Latest / The Expert Method / The Problem with Accountability Style Coaching
Transcript
- speaker-0: Most coaches do not have enough data to coach effectively. They're coaching like with blindfold on. speaker-1: How do you actually help a leader find and shift the thinking that is creating the problem? speaker-0: My job is designed to create independence, not dependence. It's not rocket science, I promise you. speaker-1: For most people, when you hire a coach, it's because you have some goal you want to reach. You want more money, a better business, a stronger team, or a healthier life. So the obvious assumption is that it's the responsibility of the coach to help you achieve that goal. But what is the most effective way to do that? And is that really the responsibility or the role of the coach to begin with, to help you achieve some goal? To help me answer those questions, I'm excited to be joined today by Kim Addis. Kim is the founder of Frame of Mind Coaching and the creator of The Journal Engine, and she has spent more than 20 years coaching executives and leaders. Her approach leverages a creative journaling practice, direct questions, and what she calls encapsulation to uncover the foundational beliefs behind her client's behavior. In our conversation, we discuss why accountability can create dependence, why goal attainment is too narrow a measure of coaching effectiveness, and how changing a person's thinking can change what they are capable of doing and the goals that they'll set for themselves. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Kim Addis. Kim, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: I am happy to be here, thrilled to be talking to you. speaker-1: Absolutely. So Kim, I wanna start with kind of the thesis that I have prepared for this whole conversation. You spent a lot of time talking about the fact that accountability is not real coaching. Why do you believe that accountability is not real coaching? speaker-0: Wow, you're really digging in. Okay, let's go. I didn't say that accountability is not real coaching. What I did say is that accountability is not a I use the term it's it's unethical at best and actually kind of destructive at worst. So let me explain why I have this philosophy. So let's say I'm your coach and you have goals that you want to reach and I say, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna create a plan and you're gonna have milestones in this plan. And I, as your coach, am going to hold you accountable to the plan. And every week we talk and I ask you, Did you do the things that you were supposed to do to reach your goals? And if you do all the things you're supposed to do and you're reaching your goals, you feel great. But what have I done? I've created a system of dependence. And for me, that's not the purpose of a coach. From that standpoint, it's a bit unethical. Right. My job is designed to create independence, not dependence. So from that standpoint, I'm not a huge fan of accountability. But let's take it a step further. Let's say every week you come on and I say, Hey Ian, did you do the things you're supposed to do? And you're like, No, I couldn't get to them. I you know, all these other things came up, the train was delayed, my dog was barking, whatever. Right? Couldn't get it done. Okay, like week one passes and all right, okay, Ian, like do it next week, right? Make sure you get it done. And next week comes and guess what? Ian didn't get it done. So now how did Ian feel coming into coaching? He wanted to reach his goals, he was frustrated because he wasn't getting it done on his own. And so he hired a coach to help him get it done. And now he's still not getting it done. Did he f does he feel better or worse than when he started? Worse. speaker-1: Worse. speaker-0: So from that standpoint, it's not very helpful. It's kind of destructive. So the model of accountability in the coaching system, I think, is very flawed and it's misguided in terms of what a coach is supposed to do. Coaches think that their purpose in life is to help people reach their goals. And I don't think that's the purpose necessarily. Because why do you want to reach a goal? Like any goal, Ian, what's the goal you have and why do you want to reach it? speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, one goal that I have is you know, a financial a certain financial goal, right? I want to make a certain amount of income. And it's you know, I just wanna create that change in my life, right? It's just speaker-0: You have a financial goal. speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: But what will it do for you when you achieve that goal? speaker-1: Right, yeah, it'll just kind of enable me to live a lifestyle that I desire. Right, you know, memory speaker-0: And when you live that lifestyle, what will you experience? speaker-1: Joy. speaker-0: Okay. So what you have is a formula that says when I do this and when I reach this and when I get this, then I can experience joy. And what what you're doing is you're creating a life that's based on the acquisition of things and achievements. And what it's actually doing is say, I don't have personal control over my emotional state. Because joy doesn't come from achieving these things. Look at how many millionaires there are out