improv work, and helping them take that risk with me.

to try to connect. So it's the practice ground, which is true in my groups too. They get related to as practice grounds where we can try new things, take risks.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (39:24)
Powerful sounds really powerful, especially having grown up. I was painfully shy so Having you know to learn how to come out and be with people and How rich that is I do you mind if we go back to a Distinction that you brought forward about emotional growth and I was wondering what are your thoughts on? The distinction if there is one between emotional growth and emotional intelligence

Carrie (39:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do have strong opinions on that. And it's really in the title because emotional intelligence assumes that we have to know in order to grow. And emotional growth does not assume we have to know. Behind emotional growth is we do things.

We try things, we take risks without knowing what's gonna happen. And it's only after that that you can look back and say, I did something new. it went like this or it went like that. We can't pre-know. there's a lot, language comes with pictures in our heads. And so intelligence, the picture of intelligence is knowing. And again,

It's not like all the tools we have out there today are not helpful in some ways, because they are. So I don't want to completely dis everything. And they come with conceptual pictures that we are stuck in. So I just wrote this blog piece, Emotional Growth Happens with Others. that it's, we are being,

The messaging is, you know, go read a book, go meditate, go do these things, and they're great. It's not that they're not great. And we still, we have to add to that. We need others. And when you're with others, when you're in relation, you can't control it. You can't know it.

It unfolds, it emerges, and that's what we do as coaches. are radically, it's one of our best days. We are so fully present that we're not knowing anything, hardly. We're co-creating with what's emerging in the moment.

How does that sound as a response?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (42:00)
I love it.

Yes, that makes so much sense. I'm really glad that we went there. was just, yeah, really curious. That makes so much sense. And I wonder how much that really speaks to how we've intellectualized so many things. And that's something at the Institute we want to like break through for folks is that intelligences, this is whole person intelligences. It's not that we limit ourselves.

Carrie (42:07)
Yeah.

Yes.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (42:30)
And what's fascinating to me too is that how when we put the emphasis on intellect in the mind, we accidentally limit ourselves because that's the one part of us that's capable of self-deception.

Carrie (42:30)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (42:48)
Interesting.

So we're leading with the one part that has a potential big blind spot.

Carrie (42:57)
Yes. Yep. One of the epigraphs in my book to start the chapter on emotional growth is from Vine Deloria, who was a huge Native American, well-loved lawyer, activist, 70s, 80s, 90s. And his quote is, while we may misunderstand, we don't mis-experience.

And I hear you saying that in what you're saying. If you get into here, then it's yes, and it's all into am I doing it right? Is this right? Was that that was wrong? this didn't meet my expectations. And yes, so you can deceive yourself because you're only here.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (43:28)
wheels.

Yeah. And if we're here, we're not in relationship. We miss, we can miss opportunities and that, you know, that's something that we learn in coaching, right? If we're here, we've left the client. So how can we return to that relationship so that the synergy and the creativity can come forward? Nice.

Carrie (43:47)
Yeah, we need to, yeah. Right. Exactly.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Your work sounds fantastic.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (44:08)
How can?

Likewise, that's how, speaking of your work and all the amazing things that you're doing in this realm, how can people find you, work with you, that love for listeners to be able to connect with you.

Carrie (44:22)
Mm-hmm.

So on the coach training side, if you wanna learn more about social therapeutics in a relational way, I don't wanna just put it in your head, my book is available on Amazon and you can read the intro chapter for free and then you'll know. Once you read the intro chapter, you'll know if it's for you or not.

I run trainings for coaches. do a weekend intensive and I have two of them coming up this spring. I do a full cert, and those have CCEs for ICF coaches. And then I do a full certification program, which is 60 hours so that you can carry the badge of being a social therapeutic coach.

On the coaching side, I lead life development groups and that might be something that people want to refer their clients to or they might want to try it themselves. I actually have a group, a bi-weekly group of coaches. people, so we can, coaches can be in that rich, rich, growthful environment.

So yeah, I have a four week intro group that's also starting in May. So I think those are the different ways. And on my different websites, the training website is groupandcouplescoaching.com. And then on the coaching side,

It's ZPD coaching, Zebra Peter David coaching. There's a lot more there on life development groups and you'll find tons of resources there. have a media page, I have a bunch of blogs.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (46:17)
Excellent.

And we will put those links in the description below as well. And just a reminder, Carrie's book is social therapeutic coaching, a practical guide to group and couples work. We'll put a link to that as well so that you can scoop that up. Carrie, any final words of wisdom you'd like to leave our listeners today with?

Carrie (46:41)
Well, a word of wisdom is we all as coaches have to keep growing and innovating, especially in this moment. I feel very so passionately about that. And one really important thing about social therapeutics is it was created 40 years ago for this moment. If you look at what's happening politically in America,

Nobody has the thing that's right for this moment because they had to have created it 40 years ago for it to have enough traction and juice to be appropriate for now. So for all of us to keep growing, not to get conservatized in this moment, keep innovating. And I also just want to close with words of gratitude to you, Laurel, because I'm so glad that Michael brought us together and that my

really have loved this conversation and look forward to continuing to get to know you and the Institute's work.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (47:42)
Likewise, Carrie, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure and an honor to be with you today and be in conversation and relationship around this really rich topic. And I just, appreciate you. All right, listeners, that brings us to the conclusion of today's relational focus. And we hope that today's discussion has been a lantern to your evolution as a business professional coach, leader or therapist.

Learn more about our ICF accredited coach training or leaders coach program by visiting us at integrativeintelligence.com. Bye for now and we'll see you at the next episode.

​Many of us have been there. Staring at the tuition amount on the screen of the coach training program we are considering signing up for. We feel inspired and excited, yet the questions keep popping up.

• Will my investment be worth it?
• Can I afford this?
• What if I don’t succeed and it’s is a waste of my time and money?

Most of us have been there, on the fence. Unsure if we should proceed, or not. Unsure if the investment will be worth it. 

Hi, I’m Laurel Elders. I’m the founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. I’ve been in the coaching profession for 20 years and I’d love to help you get clear if the investment in coaching is worth it for you.

I’d like to start with being honest and upfront. Coaching education is not for everyone. It requires humility, patience and deep self-inquiry. If you are not able or willing to meet those three criteria, that is ok and you can stop reading. However, if you are willing and able to meet those criteria, let’s dive in together!

WHY Coaching?

The value coaching carries is connected to the worth we ascribe to it. The value and worth of a program can be boiled down to a multitude of things. The question is, what would make it worth it for you? Really consider this. Take a few minutes now and before reading any further, jot down the top three things that what would make the education in coaching skills worth it for you?
Now, take a few more minutes and connect this to your WHY. Why do I want the worth it provides? Why is this important to my life? What makes this a priority for me?

For some people, worth in a coaching program comes from new self-growth and parenting skills. For others, worth comes from developing leadership superpowers that lower stress levels and elevates productivity. For others it is reaching new financial heights of starting a business while playing a positive role in people’s lives. For me the worth and value came from gaining the ability to own my own business, create my own schedule, spend more time with my children and create a massive positive impact in people’s lives.

Once you determine the worth, value and why, it can help to contrast this with the financial aspects.

Financial Investment

A solid and comprehensive coaching education does require an investment in:

• Tuition
• Study materials
• Credentialing (optional)
• Business start-up expenses (if you are starting one)

It can help to consider the financial value as well. If I invest $15k (the amount of a car) into my education, credential and business start-up, but my earning power is $40-60k, then I can see the worth.

What if you know the value and still feel on the fence? Let’s examine some common roadblocks people face – myself included – when staring at the application form and feeling apprehensive. 

• Can I succeed as a coach?
  • Solution: Get clear on coaching success factors. Can you show up live to classes? Can you commit to 1-3 hours of homework per week? Are you willing to self-reflect and grow? If you did more forward, will you be 100% committed to your success? If yes to these, then you do have the ingredients for success. If not, that is ok. You can come back to coaching in the future, when you are ready.
• I can’t pay the tuition upfront.
  • Solution: Student funding, loans, credit, or monthly repayment options.
    • Pros: You can get started.
    • Cons: You need good credit to qualify, or you will need a co-signer.
• Tuition is unaffordable:
  • Solution: Getting your employer to pay.
    • Pros: Gaining financial backing.
    • Pros: If your company doesn’t have this benefit, you can pitch a proposal. You can outline how the training will benefit your work with them and them.
    • Cons: Some employee tuition benefits have you front the cost, then pay you back after you have completed the program. Check with your employer.
  • Solution: If you are starting a coaching business, the tuition typically qualifies as a tax write off.
    • Pros: This can be a huge financial benefit!
    • Cons: If you aren’t starting a business, it may not be a tax right off. Check with your tax advisor.

​In Summary:

The good news is, that you don’t have to figure this out on your own. We are here to help you navigate worth and financial options. We aren’t here to turn everyone into a coach. We are only here to help those who know coaching is calling them because we know that our coaching education would profoundly expand their path!
​
We hope this outline has been helpful! Click HERE to schedule a call with our Admissions Coach.

