Marty Coaches Bill

Bill: Hi Marty.

Marty: Hi Bill. So we're gonna use this podcast time to do a sample coaching where I'm the coach and you are, you bring a specific topic that you'd like coaching on and we'll do a later episode where we do just the opposite. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And we'll also have some episodes with other people doing the coaching great. I think it's always important to begin by just like clarifying, what is the topic, getting it down so that, it's bite sizable enough that we can do coaching around. Because, if the topic is too general it's hard to know. It's hard to get.

Marty: Something really done in the time of a coaching call. So that's one thing that's interesting to notice is that, we, we do have to define the question,

Bill: and as you said, we also wanna define the time that we have to work with. Given that we wanna do this podcast episode in about 30 minutes, give or take should we establish how much time you're gonna take to coach me?

Marty: Yeah, let's do say 20. 25 minutes. 25?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to let me hand it back to you. Do you need to do anything around structure with that, or shall I just leave it up to you to watch?

Marty: Yeah, I'll watch. Thanks. Yeah.

Marty: Okay. Yeah, so what is the topic that you'd like to

Bill: explore? I probably need to talk around it a little bit to zero in on it. Okay. And this is something that I'm curious about. I'm not aware that it's especially problematic or that it's a problematic at all. I'm just curious about it. It makes me, question myself a little bit.

Bill: So here it is. I. Absolutely love what I get to do for a living, which is to be a results coach. I, when I'm in sessions with clients, I'm fully present 99.9% of the time. Rarely do I get distracted away from focusing in on the client. And I really enjoy what I do. It's powerful work for me and for my clients.

Bill: And then, and yet, and this week has been a good example, probably four different times. It's very unusual. I started out with a full week, very busy week, which for me means Monday through Thursday at, on, on average four to five paid coaching sessions every single day. And in addition to that, I have all my admin work to do and my creative work gets fit into all that time as well.

Bill: So when a client cancels there's a part of me that feels relief and that's a little confusing and surprising to me that I do. I'm I'm at a, I've noticed this for a while. I've been aware of this for some time. But I'm just curious about it, and I see this as an opportunity to have you facilitate exploration of and pursuit of that curiosity.

Marty: It's an interesting thing to bring to a coaching conversation. What would be the, what are you looking to get out of looking at this? I'd

Bill: like not to feel. I'd like to understand the relief because I understand that I'm not a Like a singular mono mind that I'm made up of parts, sub personalities.

Bill: So using that kind of language, I'll say, I'd like to get curious about that part or any other parts that, that actually feel relief when a client cancels.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. I'm up for that. And what would that understanding allow give you like?

Bill: I would hope that I. If I'm gonna feel relief that I, that it can feel empowering to feel that relief uhhuh, or if I am, if after as a result of this conversation, I don't feel relief as if something, it's almost as if something dreaded has ha has passed me, and I ha I don't have to deal with it.

Bill: While in reality, there's nothing to dread. In fact, I love it. I enjoy working with my clients. This is confusing to me. So I'd have clarity. I would no longer, I would hope that I would no longer feel dread. Seems like it's a little too far, but I would no longer feel relief when one of my clients who I enjoy connecting with cancels the appointment.

Marty: And I'm curious why. What is in the way of that clarity? What, what is in Yeah, what's in between you and having that clarity that would give you the power that you're

Bill: looking for. I don't know yet what's in the way. I can just tell you that there's a disconnect. Fair enough.

Bill: Something that's happening automatically and outta my control. That shows up in physical sensation and emotion and thought. But I'm observing it and I'm impacted by it, but I'm not in control of it.

Marty: Okay, let's start with the body. Okay? So take a minute, maybe even close your eyes and go inside and feel.

Marty: That, that confusion about why it's relieving to have a client cancel the question maybe that you ask of yourself about that.

Bill: Yeah. What's confusing is that there are

Bill: two reactions happening at the same time. And the one is relief.

