PODCAST: Pure Coaching with Carly Anderson

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Welcome to Coffee Coaching and Callings, a live podcast created for coaches, leaders, and helping professionals on a mission to lead a successful and heart centered life. Your hosts today are myself, Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen and Laurel Elders of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence, where it's our mission to elevate human potential through the art and science of Masterful Coaching.

Today we're focusing on Pure Coaching and we have us with us, Carly Anderson. Yay! Queue applause in the background. Carly has been professionally trained since 1998 and is an ICF Master Certified Coach since 2004. She's also been an ICF Credentialing Assessor at all levels since 2005. She's a globally renowned coach, mentor, trainer, author, and speaker.

And we're super excited to welcome Carly. Thank you for being with us.

Carly Anderson:
Thank you, Kristen, and thank you for inviting me.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
You're so welcome. We've been looking forward to it. December 1st. A good way to start our conversation around coaching in 2024 and what is Pure Coaching? So I was thinking to get you kind of up to date in some conversations that Laurel and I have been having around Pure Coaching. Just in time for your article, actually. We've been in this dialogue around what's going on in the industry, what feels like a challenge in terms of the industry because so many people are calling coaching coaching, that by our definition, and the ICF's definition is maybe not coaching. But so, to get us kind of going with that, Laurel, will you share a little bit about the first and second journey and then maybe we can launch from there?

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, absolutely. So at the Institute, I found this distinction to be helpful in helping people wrap their head around coaching because it can seem so nebulous at first. But what we found is that there are two journeys somebody can take when they're moving towards their potential. So the first journey, we can be shown the way through external sources, books, teachers, mentors, spiritual teachings, the whole nine yards. It can show us the way. And that's a really important first part of our journey. 
But there is a point when that first journey can only take us so far. And in order to reach our full potential, we have to embark on that second journey. And that second journey is about going within ourself. So, no one can give me my power, no one else can provide me my courage. That comes from going within. My gifts come from going within. That's the second journey, the self discovered journey. And that's coaching. 

Coaching takes us into that second journey. And as far as I know, there's no other profession that specializes on walking with someone as they embark on the second journey.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Yeah. So Carly thank you for bringing your expertise and wisdom to this conversation around coaching and that deep discovery. Second journey. What comes up for you? What are you thinking?

Carly Anderson:
Well, first of all. That's a lovely expression. The second journey, Laurel I was thinking, when did my second journey really begin? And it actually began probably seven or eight years before I found coaching. And I think the journey was within, around what's wrong with me? That was the question in my late twenties. I felt there was something wrong with me. I was very successful in my twenties, but I just felt there was something wrong with me. And what I ended up finding out through therapy is there was nothing wrong with me. There was something wrong with my family history and that I made it. I didn't know enough until I really started exploring hidden memories. And so to me that was my awakening. I'll call it, maybe not into my second journey yet, but it was my awakening to, and I was already in the middle of a personal development program because I was really seriously searching at the end of my late twenties. 

Coaching found me about my mid-thirties.  I had already been on this personal development journey for six, seven years really. I started when I was about 27, going I've got to find out. So for me, then the second journey part that I resonate with there, Laurel, is that the coaching felt like a professional way to take all of that learning and development, personal development into something that could be channeled into this thing called coaching. And I just was so amazed that there was such a profession. So that was my first thought that came when asked that question.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
In your article, you talk about, um, when you need consulting, you hire consulting. When you need training or education or some specific information and when you need a coach, you hire a coach. Will you elaborate a little bit about that?

Carly Anderson:
Well, I'm aware that whenever I'm coaching, especially I've done a lot of coaching over this last 23 years inside organizations and I didn't realize until late in engagements, early in my career, that once we got to the point of saying, well, what did you get from our coaching? Where are you now versus the objectives? What were some unexpected things that you got from our coaching? And they would often say, well, how you were with me really demonstrated what coaching was. It wasn't actually the content, it was the fact that you asked me those questions and you didn't just give me tips and tools and strategies and ideas when I asked for them and you let me know why. And that it was really, first of all, to find out what you already knew. And then if I had something, I would add something. And there was so much modeling that I did not know that I was doing. And I recognized then that as coaches, we are always role models when we go into coaching any situation, but especially when we are impacting communities of people, whether it's nonprofit, profit, whatever. 