​Join our newsletter: The Monday Coaching Mindset
https://www.integrativeintelligence.global/newsletter.html
 
Check out our latest podcasts:
https://www.youtube.com/@integrativeintelligence
 
Get to know us:
https://www.integrativeintelligence.global/faculty.html
 
Programs we offer:

• Level 1 Coach Training & Certification
• Level 2 Coach Training & Professional Certification
• Transfer Students – Fast track your previous coach training credits into a Level 1 or 2 certificating and ICF Credential.
• ICF CCEs – Earn CCEs and specialize in a coaching niche you are called to serve.
• ICF Mentor Coaching – Credential Renewal

​Laurel Elders (00:04)
Welcome to Business Success for Coaches 2025 Mastermind Kickoff. Your hosts today are myself, Laurel Elders, founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence and coach Tabitha Danlo. Tabitha is a senior faculty coach at the school and she is our resident expert in business launch for coaches and beyond actually, just business in general. Welcome Tabitha.

Tabitha Danloe (00:33)
I'm so happy to be here, thanks Laurel.

Laurel Elders (00:36)
Yeah, we have been wanting to do this for a while because we saw the need for group process and how group process helps people elevate and just such a more empowered way. So I'm really excited to dive into this today.

Tabitha Danloe (00:54)
Me too, I'm glad we finally made it.

Laurel Elders (00:57)
So this year, for those of you tuning in, Tabitha and I are empowering new coaches to successfully launch their coaching business and create a legacy of inspiration with their business practice. So today we're going to be discussing what it takes to map out a successful launch and you know, really our desire to support coaches is what is fueling this conversation.

And it's so, I feel like it's such an important conversation because considering marketing for coaches, you know, there's a lot of coaches that I've talked to. Well, there's three things that come up for me. One is that I hear so many coaches, myself included when I started, we just have this like, I just want to coach. really don't.

like marketing. don't like the idea of it. I don't want to do it. I just want to coach. so we see that a lot. If you're in that boat, that's very common. Also, because coaching can be so misunderstood, the succeed as a coach, you have to market in unique ways and understand what that entails. And that can feel daunting and kind of nebulous, like, you know, what do I need to do? And then the third thing that comes up is

Tabitha Danloe (02:07)
Mm-hmm.

Laurel Elders (02:22)
Most coaches don't realize that their coaching skills can translate into their marketing, making it much more effortless. So connecting those dots can feel like a huge relief, sigh of relief.

Tabitha Danloe (02:37)
Yeah, love that. Yes. And I think sales is like a dirty word, right? So sales to this marketing conundrum and sales is this like bad, dirty word. And it's just what you said. Sales doesn't have to be what you think it is. It can be really beautiful and it can be an invitation. And so your coaching skills are everything you need to actually be really good at marketing and sales for your business.

Laurel Elders (03:05)
That's a really good point. you know, I can empathize because you know marketing done unethically on, you know, I'm well comes across as smarmy. We've all had that experience. And so it makes sense to me that there is that a virgin. I know I had that when I was starting. I'm like, I don't want to be pushy. I don't want to be all these things that I was seeing happening in the marketing sales area. And the truth is marketing doesn't

have to feel overwhelming, confusing, shmarmy, it can be done well. It can be fun. can be authentic. It could be non-salesy and organic. So that's the good news that we want to share with you today.

Tabitha Danloe (03:50)
And I would just add that because marketing is truly an important aspect of running a successful business, we have to find something that feels good for you, or you're not going to do it. That consistency matters. finding that authentic joy in marketing is possible, because there's thousands of ways to do marketing. But we just got to find what really resonates with each coach.

Laurel Elders (04:16)
That's such a, I'm so glad you brought that up because I had this epiphany the other day. Like success in any area, leadership, business, parenting, success is math.

Tabitha Danloe (04:31)
say more.

Laurel Elders (04:32)
Success is math. You're only two to three formulas away from a prosperous new outcome. Now, the other side to that is other people's success formulas may not work for you. Like what you were just talking about.

Tabitha Danloe (04:39)
that.

Yes, that's so true. Yes. Okay.

Laurel Elders (04:52)
Yeah.

So finding a program, a coach, a process that knows that is huge. So many people are teaching this, what this is what worked for me. Follow my process. And then maybe anybody that's like them might succeed, but we're, you know, we're seeing a lot of that too.

Tabitha Danloe (05:02)
Yeah.

yeah, yeah, it's like, okay, if you have the same personality, if you are an extrovert or an introvert like them, if you, you know, have similar values, core values, like there's so many things that would have to magically stars align to probably have the same results as that person.

Laurel Elders (05:25)
Yep. Yeah, so true.

Tabitha Danloe (05:28)
I love that math equation. Good one, Laurel. I like it.

Laurel Elders (05:31)
I'm curious though, how do you feel about, know, when you teach people the formulas to succeed, but then you coach them on making it personal to them. Just curious if you want to share more about like, what are you seeing?

Tabitha Danloe (05:48)
Yeah. So I have been a coach now almost 10 years, Laurel. Can you believe that? Because Laurel was my first instructor. I love that. And I've worked with mostly businesses, mostly coaches. I do a lot of helping coaches launch. And so one of my gifts is seeing patterns. And so for me, what I feel like more of my

you know, helping someone with marketing, sales and business is showing them the formula. Like I love this metaphor we're using because I do see patterns. And I'm thinking of actually yesterday, I was teaching a group of people some formulas of, Hey, it's, it's usually this or this. It's usually this or this, right? We were actually talking about income producing activities and non-income producing activities, meaning

What are the things, what are the behaviors and the actions I'm doing on a daily basis, a weekly basis that actually are creating income for my business that are actually bringing in clients for my coaching practice. And the non-income producing activities are so important, but they don't actually drive income such as filing paperwork, such as taking notes, such as.

a lot of the administrative tasks that bookkeeping like you have to do it. It has to get done. Maybe you don't have to do it by the way, but it does need to get done. But there's, there's a lot of times where I'm saying like this or this is what I found works the most for people. Right. Now let's look at you. What aligns, what feels good in those two or three options that stays in your authenticity.

that feels like something you can duplicate on a daily basis or weekly basis, depending on what it is, because that's the thing with marketing and sales and growing a practice of any kind is consistency. That's always going to be what will work more than, you know, a lot of activity, nothing, you know, okay, let's do a lot. Taking a break for, you know, a month and you won't see the same results. So.

I feel like that's the piece of being a coach, like the true essence of being a coach is my belief that all of my clients have this connection to something greater, to wisdom, to, I don't know, divine guidance perhaps. And it's intuition, it's something more that will guide that process. So my job is to sometimes say, here's these really broad things that work for most people.

This tends to work more for introverts. This tends to work more for extroverts. I figured out a lot of those patterns. Now I want them to self-identify and be willing to be a little brave, maybe try some things that are a little scary, not too scary, but a little bit, and find that authentic path of what really resonates, what they feel intuitively called to do. Let's do it. Let's try it. And we can tweak things as we go to amplify it.

Laurel Elders (09:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you touched upon, you know, the introvert extrovert that really speaks to the unique success formula that we all have. Um, I was just reflecting the other day that, so I graduated from my first coach training in 2005. This year's 20 years. Yes. I know. Amazing. And I remember like,

I graduated, I was so excited because I was head over heels in love with coaching. I had no clue it existed. And when I found it, I was like, this is it. I love this. then crickets. And as an introvert, that was really devastating. I just wanted to hang my hat and say, I'm a coach now and how it doesn't quite work that way because in coaching, you know, it can be misunderstood. So.

Tabitha Danloe (09:43)
you

Laurel Elders (09:59)
I went back to learn the marketing pieces, but I did it the hard way without even knowing it. I was trying to read blogs. I was trying to sign up for all those free one hour seminars. I was like grabbing different books and then I ended up feeling even more confused. And then I slowly began to inch my way into some success, but it wasn't until I invested in education and learning the formulas and then meeting coaches like you who

We're like, Hey, I know the marketing side. And then also, I want to give a shout out to Mark Silver of heart of business. Like he was huge in helping me feel authentic as well.

Tabitha Danloe (10:37)
Yeah,

that was very empowering for you.

Laurel Elders (10:40)
Yeah. all of those things helped me get to that point where it was more sustainable because I had learned that as an introvert, I can write. I don't have to go speak. But when I was signing up for BNI and speaking on a regular basis, I was exhausted and I was getting clients and I was exhausted. So we don't have to do it that way, right? That you can create that sustainable success.

According to your unique success formula, think that's really important for coaches to know.

Tabitha Danloe (11:13)
Yeah, and I want to tie into something you said earlier about like your coaching skills are everything you kind of need. I think we just have to unlock that and help people see that perspective. Most coaches have been trained in some type of personality training. I know at our school we focus on the Enneagram. We love the Enneagram. I definitely am a giant Enneagram nerd.

But oftentimes when I'm looking at marketing, I'm pulling in five different personality frameworks in my brain. I'm looking at strength finders, Enneagram, disc, Myers-Briggs, and human design even a little bit. Not a ton, but there's elements to all these things that I think through these formulas of like, okay, what you just said about energy is so important. It worked, but you were exhausted.

And by the way, guys, I saw her at one of these B &I things one time and I was like, who is this person? Like, I've never seen you so drained.

Laurel Elders (12:18)
Yeah,

Tabitha invited me to a meeting. was years after I'd said no to marketing in person. And I was like, okay, I'll go. And she's like, Oh, I'm so sorry.