Bill: And then the other one is a judgment or a criti, an inner criticism for being, for feeling relief.

Marty: Where do you feel that in your body,

Marty: that judgment or that criticism in particular?

Bill: Yeah. So the criticism focusing on just that one reaction, which is the criticism or judgment. Yeah. I feel it as a drop in my energy. Okay. It's got a, it's got a feel of shame to it and let me see if I can tell you how physically I know that's what I'm experiencing, that I'm calling it shame.

Bill: Yeah, it feels like I'm wanting to draw into myself and be smaller.

Marty: Okay, great. What is the criticism? What is the judgment itself?

Bill: Do you mind if I will probably go in and close my eyes to Sure. Contemplate your questions. Yeah. That

Marty: What is the part that's shaming you, that's got this criticism, what does it say that has you feel small?

Bill: That I shouldn't be relieved. I'm a coach for God's sakes. This is what I, this is how I make my living. Why would I be relieved if somebody cancels an appointment? Okay.

Marty: And you are So I get that. I get what the part is saying there that has the judgment that you shouldn't because you are a coach and you love coaching.

Marty: Huh? What is, can we go deeper into that? Get more specific about why you do feel relief?

Bill: Oh, so in other words, you wanna switch to the other position? You want me to switch to the other position?

Marty: Good, good that you pointed that out. Let's stay here now first and we'll go back to that. Ok. We'll go back to that. So we're looking at what the judgment is saying. You shouldn't feel this way.

Marty: Why

Bill: I shouldn't feel this way. Because I'm a coach and I love what I do, and I'm in business for myself. And when someone cancels an appointment, then I lose the income. Why would I feel relieved? Oh, and underneath that is a suspicion that there must be something wrong with me. Like that I might wanna sabotage my own success. That it's a relief to not Oh, that I don't believe in myself, that I am yeah. So from the perspective of this critical part, it is that I shouldn't. Doubt myself as a coach and that this is proof that I am that I may not be, I may not have the confidence or the belief in myself that I think I do.

Bill: Okay, I

Marty: got it. So if this is proving, a relief to you, this part says, then you must have some self-doubt in there.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. You call yourself a powerful coach. It's a biting voice. Sarcastic, biting, shaming voice. And you call yourself

Marty: mind. Do with anybody does somebody else in your past have that voice?

Marty: Oh,

Marty: somebody you've seen on tv.

Bill: Oh, interesting. Definitely have this this is a familiar

Bill: messaging, language, attitude that I've been hurt by in my life. Yeah. Yeah. And I can think of specific people, some of them in my adult life. Not recently. I can't think of a single person that, that's in my life now that would come across this way, but that's great. If I go back to my second marriage.

Bill: Yeah. Find it there. And then, the further back I go, the more predominant this actual threat was in my life, where there might be someone that was critical and caustic and shaming and hurtful.

Marty: Yeah. So this way of, would you say that this way of being with you is something that you learned, that you picked up somewhere else, would you, does that ring

Bill: true?

Bill: I'm just gonna ask the part that question. Or did you learn this?

Bill: Yeah, the I'm not getting a direct answer to my question, which is, where did you learn this? But what I did get was that I'm not trustworthy. I can't trust myself. I, its job is to make sure that it checks me because I can't trust myself. Interesting.

Marty: So it has a job. And it's based on a notion that you can't trust yourself.

Bill: Yeah. That I've gotta be like constantly self vigilant, be watching myself cuz I'm not trustworthy, I can't trust myself.

Marty: So I'm gonna ask a different kind of question right now. Just cuz we, I feel okay, we've got, we got the sense of what this part of you is there for and that there's more to do here, but I wanna try something else just for a sec since we're short on time actually.

Marty: And just to ask you, is it true that you should never

Bill: trust

Marty: myself, that you should never have a doubt about yourself, that, oh, that I, you have to always trust yourself, is that is just out of the blue? Is that true?

