My Introduction to the Course in Miracles
Decades ago, in my youth and as a young adult, I was an atheist. It was the safest assumption I ever made. It felt secure because everything could be explained scientifically, and nothing was left up to the imagination. I wanted concrete facts. I was a natural skeptic, tried and true. My motto was “Prove it.” This was all fine and dandy until something completely unexplainable happened. I was lying on my bed, feeling emotionally trapped. I kept asking the question, "What is wrong with me?" Over and over and over. I decided to get up and walk over to my mother's bookcase. She had three large bookcases filled to the brim with hundreds of books. I decided to distract myself, so I flopped down on the ground next to one of the random shelves. I picked a random book out. I decided to open it to a random page. What happened next shook me at a soul level. My eyes landed on the random page, upon the words: "This should be a relief to all of you out there who have been wondering "What is wrong with me." (Excerpt from Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, by Susan Jeffers, p.4) That day, I could no longer logically conclude atheism was all that was out there. What just happened to me defied probability more than three times. If you do the math on probability and chaos theory, what just happened should have been next to impossible. I could have picked any book. I could have picked two other bookcases. I could have picked a different random page. All of this after I had just directly asked the question precisely worded verbatim in the random book I chose. After this, my inner skeptic agreed that I could become agnostic. That felt safer than saying I believed in a Higher power and then being wrong. In my early twenties, I was a struggling single mom. I was a great mother, but on the inside, I was an emotional wreck and was secretly battling an eating disorder. I hesitantly attended a support group for single parents called SPROUT. The facilitator, Barbara Costello, offered us pizza and babysitting each week. Then, Barb presented a new teaching on self-empowerment and stepping out of self-deception. Each week, I witnessed a new participant express a new transformation. It was like watching popcorn pop. I began applying the teachings to my life and noticed things turning around. I became more “lucky” and started experiencing a positive turn of events. I didn’t believe in luck, so I approached her. I wanted to know where she gleaned her weekly teachings from. That was my first introduction to A Course in Miracles. I went and purchased the book at Barnes and Noble. I got home and opened it up, only to find it referenced God and used some Christian terms. Ugh! Not only was I highly adverse to the concept of God, but I royally disliked religion and all of the harm and greed found in many religions. I shut the Course and felt like I had just wasted my money. Yet, the teachings kept helping me overcome emotional depression and anxiety. One day, I was deeply struggling. I opened it up again to a random page, and it spoke directly to what I was going through. My inner skeptic agreed, “Ok, that was a fun coincidence. I could probably learn a thing or two, so I’ll agree to read it, but I’ll replace the word “God” with the word “Love.” Well, that worked. My journey with the Course began. I share this story with you because I have been searching for “the Truth” since the age of 15. With a skeptical eye, I have studied every religion I could get my hands on to weed out the objective truths from the false. I now understand that many people have been harmed by religion and threw God out because of bad religious practices. I also understand that many people have been helped by religion and stand transformed from the inside out. I have concluded those hurt by religion were hurt by others. Those saved by religion were saved by God; religion was the path pointing the way to inner transformation and healing. I’m about to begin a six-month coaching program that dives into the principles of A Course in Miracles. These principles have not only transformed my whole life but have also garnered a personal relationship with God (you can also use the words Love, Truth, etc.), which is something I never believed existed until I had multiple first-hand experiences. Whatever your path with God or spirituality, I invite you to open your heart to the truth and virtue embedded within you. The principles outlined are just the breadcrumbs. What is A Course in Miracles? A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a spiritual self-study curriculum that assists individuals in achieving spiritual transformation and inner peace. The Course was written by Helen Schucman, a clinical psychologist, and William Thetford, a research psychologist, between 1965 and 1972. It was first published in 1976 in the United States. The Course consists of three main sections: the Text, a Workbook for Students, and a Manual for Teachers. While the language used in the Course is "Christian" in nature, it carries universal application beyond man-made versions of religion. For example, God is referenced as our source of life and love. Christ is referenced as Jesus, who was a human expression of God's Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also referenced as God's primary form of communication, love, support, and guidance. A key theme of A Course in Miracles is learning psychology from a spiritual basis, not a clinical one. It is aimed at understanding truth and steers away from religious rhetoric. Its emphasis is on emotional healing and reconnecting with the true essence of God's creation. It challenges the conventional understanding of ego by encouraging a shift in perception from fear to love. While the author Helen was an atheist, she prayed openly for a "better way". The Holy Spirit became an internal teacher. She dictated everything that came to her. William Thetford helped her compile it, and A Course in Miracles was born. Helen took no credit for writing the Course. It is published under the non-profit Foundation for Inner Peace, which was formed to distribute the teachings globally. Many believe that the Course is Christ stepping in to correct some false perceptions fostered by man-made religions. Oprah Winfrey has hosted multiple shows featuring Marianne Williamson, one of the most influential teachers of a Course in Miracles. Marianne was the author of the best-selling book A Return to Love. Her teachings amplify God's love as the healing force in our lives, hearts, and within greater humanity. Christ taught in the New Testament to judge any profit or teaching by its fruits. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. "Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them." (Matt.7:15–20.) The Course has been actively used for its fruits in modern psychotherapy, as a personal spiritual study, and as a stand-alone text. The Course is studied across the globe and invites us to develop a direct connection and living relationship with God and the Holy Spirit that is accessible within every human being. Therefore, each reader is invited to enter into teachings through application and experiencing God's love firsthand. Beyond anyone's religion, it states, "a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary." Beyond religion is God and one universal curriculum God extends to all who seek the truth. Truth (the Way) can only lead to God (the Life). While the Course has gained a global following and has been influential in certain spiritual circles, it is most recommended for those interested in a direct relationship with God beyond man-made religion. The Course teaches us to look beyond religion (God didn't create religion - God only created Truth) because God's embedded truth within the heart of every human being and the Holy Spirit only requires willingness - not religious belief, to work miracles and help us access God's truth. Whether you are an atheist, a Christian, or a Buddhist, the Course in Miracles principles welcome everyone. The principles are a bridge to our human spirit. Our human spirit is home to virtues that God has embedded within each of us are a path illuminating the truth of Self. Supplemental Readings:
0 Comments
Five years ago, I gave up on New Year's resolutions. I would start off strong and then eventually fail at keeping them and then feel bad for not being a better human. Can you relate? 😑 Attaining goals via willpower is rarely effective. The push energy can feel so draining, and the external focus can feel flat or daunting. Not to mention, failing at any resolution is anything but a confidence boost. Fortunately, there is a much better way to approach the New Year and your vision. A Course in Miracle teaches us that we do not need to learn from pain or be motivated by pain alone to create miracles in our lives. Of course, we can use pain as fuel, but the Course outlines that we don't have to. We can learn through love and wholeness. 💫 The Course also mirrors the sentiment that when we choose to learn through love (think positive affinity versus negative aversion), we learn ten times more than we do through pain, as mirrored by the ego's extrapolation and defenses. This year, I am hosting a coaching success circle to help leaders and professionals lead life through their wholeness. This process brings the whole version of your potential to life, one goal at a time. No push energy is required. ✅ And, did you know that a study was done by the Public Personnel Report on training (think information), and in this study, the managers who underwent training increased productivity by 22%? Not too shabby! However, when the training was followed up with coaching, productivity skyrocketed to 88% (think transformation)! 🔥 As a professional coach, I have had the honor of seeing these results play out in real-time. Therefore, this year's success circle will be a powerful combination of both information and transformation. It is based on the principles that activate your wholeness and allow you to move forward, empowered, aligned, and refreshed. 🌀 If a success coaching circle is the type of support that nourishes your goals at a soul level, I would be thrilled to have you join me for Powered By Wholeness. Sign up before January 10th for early registration rates! 😀 Details: CLICK HERE FOR Powered by Wholeness Do you live with an awakened heart? If you did, how would you know? If you didn’t, how would you know? Everyone has a place within them that is whole and complete. Part of the healing journey is to learn to access this part and allow it to care for the hurting parts. Our wholeness is also the part of us that empowers, expands, and aligns us with our best-self. Below is an eight step practice to help you access your wholeness and experience the healed part of you that can serve you in times of challenge. I recommend you read each step first, then sit in practice. If you have a spiritual path, you may wish to integrate your beliefs, such as prayer into the process.
Sit with your wholeness for as long as you need. Allow it to fill you spiritually and prepare you for your day or sleep. Visit anytime you wish. I've been teaching for decades that our wholeness is like the sun. The sun is always shining. While clouds can cover the sun, they can never remove the sun. So it is with our wholeness. Your wholeness is the one part of you that can be removed, even when it feels clouded. Learning Level Two coaching skills can feel daunting. Stepping into mentor coaching to have a trained assessor review one of your recorded coaching session can feel intimidating. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the process, get the most from the mentoring experience and help you pass your Performance Evaluation. In this video mentor coach, Laurel Elders, interviews coaching mentee, Michael on his process, mindset shifting and the studying process for passing the PCC Marker Performance Evaluation with flying colors. This video is in support of our Level Two ICF Accredited Training Program. Transcript