Tabitha Danloe (12:29)
like, and you know, I knew it wasn't gonna be her main jam. But I was, you know, we're really good friends. And I was like, Oh, you know, come hang out with me for afternoon, you can tell which one's the extrovert and which one's the introvert. I was just like, I'm so sorry, we got back in the car. And that was a good lesson for me. You know, this was 10 years ago. So I've continued to learn and grow and refine my formulas. I was like, yeah, we really have to honor people's like inherent

design and authenticity and just how they were made to walk through this world. And there is a solution to everyone for everyone. Yeah. Do that. If your dream is to be a coach and to, and my goodness, does this world need coaches? So please, we need you to be out in the world doing what you do best. But there is a way to do that successfully with joy and maybe a little fear as you're learning some things, but not a ton of fear. And

in total alignment with who you already are, who you're supposed to be on this planet.

Laurel Elders (13:33)
Yeah, no, that's well said because you do anytime we want a new outcome, we do have to grow and stretch a new race, right? We're not just going to, it's not like a plug and play. is efforting and, but it's intentional efforting. It's authentic efforting, you know, and that, that makes a huge difference on the drain level. So it doesn't have to be draining. can be inspiring, but still maybe push you a little bit into new territories.

Tabitha Danloe (14:00)
Yeah. And again, checking back in with your intuition, if someone's inviting you to do something that you already know is not an alignment, that's where as coaches, we already have a step ahead of other people to know this is wisdom we must listen to. Right. And my job sometimes again, is to lay out options and say, Hey, here's your menu. Here's what typically works the best.

Laurel Elders (14:17)
Yeah.

Tabitha Danloe (14:28)
And maybe we're going to invent something new today. I love that. Right. You know, maybe we take a little from column A, a little from column B and like, this really fits this coach. And now they're just like on fire, you know, creating a lot of, of sales and marketing for their businesses. But if I'm presenting a menu and this thing that sounds really disgusting, let's not even worry about that. Let's look at the menu and be like, Ooh, this, this really lit me up. Tabitha. this.

Okay, this feels good. A little scary, but like excited and scary, right? Like we're growing, we're pushing, but not like, I don't want to do that one. Let's not waste time on that. Cause that's something I see is people waste a lot of time and a lot of money. On these programs that are guarantees, we'll make you six figures and da da da da da. And it's like, there's not a one size fits all.

Laurel Elders (15:24)
Yeah, it's following someone else's formula. So I think, you know, the other reason why I'm really excited about this group process is because a mistake that I see a lot of coaches make is they, they try something and if it doesn't work, they immediately pivot to something new and they hop from thing to thing to thing and nothing is working. And then they feel exhausted from that. success takes intentionality, accountability to take a step. that didn't work.

Let me pivot, not let me change my entire strategy and redo my website and redo my message. And now I've got to redo my brand. I've seen some of that hopping really create some exhaustion. it's, it's really about with group process. It's taking a step, seeing what works, keep what works. Then you pivot to something else, see what works and you keep doing that and you edge into success. So it's not overnight and

Therefore, we decided to do a six month support because we want to see you're going to plant seeds. You're going to water those seeds. You're going to plant some more seeds. You're going to water those seeds. And before you know it as a group, you're going to see growth together. And that's once you get that growth going, it can continue to grow because you found something that works for you. And I'm so excited about sustainable success. You know, we teach that in coaching all the time. We don't want our clients to just leave a session and go.

Yay, I had an epiphany. That's great. We love those moments. That's not the goal. The goal is sustainable success where you don't have to come back and relearn things so you can keep going.

Tabitha Danloe (16:57)
They're fun.

Absolutely. I resonate so much with so much of what you're saying. I think of this idea of when people jump from thing to thing. And again, that's not the consistency. And one of the things that I love to teach, and I'll just let my nerd flag fly here, is like looking at some of the data behind the marketing and sales you're doing, which is not anything that most people are taught.

This is definitely a skill that you need to learn and it doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be scary. you're like, Tab, I don't do math. Tab, I don't do spreadsheets. That's fine. We'll find a way that works for you.

Laurel Elders (17:43)
said

math is success. Well, it's easy math. You're talking about, you can look at metrics. Yeah.

Tabitha Danloe (17:50)
Easy mode.

Exactly.

like data analytics metrics can be a lot of math and information. I really love it. But it also doesn't have to be scary. It can be easy math, which we're talking about. And that informs some of those pivots that you're talking about.

And so having it in a group, sometimes we don't have the luxury of a year's worth of data to look at. But in the six month container, what I'm hoping we'll get is some actual data analytics from peers and from colleagues to be like, here's what this looked like for me. Here's what this felt like for me.

And here's what I would have liked to have seen differently. Here's how I would have felt welcomed in more to your marketing message. So we have real people, real users to test essentially, before you maybe actually put it out to the market, before you go out and share it with potential clients, you have some buddies to test a little bit safely. And that data is absolutely just so critical, I think, especially with how much

we're just inundated with things every day. It's really easy to just jump to something new because that's the newest thing on Instagram or TikTok that we're seeing, right? it's, yeah, maybe that's not actually creating success, sustainable success.

Laurel Elders (19:17)
Right, yeah, I've experienced that where I just felt discombobulated and more confused because it wasn't like a step-by-step process. It was so disjointed.

Tabitha Danloe (19:26)
I love sharing the idea of the phases of business because I think people know this in the back of their head, but maybe they don't know it in their conscious part of their brain. We have startup phase. That's where everyone has to start.

Laurel Elders (19:44)
Are you ready? So in the program it's called Are you ready?

Tabitha Danloe (19:47)
Are you ready? Yeah. And then we have like systems, which is getting some systems in place because if say we go from zero to a hundred overnight, that's not sustainable, which is what Laurel just said. And that's not what we're here to do. Right. And so set, which is the second part is the systems. And we're going to do a lot with systems and planning and structure and

For some people that sounds like really calming, I think. For some people they're like, that sounds like the boring part. So it depends on the person, but I promise we'll make it fun. But there's a lot of comfort. There's a lot of ease if we actually set things correctly in the foundation. Because what happens next in launch, so we're ready set launch, is we're in that scaling portion. So now we're, okay, we built our foundation of the house.

we now put in some scaffolding. So I think of systems as my scaffolding. And now we're ready to scale, which is like building on the next stories. Well, if we just go from foundation to skyscraper and we didn't put in scaffolding or like an elevator to get down.

That's, that's, we call that vertical growth and that seems really exciting at first and it's completely unsustainable. That is where burnout happens. A hundred percent where mistakes start to get made, critical errors start to get made. That's also sometimes where ego comes into play and we get so into the next, the next chase, the next success, the next sale.

that I feel like if people haven't built in their systems, they get caught in the adrenaline rush and it's not sustainable. And that is the fourth and final stage that we're going for is sustain. That's where every business owner hopes to get, whether they realize it or not. Have I built something that will

Feed my family, give us financial abundance, give me time and freedom, give me this dream that I hoped that this would give me. And from here to here, we kind of get lost along the way sometimes. I'm really, my vision for this container is a really clear path of we're all doing this together and we know exactly where we want to go and we're going to hold each other accountable and we're going to help hold hands and we're going to do it together and we're going to support each other.

Laurel Elders (22:07)
Yeah.

Tabitha Danloe (22:24)
because this is where some really cool magic can happen too. This is where we can talk about legacy and how we're going to leave this earth a little bit better maybe than how we found it.

Laurel Elders (22:35)
Yeah.

And coaches are a really profound part of that. I mean, it's, it's really transformational to see that.

Tabitha Danloe (22:44)
And

I'll just say this one last thing. You as coaches, learning these phases and learning this walk to sustainability, whether you're going to do business coaching, life coaching, leadership coaching, it doesn't really matter because these phases exist in life in all these different ways, not just in business, right? Parenthood. as you're growing with your

your family in different ways, phases of your life, your career, retirement, right? There's a reflection of all these phases that we all walk as paths. And so as coaches, you are going to support people somehow on this path. You walking through it yourself will simply make you an even better coach than you already are today.

Laurel Elders (23:33)
Yeah, really, really well put. It's so, so true. So the good news is that if you are launching this year or you've started to launch and you're just not, it's just not working well. We invite you to join us because you don't have to do it alone. You don't have to learn the hard way and you can have the guidance and support to create your unique success system. And that is huge.

I wish I'd had that when I was first starting out. So this year we're going to be teaching the exact formulas to apply the exact steps to take and in the proper sequence, like Tabitha said, um, so that you're not having to go back and rework things later, which is very, I mean, again, I wish I had known that sooner and really also receive personalized support throughout the whole process.

We're going to hop on one more call in the next coming weeks. And we're going to also talk about who this mastermind is for and who it's not for. This group is not for everyone. And we, in order to keep the quality really high touch, because that's what we are about at the school, we're going to be helping 10 coaches to launch this year and walk them through this process together. We're all going to be together. So we kick off April.

21st is when doors close in 2025. However, if we fill the 10 spots before April 21st, we are going to close the doors at that time. So if this is something you're interested in, you can check out the program. The web page is live. We're going to put the links below. And the other thing is if you sign up before March 24th,

Early registration saves us a lot of time and energy. So we want to pass that on to you. And it comes with a $297 discount for the entire six months. It actually ends up being a little bit longer than six months because we're with you. We get you started right away once you sign up. So look for those links and I hope you have enjoyed this.

conversation. hope it has illuminated your path in some way today and hope to see you on our next call.