Bill: Let me understand your question. Are you saying, is it true that I should never doubt myself? Yes. No,

Marty: it's not true. Just curious. Okay. That's part of the reason why I think that this part is not you. It's from, it's picked up from out there. Like it's something you picked up to ask that question, to doubt yourself and then, and to, and then to think that you shouldn't doubt yourself.

Marty: I so that, I just wanna clarify like the real you the true self sees oh yeah, this is. There's a story here. There's a history here. Yeah. But it's not actually really true that a person can doubt themself.

Bill: Yeah. So what I'm getting from what you're pointing at is that, yeah, I should question myself.

Bill: I should question myself and get curious about where I'm coming from and whether it's valid or not and really what boils down to it and be open. To being wrong. Being willing to be wrong and open to making mistakes and, yeah. Yeah.

Marty: I think these are very, these are also important qualities of a coach.

Marty: Yeah. Like when you said, wait, are you going to the other part that's relieved? And I was like, oh no. I'm willing to be wrong. Let's stay here. So I think there's, there might be some more work to do. I'm, I don't know if we'll get to it right now about where, where did that originate? Not trusting yourself. And where did the criticism inside you come from? That you shouldn't do that? But what we've established, I think, and just tell me if this resonates, is oh yeah.

Marty: Those are voices inside of me that don't represent who I really am.

Bill: That, that is a voice. Yeah. Yeah. We did identify two voices. We explored one for a little bit, and the other I see as a voice as well. Yeah. So I shouldn't doubt myself as one of one of them and I'm doubting myself.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: So let's go back for a second to the one, the, the relief. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Relief that. That what? Like everybody, you actually felt it today. What?

Bill: Go ahead. As much as I love coaching, there's a lot of other things that I love too. That's the that's maybe one of the consequences of having a life that you love is that, that a steady diet of all the same thing means that I don't get to do some other things that I love doing.

Bill: Yeah when a coaching client cancels, I've got a stack of things that I could be doing. Some of it is writing a new article, some of it is making a new video. Some of it is going out and mowing the lawn, or going out and throwing cornhole bags in the backyard with my wife Uhhuh, enjoying a nice meal or a snack, relaxing self-care.

Bill: So the relief is, yeah, the, oh, great. I get some more time to open up to, to do some of that. And now that I, now that you ask the question and I answer, I realize. How wonderful it is to have a life where I don't have fear about any concern about income. I don't have fear or concern about a story that I might otherwise be telling myself about why the client canceled and what that means about me.

Bill: None of that's going on here. Beautiful. It's about it. It's more about, okay, now that the time's open, what would I wanna do? And I'm excited about what I might be able to do. Beautiful. Yeah.

Marty: Yeah. Awesome. So we're starting to answer another question that I wanted to ask you, which is, if you didn't have that critic in there that you shouldn't be stuck down to yourself, you shouldn't feel relief here.

Marty: If that were just like, if I could just take a vacuum cleaner and suck that thought out of your brain. Yeah. Imagine what would then be

Bill: possible? This, your question reminds me of Byron's Byron Katie's I think it's her fourth question. Would you be without that thought?

Marty: That's the question. Exactly.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I would just be excited about the choices that I have now. What's up, what's possible? Then what do I, what I wanna do with my time. I'd probably be, I may or may not be aware as I am in this moment of how grateful I am to have the life where I have choice, where I don't get scared and start worrying about things.

Bill: Is there anything

Marty: that you want to, I don't know, put into existence or practice at, or an action, even a one time action that you might want to take to concretize this gratitude and this realization that when clients cancel, there's choice.

Bill: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I will set an intention, and maybe you can help me make it more concrete, using that word to notice when I get cancellations what happens, be bring even more awareness to it. I'm aware in this moment that I have some resistance to bringing any awareness to it, or I have had in the past.

Bill: Yeah, because it feels bad. It feels bad to, to feel guilty about feeling relief, so I avoid looking at it. So my intention is to bring attention to it when someone cancels and I have an opening in my schedule that I didn't expect. And and maybe take a moment with that critical part of myself and if it shows up, it may not anymore, now that it's been updated.