Laurel: All right, Michael, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed about your process with mentor coaching and also preparing to pass the PCC level performance evaluation, because I know that is not an easy feat and you just blew it out of the water getting, 100% plus extra credit. So I'd love would you you share, um, with other coaches that are in that learning process, in that mentoring process, what helped you elevate your growth? Michael: For sure. Yeah, I'm really glad to share. I think first of all, the mentor coaching was, really impactful. And obviously it's vulnerable to record yourself coaching and share it with somebody. And then to let them give you feedback on it. All of that's really vulnerable. But I feel glad, that I was able to lean in to that process. I think for sure. And you saw it from my first recording to my second to my third, I really made, um, significant strides, I think just sort of in the first two sessions, really seeing the patterns, um, getting good clear feedback from you and, taking thorough notes on our mentor coaching sessions and then reviewing those notes before the next session and just spending time with it and thinking through, okay, how am I going to be able to look out for this habit? How am I going to shift this habit? And really thinking through that before my next recording is definitely a part of what helped them to each get better than the one before. Laurel: Nice. And I recall in one of our sessions you shared "coaching is hard". And I remember feeling that same way going through my own PCC mentoring. Like, "oh my gosh", it's so counterintuitive. And what we know about the brain is that the brain wants to provide answers and have certainty. So learning to sit in pure curiosity, unbiased, or to be able to recognize bias, that's a whole new mindset shift. Michael: Yeah, absolutely - I do think honestly, even hearing you say it now, I think at some point in the process I was, I was really appreciating how hard coaching is. And I think that kind of helped me to realize like, hey, this is really hard, it's not easy, it takes a lot of practice, it's not going to be perfect. And I think just realizing this is challenging to shift how I talk and hold space with people. It helped me to be a little bit more compassionate on myself and then to bring some more ease and lightness to it instead of the heavy self judgment which is always like around the corner. Laurel: Yeah, it's such an internal shift. And for those listening in, I just want to offer that. That does change with time. Right. It does become more natural and flowy, as we get more out of our heads, and can be more present. Any advice or words of wisdom for other coaches who are, going through their own mentoring process and learning the PCC Level Two skills? Michael: Yeah, for sure. I think some of what I already shared about, but I think just being really open to the feedback and wanting it with the mentor coach. I think you said early on in our work together, Laurel, hey, I'm going to give you feedback. It might feel petty, might feel small, and just kind of preparing me for it. But I really felt, as we moved through it, like, okay, let me let my guard down. Let me be grateful to be getting this feedback, and kind of switching off that part of my brain that it's easy to try to defend ourselves as opposed to just realizing, hey, this is helpful. So I think that's the first part, is really just being open to the feedback and kind of leaning into the process. One other thing I'll share, that you had recommended to me that was really helpful was just, taking a look at all of the training material that is up on the website. I think I didn't look at it right away at the beginning. In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have had such a learning curve if I had. But I probably underestimated how useful that was because once I went through and when I was driving around town, when I was at the gym in the morning, I would just play one of the sample coaching sessions. They're about 30 minutes each, and then they have all of their notes and they have all of the, sort of the questions that were asked and the coach's side of the script. Once I started accessing that material, it was like major light bulbs were going on for me about, just how to sort of be more intentional of bringing the PCC markers, into my conversations with clients. Laurel: Nice. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That sounds really key. I think there's some- sometimes we can just say, oh, I showed up for class, right. I got the material and then kind of move on because life gets so busy. And I just found out you're doing your dissertation right now through in additional all off this! wow. Michael: That's right. Laurel: So impressive. But, yeah, the idea that we can, at some level, study coaching. Right. Really study it and get familiar with it and really have it be a part of who we are and what we do. Michael: Yeah, absolutely. The resources for preparing for the PCC markers is really incredible, so I can't recommend that enough, really. Laurel: Oh great. Thank you! Anything else you'd like to add? Michael: I'll give one last tip that I just gave to some of my classmates. People that know me know that I'm a fiend for trying to figure out how to use AI to make things easier for me. So something that I did is I asked chat. Gpt to give me. I fed it the PCC markers and then I asked it to create, like a fake 30 minutes transcript that was timestamped for each of the PCC markers, just so that I could look at on paper, what does this look like? To have a perfect session and it's not really perfect because it looks like a robot doing coaching. But it was really helpful to just see it in that way. So that might not work for everybody, but for me, I'm the type of person that, that's really helpful for, just to have a transcript that shows how each marker was met. It was really helpful. Laurel: That is fascinating! I would love to see that! If you want to share it. Michael: I'll share it with you. Laurel: Curiosity, what did AI come up with? Michael: Yeah, uh, it's funny, it's a little formulaic and it's like a robot doing coaching, but, he definitely passed the test. Laurel: Yeah, too funny. Oh, that's hilarious. Great. Well, thank you again so much for being willing to be interviewed and really share your experience so that it can help others. And the message that I have for newer coaches going through this level two training. Is that what you said, that be compassionate with yourself - and also just, it's normal to have that vulnerable feeling like, oh no, somebody's going to be judging. And really a good mentor coach is not judging. A good mentor coach is just saying, "oh, here's coaching" "oh, here's a different way to docoaching and let's explore the continuum of coaching. Yeah. Thank you so much. Michael: Thank you, Laurel, I appreciate it. Join the Institute's Founder, Laurel Elders, in a six month transformational journey into your wholeness: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. By Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC Edits by Jill Aronoff, CPIC, ACC Coaching is the sexy trendy thing to call just about anything. "I'm a photography coach." "I'm a resume coach." "I'm a wine coach." In this article, I'm going to take a stand for coaching. To some, my sentiments and ideas may be perceived as controversial. So be it. It is time to face the proverbial elephant in the room and be open about the challenges the industry is faced with and how we can do better. 