Tabitha Danloe (26:00)
Thank you Laurel.

Laurel Elders (26:01)
Love. Bye.

​Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (00:01)
Welcome everyone to our leader as coach podcast series. We equip organizational leaders with insights to develop their excellence in coaching. I'm Laurel Elders with the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. We're an ICF accredited level one and level two provider where it's our passion to elevate human potential through both the art and the science of masterful coaching. My cohost today is Michael Tucker. Michael is an executive coach.

a senior partner here at the Institute and also one of our senior faculty members. And today we are very excited to be interviewing Michael Sokolowski. Michael, welcome.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (00:43)
Thank you for having me.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (00:46)
Michael is a PCC coach, Lieutenant Commander and CFO with the U S Navy. brings over 20 years of leadership experience to the healthcare industry. In addition to being a coach like leader in his current position, he's also an executive coach as well. We've invited him today because of his rich background with successfully implementing a coaching culture. So today's topic is no surprise coaching culture. And let's go ahead and dive in.

Michael Tucker, PCC (01:17)
Yeah, Michael, thank you so much for being with us today. This has been a long, long time coming. I'm really excited about our time together.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (01:24)
And thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here with both of you.

Michael Tucker, PCC (01:28)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, why don't we just start off with some of the basics. Tell us a little bit about your background, and how you became the leader that you are today.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (01:40)
Sure. So as Laurel mentioned in my bio, I'm a comptroller and one of the Navy's largest hospitals and I have over 20 years of experience and as a chief financial officer, I implement strategy and finances here for organization to ensure our growth and sustainability to take care of our beneficiaries here in Southern California. I grew up though in the military as an enlisted corpsman and I went through a whole development pipeline with that.

And along the way, we learned a lot of leadership training, core specialty training, and then going into the officer community, of course, you get educational requirements put on top of that. So coming up was a lot of ground level leadership, front line management, and going more into progressive leadership roles, increasing in scope and responsibility leading to where I am today.

Michael Tucker, PCC (02:33)
Yeah, that's really exciting. So you and I, completed our coaching program together and I never knew that you came up through the holistic ranks. So this is really exciting to learn and I'm sure there's so many stories that you could share with us about that. But when it comes to coaching, like what was it that made you to decide that...

becoming an ICF credential coach was the thing for you to do at this point in your life.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (03:04)
Yeah, that's a great question. as I mentioned, we do a lot of learning and development in the military. And one of the things that I had the opportunity to go to was a national conference in Chicago. And while I was there, I was listening to a speaker from the Cleveland Health Clinic. And they're one of the top organizations in the US in providing good quality care. And I was interested to learn from this leader there who said that they had coaching built into their leadership programs. I didn't know what coaching was.

So what I did is I looked a little bit into it. Didn't really know where to go, but like most things, you understand it and you bank the information and you move on with life, right? That's kind of what a lot of us do. Fast forward a few years later, and I'm in our regional headquarters and I'm helping our new admiral get on boarded. And like a good aid, I'm going through his calendar and I see coaching. And I thought, what is coaching? Here it is again, what is this? But it wasn't an everyday or every other day kind of a thing.

coaching with your kids, so it was different. Fortunately, he was a great leader. He had a coaching mindset already, and so he invited me to sit down and we spoke about it. He said, yeah, the military, give new admirals the opportunity to be coached and help set up their plan and really formalize their development track as they're coming into this new position. And I thought,

Isn't that interesting that we have a great leadership development track for people of influence, but where are we at the ground level on this? Like, how do we bring this to the front line? As I mentioned, I was enlisted. I never heard of this before. So how do we make that connection? So I went and looked into it more, and I realized that the DOD was doing something about it. And so I went ahead and I signed up for a master's program. That's the one that you and I did. And of course, this is during the COVID.

year, right? A lot of things were happening during COVID. So we took coaching while I was going through the program. And during the program, you actually have to work with people to develop those hours. And so I partnered with various leaders in our organization using coaching practicum. And we actually used it to get through a lot of challenging situations. We were able to secure funding necessary to take care of our patients, move forward with big projects that were just never thought of before.

It was all outside the box thinking that was highlighted and reinforced with these coach like skills. You know, and I was new in my training at the time. So even with that little bit of training, I was able to make a big difference with the organization in terms of getting our leaders together and thinking beyond the lens that they were every day. And throughout that journey, in the two years since I started doing that training to when I left Japan, we had no deaths from COVID on an entire island, no American deaths. And that was an amazing feat because as you know,

code was a huge killer at that time. Now I can't say that coaching was the reason why we had such great success solely. Obviously there's a lot of factors into it, but I saw such a huge compelling evidence from what I was doing on that and the people that I was coaching with that I thought I have to keep this momentum going forward.

So at that time I earned my ACC and I've since gone on and continue to work with DOD professionals and earned my PCC, which as you know, PCC has over 500 hours of coaching. So that's a lot of investment in our leaders here.

Michael Tucker, PCC (06:25)
Yeah, wow. You know, what stands out to me about your story was the fact that you got exposed to this at a conference and then you saw this coaching on the Admiral's time on his calendar. And that just stoked your curiosity and you just have built this...

this desire for coaching and going on to get your PCC from there. So I love to hear like all these kinds of synchronicities. And I'm curious if there are other synchronicities that stood out to you as you've begun to develop your coach-like leadership style.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (07:06)
And so I'll say that one thing I was remiss to add in that conversation was that this wasn't something I did on my own. While I was going on this journey, I reached out to figure out how we can get this to a broader scope. And I was able to partner with our personal headquarters and found a team that was working on this. And they were working on a brand new initiative called the My Navy Coaching Initiative. And this is something that we were able to put to ground.

and get out for over 400,000 active duty and reservists throughout the world. And so while it's still growing and learning, getting brought into our organizations, it's one of these new initiatives that's really, you can take anybody from, I would say on the deck plates, as we call it in the military, somebody that's working on that frontline, all the way back up into Pentagon levels. mean, anybody can be a coach, as you know, and we use those coach-like skills everywhere. And so looking at that perspective,

If we can start bridging those connections in terms of getting those coach-like behaviors established within the workplace, it opens up and broadens our ability to really define that coaching culture that we're seeking.

Michael Tucker, PCC (08:18)
Wow, I think it's amazing that the military is using this technology in the way that they're doing it. mean, we have the best military in the world, and this is what they're doing to keep it that way.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (08:33)
Right. And one of the things that we talk about often right now is really that resilience. And how do you build resilience in your troops? And so we all face the same common problems right now. We have personal issues. Everybody has something that they're working on in their home or professional life. all have challenges. And so the military members aren't different. They're not unique in the sense that they're going through challenges as well.

And so how do you build resilience? And that's really what the coaching initiative is on our perspective. It's really bridging those connections, creating engagement, fostering bi-directional feedback, and so people can have those conversations and really get real with the situation so they can get better.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (09:18)
I'm too, what are some of your favorite results that you've seen from this shift into coach-like leadership and being a part of a coaching culture?

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (09:28)
I will have a lot of great results that I can think of. And I mentioned one with COVID and more recent example was one where we're going through a large cost saving initiative. As you know, right now, the government's looking to save money, they want to make sure those taxpayers are taken care of. They want to make sure that that money is going to where it needs to go. And so we actually use coaching here in our financial resource office to look at all of our programs. And using these coaching matrices that we have, we were able to identify

a large savings opportunity for us, which really helped stabilize what we had at the time. And we were able to reinvest that into new opportunities that really helped deliver higher qualities of care for our patient. And so in that sense, we were able to take key stakeholders and help them look at ways that they weren't really accustomed to and to break past those barriers. Because as you know, coaching is all about finding new pathways and enlightenment, getting those aha moments. And we had several of those in that situation. We're working on a team that way.

On a micro level, we use it daily. So we have team huddles. We meet regularly with our supervisors. And we ask questions. It's not just, how was your day? But what challenges are you facing? And how do you know that to be true? And in what ways can you think of that differently? Just as basic questions that you have in a workplace, it just leads to powerful changes. And that's just something that we see on a day-to-day basis.

Michael Tucker, PCC (10:52)
Yeah, that's Michael, you know, it's it's so amazing to hear you say all of this because I've known you for a couple of years now and I've always known about your passion for coaching, but I've never had the opportunity to really sit down and listen to you just share so deeply about your experience with coaching and the Navy. And I'm curious when you think about some of the the the future.

work that may be there for the Navy around coaching. What are you seeing in the future there?

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (11:26)
Well, it's one thing to say that you're using coaching skills. It's another thing to get it out into the workforce. And so recently, the military has come up with a Get Real, Get Better plan. And that is a model that we take to heart. Because it really is, if you look at it, it's getting real. And that's addressing and saying, you know what? I have the self-awareness to say, what is the issue that I'm facing right now? What is this? That embracing the red is what they call it. And it's not from a stress or something like that.

But really to say, look, if I'm looking at an issue right now, I'm going to own it. I'm going to think about it. And I'm going to say, you know what? What's my role in this? And how do I address this at my level? How do I take ownership of it? So that's that just getting real with what you have. And the getting better part now comes into saying, I may not be able to do this on my own. As a leader, I do have the responsibility. But how do I get everybody behind me? How do I rally the troops in that sense? How do we move forward together?