And that's why to me, I recognized if I'm going to be demonstrating coaching, I better be demonstrating coaching. Because I understand the power and so do my clients. So if I'm saying I'm a consultant, then I'm going to consult. And I came from a consulting background, and I love consulting, and I actually love my mentoring because it gives me an outlet. Mentor coaching is one outlet for that. And yet, when I'm coaching, I want to be demonstrating coaching. And if I'm going to take my coaching hat off, which is a term I'm not fond of, I have to be really careful, and why and for whose benefit is that and how am I going to do it. And it's come up in the industry a lot. 

And I'm interested what both of you are hearing, and I think the Pandemic has really exacerbated or brought to the foreground, some of these sort of challenges with coaches being asked to be more advisors and mentors and trainers and teachers rather than coaches. Because the Pandemic created a closed environment where we were all at home, and coaching companies created these platforms to tap into a market, and have created now, they've got a lot of influence, some of these coaching companies and platforms, and they are dictating what coaching is and isn't. And that can be challenging for coaches who really want to coach and keep in coaching mind when they're being told that they are a coach. But I'm interested what either of you are also hearing and knowing about this.

Laurel Elders:
What that brings up for me is how there's just not a lot of the education around coaching, even though the ICF was started in 1995, I believe, and yet there's still a lot of confusion around coaching. So seeing companies, I've seen companies do that launch a coaching program and it's not coaching and they don't know it. And so when they start to learn what coaching is and the efficacy of taking someone into that second journey. I'm hoping that more and more of this shift to the educational side of coaching, what coaching, actually is, what that second journey actually looks like. And putting someone in touch with their own power, their own wisdom, their own gifts. I just hope that continues to expand. And I believe it is. And we're not there yet.

Carly Anderson: 
Yeah, I'm finding a challenge in explaining when organizations or leaders are asking for a coach. I'm finding it challenging to explain what that looks like because they're being influenced in social media and wherever else. And also having had other consultants say they were coaching. Maybe they had a coaching approach, I don't know for sure. But it seems like there's a lot of confusion. And I'm having to articulate this is what you can expect from me as a coach. And I also have a coaching back or consulting background. And so here's some parts and pieces that we can do beforehand. And I love the way that you address this, Carly in terms of how to compartmentalize that a little bit so that you can be truly in a coaching session and in service to the power that that can really, um, evoke to really create change. 

The other piece that feels confusing is in the industries around business coaching, online coaching programs, money coaches, lots of different kinds of coaching that feels like, there's a championship and they're trying to anchor. What my perception is that they're trying to anchor in some concepts around life coaching, but without true coaching skill. That is I think it creates a challenge. I think it's confusing for people. And as coaches who are trained and practiced and mentored by excellent mentors, I'm feeling a little bit of a tug of, um, I don't know if it's defensiveness or what that feeling is specifically, but really trying to figure out how to let people know what to expect and what is true and what is different. It's more than any time that I remember, this has always been a conversation, but it's really accelerated in this last three years, I feel. 

One of the things we also have as a challenge is the origin of coaching word itself. When I first was told by the person who was bringing coaching, I lived in Australia at the time, my country of origin. He said he was bringing coach training to Australia. And my only reference point was sports coaching. And sports coaching is defined by telling, directing, deciding. It wasn't really the best term for us to take and co opt for ourselves because... actually... I'm a huge sports fan, massive sports fan. So I watched the NFL, the NBA I'm not into yet this year, but, tennis and everything. And I love watching high performance athletes in action and I see the coaches on the sidelines and how they interact and there's no comparison to how those coaches are acting with their players than what we have been trained through the core competency alignment with the International Coaching Federation, which has defined coaching as a partnered approach. And I don't perceive the sport coaching world as a partnered approach, it's a telling approach. And I think that creates another level of challenge, that people who have never heard of coaching will, I think, immediately be able to relate in pretty well any country in the world. In some parts of the world, football named soccer. We call it football, but soccer, but everywhere else it's called football. Outside the US. There's so many countries that know what sport coaching looks and sounds like they see it, and now we have to navigate that as well.