Bill: Yeah. I believe that this conversation has updated that part. The part now knows that, oh, the, it's a, that's why I would feel relieved, not because I'm a fraud not because I have self-doubt, but because I enjoy my life so much. I have other things that I might wanna spend my time doing. Yeah.

Bill: Oh

Marty: but it, I got more time now. Not that there's anything. Onerous about coaching, but now I can also go mow the lawn

Bill: or take a bike ride or do whatever. Like a good example of that would be if I planned on mowing the lawn and then somehow my wife arranged to have a kid from the neighborhood mow it.

Bill: Now I've got, an hour and a half back.

Marty: Exactly. Same thing. Same thing. Anything else about this intention or anything that, that you want to really bring into existence now that you've updated that part?

Bill: I believe there's more to it than just noticing whether or not the critical part shows up. Yeah. If the critical part shows up, tend to it and maybe reminded of the update and see if there's more to learn from it. Okay. And the other thing is to give myself permission now to enjoy the relief rather than guilt myself or shame myself about having it.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: I have a suggestion and you could take it or leave it. And that would be, and maybe you already have this too, it is like a list, of all those wonderful things that, that you could do if a client con cancel so that it's like you can, relative there is beautiful. So

Bill: what's not on that list though is, playing corn hole or calling one of my kids or hanging out with my grandkids or, these are all things related to what I wanna do around my career and my business.

Bill: I see. I just now showed you and I love doing all that stuff too. Sure. Not on that list because I've been avoiding doing it. It's just on the list cuz I haven't had time to do it. Which further explains the relief. My

Marty: only thought about that. Again, if this helps, great. If not fine, is that it legitimizes, it's yes, there are things waiting, great things waiting If a client cancels, so it's not like I'm being bad or, I shouldn't do this.

Marty: It's already been acknowledged that, there are these great things we get to do if a client cancels. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. That's a nice shift. That's a really nice shift.

Marty: Great. So do you feel like you understand the relief at this point? Why you felt it and why it was confusing? Yeah, absolutely does.

Marty: Do you feel clarity

Bill: then? Yeah. Let me just say what I understand. Yes, I understand that there was confusion because I had at least two parts in conflict around the activating circumstance, which is to have someone cancel an appointment. That's always gonna be confusing. Anytime I have more than one internal opinion or reaction, it gets confusing.

Bill: Especially if they're equal. One wasn't so dominant that I didn't notice the other, I was just confused by it. So that explains why I was confused. I understand now too, why I felt guilty or ashamed, and that is because this critic, part of mine had a job to do that wasn't based in current reality.

Bill: Based in a belief that someone else gave me, but that this part took on and owned. That and in the IFS model, that's called a legacy burden that now has been updated, right? And the update is I can trust myself and it's wise and really healthy. To question myself, not because I'm not trustworthy, but because I'm someone who grows and changes, and recognizes mistakes and grows from them.

Marty: Awesome. Very good. One last question from me. When you were in the confusion and questioning yourself, what level of power were you experiencing, let's say from scale of one to 10?

Marty: And when you were in that oh my gosh, what is going on here? I'm curious about this, I just wrote some confusion.

Bill: I love your question. I use my EOD meter and I'll probably use it in my coaching. That will demonstrate with you or others and on that emo meter that it goes from minus 10.

Bill: Which is completely disempowered all the way up to plus 10, which is completely empowered. And that's the way I'm thinking of your question. Okay, great. Normally I operate what I call idle at a plus five to six plus six uhhuh. When this happens, it drops down to probably a plus three or plus four. It doesn't completely disempower me.

Bill: But it's a drain. It's a drain on my battery, for

Marty: sure. Excellent. And at this moment, where are you? On same scale.

Bill: When I think about a client, I, yeah, I wanna apply your question to the activating circumstance, which is a client cancels, I feel relief, and then I feel this guilt that's what drops it down to two, a three or two or three.