And so getting better is about that plan of action. And so what the My Navy coaching utilizes is what's called the grow model. And that comes from Sir John Whitmore, his estate loaned that over to the military to use. And that grow model is well known in the coaching community. That's your goals, reality, options, and will. And when you're looking at that as really, what is your goal of this opportunity that's right here? The reality of that situation, what do we really have in front of us? The opportunities.

with the options and the will is really the accountability plan, the monitoring and evaluation. You can say grow me in that sense. So that's something that the military is using and we've implemented into our performance plans in that sense and we're really looking at how we get it to paper so people can look at this information, pick it up and move forward with it wherever you are in the world.

Michael Tucker, PCC (13:14)
Yeah, that is fantastic. And so how does a military member enroll in the training for being a coach or being coached?

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (13:26)
That's a great question. So we have a public facing website for my Navy coaching and right on it you can click a button and it says request to coach request training and that information gets put out to whoever it needs to get to. And once that's received that person has opportunity to sign up. Now part of the program this initiative that we have is it does have people be trained and we get these learning qualifications and we teach it. For example that's what I do here is I teach these workshops.

And I get people ranging in size of maybe six people. And we've done a class with over 100 in it. And during these opportunities, we're able to break off into small groups and really go through the material and practice these conversations out. And we get a lot of great feedback from it. And some people even say it's the most impactful course that they've taken during their career. So it's one of those things where they can sign up relatively easily. And it's also supported by their leadership as well.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (14:25)
That's so exciting to me because when I first started coaching, you know, people say, what do you do? say, I'm a coach and they say, what sport? Right. And that is shifting, as more companies and organizations and military are adopting, you know, leader as coach and coaching skills.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (14:47)
Yeah, it's really exciting to watch the transformation. There are, like I said, since I joined over 20 years ago, we've really gone to hands-on leadership. Some people would even call it closer to micromanagement because it's all about here's what's defined for you. You move forward with what has been laid out with the plan. You execute.

That works in a lot of situations. I mean you don't want to be coaching on the battlefield when rounds are coming down at you You don't want to say what challenges are you facing right now? You have to get that person down on the ground and take cover, right? So there are application periods where coaching doesn't work and thinking back on where we came from We've grown so much from that to say, know There are there are times when you can have a conversation with somebody and really expand that learning and awareness And in that sense, I think leadership at all levels are learning that

Coaching is one of the primary skills that you can develop as you continue to progress and I really believe that emotional intelligence is the number one skill that leaders can develop as they move forward.

Michael Tucker, PCC (15:49)
That's fantastic. So Michael, just in wrapping this conversation up, if there was any piece of advice that you would like to impart on an organization that's thinking about building out a culture and culture, what would you say to them?

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (16:11)
Work with your passion, for one. There's a lot of passion behind this, but people are going to be passionate about what leadership cares about. So it really starts at the top, finding those passionate people to implement it, and then really finding ways to get it to all levels. Because if you want something to move forward, it's a partnership from top to bottom, and the organization has to want it. Now, organizations may not know they want it yet, but if you look at the compelling evidence behind it,

and you're looking at the return on investment of it, a small amount invested into coaching can create huge returns for that organization. And we see that both in the government side and the civilian side.

Michael Tucker, PCC (16:51)
fantastic.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (16:54)
Can you share a little bit more about what you do as an executive coach?

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (16:59)
Sure, as an executive coach, what I do, I mentioned about the military. One thing I do as executive coach is I also work on partnerships for organization. The DOD has a coaching community, and the federal network has a coaching community as well. So as an executive coach, not only do I help develop our internal programs here, but I also partner with our external agencies beyond the Department of Defense. And this way we can share information in terms of what we are all doing.

by partnering with federal level DOD partners, looking at other agencies like Army, Air Force, what are we all doing? And then also working with our local coaching chapters because the International Coaching Federation is where we go through accreditation as you see with our PCC, MCC titles. And so I partner with our local San Diego chapter on that and we look at partnering and bringing our military together here and having them learn and co-learn.

with their coaching partners in the Southern California area. as executive coach, I'm all about getting partnerships, bringing people together, and finding ways to help our leaders and sailors develop here.

Michael Tucker, PCC (18:12)
Yeah, fantastic. Well, Michael, thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing about your experience with the coaching culture, with the Navy. I just, I'm absolutely inspired to hear you share these things because when I was active duty, we didn't have this kind of program. And I know that probably some people would say that, you know, coaching could maybe feel, be touchy feely.

And that might be an opinion that some folks have, but I can assure you, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as we get out of here.

In my experience, that hasn't been the case. And I'm curious of what you've seen in that regard.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (18:56)
in terms of the touchy feely.

Michael Tucker, PCC (18:57)
Right, right. It's, it's just touchy feely and Generation Z and.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (19:03)
So I'll give you an example. So I mentioned I was teaching a course with over 100 sailors into it. My audience, they're very operationally focused, that class that I taught. And think of people that continually work with maybe weapons and hands-on things like that. So they are very focused on that mentality, like you said. Touchy feely doesn't really work with that. And one of the senior leaders mentioned to me, he said,

sir, what am I supposed to do when I have somebody that isn't getting their job done and they're not getting it done right and I need to get in there and I need to lock them in? I said you have the perfect opportunity to lead that person with your managerial style. Now, like I said, coaching is not there to correct people. We don't use corrective coaching to get in there and make them better. It's not a making thing. Coaching is here to partner and move forward. So there is

a place for coaching, but it doesn't solve all things. Like I said, you're not going to arm wrestle your way to a coaching win. This is something that is a real partnership. you lock arms together, move forward.

Michael Tucker, PCC (20:17)
Thanks again Michael and it's been a pleasure having you today.

Michael Sokolowski, FACHE, PCC (20:22)
Yeah, it's been a pleasure and really thank you for having me here.

Michael Tucker, PCC (20:25)
Absolutely.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (20:27)
Thank you, Michael, so much. This was just excellent. So illuminating to just learn from you and get your inspiring stories. So thanks everyone for joining. We hope today's discussion has equipped you with some new insights into the results and benefits of adopting a coaching culture. And at the Institute, we're here to help leaders and organizations increase business performance and leadership impact by developing coaching talent and creating coaching cultures. You can learn more.

by visiting us at integrativeintelligence.global and we hope to see you next time. Thank you.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (00:01)
Hello everyone. It says that we are live. I'm always excited for these. Welcome to the eight domains of human potential, a podcast designed for business professionals, coaches and leaders who are committed to elevating their wellbeing and success as a whole person. I'm Laurel Elders, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. We're an ICF accredited certification provider where it's our passion to elevate human potential.

through both the art and the science of masterful coaching. I have with me today Dr. Kristin Truman Allen. She is one of our senior faculty here at the Institute. Kristin is also an executive coach who partners with organizational leaders and teams. Welcome, Kristin.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (00:45)
Thank you, I'm excited to be here.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (00:48)
Me too, I'm so excited for today's conversation. So last week we launched our eight domain discussion with the somatics, which is the neurobiology of emotional intelligence. If you missed that episode, that's okay. We're going to post the link for you in the description. Today's topic is focused on the cognitive domain, our cognition. This is huge. This is a, a domain that,

so many of us can grapple with as human beings and leaders, parents, the whole nine yards. So I'd love to hear your perspective, Kristin. What do you see is important? What do you see as the importance of cognition, especially when it comes to developing ourselves as a leader or even just elevating our wellbeing?

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (01:36)
Well, first I just want to point out the language of grappling. When you said like we grapple with this and I think that's exactly what's really important about the cognition domain because we spend so much time as leaders, as humans, grappling, taking down, unwrapping, fighting with all the stuff that's going on in our brain, all of our cognitive thinking. And so,

part of what I think is important here from Girls in Development is making sure that we're conscious that we're doing that and what's informing what we're doing there. Because if we're only making decisions and taking actions from our thinking, from our cognition, uninformed about how we're doing that, then we limit our possibilities.

So think the cognitive piece is where our possibilities come from based on our beliefs and our perceptions and then how that drives our thinking, which drives our emotions that then drives our actions. And that's where we see conflict is in our actions and our words. That's where we see productivity and promotions and results. So huge.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (02:56)
Yeah, it is huge. And as you're talking, I'm getting this visual of like our, our mindset and we have a whole class on this, right? We teach our coaches. So our mindset can either close us off from possibilities or open us up to tapping into those. That's, yeah, it's really interesting. So I wanted to share, came across this quote yesterday. I was like, this is so perfect. So this is what.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (03:05)
Thanks.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (03:26)
what I was reading that really inspired me that has to do with what we're talking about today.

Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

And this is St. Augustine. And what caught my attention about that is that we often can be so externally focused that we forget to study ourselves and learn from what's within us.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (04:10)
you

So as you're saying that, as we're studying and figuring out what's within us, where would you want to take clients with that or leaders with that in terms of where to begin?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (04:34)
Well, and I think that's the power of coaching, right? They will, the client will go through that self discovery process of what is within them. What can they learn from themselves? And, you know, we've talked a lot about, especially in the coaching program, like if we are answering our questions and answering our lives through our ego or a limited self or limited beliefs,

And we try to change or create a transformation from that perspective. It can only get us so far. So what I love about coaching and especially integrative coaching is we get our clients in touch with their highest self, that highest part of them. And that deform or that informs their decision-making, which way different outcomes when, you know, when that process is engaged.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (05:22)
Thank

It's interesting when we think about, because we teach this and we teach about understanding the essence that we're coming from, like are we coming from essence or are we coming from ego and those perceptions and then how that is informing our beliefs and what is underlying, right? Making conscious what those beliefs are in order to change what our ultimate actions and outcomes are. And I was thinking about this recently about how important it is to

understand that as a coach and also when we see people make changes and build new habits sometimes they need to

Well, they need to tap into that essence. But also taking actions, small actions that are aligned with essence will help build their new beliefs around.

what is possible. Do you see what saying? So it goes both ways is what I was kind of pondering and is understanding that it's not one way, it goes both ways. But if we understand what's at the base, at the roots and what's seeded that, then we can get to a shift in emotion and a shift in action, which impacts all of our relationships, our programming, basically.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (06:32)
Mmm.

Yeah, yeah, so true. And I love that you made the emotional connection there too, because I mean, I recall waking up to the power of my mind and how that impacted my emotional experience when I had a friend that didn't respond and I was worried that they were in trouble and that because they went hiking and I was just so scared that I had this emotional reaction when they were fine. They had just fallen asleep and didn't and they missed an important.

Gathering. So, but my emotional reaction was based off of the story in my head. And yet none of it was real, but I experienced it as real experience. my gosh. Is this my intuition? Is this something, you know, it was all, it was not real. And sometimes our intuitions can reflect. Truths to us. Right? So this is why I think people grapple with the mind and that quote.

caught my attention because are we learning? Are we becoming self-aware? And so in integrative coaching, we look at five different ways that our cognition, our cognitive maturity is so important to our wellbeing and what that link is. And the first one is the mind is capable of understanding truth, but it's also capable of generating an illusion. Something that is not true, like a limiting belief that might be underneath at the roots.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (08:19)
You

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (08:27)
That's a big deal.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (08:32)
And it can be, if that's true, then it is capable of learning new truths, rerouting the pathways, rethinking what is possible. No matter age, no matter experiences, and understanding that trauma and different kind of things impact that.

Chemical things impact that, but the mind has that capacity to be able to build new pathways. And then we have to have that awareness in order to discern what is true.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (09:13)
Right.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (09:15)
Or at least in the moment, right? Because maybe we, I think we can also argue that sometimes inside of it, it's hard to know what the truth is. Inside of our situation.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (09:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, it really can be. You know, we talk a lot in our classes about how there's the phenomenon that happens and then we interpret what happens. And then we have a reaction to the interpretation. So we may be at some points three or four times removed from the actual event. And when we become self-aware, we can catch the illusions before they start to take root and be more centered.

which is connected to the second one. The second one is the mind is the only part of us that's capable of self-deception.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (10:05)
Well, I'm glad that we started this series with Somatic. Yeah, because I think if we're only listening to our mind because it's capable of self-deception and we're not tapping into our spirit self and our physical self that also has a knowing, and it goes both ways, right? We could have some cellular knowing that...

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (10:09)
Right? Because it can. Say more.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (10:30)
is not helpful, that our mind can help us unpack. But if we're only making decisions based through our mind and not paying attention to what our body is sensing and telling us and coming from our heart and information, fully we're not integrating our whole being in terms of making decisions and accessing possibilities and reaching potential.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (10:58)
Yeah, that is so true. I was thinking before I became self-aware, by being coached from an integrative perspective, my coach was an integrative coach, I lived in my head, my mind, and I wasn't using these other parts of myself to inform what I was doing. It's a shift. Yeah.

So the third one is the mind is the part of us that chooses. It is the part of us that is response able.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (11:39)
you

And I'm just thinking about a couple clients that I've had this week where we're talking about choices and where those choices are coming from. And then all the emotion that comes with our choices, whether we are embarrassed by our choice or whether we're uncomfortable with our choice or being decisive and where our mind is making a choice, but it affects.

Everything else affects our emotion, affects our actions, because our mind can also make the judgments about whether or not our, about that choice.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (12:19)
That is so true. Yes. And again, it can generate an illusion about something or it can get us closer to our truth or or we can choose in alignment with our highest self. Yeah.

Alright, number four. The mind is the part of us where the ego resides.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (12:43)
that ego.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (12:47)
Yes, the Go Excel.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (12:49)
Which I think, you know, our mind has learned a lot of things like biologically, physically, the mind has that space to help us be protected, right? It's sensing when we need to be defending ourselves or actual safety. So the mind needs to do that work too of helping us make sure that that's what's actually needed in this situation.

so that we're not just hijacked and being ego-based or fear-based or defending-based because we need to be in self-protection, like literal self-protection if it's not indicated. Like it could be an old story.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (13:34)
Yeah, I love that you brought that into it because the ego part of ourself, the part that says I am me, I am independent, is there to help protect us and it can turn into a limitation as well. So one of the messages I think is so important with the cognitive domain is that we have all of these amazing virtues within us, right?

passion the capacity for love Generosity, I these are all these amazing virtues and The egos version of things can actually end up limiting us if we stay there if we stay there We don't drop into these other parts of self and have those parts of self care for us so I'm gonna be a different if I'm in a defense pushing against something then if I'm

in my higher self saying no, that's not okay. Or this is, you it's not that we need to leave all common sense at the door. It's just which part of me am I operating through? At one point, this defense mechanism served me and now I'm seeing it limits me as a leader or, you know, a friend or a parent. So again, it's, think going back to that self-awareness.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (14:37)
you

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (15:03)
and that journey that coaching takes us on as we self-discover what part of myself is actually driving right now.

So number five, the mind operates optimally when put in allegiance to the highest self. So this is, I think this is a big one because in our society we're taught mind, spirit. Notice the mind comes first. And yet if it's the part of us that's capable of self-deception, is that what we want? Or do we want to double check? Is this, you know, is this true? Is this not true?

and then engage from that place of inner truth, inner alignment, inner value, inner virtue. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (15:55)
Well, as you were saying that, we teach, and we use the language mind, body, spirit, and I'm thinking of a number of clients who, and just people in general who, when they're making decisions, it seems like they have an intuitive body, spirit, knowing, and then they grapple with it because they're trying to justify it with their mind. So even though we're teaching mind, body, spirit,

I think our natural response is a little bit more intuitive, especially after some, you know, there is some knowing might be collective, ongoing knowing, could be some recent experience, but we have a knowing and then our mind tries to make sense of it. And then

We feel the discomfort if it doesn't feel aligned or integrated, and then just even that information can create an awareness of, I don't feel good about the decision that I'm making from my mind because something feels off. Or you see what I'm saying, you're nodding. Yeah, do you have a thought or an idea?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (17:06)
Yes.

I think I've lived half my life doing that. Grappling with, my gosh, what is, but trying to solve things from my head space instead of integrating all these different parts and getting clearer. Yeah.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (17:12)
Thank

here.

You

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (17:28)
Well, and what's, what's also coming up for me is an integrative coaching. you know, we're, we're engaging all three parts. We're engaging the whole person. Right. So we're not just in the mind. And when we learn how to engage the mind for its creative ability, for its action ability, for its choice, I mean, it's, it's imagination, right? Are we in story or are we in vision?

You know, the mind's capable of either. It can create a story and a fantasy, and we can have an experience because of that story, or we can engage imagination. The virtue of imagination is vision. And that gives leaders direction. gives our lives direction, purpose, and meaning.

It's so, yeah, such a, it's a very powerful domain, especially when we become self-aware of how to engage it and how to minimize self-deception.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (18:39)
and we're, you as you're talking about vision and imagination, the mind, because it can imagine a story, useful or not, if we're conscious about it and intentional about it, we can engage a story that we want it to be. And so if we're trying to tap into potential, we're trying to tap into possibilities, vision goals, access, what is even...

unheard of, right? We can imagine it and then imagine the pathway to get there. So we're, I appreciate how we're talking about how important this is because it can limit us and it also can free us.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (19:28)
Yeah, absolutely.

when I'm also thinking, you know, the imaginative part.

You know, in our, when we're coaching, we're helping someone get to the roots of what's going on for them, right? Because we, we often live at thought and feeling. We experience life, thought and feeling. We, we have our thoughts that are active and then we have our emotional responses. And yet unconsciously under the surface, we may have beliefs that are filtering or running how we're experiencing things.

Right. So if I believe, well, one of my, my core unconscious, I wasn't conscious of this until I stepped into coaching. one of my core limitations was I'm missing something. Everyone else has it, but not me. I'm somehow was born missing this thing that everybody else has.

I did not know that was filtering my worldview, my world experience until I became more conscious of it. So we can, I think that goes back to that quote of are we studying ourselves? Are we getting to know ourselves? Are we questioning? huh. I wonder if that reaction like has some roots to it. I wonder, wonder what's, what's there for me, but I also wonder what's true. And so I think that,

This self discovery, what I love about coaching is that self discovery, self inquiry is where empowerment comes from. That's what I've seen and experienced anyway.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (21:10)
Yeah.

