I've written before about the importance of establishing agreement at the beginning of the coaching meeting.  Since ICF posted their Core Competency update in 2019, and the subsequent assessment tools (PCC Markers, ACC BARS, MCC BARS), it's very apparent that establishing a clear, measurable outcome at the beginning of the meeting is critical to the success of the meeting.  And yet, so many coaches have trouble with this important skill.  For it is a skill, one that you can practice to improve.  The more you practice, the more easily it flows until you achieve unconscious competence.

On part of establishing agreement that is often overlooked is the exploration of what needs to be covered to achieve the desired outcome.  Obviously this question would be asked after a clear, measurable outcome is agreed upon.  This question is a powerful one that accomplishes several important things:

1. It creates a framework for the meeting, a nice outline for how the meeting should go
2. It involves the client in creating the direction of the meeting
3. It helps deepen the understanding in both coach and client of what might be involved in this journey towards the outcome

 

There are many ways to ask this question.  Some examples (and you would want to ask these in your own language, not mine):

• What do you think we need to cover for you to feel comfortable at a level 10 talking to your boss?
• What might we need to address to achieve this outcome?
• What values(strengths, strategies) can you call upon to help you know how to deal with your situation at work?
• What do we need to address for you to be the person you want to be in this situation?

 The essence of the question is inviting the client to co-create the meeting.  They may answer "I don't know", in which case the coach can simply ask them where they'd like to begin.  However, they often carefully consider their answer and reply with a beautiful outline of the meeting.

As the meeting progresses, and the client gains insights that changes their perspective, the coach can check back with them to ensure they are on the right track, for example "Now that you realize that, how might that change what we need to cover to reach the outcome we agreed on?"  Of course the whole track of the meeting might change, including the outcome, in which case the coach would establish a new agreement.

If you have never used this approach, consider adding it to your repertoire.  You may be amazed at how it so beautifully frames the coaching meeting while strengthening the partnership with the client as you both co-create the meeting.

So, you want to become a coach and understand that your coach training is critical to your success as a coach.  There are so many training options, why come to Radiance Partners LLC for Coach Training?  Here are ten great reasons why we stand out from the crowd:

1. Our class cohorts are small, 4-6 people, enabling us to give every student personal attention, and the students to bond closely with their peers.
2. We give you the tools and knowledge to start your own company and attract the clients you most want to coach.
3. Our training program includes both experiencing Radiance Coaching so you truly understand the client experience, and coaching at least 3 people while being mentored, so that by the time you graduate you feel confident in your coaching ability and your coaching business is up and running.
4. We have a vibrant community of coaches who support each other during training, and even more importantly, after training.  You will find your tribe  here.
5. Training includes learning the Radiance framework, an optional toolbox to enable our coaches to offer a purpose-driven coaching program to their new clients.
6. We are accredited by the International Coach Federation, the largest global coach regulatory organization in the world. 
7. Our program is based on the ICF Coaching Competencies, Spirituality and Neuroscience, to fully develop knowledgeable, confident coaches. 
8. In our program, our students create new thought-habits to support a more effective way to be present, deeply listen, and partner with their clients in an exploration of their greatness.  This results in greater ability and confidence when they graduate.
9. The Radiance Coach Training Program was developed by master-level coaches, and continues to evolve to meet the needs of our clients as the world changes. 
10. During training, our students grow in self-awareness and their ability to connect to themselves and those around them.

Interested?  Our next cohort starts soon, and we only have a couple of slots left.  Contact us to find out if you're a match for our ideal student profile:  info@radiancepartnersllc.com.  

You have heard of professional coaching and may be curious about it.  You might be considering becoming a coach.  You might be driven by a need to help people, or want a way to make a positive impact in the world.

 

There are thousands of coaches advertising their practice.  Many people who call themselves a coach have never been trained to be a coach.  They assume they are coaching and add the title to their name.  This does a disservice to the profession and more importantly to the client.  So how do you decide if you could become a coach? 

Besides the desire to help people and make a positive impact on the world, a certified/credentialed professional coach will demonstrate:

• The ability to let go of the need to solve the client's problem.  How could you possibly know what the client's best solution is?  Only the client can know that.  Instead, the trained coach partners with the client in an exploration of what makes them great, overcoming what blocks them to resolve their issues and move to a higher state of well-being.  The coach demonstrates unconditional acceptance of and care for the client, which inspires trust and sharing.
• The ability to come to complete presence.  When the coach is with their client, they are in a space of comfortable, accepting and respectful presence.  They are attentive to what the client says, reflecting back what they heard in a way that enables the client to see themselves and what they said from a different perspective.  The coach uses silence as a platform from which to fully understand the client and to enable the client to grow and learn.
• Powerful listening skills.  The coach hears beyond the words used by the client.  They are trained to notice subtleties of verbal language, nuances, body language and even energy shifts.  This noticing enables the coach to explore with the client what is really going on behind the words.
• A strong attention to learning.  A coaching conversation is just words unless the client learns something that will help them move to a higher level and/or better place.  And the learning doesn't stop at the first insight.  A trained coach knows to deepen exploration to get to the heart of the matter, and to encourage the client to capture their learning so that it is sustainable in the long run.  A trained coach will also partner with the client to determine how to put their learning into practice.