Laurel Elders:
That is so true. I do remember starting out, I got my start in coaching in 2005. Took my first class, not knowing what coaching was. I actually thought I was learning counseling skills, had no clue. And that first day of class, when they taught the distinctions, the education side, I was blown away. And I was like, this is it. I didn't even know this existed. It was so fascinating. 

But after being trained and certified, people would say, what do you do? I say, I'm a coach. They say, what sport? But that is changing. More and more people are learning what coaching is as a distinction. 
But the other thing that I've seen, and if I could just go to the top of a mountain, I just want to say and just kind of shout to everybody, shout to the world. Coaching is not every single thing. I'm just seeing so many, it is being used as like an umbrella term for just about everything from photography to editing services. So part of me is like, hey, I want to provide a challenge and just take a stand and say, what if we started calling things what they were? If you're a mentor, can you call yourself a mentor? If you're an advisor, can you call yourself an advisor? And I see the term used so broadly that, um, the confusion seems to persist.

Carly Anderson:
Yes. I align with you on that, Laurel, and I feel like, again, we have another added layer of that of mental health, which has really, fantastically, been given much more prominence and destigmatization in this last three years than at any other time I can remember. And there are some global athletes that have also been contributing to that. Like Naomi Osaka has contributed to a generation that she's a Japanese born Haitian American. She covers a lot of territory in that, and she's black. And she spoke out against mental health in 2020. And she has a global audience, the highest paid female athlete in the world. 

And I think that then you get Prince Harry being part of a platform around mental health, and then you get some prominent figures, and then a lot of athletes going, we're not going to be treated this way. So we've got this other layer, which used to be, I think, less of a challenge to differentiate what's mental health versus coaching. 

And there's a lot of gray area which I'm concerned about personally, because much like, if you're going to be a consultant, when I was consulting, I was doing corporate communication strategies around strategic plans, vision, values, and how to communicate that effectively throughout an organization. I had expertise in that field. I didn't have expertise in consulting around the finance parts of a large company. 

So, I mean, I knew my niche, I knew what I was good at, and I had expertise in that. Coaching and mentoring has a specific value. Training and teaching has a specific value. Coaching has a specific value. Mental health services providers, counseling therapy. There's a whole range that have value. And I feel like the biggest opportunity for all of us is to continue to offer the distinctions and why it's important for us and our clients to know what we're doing, when, and how that results, what the results are for them in each of those different modalities or professions. What are your thoughts?

Laurel Elders:
I couldn't agree more. Kristen, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Yeah. I think really breaking down what you're doing when, and what the value is around that is, if we could do that in all of these industries would be really really helpful. You know, I think about how long you Carly have been watching the trend of trying to get coaching to be understood of what it is, and now trying to just be clear. What is that experience now for you after this period of time growing as a young industry?

Carly Anderson:
Mostly until this last couple of years, it was positive. And I felt like, again, I think I recall feeling a little helpless in the past about really can coaching really be understood? And I've felt like that in the last couple of years, a little helpless and hopeless at times about just the sheer volume of people and companies, because I do interact with a lot of coaches who are employed by a lot of different platforms and coaching companies. And I go, what's my voice going to it's not going to make a difference for these people who are making millions and billions of dollars from coaches around the world. And they're not coaching. I have mixed feelings about it. I go through that polarity of stay in my lane, do what I can. Thank you for putting the voice out in this podcast, as we're doing here today, I think educating people, educating coaches, but especially educating the marketplace, the people who buy coaching as to what coaching is. And the big companies that are saying, this is what coaching is, and if you're going to be paid by us, and a lot of people don't want to do marketing of their own business, so they are willing to not be in this pure coaching mode. 

And I've got say, let's just say people I've coached who, I'll give you a typical example, not an example, but who think they're going to be hired as an internal coach somewhere, and only to find out that really what they're doing is being asked to advise. That here's what you should do. And how draining, how draining that is to them, that they are the ones who are supposed to provide all the answers to these people when they thought they were being employed as a coach to support. And there are internal coaching departments that do a really great job of being coaches first and advisors because they have intranets of course they've got resources and things they can suggest, but they know what coaching is. And they really do their best to stay in coaching, pure coaching, while recognizing they have a lot of resources available. So I go through this bit of an up and down about how I feel about what my place is and how I can make a difference, to be honest.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, I can definitely relate, especially as I'm seeing the word coach just thrown out there for just about anything. It's an interesting time in the profession.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Yeah. And I feel like we have an interesting opportunity, as an Institute for coaching, to maybe partner with organizations or partner with industry groups to help provide some of that training so that there could be in that partnership to really start from their ground up, as they're building their coaches or as they're coming along with some new ideas and strategies to provide a really sound expectation from a pure coaching perspective. And as we're saying this, and we're talking about pure coaching, I feel like I wonder if our listeners could benefit from a definition of pure coaching. We're just throwing it out there as if we understand, or that everyone would understand. What do you guys want to say about that?