Empowerment and hope and it can come from some playfulness. Right? So we can, if we are taking ourselves, I mean, even just thinking about all of this, it's very serious, it's very thoughtful, it's very heady. But if we can get playful about it and imaginative about it.

then we can loosen it up a little bit and come at it from a different perspective and not feel like we're being self-aware and judging. We can just explore differently from a different kind of angle. So that's what we do with metaphor, right? We use a metaphor to explore the situation or an experience of something we know, and then playfully.

unpack what we know about this other thing and then align it to our current experience and it informs us in a lighthearted, open, a little bit less emotion until we can really get to it in a playful way.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (22:21)
Yeah, I love that. And for those tuning in, Kristen did her dissertation in coaching and the power of metaphor. So I'd love if you could share more about the power that you've seen in metaphor in your research in sustaining personal and professional transformation.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (22:41)
Hmm. Well, I mean, I could geek out on this for a really long time, so I'll try and keep it simple. But what I found was that when a metaphor is used, like we just were talking about, you're kind of bypassing the ego brain that's keeping things limited or keeping you scared of having a conversation even. And so it becomes a catalyst to discover something new. we're just to...

just to create a neutral definition for everyone listening, we're thinking of metaphor as a symbol or a thing or an object that you're generating information from and applying it to something else. So I can think of myself as a dolphin leader. We know that I'm not a dolphin, but I can take the essence, right? I'm not, just in case you weren't. But I can take the elements of how dolphins behave.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (23:28)
Okay, I was wondering.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (23:37)
from a leadership perspective, how they interact with other people, how they communicate, all of the essence of a dolphin and apply it. Like if I'm trying to decide how do I want to be as a leader, I can apply that to my personal leadership style in terms of moving through.

shared leadership with different pods of information, how I'm communicating, how I'm being playful, those kinds of things. So I can take the bits and pieces of that and apply it to me, and it informs me a different kind of way of being, and also from a cognitive perspective, gives me some new pathways to think about how I'm making decisions. So what I noticed...

what I learned in the research was that when a metaphor was used, it becomes a catalyst to create the self-awareness. And then it changes how we're taking action differently and then creates kind of an emotional response or a symbol that then becomes a self-generated cycle of change. So I have an ongoing way to remind myself. Mind, body, or body, spirit, mind.

to access for ongoing change.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (24:53)
love that. Yeah. And I've, I've seen it and experienced it over the years as a coach and, as a human being, I'm my, one of my favorite examples. I know the other day I'm going to transparency moment. So Kristen and I were, yeah. So Kristen was coaching me and what was fascinating about that is that, you know, in coaching, especially integrative coaching, we're looking for.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (25:10)
I know where going. Yeah.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (25:23)
What is the truth? What's the essence? What's the highest self versus the, the defense mechanisms is that part of me answering. And what I got in touch with through the coaching was that my, my leadership, I guess you could call it spirit animal is a bumblebee and that, the essence of the metaphor using my imagination just, and it engaged my creativity in such a new way. And I was like, huh,

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (25:38)
Thank

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (25:51)
Bumblebee does this, a Bumblebee does that. And that, when it informs what I'm doing and my intention, like it, brought a whole new meaning and a whole new experience to, to what I was doing. So just wanted to share that as a

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (26:12)
Thank you for sharing that. you know, since we're talking about the cognitive domain, right, like we bypassed the protective mechanisms in our minds, used our cognitive imagination, but also the essence of and the abundance of what's possible. And what is kind of playful and imaginative to inform

the essence, right? All on a cognitive level, but using the cognitive piece in the brain as a tool instead of a driver.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (26:50)
Mmm. I love that.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (26:54)
which is really helpful for, I mean, it's interesting because some people would say, I can't do metaphor, I don't play this way, I don't think this way. But people who tend to be in their heads or, you when they know that they are thoughtful, learning, processing, analytical, it's really, that's a really helpful way to help them access other parts of themselves if...

they need a different kind of movement to get out of their head. Do you see what saying?

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (27:28)
Yes, yes, absolutely. I have noticed in coaching when a client is really stuck or if I'm really stuck, it's like we're in the head. Let's move to these other parts so that we can get momentum and then engage the head in the mind for creativity and follow through and action. Yeah, I think, is that what you were? Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (27:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (27:57)
What do you see as the cost of self-deception?

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (28:04)
I mean, I think the short answer is limit. Self-deception keeps us from accessing our best self, our integrated highest self, and whatever it is, our purpose, what we came here to serve, when we are in self-deception, we can't access our self-efficacy in a full way.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (28:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I've seen a correlation between power leaks and the cognitive domain. So how do we give our power away? How do we drain our energy? I've seen a pretty powerful connection there.

For example, assumptions, our mindset, judgments.

All of those are ways that we can give our power away. mean, there's a whole list. Again, we have a whole class on power leaks. There's many ways that we can give our power away until we become conscious of it. And then we could move forward, even in a hard situation, with our power intact.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (29:15)
Yeah.

I love how when we're coaching leaders and anyone really, but I'm thinking about people who I think of leaders as anyone who's influencing change through other people. So moms, right? Like leaders who aren't aware of their power leaks. When they become aware of their power leaks and kind of plug it up and enhance the flow somewhere else.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (29:46)
you

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (29:59)
It's amazing how transformative it can be in terms of how they influence. And for ourselves too, right? Because we, you know, we're coaching and we get coached because we all are human beings and tend to, we shift back in sometimes into those spaces that are limiting and draining.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (30:20)
Yeah. Yeah. And integration theory teaches us that, you know, when we're, when we start to self develop, we expand our capacity to live in the bigger picture, to be responsive and to minimize our power leaks. And yet under stress, our, our defense mechanisms are the first thing to kick into gear, right? We're just, we're wired that way. So can we become self aware of that? And.

at the Innegram Institute, the research that they did showed that when someone was under stress, they went down in terms of the levels of integration, the levels of development. Under stress, we go down a couple notches because we end up reacting. And then when we can become self-aware, it can pull us back up and we can start getting back into big picture problem solving, back into our highest self. And it's that.

that self-awareness piece that's the bridge from the reactivity to the responsive.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (31:30)
Hmm. I'm glad that you pointed that out because we're you know, we're talking kind of

theoretical a little bit about some of these concepts and understanding that stress impacts our ability to move through the process and our ability to access our essence in such a powerful way. Sleep stress, trauma stress.

emotional stress, like the list is huge in terms of what impacts our ability to even move out of fear or move out of the stress protective response. maybe say a little bit about maybe you can think of a client or clients where you've had them move out of stress first in order to be able to truly or get them to truth to be able to transcend or transmute.

for where they are.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (32:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. I would say, always. So, I was reading, I can't remember where this was. was reading how the brain can't both be creative and under stress at the same time. So when coaching, if a client is under stress, part of the process is getting them centered. So that calms somatics, right? Engaging the somatics, then the brain can kick in and a more creative.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (32:38)
Thank

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (33:04)
resourced way and knowing that with coaching we We are not coaching in times of trauma That's not our wheelhouse. So when a client comes in we can help them get to that creative self-generating part of themselves and Get out of the the power leaks

So I just pulled up the power leaks list and just in under mindset power leaks, have justifications, assumptions, catastrophizing, generalizing, minimizing, self-deprecation, projecting, exaggerating, leaning towards pessimism, rigidity, and black and white thinking. It's either or.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (33:57)
Mm.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (33:58)
And that's just in mindsets and behaviors. We see loose boundaries versus healthy boundaries, taking responsibility for someone else, someone else's choices when it may not be our place to in authenticity or camouflaging, greed, not grieving, getting stuck in guilt and shame. mean, there's just, there's so many ways that the mind can,

can step in until we become self-aware.

of these things. And sometimes they turn into habits and tendencies.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (34:36)
Mm-hmm.

I love coaching so much because we can, it's so powerful when a client can notice their power leak and then once you know, you can change it, right? Our minds are powerful. So just having the information can then shift, even subtle, right? Just a subtle little shift is enough to change and get a whole different outcome.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (35:10)
Yes. Yeah, that's it's so true. That's what, you know, one of the things that, one of the classes that we teach on mindset that Kristen, I know you, you're brilliant at teaching. We, it's a process of getting someone into what's at the roots of what's going on, what they're experiencing. So getting the underlying beliefs that we were talking about earlier and, and shifting those and what I've noticed when we use that, when I use that process with myself and with clients.

is that when a client moves from like the fear and the head noise, know, oh, the chatter, all these different thoughts, when they get clear about what their truth is at the root level, there's this calm that happens. All of a sudden the brain chatter, quiet, and then there's space.

There's space for them to then determine, wow, this is actually what is true. Now, how can I move forward? And it's from such this peaceful grounded place.

yeah, it's, just, it's, it's like clockwork. see it all the time and experience it when I apply it, when I don't apply it, I can stay in my head running around for days.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (36:31)
you

For sure.

Hmm, we could talk all day about the cognitive domain.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (36:48)
Yeah, yeah, so much to it. mean, it's definitely, it's got its place in our human potential. It's one of the eight domains. And I think that's the message I would love to get across today is it is one of the eight domains of human potential. So it's one place that we can integrate, we can elevate, and we can become self-aware. And even, you know, I think about imposter syndrome.