There are other skills, but these are the most important.  They are not easily learned, and the best coaches spend years honing their craft after attending rigorous Coach Certification training.

If you are considering becoming a coach, do your homework to select a powerful coach training organization that fits your style and needs.  How do you find one?  Check out our website for tips:  https://radiancepartnersllc.com/How-to-Choose-Coach-Education.

Two of the ICF Competencies: Cultivates Trust and Safety and Maintains Presence are two really important skills for a coach, and yet what does this mean? What does safety and presence have to do with each other?

Presence is a practice that allows for an ever-deepening ability to powerfully create and hold space for the client to feel safe, first and foremost. When one feels safe and trusts the coach, there is space to be vulnerable, dive deep, touch into those tender places longing to be seen and felt. Safety is a launch pad for the client to explore imagined possibilities of expansion that require courage and risk. 

When the coach is able to be totally present for the client, there is nothing else in the world but that client during that session. No past or future, just the fertile, revelatory now where life happens.

In how many other areas of our life does this potent energy live? How can we cultivate more presence in our own lives and bring this gift to our clients, each and every time? Tell us what you have found.

You wouldn't hire a lawyer with no credentials.  You wouldn't go to a doctor who had never been to medical school.  You wouldn't even hire an electrician who hadn't been well-trained.  So why would you hire a coach who has not been certified or credentialed?  Is your life and well-being so unimportant?

Coaching as a profession is relatively new.  The profession is not regulated by the state or federal government.  Instead, the Coaching profession is strictly controlled by certain regulatory organizations, the largest being the International Coaching Federation (ICF) which keeps high standards for both Ethics and Competency.  The public can be assured that a coach with an ICF credential has actually been trained as a coach and has passed rigorous tests to prove that they can coach at the level of their credential.

Coaches are not mentors nor consultants.  They don’t give advice.  They don’t solve problems.  Instead, they are highly trained to create a safe space for their clients to work through personal and professional blocks to both clarify where they want to be, and to achieve those greater heights.  It’s a classic example of ‘give a man a fish, feed him for a day (solve his problem for him), or teach the man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime (help him learn how to solve his own problems).”  It takes months to become proficient at coaching, to reach that level of skill where the coach can support the client to safely and effectively work on reaching their dreams. 

If you hear “Anyone can be a coach”, don’t listen!  If you want a partner to explore with you what will bring peace, well-being and meaning into your life, hire a credentialed coach.  Look for the letters “ACC”, “PCC” or “MCC” after their name.  Look for the ICF logo on their website.  Use the same care to research and find a coach that fits you as you would to hire that electrician or lawyer.  

You are entrusting your well-being to your coach – choose wisely!

To learn more about choosing a good coach:  https://radiancepartnersllc.com/Personal-Coaching

What do we expect from our clients in the coaching meeting?  What do we think they expect from us?  What do they actually expect from us?  Mismatched expectations cause problems in any relationship.  In a coaching relationship they can be detrimental to the client, the coach and the coaching relationship itself.  I see this most often in newly trained coaches, who feel that they don't have enough experience to 'be a good coach'.   They feel the client expects them to solve all their problems, and they don't feel adequate to the task. I felt it myself when I first certified, and it results in feeling uncomfortable or even scared to bring on a new client.  It took a couple of years before I realized that the clients don't actually expect their problems to be solved.  What they really want is a safe place to reflect, and hope for a better life.  

What do coaches think clients expect from us?  That we solve all their problems?  That we ask evocative questions that transform their lives every time we open our mouths?  That we are brilliant, wise and have all the answers?

The truth is that they don't expect any of that from us.  In fact, most clients are very wrapped up in their own issues, and simply having the space to work through their thoughts is what they most need and want.  They are not worried about if the question the coach just asked was brilliant.  They are busy thinking through their answers, or unraveling their thoughts, or contemplating new perspectives.  These may have been in response to what the coach asked or observed, or they may be emanating from the coaching relationship, the silence and the caring cocoon spun by the coach.

Clients do not need coaches to solve their problems.  They need coaches to model for them how to create space for their own well-being and reflection, to work with them to find out what is important, and what works for the client to overcome their blocks.  They feel out on a limb in the forest of life, alone and without a lifeline.  They need someone to walk out on the limb, sit beside them and work with them to move towards their meaningful and fulfilling life.