1) Let's call a duck, a duck. I recently read an article on the different philosophies of coaching, written by a freelance writer who did not appear to have any education or expertise in the coaching field. What struck me most about the article was that the author failed to explain the distinctions between coaching, advising, teaching, mentoring, consulting, and therapy. Instead, they grouped all the ways of “helping” others under one umbrella and labeled it "coaching." The author made no mention of the distinctions between advising, teaching, mentoring, consulting, or therapy. Instead, they grouped all the ways we can "help" others under one umbrella and called it all "coaching." The article illustrated the significant confusion surrounding the casual use of the term "coaching" and even the fundamental definition of coaching itself. Using the term without a proper comprehension of coaching as a distinct modality, separate from other approaches, appears irresponsible. If we are going to use the word, then why not educate ourselves first on the distinctions of coaching? People assume placing the word "coach" in front of what they do means they are "coaching." This is not always the case. Are we mentoring? Advising? Consulting? Teaching? These are all of the distinct methodologies for helping others. Why not honor the credibility of the approach being taken? It is time to get educated! Let's be more honest about what it is we are actually doing. I'll offer a visual representation of the distinctions to help illuminate the differences. There are two journeys one can embark on when expanding their human potential. The first journey is The Guided Journey. On this journey, we can be shown the way by virtue of external sources such as therapists, advisors, consultants, teachers, mentors, clergy, etc. The second journey is much more elusive. It is a Self-Discovered Journey. There comes a time when external provisions can only take us so far, and to reach our fullest potential, we must dig deeper within ourselves. We must excavate our unique wisdom, courage, confidence, and inner power from within. On the second journey, we come face to face with our wholeness. The second journey can be embarked on alone by virtue of self-reflection or spiritual practice. Or, we can walk through the process with the support of a professionally trained coach educated on honoring the self-discovery process. Both are important. Both have their place. Yet, both serve a much different purpose. 2) Our addiction to innovation has the potential to muddle coaching efficacy. On my first day of a coaching class in 2005, I unconsciously assumed I was learning "counseling techniques." I had no clue what coaching was, but I thought I did. Gaining education on the distinctions was so illuminating! Each approach (counseling, consulting, and coaching) has a unique purpose, process, and place. The distinctions became professionally formalized around 1995 with the inception of the International Coaching Federation, or more commonly known as the ICF. I learned that coaching contained zero counseling or consulting. What I had been calling coaching was a hybrid of spiritual mentoring and teaching. I was doing zero coaching without knowing it. In professional coaching, the client enters the second journey. They embark on a deep self-discovery process. A professionally trained coach is like a Sherpa who walks with a client on their journey of self-discovery. They are an expert at facilitating the entire self-discovery process. A professionally trained coach respects the client's self-direction and personal agency. In coaching, stepping in with advice or direction would step on the client's toes and take away their right to self-generate. No other profession, approach, or modality is specialized in this way. Coaching is one of the most unique approaches I've ever encountered. Fastforward from 2005 to 2023. We are in an age where we are addicted to technology and innovation. Now, we are looking at how we can "evolve," "hybridize," and "innovate" coaching. It is quite the hot topic! While all of the mental gymnastics are fun, there are some truths about coaching that our addiction to innovation is negating. The fundamental heart of coaching is self-discovery. When you attempt to innovate something that is already profoundly efficacious by adding other modalities, you undermine mental, emotional, and evolutionary opportunities for the client to self-discover or self-generate. Why innovate something that, in its purest forms, is brilliant, unique, and unmatched in its efficacy? In my experience, I've seen people want to hybridize coaching because giving advice and direction is SO much easier to do than walking with someone into pure self-discovery. It is challenging to not interfere with our own bias and place the spotlight entirely on someone else. Yet, the Second Journey truth remains... You can become an expert in a process or a system. However, you will never be an expert of someone else's truth. This truth lives in the heart of every professionally trained coach. We are trained and educated on the power and positive impact we carry when we honor the client's truth by gifting them the opportunity to self-generate. Coaching is uniquely powerful because it is based on this premise. This premise is what elevates the client. This premise is what empowers the coaching process. This premise is the second journey into our human potential. It is at the heart of the self-discovery process. Coaches sit in pure curiosity and honor of the truth of the unique person in front of them. Coaches honor that every human being has their own unique success formula, just like every snowflake has its own unique pattern, never to be replicated again. Coaches intentionally remove bias, neutralize hierarchy, and quiet the ego in order to spotlight the client's gifts. This is the truth of coaching. 3) It is time to recognize that untrained coaching can end up as bad therapy or worse, cause harm. As a mentor coach, I help coaches develop their coaching skills, neutralize bias, and expand their second journey mastery. I've heard coaches move into other modalities attempting to help, which incidentally inhibited self-discovery, or in some instances can harm. While licensed therapists may have to worry less about causing harm because they are thoroughly trained in therapy, those of us not trained to diagnose or treat psychological ailments should tread with caution. Professionally trained coaches understand:
Due to the industry relying on peer regulation, we are witnessing an increase in unlicensed professionals engaging in therapy and counseling misusing the title of a coach. We are also seeing therapists teaching or conducting "coaching" to avoid state licensing requirements. Additionally, some programs teach counseling skills and label them as coaching, blurring the practitioner's roles. Not to mention my bigger concern around the confusion between being a trauma-informed coach and coaching trauma (which does not fall under the scope of a professional coach). I've seen "coaching" programs created by someone who had a personal transformation with no education in either coaching or therapy use the word "coach" to certify others in the processes that worked for them around trauma. This not only has grave potential for harm to a potential client seeing a "certified coach" of this nature, but it is also doing therapy without proper education and licensing, which is a legal matter. The majority of legal cases I've seen involved uncredentialed coaches. I hate to say this, but anyone can get a fake certification as a coach if you pay the $25 to an online certificate mill, or attend an unaccredited program. The good news is that no one can "rubber stamp" an ICF Coaching Credential. There is a reason it is called the gold standard. An ICF Credential is awarded only after someone has undergone the rigor of education, coach-specific training, mentoring, and performance evaluation. An ICF-credentialed coach must be able to demonstrate proficiency in ethics and competency in coaching skills (distinct from counseling and consulting). The most extreme case of the self-development world causing harm was demonstrated by the self-proported personal development program "Executive Success Program," which turned Nxvim cult. This program developed "coaches." These coaches were taught to conduct therapy in unethical ways. Again, this is an extreme case. True coaching has a low harm factor because it is a self-directed process. If I'm calling myself a coach and counseling people without the proper education, I may cause more harm than good without knowing it. A prime example comes to mind. In this situation, the person I spoke to was untrained, acting as a "coach." The "coach" had a client who shared that the client's boyfriend accused her of being brutally emotionally abusive to him. The untrained coach responded, "Oh, I'm sure that's an over-exaggeration. We could all be considered emotionally abusive from time to time." In that attempt to provide sympathy, the client in this situation opted not to consult a therapist because they were essentially told this was normal and all was okay. Also, that is not coaching. In this instance, the unexplored root issues remained. To a professionally trained coach, this conversation would have raised a flag that a professionally licensed therapist should be consulted. In Summary While the coaching profession may still seem a bit wild-wild west, many positive strides have been made. When I first began coaching in 2005, whenever someone asked me what I did for a living, I would share I was a coach and often get asked, "What sport?". This has changed! The International Coaching Federation (ICF) has also increased the rigor behind their global standards. Not everyone gets a trophy. As we explored, you must meet or exceed coaching competencies to earn a credential. While more people, leaders, and companies are becoming educated on proper coaching, coaching efficacy, and the existing distinctions, there is still room for growth. I, for one, proudly stand by the ICF's coaching standards. They've done an outstanding job of stabilizing the profession by upholding the highest standards of coaching, education, training, and credentialing. Amidst all of the hubbub, it feels appropriate to take a stand for coaching and share my perception of what is possible and how we can begin to shift by respecting what professional lane we are actually swimming in. Laurel Elders:
Welcome everyone, to Coffee Coaching and Calling, a live podcast created for coaches, leaders, and helping professionals that are on a mission to lead a successful and heart centered life. Your host today is myself, Laurel Elders of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence, where it's our mission to elevate human potential through the art and the science of masterful coaching. Today's podcast will be focusing on business success. And I have with me today Mark Silver, the founder of Heart of Business. Mark has worked with heart-centered entrepreneurs since 1999, helping them realize that every act of business can also be an act of love. Mark is one of the pioneers in integrating real spirituality with the nitty gritty of small business. And I've invited Mark back to join us today because we are celebrating and discussing the release of his new book, Heart Centered Business: Healing from Toxic Business Culture so your Small Business Can Thrive. Welcome, Mark. Mark Silver: Yay. Thank you, Laurel. I'm so delighted to be here. Laurel Elders: Yeah, I'm so excited about this book and, um, already diving in. I have taken away so much. I was like, "oh my gosh, what do we not talk about?" Mark Silver: Right on. That's great to hear. Laurel Elders: Yeah. So you know, I was kind of thinking of just starting off with maybe the elephant in the room, because there are some people that the term "heart-centered" might symbolize, maybe a little fluffy. I know when I first started my career in my twentys, I was like, oh, heart doesn't belong in business. That's not professional. We have to be very professional. And yet this is so not the case. So not the case. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Mark Silver: Yeah. There's so much there. Most of the ills in business are because of that exact myth. I mean, there's so much, but you know, this idea that, business is not an appropriate place for love and care, that business is not an appropriate context, for caring relationships, is so much of what's made it toxic. This idea that it's only about money and that professionalism means that we can conduct, uh, a proxy war through damaging, uh, the climate, and damaging our communities, damaging the customers, damaging our competitors, and damaging ourselves. I mean, what's the point... Who wants to live in this reality that has been created through these lies? It's really... So painful. It's so painful. And it's also really impractical. It works in that you can accumulate wealth as capitalism defines wealth, but it doesn't work for so many people. It doesn't work and it can't continue. I mean, capitalism has really turned commerce and trade into a cancer that's killing us all. It's terrible. Not to put too fine a point on it. Laurel Elders: Yes. When people are, um, unhappy in the workplace. I talked to one lady and she said I could physically see my colleagues aging in front of me. That's how toxic it was. And yet, what's fascinating is the research coming out that I've come across is saying that the companies that are shifting that, they're shifting their leadership, um, they're shifting the culture into a more coach-like culture, more positive and supportive. Those are the companies that are doing much better. Mark Silver: Right. And you're saying "those" companies and I'm assuming that you mean companies that are... Laurel Elders: Shifting. Mark Silver: Including heart and shifting in some way. Laurel Elders: Yeah. Mark Silver: Yes. I missed that whole context. I'm just guessing. So, um, that's fabulous. I mean, I think that there are all these hidden costs, or not so hidden costs. Um, you know, when people are deeply unhappy, there's turnover. There's... Uh, people tend to sabotage their work environments in ways that I can't blame them for. There's all kinds of things that damage businesses that aren't willing to care for the relationships that are involved. Laurel Elders: Yeah, yeah. I love that you brought up the money piece because, I've noticed that companies can be so linearly focused on that piece that they miss success in these other areas. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes not. But I also love that you brought up in chapter two, you really challenged the notion that money is just energy. And I love that you called this out. I'd love to hear more on your thoughts. Mark Silver: Yeah, well, that's a popular refrain in certain, you know, pop culture spiritual circles. Well, money is only energy. And okay, you know, everything is only energy at a certain level, or expressions of the divine presence or expressions of love. But the physical world matters. We end up privileging... A lot of people in spiritual circles end up privileging the inner experiences over the outer world. And the outer world is just as sacred and just as holy and just as divine as our inner experiences. And money only exists as money in the physical world. You know, if you have a wonderful feeling in your heart, you can't buy food with that. You know, it's not that it's irrelevant. It's just that, uh, I'm trained as a Sufi healer. I'm trained as a spiritual healer. So it's not like I don't spend a lot of time working spiritually. But... And for the healing to be complete, it needs to move into the physical world. And this means not just having an alignment in your heart with the love, but also paying attention with care to your accounting, to making sure that your pricing is sustainable and not unethical, either at one end because you're harming yourself, or at the other end because you're harming people in the marketplace. You know, you need to pay attention to your business model. You need to pay attention to all of these pieces, not because the spirituality of the love stops, but because it doesn't stop. Because the love extends into those pieces. And it allows us to examine and be with all of these details with love and with care and with a sense of the sacred. Laurel Elders: Yeah, yeah. What that brought up for me was, it's my relationship to money that carries energy. Mark Silver: Yes. Well, uh, everything at heart is about relationship, at least from the Sufi perspective, you know. Everything is an expression of the divine. And how we're relating to the source of love is, you know, ultimately what guides us. And if we're seeing money as evil, um, then we're going to have not a great relationship with it. But also, if we don't look with our eyes wide open at the, um, injustice built into our economy and the unjust and unfair ways that, money is used in our culture, then we're also not going to have a healthy relationship. We need to really be able to look reality in the face. We need to be present with it. And then we need to bring both love and care and competence to the whole picture. Laurel Elders: Yes. Yeah, I love that. I also really appreciate that you brought some of the history of unethical marketing strategies into the book. It really helped me understand why I had such a horrible reaction to marketing when I first started out as a coach. Mark Silver: Yes. Laurel Elders: Let's just push the pain and the fear and let's just push that on people. And it's not... Mark Silver: I know... It's so terrible. And most people, you know, others have done a much more in depth historical study than I have. But, the research that I did, revealed that in the early days of the then new field of psychology, where people were starting to gain insights into how our minds work. A lot of those early psychologists were hired by the then new field of marketing and advertising. The new firms that were coming up on Madison Avenue in New York City and they were very deliberately, very deliberately, using manipulative, psychologically manipulative techniques to sell things. And it's been with horrifying consequences, you know, because, it's built all kinds of unnecessary things into this world. I mean, one thing that I think of know, Gillette wanted to sell more razors. And so they started this whole manipulative campaign to get women to start to shave. I mean it's just weird, you know. And so we have all of these ways that we've deformed who we are and, adhere to these unrealistic standards because companies want to make money off of it. And instead of there being just a healthy relationship with companies that with people, with organizations that are wanting to provide needed services, you know. And it's something that really can be shifted and needs to be shifted if we're going to have a healthy culture. Laurel Elders: Yeah, yeah. I completely agree and I was watching... It reminds me, I was watching a segment on MTV when they first started out and they started shifting away from videos. They would send people out to talk to teenagers. They would say, what would shock you? And they