And that's a big one or confidence levels. And are we attaching to something externally as our source of validation or value? Or are we able to go within and get really clear about who we are and what we're about in the world? And can we start moving forward from that space?

and having that clarity of mind, you know, versus just getting caught up in our thoughts and having that, that, you know, that worry set in or that the fears set in, it's, it's a different experience.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (37:57)
Thank

Right, untethered, it goes all over the place. we can reel it in. Yeah.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (38:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I've also noticed how just one illusion can generate a hundred different fear thoughts. And when we can help the client help ourselves get really clear, that was just an illusion. Okay. That was not true. That, that clarity of mind and heart can then start coming forward.

All right, so any other thoughts before we wrap up today?

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (38:39)
Hmm... No more thoughts.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (38:47)
I love it.

All right. Well, we, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for joining me in this discussion on the cognitive domain and the, the pros and cons, right? As a human being, what we can grapple with. and also how we can use the cognitive domain to really elevate ourselves when we, learn how to engage it. So we hope that today's discussion has been a lantern to you and your evolution as a business professional coach or leader.

Dr Kristen Truman-Allen PCC (38:53)
I don't think so. You covered it.

Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC (39:21)
You can learn more about our ICF accredited coach training and our new leader as coach program by visiting us at integrativeintelligence.global. We'll be placing links to the things that we've referenced today below after this podcast airs and we hope to see you next time. Thank you.

Keri, tell me your name, title, location, anything you want to say, your business name, anything like that.
00:11 Keri Nail
Okay. My name is Carrie Neil. I'm a life coach and I have my own coaching business which is Carrie Neal. Life coaching, pretty simple. And I'm, uh, I'm located in Phoenix. But of course, you know we can do this wherever we're at, which I do a lot says because I travel a lot. So. Yeah. Um, and I've been a life coach since I graduated the, from the institute. I started my own life coaching business.

How long ago did you answer the call to coach?
00:55 Keri Nail
Well, interesting. I was just, you know, looking at what I wrote down, um, and I'm like, oh wow. It was before that, um, in the early 90s I think, because I was working for a big corporation in Chicago and they brought in, um, high performing organizations. So I was assigned to be a team leader and they sent us to all this training to be a team leader and leadership development and things like that. And so I love that idea of um, instead of a manager telling an employee what to do, that you're actually helping them and guiding them to figure out the answers for themselves. And so I think it started there. And then in the late 90s I went back to school and got my master's in organization development. And coaching was a part of that executive coaching. And so it's just kind of led up to there. And then I've lived in a couple of different countries other than the United States and did some training and development and leadership, um, and team building workshops and things like that. And uh, when I moved to Phoenix about seven years ago, um, I joined the International Coaching Federation and the Organization Development Network here. And um, just to see what I wanted to do, did I want to be more strategic, big picture, um, with organization development, or did I want to do more one on one coaching? So I bought, volunteered for a couple of projects with both organizations and that's when I decided I like the one on one. And then I realized I wasn't really coaching, was more advising and consulting. And so I was referred by icf, International Coaching Federation, uh, to investigate a couple different coaching certification programs, one of which is the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. And I am so happy that I did that and started my own life coaching business.

How did your training at the institute help shape your success?
04:11 Keri Nail
Oh, well, just, um, learning how to be a coach, asking thoughtful and insightful questions. Um, what. And first of all, what coaching is and coaching isn't. And, um, the materials that the institute provided. Not only the, uh, written materials, hands on, um, practice, practice, practice. With questions that the ICF International Coaching Federation uses. Um, and also learning how to integrate our personal and professional lives, our whole person, which is what my life coaching business is about. And I'm like, I need. It was the perfect fit for what I wanted to do as a life coach.

How does it feel to be a successful coach?
05:23 Keri Nail
Oh, I finally feel like my purpose and passion are in line, and I'm using my favorite way to bring those together. My passion is helping people be their best selves. I met my. This is my tagline. I'm at my best when I'm helping others be their best. And then my purpose is to create a more peaceful, friendlier world to be in. And I. Sounds like Miss America. I just want peace in the world. But it's true. I. I. Like I said, I've lived abroad. I've lived in a couple different other countries, and I know what I do cuts across all nationalities, all countries, religions, whatever. And, um. And so, yeah, it's, um, yeah, so. And, And. And so it's bringing that passion, my passion and my purpose together in the favorite way that I like to do.

Do you have any advice for someone considering entering the coaching profession?
06:43 Keri Nail
Absolutely. I would first recommend, um, joining the International Coaching Federation if there's a chapter in your area and joining it anyway just to really understand what coaching is. And then, um. And then, like, what. What I did was I asked for references to coaching program programs. Um, and, you know, talk to several of them and see what fits best for you. Just like I did with Laurel. Um, just looking through the program and then actually speaking to her about it with it was, you know, that the institute itself, the information, Laurel, all of it just cemented what I was trying to do. So, yeah, join icf, uh, first, because as we know, the Institute for Integrative Intelligence is ICF approved. And so, yeah, go to ICF first. Make sure, you know, if it, if the shoe fits, do it, and then do it with the institute, uh, for Integrative Intelligence.

What is one word that describes your experience as a successful coach?
08:13 Keri Nail
Positivity. Absolutely. I not only, um, not only do. Part of my coaching with a, with a company is teaching people how to be mindful and turn our thoughts, neuroplasticity, rewiring our brains from negative to positive. And when I went through that, I did it for myself. So the full self awareness about that. And as an alumni of, uh, the institute, I've sat on, um, many of Laurel's, um, webinars. And one of them was about mindfulness. And I'm like, oh my gosh. This aligns with what I do for this organization I work for. And so, um, yeah, it's just when I, as, as a coach, when I learn something that works for me out of all the years and experiences I've had, I want to share it and I want other people to grow from it and learn from it and have the same or similar experience. That positive experience that I personally had.

What concerns did you have to overcome when deciding whether or not to invest in your coaching education?
10:14 Keri Nail
Yeah, so when I moved to Phoenix, I was just newly divorced and was getting a real handle on my finances. And so I just really wanted to make sure I was investing well. And, um, so I just once, I just once I knew this was it and this was the program I wanted to join. Um, it didn't take me long to decide, yeah, let's do this. And, um, I. I haven't looked back. I've been. That was one of the best decisions I could have made and I'm very happy that I did it.

What would you tell someone who is watching this and unsure about taking the next step?
11:15 Keri Nail
Uh, contact Laurel. Laurel Elders, who created and designed and, um, runs the Program for Integrative intel, the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. Call. Call her. Talk to her or, or probably anybody in, you know, um, that works for Laurel. Um, but she's, as you know, she's awesome. And so that I just remember that conversation was the best conversation I had. It just. It Made me go, yeah, okay, let's do it.

Any programs that you're currently offering or aspects of your coaching practice that you'd love to share?
12:26 Keri Nail
Yeah, a couple things. So, um, I get most of my clients through this organization called Find your win. You can look find your win dot com. Um, so there's a little bit of, like I said, mindfulness, uh, teaching along with coaching. Um, and so it's. It just brings both of those aspects together for me. M. That are both so important to me. Um, and then, um, I also, like I said, I started my own life coaching business about four years ago. And when I just. When I do it on my own like that. Depending on what, on the presenting issue. Right. A lot of times I also like to share the personal, uh, preferences from the Myers Briggs type indicator dichotomies. Um, because I've been trained and certified in the United States, in Canada and Singapore, and um, I. It's. For me, it's a simple assessment that I can share, um, that helps people understand their natural preferences, where they get their energy. Is it more inward or outward? Uh, how they, how they see things? Is it more big picture, future oriented, all possibilities? Or is it more learning through your, your senses, your five senses. Touch it, feel it, smell it, in the moment and very sequential. And then. And again, these are preferences. We start with the preference, but that doesn't. I mean, um, we do both. It's just where do we start? And, uh, what's our natural tendencies and, and how does that impact our relationships with people and the work we do? Um, the

When did you, um, go through Laurel's program?
I'm just curious.
And what do you feel contributed to your success in the coaching profession?
Then looking back, how did your training at the institute shape your success?
Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that. How do you think the, um, training at the institute really gives you that, um, advantage over the people that just call themselves coaches?
How does it feel to be a successful coach?
What do you think is your secret sauce while you're coaching?
Okay. What advice do you have for someone considering entering the coaching program profession?
Okay, so what would you tell someone who's watching this and unsure of taking the next step?
Yeah, definitely. So what is one word that describes your experience as a successful coach?
Yeah, definitely. Um, okay, so now, uh, the last question. I think you answered kind of the other questions already through your other answers. So if you want to talk about any programs that you're offering or maybe your book or aspects of your coaching practice, that you'd like to share?
Awesome. What is the best way for someone to find you?
You.
I now have a YouTube channel, Michael J. Lopez Nine, which has, um, some videos that I've been doing. I've started a Little podcast on LinkedIn every week. Um, with some other folks in the Top Voice community which I'm a part of. So, uh, yeah, starting with the website's an easy place to branch out. Um, if you search on LinkedIn, I'll be easy to find. And uh, same with Instagram and that sort of thing. I'm not as active on X, um, Facebook. Uh, I am a little bit more of my kind of life altogether. But uh, yeah, those are great places to start and, and uh, I would encourage you to go there.
Awesome. Anything else that you want to add before I stop the recording?