This means that, while coaches are critical to the process of client transformation, this is not due to us asking brilliant questions and making deep, witty observations.  It is due to the ability of the coach to create an environment of unconditional caring and acceptance that invites the client to share their deepest thoughts and develop the best version of themselves.  In this field of supportive and caring energy surrounding the client and the coach, the client is free to find their answers and create the incredible life they have the potential to live. 

This means any coach who is well-trained in the competencies and who fully understands creating trust and safety and coaching presence is able to be of immense help to their clients.  There is no reason to worry that "I don't have enough experience to be a good coach" as long as the coach knows how to fully care for and respect their client.  Being a good coach is partnering with the client in curiosity and love as they journey towards self-awareness.

Brilliant questions and deep, witty observations will come with time and experience, and really all they do is shorten the conversation.  However, being able to create that caring, respectful coaching relationship where the answers truly lie is the precious gift we give every one of our clients.

There are many opportunities for spirit to make itself known: as a deep presence while the coach is holding space for the client, as the question that comes out of the coach’s mouth that wasn’t conceptualized, as qualities that support the client and coach to do foundational work in the client’s life, on and beyond the personality and into the essential.

The spiritual dimension is important to make conscious as our divine companion as we go about our work in facilitating the transformation of the client’s situation and life. By making this companion conscious, we abide in the power of now, having faith in “not knowing” which takes us beyond mind into a deeper non-conceptual state, opening us up to the ever-deepening continuum that is full of surprises and has no end. The illuminating surprises for both the coach and the client make way for fresh new possibilities to show up and be known. What an adventure!

Where do you see Spirit making itself known in your coaching?

Remember the military policy in the 90’s—Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Well here at Radiance we train our coaches to Ask, Don’t Tell. 

It seems almost human nature to problem solve and we certainly were conditioned to become big time problem solvers through the education we all were given. But as coaches, this urge to do so actually gets in the way of being an exceptional coach, one who empowers the client to find their own solutions and solve their own problems.

Have you ever shared with a friend a situation you are struggling with and the friend jumps in and gives you their opinion, their solutions tells you what they think you should do? How does that feel? Sometimes helpful, maybe. Don’t we all just really want to be listened to deeply, received heart centered empathy and caring for what we are going through?

We at Radiance remind our students that the biggest contribution we give our clients is space to express themselves, empathy and caring for what is present in their lives, and to EMPOWER them to access their own inner wisdom and discover the best solution for themselves that only they can know. What a gift. One that can be used again and again to create their desired life.

When we are remember we are at cause in our lives and that we have the power to create the life we dream of, anything is possible. 

How do you empower your clients?

A few months back I watched a most amazing and inspiring  documentary titled Fantastic Fungi. 

The bulk of the organism is growing underground in a large network of threads called mycelium. It has more networks than our brain has neural pathways and works similarly, with electrical impulses! The mycelium connect trees to each other and allow them to communicate, swap nutrients for food and support each other in healing! 

The fungi are the digestive tract of the forest. These fungi break down plant and animal life and make it usable for new plant and animal life, becoming an oasis of life. With molds and yeasts from fungi we now have penicillin, beer, wine, cheese, and much more. 

Mushrooms are the fruiting body of the fungi, much like an apple. The diversity of the mushroom is incredible: beautiful colors and shapes. Some mushrooms are even phosphorescent! And they are intelligent: they seek out food, defend themselves and solve problems. Some mushrooms alter consciousness, some empower the immune system.

The diversity of the mushroom brings to mind ourselves—the diversity of shape, color, design  and intention to contribute in our own specifically unique purposeful way to our own life and the lives of all those with which we come into contact.

The vast mycelium network is a living metaphor—the macro to the micro of our neural pathways that communicate intelligence that we can use to digest, understand and bring about evolutionary transformation in the individual and in the community. We are connected in this vast net of intelligence, and nourish each other to grow, care for ourselves and each other, and turn problems into opportunities of discovery, making way for new ways of being.

How can we use this knowledge of the Fantastic Fungi to advance our ability to make a difference on the world? Share your thoughts.

I recently read on a Google Answer that coaches don't need a credential because they just advise and mentor. The person who wrote that has evidently not been trained as a coach and they do a disservice to the populace, who might now think anyone can be a coach.

Coaches never advise or give counsel. Coaches create a safe space for their clients to work through their blocks and attain their next higher level. The coach is rigorously trained to access the wisdom of the client through empowerment and awareness. Coaching clients come away from their coaching program with sustainable learning that helps them make better choices in their lives, moving them towards achieving their potential.

If you are looking for a coach, please ensure that they have a credential (ACC, PCC or MCC) from ICF (International Coaching Federation) or a similar Coach Regulatory Organization.

Radiance Partners, LLC offers full Coaching Certification Education, for PCC or ACC credentials.  Our next class starts in September, 2023 and is filling up fast!  Learn more at radiancepartnersllc.com/Coaching-Education