there, billionaires who are miserable human beings. So it's not the acquisition of things that creates joy. It's a philosophy, it's a thinking, it's an approach, it's a way of being that creates joy. And when we achieve that way of being, money comes very easily. And so most of us have it a bit backwards. And so my job is to help you acquire that way of being so that you can achieve anything you want. But if I get stuck in this, okay, I'm a good coach if Ian achieves this one goal, then I'm a really lousy coach, in my opinion. So I know it's very different from the normal thing you might hear out there. But coaching to me that is solely focused on goal attainment is really short sighted. speaker-1: Yeah, so that is a complete reframe. I have not heard that before, where coaching is not coaching this person to achieve some goal, but coaching is to help turn the person into the type of person that can achieve any goal that they want on their own without the dependency of a coach there to hold them accountable, right? Like some kind of flogging system. And I I was kind of chuckling to myself because when you talked about the creating dependency is really unethical. And I couldn't help but think about like You wouldn't be a fan of the the modern pharmaceutical industry. In any way, creating dependencies, not very ethical. But that's kind of the whole mission of that whole thing. But anyways, that's a topic for another day. so if you had to summarize what is the purpose of coaching? speaker-0: I'll tell you what my mission is. How about that? So we coach hundreds of people, hundreds of leaders worldwide. And our mission is to help these leaders live lives that have a greater level of ease, peace, exhilaration, fulfillment, and joy. And that is the purpose. speaker-1: So how do you take your clients, the people you coach, how do you take them through the process of accomplishing that, of achieving that? Like what is if I'm a client of Kim and and you're coaching me with that as your mission, what does that experience feel like it look like for somebody like me? speaker-0: So when we coach leaders, what I'm really interested in is understanding how they think and how their thinking impacts everything they do, hear, smell, taste, and touch. And that's related to their goals, their work, their career, their relationships, their health, like everything. How does your thinking influence what you do? And then ultimately the outcomes you're you're getting. But not only what you do, how you do what you do. So that's what I'm interested in. And so the question becomes How do I access your thinking? How do I really get to know how you operate inside? How do I get to know your reactions to things, how you interpret what's happening around you, how you experience the things you do? So, what we do, because we work with leaders who are typically eight-type personalities, these are people who want to move quickly and get results very fast. We've created a very intensive, very deep. kind of experience designed to move people far in a short period of time. And so what happens is we have a call every week on Zoom, we record every call, and the purpose of recording every call is so that our clients can listen to the recordings. Why do we want them to listen to the recordings? So they can hear themselves speak and start to hear the stories they're telling, start to hear where they keep getting stuck over and over and over again and also get a double dose of coaching. So when you start to watch yourself, your level of self-awareness dramatically increases. So that's kind of step one. Step two is that we ask our clients to journal in a private and secure online journal every single day for the first 10 weeks of their coaching experience. And what happens is at the beginning of the week, they get a journaling question or a journaling prompt and they start journaling. And every day that they journal, they have a coach on the other end of the journal who is then reading and responding to their journal. Every single day. No days off, no weekends, no vacations. And why do we do that? Because when you are writing down your story, what we're learning is how you see the world. We're understanding your beliefs, your values, your perspectives. We're understanding how you're wired. And more than anything, as a coach, I can start to be pick up patterns. Patterns of behavior, patterns of beliefs, the way that you interact with others and how you see, smell, and t touch and taste the world, how you do it through your eyes. And when I can understand how you experience the world, I can also understand how you're probably engaging in the world sometimes in ways that are self-destructive and get in the way and hold you back. And if I can pick those up fast and help you move those things out of the way, then guess what? I'm literally Well, not literally. I'm figuratively putting you on a runway so that you're ready to soar. And I'm removing all the obstacles from this runway. You sound like you like speaker-1: It makes so much sense. Yeah. Cause it's like if you're only focused on the actions, right, or the things that they're doing, or maybe even the goals that they want to achieve, right? If you're focused on those things without looking at the root of it, which is those thought patterns, those