had gathered this data and then they'd put out shocking things. Their ratings skyrocketed. But it wasn't because people wanted to watch it. It was because, they were like, what is this? But their ratings skyrocketed. I mean, it was just so fascinating. Mark Silver: It's so fascinating how all of this operates. And we see this on social media. It requires a lot of what is required, I think, and this is what we see with our clients, is that as we help and support people to connect more deeply with their hearts, and lots of people do that anyway. There's lots of people that have spiritual practices or have other ways of connecting. Some people don't yet, and they can be supported to learn that. But often there is this gap where they're in connection with their heart, but not in the realm of business, or not in the realm of actually developing their business. They'll spend all this time even connected to their heart, doing what they do for their clients. But then it's like, oh, it's time for marketing or it's time for systems or it's time to set up the business model to look at the website. And suddenly we get swept up with uh, either survival fears or listening to these "shoulds". And instead we can also be in our heart in those situations too, in those contexts. And we can reject the manipulative advice that's out there and instead find a pathway through. Not that there's not learning, we can learn how to do a sales conversation ethically. We've taught lots of people around that. I mean, one of the things that I see, to kind of weave this piece together also with the internal and the external, um, we see a lot of people come to us who say, I need to work on my receiving because my business isn't doing well, and so I need to work on my ability to spiritually receive. And it's not that people don't have issues with spiritual receiving, but I'm saying, okay, well let's look at your business first. And we find that the messaging is just not clear. People are confused. The pricing is not sustainable. They don't know how to hold an ethical non manipulative sales conversation. So they've just been, um, not holding sales conversations well at all. And when you start to put those pieces in place from a place of love and care and ethics, the business can start to work. And yes, there may be issues around receiving, but they're going to be way smaller than the person originally thought. Because these external pieces needed to be brought into alignment, um, needed to be learned and put in place. And um, I love it so much that we can build structures out of love so that our access to love and care isn't solely dependent on our ability to choose in the moment or our emotional mood in the moment. We get hit by so many things. There's so many things, there's so many terrible things going on in the world. And when we get hit by that, it can be hard to choose love. It can be hard to choose to be in flow. Even just an ordinary thing, like, maybe our business is experiencing a dip. And then we go into survival fears. But if we have structures to support us, we can find our way back to our heart. Um, and that's not just spiritual practices, but these business practices like, oh, I know how to hold a sales conversation from the heart. Oh, I've crafted this marketing that already has love built into it. Means I don't have to put out a fear filled scarcity. Oh, my God, I need money, so I've got to manipulate people into buying. We can lean into the structures already built, be effective, get clients, but without, um, I'm repeating myself. Being so dependent on having to show up enlightened in every moment, which is just unfair, unrealistic, not a compassionate way to be in business with ourselves. Laurel Elders: Yeah, well, I love also, in chapter eleven, Embracing the Journey, you really talk about, um, this concept and how to be fully present, but also you bring up, um, backwards excellence. Mark Silver: Right, right. Well, this is something that's so interesting. So, I am a.... I practice... Practicing Sufi Muslim. And in fact, I'm fasting today for peace. Muslims all over the world are fasting for peace and justice. And, I'm feeling... And so what.... Excuse me, I got a little bit... When I'm fasting, I'm not always so clear. Anyway, um, so what I've noticed is that, human beings often get things backwards. Like, when we try to do something, we often get things backwards, from how the divine or how the essence, the source of love does things. And so, when we want to have an excellent or a successful business, what we try to do, is we try to work really hard to create that excellence. An then... Because we're feeling the lack. We're feeling, oh, my God, I've got to work hard to create the excellence. And what that does is that means that our actions are expressions of that lack. Right? We're feeling that lack expressions of our lack. And so the results tend to be emptiness, tend to be lack, tend to be, like, not the excellence we're hoping for. But the Sufi teachings that I learned, uh, that I received from my sheikh, from my teachers, explain that that's backwards. Like, if we can take the time to feel our thirst for love, for excellence. And then we can receive that in our hearts and fill up with it. And then we can express it in our actions. We take actions from that full place. Our actions, even if they were just if they were the same, as the previous example, they're going to be expressions of love rather than expressions of emptiness. And to put this in practical terms, if you know how to hold a sales conversation, for instance, I keep coming back to this example because it's an easy one. But you can say the right things. But if you're feeling fear in your heart, that fear is going, like, people are going to hear that and feel that. And you can say, okay, well, you decide according to what you need, but your mouth has gone dry and you're swallowing funny because you're worried that they're not going to say yes. Uh, we can feel that, palpably. They can feel it. You can feel it. But if you've been able to access love and access the care and access this desire to be in service, then your words, even if they're the exact same words, are going to feel completely different to the person receiving them. And you can say, I would love to be of service to you, and it's really up to you. See if this resonates with you. And there's a deep knowing in my heart that I'm being cared for and that I don't need this particular individual to say