Carly Anderson:
Laurel, do you want to say something?

Laurel Elders:
Yes, I have so much to say.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
We're all purists.

Laurel Elders:
To me, a coach truly is a partner on that second journey where somebody starts to self discover, go within themselves. The coach is an expert in the coaching, the client is an expert of themselves. And to me, why coaching is so effective in that second journey, just thinking in those terms is because we all have our own success formula. And so if I'm being mentored or guided at some point, that might become a limitation to me. If I'm coached, there's an unlimited factor. I can go in any direction as far as I want. Because, in coaching, we help a client get in touch with their own answers, their own truths and self develop from that reference point. So, to me, it's like we can get so far when we're shown the way, but when we're introduced to these other aspects of ourself, it takes us that much further. So self discovered journey. The coach invites the wisdom to come from the client. And to me, that's the distinction of coaching versus mentoring. I'm guiding and helping you. Counseling or therapy, I'm helping you with emotional healing or helping to connect dots and make sense of something. Teaching, I'm providing information. Consulting, I'm an expert in a field. Those are my thoughts.

Carly Anderson:
That's really clear, really well articulated, Laurel. I would say that, to add on to that, that coaching is a client driven process. And if a coach comes to the session and says, here's what we're doing today, that's not a client driven process. 

For instance, say there's ten modules of a training program, but now the companies call it coaching but it's training. So let's call it training because it's not a client driven process. I think it's somehow people think the word coaching is sexier than training. I think training is great. They call it training. And then when you want to implement and make it personal, as Laurel has said, get a personalized approach for each person to implement that training so that it sticks, then that's actually how coaching can be a complement to training. 

So you go through the training modules. Now, how do you apply that one at a time? It could be after each module, but they're different things and it embraces different parts of our brain, even. When we are being trained. And I'm in a training program right now, as a student, I have a different in one day. I was in front of the room, so to speak, on zoom. And then I was a student and I could feel the difference. When I'm in a training program, I sit back and I'm curious in a different way. I'm like, oh, what's going to happen and where's the teacher going to take us today versus when I'm the client or I'm coaching, I'm curious. Let's say I'm the coach first. I'm curious, what does this person need and want from this session today? What is this outcome about? For what purpose? How do they already think about feel about this topic? What do they need to address in this session? What have they learned from their training that they need and want to explore? 

Then that becomes implementation and that energy is different than when we have a training of energy. Because now I am the one in the driver's seat. I am the one who's going, oh, you're not going to tell me how to do it. I have to figure out that. And that's why coaching is often challenging for clients, is because it's hard work to actually stop and reflect and come up with your own realizations. Because we're so used to being told what to do and getting the next quick fix on everything, that the hardest work to do is actually pause and reflect on what we already know, what we don't know, and what we need. And that's where coaching really brings that journey to life for me.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, there was some research done, on training alone, increased productivity by 22%. Training followed up with coaching, increased it by 88%. I mean, that's huge. That's a huge difference. And to me, it just reflects how important it is. Like what you were saying, Carly, when you follow coaching up, it personalizes the information so that, follow through piece can happen more effectively. The integration part.

Carly Anderson:
There you go. There's that word Integrative Intelligence. Nice.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
It's making me think of coaching in this way, where it's truly client driven, client led, and it's a full process, right. We're creative and we're tapping in and there's so much critical reflection, which is sometimes uncomfortable. I think people want transformation to happen quickly. I might hire a coach and say, “Oh, I want to experience this by February.” Right. “I want to make this big change.” 

Well, there might be changes I can make, but in the partnership with my coach, if it's truly we're looking for some transformation and we're going through a process that could take a lot longer depending on what needs to change inside me. Right. So it makes me, I've been really aware recently of how impatient people feel around that process. And you were talking about the quick fix and looking for training and online programs where there's modules and it's going to tell me how to get there and I'm going to get there quicker. And that might inform you so you can take quicker action. Informed in a different way. Absolutely. 