beliefs, those opinions, the story that they're telling themselves, they're never gonna get out of their own way to achieve this goal. Like, yeah, maybe you can grit your teeth and you can just force yourself into this, you know, doing this these things and just Push yourself like through sheer willpower and accountability, right? And like, you know, all this punishment to achieving some goal, but it's gonna be really unsustainable, you're gonna burn out, and it's but if you instead zoom in and focus on unlocking the root issues, which are those negative thought patterns, those those limiting beliefs, or you know, obviously those are very like buzzwordy, soundy things, but it's like if you can get into the root cause, which is The thoughts, right? And when you first started explaining this answer, it reminded me, I pulled up the book. So this is a book, A Return to Love by Marion Williamson. Highly recommend it. Stan Gibson, a previous guest on the podcast, reminded me of it. And this is a a passage that I've gone back to a couple of times, but it's thoughts are like data programmed into a computer, registered on the screen of your life. If you don't like what you see on the screen, there's no point in going up to the screen and trying to erase it. Thought is cause. Experience is effect. If you don't like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking. And it sounds like that is something that you have found in your own experiences, like that is where the focus of my coaching with my clients needs to be is in rewiring or helping to improve the thinking. And when we do that, naturally the cause or the effects that happen in my client's life will improve. speaker-0: Exactly. That's exactly it. Now here's the thing. You know, how many of us know what we're supposed to be doing, but we still don't do it? And the question is why? Like what what's up with that? Right? Also, how many people get bogged down with like the friction of human beings? We get bogged down by others and what they do and what they say and how they behave and how they interact and all that kind of stuff. And they're they're huge distractions, but we want to look at that. kind of microscopically and say, hey, does this help you achieve the goals you have? And this is the tendency you have. It's not very useful. It's not very helpful. So I'm interested in not just helping you achieve this one goal. I'm helping you kind of set you up to say, how do I achieve any goal? speaker-1: Yeah. And I would imagine, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but when you take somebody through that process of kind of changing the inner instead of chasing the outer, their outer goal or what they're what they told you they wanted to achieve when they first met with you might change. speaker-0: Yes, so for me it's nice to know, but it has no relevance. speaker-1: Yeah, for sure. speaker-0: Right. It's like it's nice to know. Thank you for telling me I write it down. But it's not really like the thing that I'm interested in or the thing that I tie my own abilities as a coach to. Whether you reach your goals or not has okay. It's great. It's gravy. Right. But it's not it's not it's not the meat at all. speaker-1: Right. And I think yeah, I mean, I need to probably look in the mirror, with this thing, 'cause you know, the first thing I said is like some financial goal, but it is it's like when you change the inner wiring, right, of the beliefs that you have, it will naturally, inevitably, change the things that you want, right, out of out of life. So yeah, it's it makes a lot of sense. But going back to the process of actually changing that behavior, changing that thinking. so if behavior is a downstream from thinking, how do you actually help a leader find and shift the thinking that is creating the problem? So how do you help them find it and then shift it? speaker-0: So so how it works is we have thoughts, right? And the thoughts that we think over and over and over again form our beliefs. And those beliefs will drive what we do and what we don't do. Okay, so that's it. That's how it goes. And what I need to do is find the beliefs and then I need to identify the beliefs that are actually not useful, sometimes harmful. But those beliefs that slow people down. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: And then I need to challenge their beliefs. And what I'm really doing is like a belief is like this, you know, if you can see my fist, it's tight, it's tight, tight, tight. What I need to do is like crack it open so that there's space in there for something new to come in. So I just need to crack it open a bit for them to create or consider, contemplate something new, and eventually it opens wide up. But that's that's how it works. So I'll give you a perfect example. I do a lot of presentations and I ask for volunteers. And how many volunteers do you think come up? Doesn't matter if there's ten people in a room or four hundred people in a room, how many people shoot up their hands and wanna come up? speaker-1: I would say a small amount, I would guess, you know, one or two. speaker-0: And sometimes zero. Okay. And you know, people get really uncomfortable and the silence hurts them and then finally get involunteer 'cause they feel sorry for me. But I don't feel sorry for