Bill: And moment, I'd have to say I'm back up to that five or six, maybe even a seven. I love insights. I love getting these insights and having it making a difference in my life. Okay.

Marty: Okay, is there anything else that you want to ask or say at this point? Any, anything left un incomplete here?

Bill: I guess the only thing left to say is I'm glad that I brought this.

Bill: I have no regrets about it being recorded and being one of our podcasts. I had some concern I had, and I didn't mention this until now, but I had some concern that if I bring this into the podcast and others watch or listen to the podcast and see that I. It feel relief when a client cancels, number one, that my current clients are gonna say, oh, good, I'm gonna cancel all the time then.

Bill: And then number two, that I might be judged as a fraud. Yeah. And who knows, maybe I'm being judged as a fraud, but I have, don't have those concerns in this moment. Thank you. Thank you, Marty. Great coaching. You're welcome. Now I'm gonna not hit rec. I'm gonna keep it recording. Okay.

Bill: Because it, it occurs to me now that one of the things that we can go do into the future is talk about your experience as a coach coaching the client. So how was that for you?

Marty: It was delightful. The. The the exploration, like following you into your own mind and body and seeing you, get in touch with and then Oh yeah, that's where the, and recognizing all the connections, to, to pass the issues or and also then, Distinguishing all of that from, how you could think about it and how you wanna update your system.

Marty: And that's really, it's just delightful to watch that happening. And I just, for the most part, I was just following your lead. And so there were, it wasn't hard at all, it was It's an enjoyable experience to see a human being use this faculty that we have that I don't, maybe whales have it.

Marty: They're supposed to be pretty smart, but I don't know. I know that human beings have a capacity that nothing else I've met so far has this self recognition. Not only do we, can we pay attention like a frog can pay attention to the fly, but we can think we can pay attention to our own thinking, and learn from ourselves. And so that's, it's, I get to be in that self recognizing place, that very high order way of being when I'm coaching. And I got to do it with you because you were on that exploration.

Bill: Would you say that this experience that you had with me, albeit a short one, you typically spend an hour with your clients, is that right?

Bill: Yes. Yeah. We spent, I wanna say no more than 20 minutes together in that session. Is that about right? Yeah, that I

Marty: was watching the clock. We went about

Bill: 22. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Given that it was only 20, 22 minutes instead of an hour, how closely does that mirror? What you normally would do with a client

Marty: pretty closely, and we might have spent some more time in a, on where these parts of you, what their influence was, where you picked them up.

Marty: That would be useful. It, it helps completed oh, that's where it came from. And so now it, it's less of a mystery. It's been named. And so that would've been useful. And then we might also, look more depending on the, the topic that gets brought and where else this plays out in life, other places where there's this relief and confusion and.

Marty: And get curious about how this relates to those. Yeah. And sometimes we might need to just keep it to 20 minutes because we got other things to talk about.

Bill: What did you do about what we talked about last week and Right. Exactly. How does this relate to your overall project and.

Bill: Totally.

Marty: Those are very important things.

Bill: That's another question I wanna ask you is you and I come from different schools of coaching. Both in our history. You've been coaching almost twice as long as I have, maybe, yeah. About twice as long as I have. Yeah. You've been coaching 25 years, right?

Bill: Yes. I've been coaching about 12 years and

Marty: How'd you get? So good so fast?

Bill: 25 years. How did you learn to coach?

Marty: I was, for one thing, I did take. Courses, there are some beautiful programs out there and they're very taught by very fine people. And so I did several different things like that, but I think I learned a lot more, taking some of those nuggets or basic principles and just getting in there and doing it.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: mostly. Yeah, me too. Just practicing what worked and what didn't.

Marty: And that's one of the things that they emphasized when I did take a course on, on on coaching. They would have us bring somebody into the classroom, though or go home and practice on somebody and report back that. So there's a recognition even in the formal training that a lot of what you're gonna learn is gonna come from practice.