I want to have a little bit of discussion about the patience a coach has for holding that space for an unknown process or a known process, but an unknown time frame.

Carly Anderson:
Or an unknown result, an unknown, how it's going to not knowing is something that we talk about as a bit of a thing in jargon terms, in coaching. And yet it is. I mean, a coach who thinks they know it all is not a coach. I know what's going to happen. I know that's mentoring, consulting or training. 

But I don't know how this person is going to implement this. I don't know what they need or want. And yet I am confident in my coaching skills. As Laurel pointed to, I'm confident in my coaching skills and my ability to structure a professional coaching conversation in a way that is replicable. And I know my coaching skills, my ability to ask responsive or discovery oriented questions. I know how to do partnering, checking with client on progress, understanding how to ask about learning actions, all of that. That's my job.

I don't know how this is all going to play out for a client. And the moment I think I know I'm no longer service as a coach, I've actually shifted over into some mindset that says I know and I know can be good in some situations, of course. And yet there are so many things we can learn about ourselves. I love being coached. My coach is by the way, I don't hire coach. My coach is not from the world I'm from. In fact, medical professional, background, nurse and pharmacist, pharmacy. I don't need somebody to have coach to be someone who's come from something I've done in the past or from a profession because they're probably going to be giving me mentoring or be tempted. I want someone who's really good at coaching. And that's what I have. And that was one of my strategies. 

And I would like to offer that it's one of my strategies that I didn't realize at the time was such an important strategy for me to become a good coach. Was my first coach in Australia. Actually she was a chiropractor. I don't know if she still is. She was a chiropractor. I didn't have to need her to be a businesswoman, even though I was in the business world, I'd never been a chiropractor. I asked her for two things the first two years that after my training, coached training. I hired her and I said, I want two things from you. I want mentoring to be a better coach, and I want you to coach me. And I want those two things separately. And so what we'd come to each session with and she'd say, okay, what do you want today? And I'd say, well, we have 60 minutes. I'd like, first of all, I've got some questions. So I'd like a mentoring maybe for 20, 30 minutes, and then I have a coaching thing. Or sometimes it'll be all pure coaching, and then sometimes it would be I don't think I ever had a whole session where it was just mentoring and stuff. And I got it. I got the power of those. 

That's the other thing. A lot of coaches don't have their own coach, and they've never experienced coaching as an ongoing... What it does for you. I've been coaching for 23 years, and I go through cycles now. I don't have a continuous coach. I happen to be married to an MCC coach. So I get continuous availability if I want it. But I actually still pay for a coach, and I go through cycles of doing that rather than and she just actually emailed me yesterday. We might do some more next year again, starting in the new year. So I separated those two out and I asked for it from my mentor coach that she be both for me. It's so valuable.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, it is so valuable. And it really connects back, Carly, it sounds like to what you were talking about. They all have their purpose, they all have their place, depending on what the need is and the goal.

Carly Anderson:
Absolutely. And you said something earlier, which I'd like to ask if we can just address a bit about, which is mental health and how much I see that coming into coaching now, and I'm a little concerned about... There are companies that have mental health services and coaching, and they actually know how to differentiate both. And yet I also hear that some coaches are not doing a lot to understand and there's modalities of coaching out there now that really, I think, border on therapy that I would never do. I've done a lot of therapy with mine. I'm not a therapist, but I would never touch it as a coach because I feel like it's outside my scope. And I'm just interested what you're hearing out there in the marketplace around mental health and coaching and coaches coaching around things that you would go, wow, that seems like not a good idea.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah. One thing I'm seeing that I, um, am concerned about is therapists are teaching coaching programs. And they're not always educated in the coaching distinctions. And, the students are not always trained therapists or trained coaches. So, to me, that is a little concerning because, um, I was speaking to one of someone that was an untrained coach and their client brought to the table that their partner told them that they were emotionally abusive. And the coach's response is, oh, I'm sure you're fine. We're all kind of emotionally abusive sometimes, trying to empathize and be supportive. And that person didn't go get help. Which I'm not saying they may have needed help, but a trained coach and credentialed coach would see that as a flag to refer out, to a therapist. And a professional coach knows their lane. 