me because the le you know, it's proving my point. Yeah, you know, then the point is they come to hear me speak to learn something. Right? That's why they're in the room normally. They they're there voluntarily, no one's like forcing them to be there. So they come to hear me speak, they're there because they're eager to learn, but when there's an opportunity to take your learning to another level, which is learning by doing, they don't do it. They don't grab the opportunity. And these are all highly driven individuals who are very, very goal oriented and growth oriented. But why don't they take that opportunity to come to the front of the room and step up their learning? Because they have a voice in their head. The voice says, I'm not going up. I don't want to embarrass myself. I don't know what she's gonna ask me to do. I don't wanna, you know, like expose myself and on and on and on. There's all this chatter that goes on. But they're not even conscious of this chatter. Right? They're not even conscious. And so my job is to say, Hey, you know, there's a reason why you didn't you all didn't volunteer. And so all of a sudden they're like, Yeah, there was chatter that I didn't even pay attention to. And then and then my speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Point is, and there's chatter that's running your life all day, every day about every single subject. It just doesn't stop. And sometimes we need to become aware of it, not all the time, but sometimes when we're frustrated and we're not able to get to where we want to go. And at that point, we have to say, hey, what is this chatter actually saying? And is it real? Is it true? You know, and does it make sense for me to stay in my seat? Does that align with my goals? speaker-1: Uh-huh. speaker-0: Because if my goal is learn a lot as fast as possible, my actions don't equate. So what I'm doing is I'm just creating a little space. I'm just opening the crack. speaker-1: Yeah. And it starts by shining light on it. Like you made a point there that people aren't even really conscious of it. So it's just starts by taking something that's been happening subconsciously for the longest time, creating these habits of, you know, journaling, conversations with you, these things that are happening to bring those subconscious thought, those repeated patterns into conscious awareness. And then, okay, once it's conscious, once they can see it, then it's just shining the light on it and asking the question of like, is that real? Right, or is that just something that you've made up? Right. Or is that serving you? Right. Is that something that we should change? Right. And then once you shine bring it into light, once you pull it out, hold it up, look at it, and you're like, that isn't that isn't like who I am, right? There is no real evidence to support that or that is not true about me. And a lot of what you're saying, so I've been going through this little kind of mini course or mini lecture series about cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah. it's This guy kind of took C B T and then added mindfulness on top of it. So he kinda added a fourth dimension to cognitive behavioral therapy. So from what I understand, traditional CBT is your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. I think are like the three dimensions of CBT typically, where all three will influence the other two. So like if you change your feelings, it'll impact your thoughts and your actions. If you change your actions, it'll impact your feelings, your thoughts, etc. And then he added mindfulness, like a fourth dimension to it. But Is there any kind of inspiration from C B T into speaker-0: For sure. Of course, of course. Because what we're really doing, C B T examines a person's thought process. Right. So we're doing part of that. We're doing part of that. And a lot of it is that we're not always aware of the thinking. Right. So we agree to that. We're not always aware. So how do we access it? We access it through storytelling. You tell me the story of what's happening. And with the story you're telling me comes a whole bunch of emotions. And when the emotions are heightened, positively or negatively, that's like the entryway to understanding a person's belief systems. When you journal and I ask you questions, every time you journal, you're telling me some kind of story about something. So I'll give you a perfect example. Okay. So like in about week eight, I ask my clients to write a story, literally, and it's it's It's the prompt is the ideal conversation week. So they have to write an ideal conversation between themselves and anyone they choose. Could be someone dead, someone alive, someone famous, someone they had a massive crush on when they were 12. It doesn't really matter, someone they had a fight with. It doesn't matter who the person is. The only only criteria is that it must be an ideal conversation. So many years ago, I had this one lady who was a VP of sales for a high tech company and she decided that she was going to write an ideal conversation between herself and at the time the Obama administration. I've been doing this a while. So and what she wanted was she she wanted to become Secretary of State. And so in her ideal conversation, it was her journal, she made it up. In her ideal