yes. Um, and that creates so much love and trust in the connection. Laurel Elders: Yeah, I've experienced what you're talking about. I, um, worked at a company. There were two companies that delivered the same services in the city. And, um, the other company, people, customers would go to them and say and they would tell them, like, no, don't go to the other place, just come to us. And then when people would come to us, we'd say, well, go check them out, but this is who we are, and what are you looking for and how can we be of service to you? There was never... It was just, our goal was to care about what they needed, and maybe it was the other company we didn't know. And nine times out of ten, they'd come back to us because we were honest and open and not schmarmy. Mark Silver: Right. Right. People can feel this. It's like I talk a lot about spirituality because I think that accessing love in some ways can be very simple and in some ways can be a little.... Sometimes it can be challenging and sometimes there are ways to access it that make it easier. And a lot of times it can be really simple. Like what you're saying, just expressing this genuine care. And that had to come as a transmission, if you'll allow me that spiritual word, from the owner of the company, from whoever's running the company, they had to believe that in order for you, as someone who worked in the company, to also trust that to say, oh, the owner really wants me to care. A lot of times we can have these messages like, oh, yeah, I want you to care. But then all the other messages is like, oh, you've got to hit your numbers. We got to hit the quota. I want you to get as many as possible. And then when you're pushing like that, it's undermining that message of care. When just as you're seeing, I think, as so many of our clients have seen, that when you bring that care yes, with quality, yes, with structures, yes, with understanding how to make your business work. But when the care and the love is what is embedded in it, it makes the difference. Laurel Elders: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that I've always resonated with when I've worked with you, and you are one of my favorite business mentors, because you embed the heart, the humanity, and very clear step by step, here's where you can put your foot next. The structure piece that also helps a business succeed as well. And that shows up in the book, too. I also appreciated with this the emphasis on healing. You start off chapter one and, um, I didn't realize how much healing I needed around money and business and all of that. And over the years, I've really learned that from you. So I just want to appreciate you.. Mark Silver: Thank you. Laurel Elders: I appreciate that because I do see so many people that have integrity. They care about integrity. They care about who they are in the world. And so your offerings... Your messages and teachings really offer a path for them to be able to come from that place and succeed. Mark Silver: Yeah, I mean, we want to see people thrive, exactly. And I think that, again, this intersection between really caring for justice and having the world be a better place, wanting a business to work and wanting this connection to love. Like we need all of these things, I find, have to come together for things to be really fulfilling. And the healing that you mentioned, um, sometimes it works like magic. I witnessed that. Uh, it's like I have a heart heal, somebody has a heart healing. And then suddenly business just shows up. That happens. And what also happens is what I think more consistently and in a more trustworthy manner, in a way that you can count on, is that the healing helps us have a healthy relationship with business development. It helps us have that ability to go, oh, I've hated sales because it was done so terribly to me and I see such terrible examples. And so I can't approach it without feeling gross. But when we go through healing around how to relate to the people who need our services, then we can learn heart-centered sales with an open heart. Instead of, like, bracing ourselves, going, no, um, I'm going to turn somebody I don't want to be. Instead, we can begin to trust. Like, oh, I'm not going to be changed. I'm going to be deep in it. I'm going to bring my values to this. And then you can learn something new and then the business starts to work better. That intersection of healing and business structure and business development, I find such a winning combination for folks. Laurel Elders: Yeah, absolutely. And, um, to me, this book, I think, should be a prerequisite to any business owner that really cares about the integrity piece and is more mission driven. Um, yeah. It's such a solid foundation to stand on. Mark Silver: Thank you. Laurel Elders: It's also really fun because you've put QR codes throughout all the resources. I found that to be really fun, also. Mark Silver: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so used to either teaching courses or working in our membership group or working directly, individually with clients to be able to not just present information, but to help people, lead people through processes that I didn't want the book to just be what was on the page. And we wanted to go, okay, so it's easier for some people, instead of reading an exercise on a page, to be guided through it or to have access to some other resources. I'm glad that landed in a beautiful way. Laurel Elders: Yes. All right. So, again, the book is Heart-Centered Business, and you can purchase it on Amazon or visit heartbusinessbook. com and, um, there's so much. It's such a rich book, and yes, I highly, highly recommend it. Highly recommend Mark's work. You can also find Mark's work at heartofbusiness. com. Thank you so much for being here, Mark. It's always a blessing to be with you. Mark Silver: Thank you, Laurel, and you, too. Your work in the world is so important, and I'm so grateful that you've been working and showing up so consistently with it over the years. It's a profound, um, change and healing in the world of coaching, and I'm just really grateful you're doing it. Thank you. Laurel Elders: Thank you. All right, everyone, thank you for joining us today. We hope these messages have been a lantern to your path as you expand your success as a coach, leader, or helping professional. You can join the conversation further at integrativeintelligence. Global. Bye for now. To read our latest article posted on LinkedIn:
CLICK HERE |