So, to me, I think the biggest thing I'm concerned about is, if we're not... Because coaching is unregulated, someone can do counseling and call it coaching. So even the lawsuits I've seen are all untrained coaches. None of them were credentialed coaches. So I thought that was interesting.

Carly Anderson:
Kristen?

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
I haven't had any…. trying to think. I don't know any specific examples of where that's happening, other than just the question that keeps popping up around, is this for coaching or is this for therapy? And I'm appreciative that there's a question about that. I'm not sure. Because it's, you know, in my own coaching, I watch for it and most of my clients automatically, I don't know if it's just how I'm attracting them, that they're doing therapy in parallel, as if it's just what we do. We have coaching, we have therapy, we have coaching, we have therapy. I'm trying to think if there's a particular area of mental health that I see this coming up, other than, like, addiction, um, maybe some trauma work, but I don't know that I have a specific example.

Laurel Elders:
Well, also, one more thought is the medical doctors take that oath, do no harm. Well, if we've got professionals just calling themselves coaches without the training, they may not know where that line is. When could I accidentally do harm without knowing it? So that's my biggest concern is just the not knowing part, or with the distinction between trauma informed coach and coaching the trauma. To the credentialed coach. We do not coach trauma. We refer out. Do I want to be educated on trauma? Sure, I do want to be informed, but I am not trained or licensed to coach trauma.

Carly Anderson:
Yes, they're great distinctions. I would say one thing that I've observed that I did not get in my coach training all those years ago. And I have a wish for in all accredited coach training programs, is to actually train coaches in how to have these conversations because that's often missing. It's like, I don't want to assume straight away that someone needs therapy. I want to ask the questions as you've said, and Kristen, you brought this up, it's like, okay, so here's the situation. 
Let's just take in an education system. There's a teacher that is experiencing some sort of peer pressure from I'm just making peer pressure from another peer to be in a personal relationship and they are feeling pressured. And so what do they do? Do we automatically say, oh, that sounds like it's bit touchy, what do I do? No. What's the conversation that a coach has to clarify, how are you feeling? What do you need? Are you any harm? What are the consequences for you here if you stay? What happens if you go? What resources do you have available to you? And to be able to ask those questions in order to then decide what is the coaching topic and if there is a coaching aspect. 
Because sometimes the coaching aspect is helping the client to get clarity about what they need and want. That is the coaching aspect. Rather than coaching the trauma or coaching the situation, it's coaching the client to have clarity about how they feel, where they need to go, and, what they can get from whom, including a coach. 
And that type of conversation, I find is often missing. As is the conversation that coaches don't like to have and I think they need to be better at is, what's your definition of coaching when they go to be hired by someone? How do you define coaching? What do you expect a coach to do? So both of these are conversations that I feel clients, coaches need to be better at is, how do people define coaching? And when a coaching versus therapy, not to assume immediately there isn't a coaching component, but to have that conversation to determine what is and what isn't coaching component and move from there.

Laurel Elders:
Mhm, yeah.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Keeping the client in charge and in the lead of that, right? Yeah. And I think some coaches go to immediately to, oh, this is therapy, I can't do it, versus, let me ask first, because then you get that, oh, I've got a therapist already. I mean, I've had that happen to me. I've asked the question, and they go, oh, no, I've already got a therapist for that. Okay, so when we talk about this, if I ask you, have you talked to your therapist about that? Would that be okay? Or how do you feel about talking to your therapist about that? Or that seems more like something for your therapist. Yeah, but I didn't know. And some people don't reveal it because they don't even realize -  they don't even think that the coach, that there's going to be a problem in there. But we can hear sometimes. So just saying things like that, it can really open up, or some people don't even they have such a stigma attached to mental health stuff about getting help that coaching feels so much easier. So then, if that's the case, what can we design that is true for us to be able to do as a coach to support that person? And what can we be asking of them to do for themselves to support what we can't. And have clear written agreements on that in case there are any challenges in the future with the law, let's just say, because we're not above the law as coaches, as you've sort of alluded to, I think, Laurel.