conversation, she decided to talk about the interview experience. So she went in for the interview, they brought her in, they said, Wow, we read your resume. You sound like a very, very exciting candidate, but tell us in your own words what qualifies you for this position. And she proceeded in her journal to explain all of her qualifications. She talked about her background, she's from Japan, her family came to The states, they built up a business, they contributed to the US economy, she went to school, she got a master's degree in economics, and then you know, she talked about her work experience, and then she wrote a ten-point plan about all the things she would do in her role as Secretary of State. They said, Wow, you're so ready for this interview, and you're a very impressive candidate. You're a top candidate so far. And as soon as we've interviewed all the candidates, we'll get back to you. And at the end of her journal she wrote me a note, a personal note. She's like, How's that for dreaming big? What do you think? speaker-1: Yeah, Secretary of State, that's dreaming big. speaker-0: That's dreaming big. Except I gave her a blank canvas to create an ideal conversation, and in this ideal conversation, she did not give herself the job. speaker-1: Mm. speaker-0: Right? Right. So so the question is why didn't she give herself the job? Well, she thought, it's too aggressive. It's, you know, it's not super polite. You know, it would be a little bit like full of myself if I did that. Right? But then we looked at her sales and we noticed that she had all these meetings and she did a great job of presenting, but she wasn't closing anything. Why? Too aggressive. Not Polite, you know, I don't want to be too pushy. Doesn't feel right to me. When she noticed this pattern, this belief system, everything changed in the following quarter. The following quarter, she outperformed the whole entire previous year. Did I have to manage her behavior? No. Did I have to say, hey, here's how you close? Let me train you and teach you how to close. I mean, we may have spoken about it a little bit, but nothing, you know. I'm not the closing expert of the universe. That wasn't the focus. The focus was on her discomfort around closing and why it was there and where it came from and her upbringing and her culture and how that played a role and all of that stuff. And when that was pushed on a little bit, when the light was shed on that particular belief, when I could crack it open a bit. Her behavior naturally shifted. And so it's not about managing behavior. It's really about helping people line up their beliefs with the outcomes they want. speaker-1: That is so good. That is not where I thought that story was going. I'm like, that's amazing. She kind of just like, you know, dreamed big for herself. And then you just saw why didn't she give herself the job? And then that I can see how that story that she wrote and that one particular element of it, right? Not giving her the job, then exposed the kind of limiting pattern in her thoughts of like it's too pushy, it'd be too grandiose to like go and push for the clothes and then that how that's showing up in the rest of her life. speaker-0: Exactly. Now here's the thing. I tell this story to people. Now they've heard this story. And then they sign up for coaching and then in week eight they have to do this assignment, but they forget the story. And then they start writing about their ideal conversations and in their ideal conversations live their limiting beliefs as well. So it's really it's really amazing how that works. speaker-1: Yeah, no kidding. Is there a element of you know, them on their own with your journal? Your journal product is called journal engine, is that right? Yeah. speaker-0: So journal engine is something we built in-house specifically for this coaching. It happens that other coaches use it too. They license it out, but we use it every single day. And what it does is it delivers journaling prompts on a weekly basis. And it allows the person, the client to journal privately and share their journal with their coach who reads in responds to the journal on a daily basis. So if you were my client, you would be journaling. And I would be on the other end and I would receive your journal and I would just like start asking you questions. And what I'm really doing is collecting all this data. And that data allows me to see all the things I need to see and connect the dots and understand your patterns. But also, have you ever worked with a coach who communicates with you every single day? No. No, it's other level. It's other level. And so what that does is. Rather than accountability, it builds a relationship. And from my standpoint, it's the relationship that's required. You need to trust me to be able to go with me on this journey. And when I show up day in and day out, guess what? Your trust grows. And you see that I'm there and you see that I'm asking the right questions. And I you see that I'm uncovering things that no one's ever uncovered before. And the more that happens, the more willing you are to strip down to the stuff that really counts. So over ten weeks, can you imagine how much happens? How much gets done? It's seriously amazing. speaker-1: Yeah. It sounds like it. I mean, even just like that one if