Bill: I know we're running out of time here, but I do have a couple more questions and I just am really intrigued, and I'm guessing that some of our viewers, listeners are also gonna be a little bit intrigued about the, what is behind good coaching? What's Dr what is inspiring and driving the questions that, that you ask.

Bill: And that's where I wanna go next is what are, do you, I had the sense that you have some pillars or some constructs that. Maybe serve as scaffolding that you climb around on when you're coaching a client. Would you say that's true? Yes, definitely. Can you name some of those that, and maybe name some of the ones that showed up in, in our session together just now?

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: I talked a little bit about the, these pillars in our, the inter when you interviewed me Yeah. On this podcast. And one of 'em is there there's like a chief criticism that we have. So we were talking here about that judgment and self-criticism in there. And.

Marty: So I'm always listening, that's the always the main thing in the way, of our just being fully in our power. And I was listening for that and also like, how major is it? Is this the big one or is this, something else. How central is it? Is this something that I hear coming out of you all the time?

Marty: Could you, when you listen to somebody in a number of conversations, you start to hear oh yeah, there's a recurring theme here that you don't, what you don't think that you're smart or that you don't think that you're beautiful, or something like that. So that was part of what I was listening for, actually in yourself, doubt.

Bill: And you've known me while, did you hear that today?

Marty: The shame piece. Yeah. Yeah, the shame piece. I've heard that from you before. Should you know about should I feel this way? Is it okay to feel this way? Should I be ashamed? Yeah. The other thing though is that I know that the whole purpose behind the coaching that you do is to, and I'm probably not gonna put it the way you'd put it, but basically to have them live as their true self.

Marty: Yes. As the self. And so that's, that was what led me, at a certain point to say, okay, there's some more work to do on this, but. Let's just get in touch with your true self. What does it have to say about this? And it recognized immediately no. Those are conversations I picked up somewhere.

Marty: That's not me. And so that was, that's the other pillar that I wanted to point to is your purpose. Your purpose and your coaching is to reunite people with their true self. And so I wanted to do that with you cuz I know that's your purpose.

Bill: In other words, you met me where I am. Yes.

Marty: That was the idea.

Bill: Yeah. Great. Anything else you can think of that showed up in this coaching that, that you would consider one of your pillars or a standard that you use to operate as a coach?

Marty: I think just the clarity is an, is another kind of pillar like. Not, I didn't think it would be su sufficiently helpful to to go into the psychological depth.

Marty: I thought it was more important to stick with, okay, you got the clarity about that. Let's stay in the clear clearing, right? Because clarity's what you asked for as well, and I have. This feedback from my clients too. It's one of the main things they get out of our conversation's, like clarity and that's very empowering and helpful.

Marty: So when you said that's what you were after, I was like, great, cuz that's what you're getting.

Bill: Great. Yeah. I just wanna acknowledge a couple of things that really worked well for me. If that's okay for you. Sure. Coach me. I certainly did notice that you took enough time, sufficient time at the f at the very beginning of the session to get clear about what it is that I wanted to accomplish as a result of our coaching together.

Bill: And that's one of the things that I always try to do as a coach as well. And I can tell you that when I forget to do that or when I get so involved in whatever story the client brings into the session with them then the session doesn't go very well because we don't know where we're going.

Bill: I loved that you established that and that you brought it back at the end of the session and checked it out to see if I actually did in fact, get what I came to the session for. That's great. Yeah, I did notice and appreciate that you met me where I was at, rather than trying to impose maybe a different philosophy or a different approach to, you know me well enough to know.

Bill: What's gonna work for me and that I really honor and recognize my parts and the influence that they have on me. So you honored that and I appreciated that. That worked very well for me. I just think you're a masterful coach and I really appreciate that, that session. I feel like I just got away with a free session.

Bill: You did.

Marty: Okay. My pleasure. My pleasure.