Laurel Elders:
And I think it boils down to scope and being just really clear. Clear and explicit. This is where coaching goes. This is where coaching can go. And Kristen, I love that you also brought up, you know, clients can do both and often do. So we can still hold the coaching space.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
I'm reminded of… oftentimes when metaphors come up in our conversations with clients, they could be… seem like therapeutic metaphors or within the range of therapy. For example, like a shadow. Right? Shadow work has a lot of therapeutic mental health kind of components. But just that language of “shadow” does not mean that it's therapy. Right. So I think that's inviting the conversation to really discover what is actually being called for, what is being asked for in the coaching session, to see what can get discovered. To help just determine what is therapy versus what is coaching.

Carly Anderson:
Great example.

Laurel Elders:
Well, and that reminds me that one thing that I've learned since I've become a coach, is that sometimes coaching is therapeutic, but it's not therapy. It's therapeutic in that the client can experience they're doing their own work, and there's a therapeutic, internal therapeutic component for them doing that work. Even though the coach is doing zero therapy, the coach is holding true to the coaching space. The client is growing in different ways and relating to their entire life in different ways.

Carly Anderson:
What a great distinction. Therapeutic. Yes. And it reminds me of a quote, and my apologies for not realizing who this is - I'm not good at that whole, who is this from. It reminds me that being heard is so close to feeling loved that for most people, they don't know the difference because most people are not heard. 

And so when they start to get this listening space from us coaches, it feels therapeutic and maybe even therapy if they don't know. Clients have said, oh, I feel like I'm with a therapist, because they get heard and they can speak what's truthful for them. But I'm not a therapist and I'm not going to therapy. So I have to keep reminding them what the distinction is. 

Yes, you're a human being. You have thoughts and feelings and emotions, and your emotions drive your behaviors. And you're just telling me how you're feeling. And that's human nature. That doesn't mean it's a therapy. And yet, clients who've never had a coach might feel so vulnerable and seen that that's something they've never experienced before. Because some of us in our home environments did not get that growing up. That's just truthful. And so to really be heard, wow, what a gift we give to our clients. Just listening. Because that's really deeply impactful.

Laurel Elders:
Especially in such a fast paced world. Just having that space. That's one of the things I love about coaching, is entering the session. It's like, oh, there's space here, there's space for whatever needs to come forward.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
And it might be the only space they have in there. To be heard, to think, to breathe, to feel - all of that. Oh my gosh, yeah.

Carly Anderson:
Which can be confronting. I remember one client I was interviewing with to coach said that I'm disarmed by how much space in listening you do, and I'm not ready for you. I need someone who doesn't give me this much. But what she realized was that's where she wants to get to. She didn't come back to me, by the way, but, I mean, it was really interesting how she said, I've never had anybody.... I'm used to when I get, um, a consultant, people just speak over me and interrupt and we keep talking and you haven't done that. And she said, and this is really making an impact. And I'm a little afraid of having this much ability to express myself at this time. What honesty and truthfulness is that but she never realized that until she was with me. And she had the space and I wasn't telling her what to do, how to do, or interrupting her, or giving her tips, tools, or strategies.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Yeah, it can be uncomfortable.

Carly Anderson:
Yeah.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Oh, such a good conversation. Is there anything else before we wrap up that needs to be illuminated today around pure coaching?

Laurel Elders:
For me, it's just I have such a deep appreciation and respect for pure coaching. I think I've seen how in modern times, there's this addiction to hybridize and expand and change. But what I'm noticing is that anytime you try to add something into pure coaching, it actually takes away its efficacy. And so sitting in that, knowing that the coaching, pure coaching is just so effective at helping someone come into their own, that I'm actually really excited that the industry is growing and the ICF is global. 
And when I first entered the industry, I was a bit of a rebel. I was like, ugh standards and know. And now I'm like, thank you, ICF. Thank you for taking a stand for coaching and really giving the distinction, the gift of this distinction to the world because it hadn't been done. So those are my final thoughts.

Carly Anderson:
Beautiful final thoughts to me.

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen:
Awesome. Well, thank you Carly, for joining us. And to everyone listening. Thank you for being part of our conversation. We hope these messages have been a lantern to your path as you expand your success as a coach, as a leader or helping professional. 

You can join the conversation at IntegrativeIntelligence.Global and we'll see you next time.

Laurel Elders:
Thank you. Bye for now.