all you had was one week and you had people just honestly answer that one question of write the story of your ideal conversation and you could unlock that one thing. Like for that one woman that you use in that example, I mean the returns on that shift had to have been astronomical, right? Like she was able to outperform her entire previous year in one quarter, like And then not only that, but like not only just the business and career application of not being afraid to ask, right? Make the ask and like go for the close, right? In her sales position, but also how did that affect and impact the rest of her life? Right. I don't know if if she was like a single woman, right? Then going out and being more, you know, forward and like going for what she wanted in her romantic life or with you know, just in her everyday life, right? The the impact of that goes a lot. speaker-0: And to be honest, the most important impact was what she saw when she looked in the mirror. Right? Someone not so meek, someone a little bolder, a little stronger, a little more confident, a little more at peace. speaker-1: Yes. Yep. And is that kind of person more ready to go after whatever goal she wants to set for herself? speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly. That's that's the point. speaker-1: Yep. Makes sense. I love it. Is there an element? So obviously you spent a lot of time building the journal engine. It sounds like an amazing product. And we'll link that, the link to the website for journal engine in the description. If you're a coach listening to this, check it out. I think it would be an amazing thing to add to your experience just by what I'm hearing right now. Then is there a part of it that you kind of intentionally designed? 'Cause it's like be people might be listening, it's like, why wouldn't I just ask that question to my client in a coaching call? Right, kind of just in a conversation with them. Is there a reason that you think it's best done by the client in their own private time? speaker-0: I think that having extended communication and touch points with clients in between calls is very, very vital. Right now what's happening is you show up on a coaching call and the and the coach says, What do you want to talk about today? And they put the entire onus on the client to determine the journey. And I'm sorry, but I'm the coach you hired me to take you on a journey. Right? So it's kind of like imagine you go to, I don't know, Europe somewhere, France. Let's say you go you go to France and you hire a tour guide, but the tour guide says, Where you want to go? Right? And so what that means is you had to do your homework. You had to know exactly what you wanted to see. But like what do you need the tour guide for? You know how to get around. The whole point of the tour guide is to show you the nooks and crannies that you can't access on your own. That's the whole point. The whole point of the tour guide is for him to or her to say, Let me take you somewhere where you will never forget this experience. Right. And so that is my job. And so when I ask my clients to journal every single day, I'm creating that kind of experience. I am the leader of this journey. And so in order to be an effective leader, I need data from you. I need to know who you are, you know, what you're doing day in and day out, who you're you are in relationships with and what that looks like. And so that data allows me to chart the journey for you. So, like imagine you're in France and the guy says, I'm gonna go take you to eat lobster. But it turns out you have a terrible lobster allergy. That would be a bad experience, wouldn't it? But because I know you have a lobster allergy, I won't take you to lobster. I'll take you to Chateaubriand, right? Or something else. So, right, me knowing you and me understanding who you are allows me to create an experience that will completely change the course of your life. Because I'm dealing with what's important right here, right now for you. So number one, I need data. Number two, I need constant touch points with you so that we can build a relationship that's trusting. So you will come on this journey with me. Number three, when you are journaling, you're thinking about this. You're working on this stuff. And so instead of having a call once a week where in between the week you forget about the whole thing, you're constantly working on it. You're able to read your journals and do some self-reflection. And no notice you start noticing your own patterns. You're able to ask questions like if I only have an hour with you, how much can I get done? But now I not only have an hour with you, I have every single day with you, or I'm asking you questions. So we're covering much more width, much more breadth than any other coaching experience. So all of that combined, and I'm only scratching the surface of all of this, but From my standpoint, I don't get how coaches coach without it. They're coaching like with blindfold on. You know, when you have a blindfold on, you go into a room and you're like, where are the lights? Right? But with a with a journal, I don't have a blindfold on. The lights are on and I know exactly where this the the the light switch is, and I can see everything in the room and where everything's laid out. Why wouldn't you do that? speaker-1: Yeah, I think it's incredible. I think like the element too of the client being on their own with their own space, their own thoughts, they can really just kind of sync into their answers and what they're 'cause I think, you know, in from my experience, if I'm on the call with my coach, there's like some kind of like, you know, I kinda change who I am a little bit. Yeah, there's a pressure for sure. So I think allowing the client to this is just like one of the speaker-0: there's a pressure. speaker-1: elements that makes this so great is that it allows the client to be on their own to authentically answer these questions, these prompts for themselves and just kind of wander and not be perfect, not worry about being super polished, or just kind of dumping, just like brain dumping. And then that is where you get the magic of being able to like their authentic self and you can start to see those patterns start to come out onto the page, I would imagine. and then yeah, everything that you said about the coaching programs where it's like one call a week. And you know, I've had a lot of coaching calls st start with the coach being like What do you want talk about today? It's like I don't know. I just came off of like six meetings in a row. I haven't given this any thought. I almost rescheduled this meeting. I have no clue. Right? So it's like, I don't know. I maybe last week we'll be speaker-0: And the coach is asking you to do more work now. Yeah. Hey, you do the work. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So outside of the the calls with you and then the the daily journaling practice, what else are you kind of asking your clients to do? speaker-0: not asking them to do anything. I'm asking them to come and strip down with me. Let's go. All right. So I think that's enough. What what I'm not asking them to do is all these homework assignments other than journaling where they have to come back and report to me because I don't have that measure, that that system of accountability. They might say I'm going to go have a conversation with so and so and I might check in and say, how was your conversation? But That's me being interested and curious and wanting to know about them. It's not me checking in to make sure they did the thing they promised they would do. Yeah. And so the dynamic is very, very different. You know, the other day I was teaching a course and I gave some journaling as assignments ahead of time. It was like a big class. And one guy came up to me, he's like, I'm really sorry. I didn't have a chance to do my homework assignment. So I'm like, Okay, do it tomorrow. And he was like, I'm like, you don't answer to me. And he was like, What? speaker-1: Right. Yeah. And it's there's also a part of it too where you can't want it for them. Like if you want it for them and you have to hold them accountable in order to get it done, it's never gonna stick and it's never gonna like last and be sustainable. Right. Like they need to want it for themselves. They need to kinda have that internal drive to do the things that they need to do, which is just answering some journal prompts to to do the work with you and get that outcome. So I can see how that plays into it as well. speaker-0: Right. Some people might perceive giving them journaling as an accountability like system, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get them to tell me their story. Yeah. That's it. I'll tell you another story. There was a guy that I was asked to coach, okay, and he wanted to go through coaching with me. And he would show up on the calls like like like this like asleep. His hair was like standing up and he had a baseball cap on to hide the pokey things coming out of his hat. You know, like he was like completely exhausted. Oftentimes he was late. Half the times he would reschedule. And in my brain, I'm like, why am I doing this? The guy clearly doesn't want to be there. Not what I want to do. I want to work with people who are ready to roll up their sleeves and get there. But one day I show up and I'm like, you look exhausted. He's like, I am. What is going on? He's like, I'm not sleeping at night. I said, why not? He's like, I have terrible nightmares. All of a sudden, the whole entire conversation switch. I said, Why are you having nightmares? He's Well, I've had a lot of trauma. I'm like, Okay, we're getting rid of everything we do in coaching, all of the prompts, everything, all the normal thing. We're throwing it out. And what we're gonna do is I'm gonna interview you and I wanna hear the story of your life from the minute you were born to today. I want everything. All the relationships, all the major events, your childhood, like I want everything. And he would never miss a call. He was never late and he showed up with me from then on. And then he would say, You know more about me than anybody else I know. Because what you see isn't always what you're really getting and you need to understand what you're seeing. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. You you can make all these assumptions about this guy's just like so disorganized, he's you know, lazy, he's just not taking Right. Yeah, he doesn't care. Yeah. And then how useful and helpful did you become to him by giving him that time and space to share what he's been going through and talk it through and articulate it, get it out of his head, put it into the real world, share it with another person. That had to be speaker-0: He doesn't care, right? Yeah. And his nightmares started to Go away. speaker-1: Yeah. That's an incredible impact. Yeah, that's amazing. So last question on the the insights and kind of the journal. So like when you get these insights, obviously you've been doing this a long time, right? So you can just do this naturally. Like you can see that story of her interviewing for the job of the Secretary of State, and you can just cut straight to the through line to the punchline of like, that is what that tells me. That is like the thing that we need to change. speaker-0: Right? speaker-1: But how do you kind of evaluate these prompts, these journal entries from your clients in order to identify these insights or this data they need to gather about the client that then shapes the focus of what you're gonna address and work on with them? Like, is there any way that you could kind of describe? speaker-0: You know what? Like I'm listening to you and you sound like a pretty insightful guy. If I showed you ten journals, you would very, very quickly see this is a belief that needs to be addressed. This is a belief that needs to be addressed. This is a belief that need you might not know how to address it because you don't, you know, you weren't trained for that, but you would very quickly see where a person is being very self defeating, where they're thinking in ways that are just getting in their way. And you have strong instincts too. Right. So, you know, yeah, you need a little instinct to do this well, but it's not rocket science, I promise you. Being able to to like move them from one place to the other requires some skill set, but being able to see just requires data. And I'm one of the things that I am very emphatic about is that I believe most coaches do not have enough data to coach effectively. They just don't. And so they show up and they take the guide stick and they hand it over to the client. And I'm like, What are you doing? speaker-1: If they knew where they wanted to go and how to get there, they wouldn't need you and in the speaker-0: Clear. Exactly. speaker-1: Yeah. That is a complete reframe of like the entire industry. speaker-0: Of the entire industry. speaker-1: Yeah. But I think it's essential for sure. So then you talked about the skill set is being able to okay, identifying it is pretty intuitive. Like you'll be able to just kind of see it, you'll be able to circle and identify those limiting beliefs. But then how do you like what is the process of shifting that belief? speaker-0: Let's say I find the belief. Okay, so there's some work involved in finding the belief. You need to ask the right questions and you need to get the story out and you need to like dig under the story and not just stay on the surface. And you need to like really kind of flesh it out. A lot of coaches, they might ask a few questions and they think they have the whole story, but they really don't. And so getting the entire picture is a huge part of the process. And that means slowing down before you speed up. It means sometimes going down these alleys. That feel irrelevant but end up being completely irrelevant and sometimes not. But you need to go down these side streets in order to get the very big picture. But once you have found a belief, once you've identified a belief, one of the things we need to do is it's a term that I made up. I call it encapsulation. And what is encapsulation? It's being able to label and describe a person's emotional state as they are telling their story. And more specifically, being able to describe what they're feeling in words that they haven't expressed. And what it's designed to do is say I understand. What you're saying to me, I hear you, I see you, we I got it. And if we don't do that, no coaching can take place. There's like a green like a red light. No, we're not moving forward. If you don't think I get you, will you trust me? No. Will you hear me? No. Will you experience defensiveness? Yes. Frustration? Yes. So until that moment, there's no coaching taking place. speaker-1: Mm. speaker-0: That piece is vital. We need to get to that place and then we can talk about everything else, talk about solutions, options, we can challenge some of the beliefs, we can do all of that. But not until that moment. And so in the coaching world, and on in my coaching world, there are steps we follow. And sometimes we go up and down in these steps, but there are steps we follow to get to where we need to go. As we get to know our clients more and more and better and better, sometimes we skip around, you know, we get there a little faster. But we cannot skip the steps early on in the process without knowing who we're talking to and understanding their story. And all the stories about all the little things that seem unimportant. All those little details matter. speaker-1: Yeah. The encapsulation is the foundation of the change that you're going to create with your client. speaker-0: It's the it's what I call the apex of coaching. It's where the door opens. You can't coach someone when the door is closed. So you need to open the door first. And that's how we open the door. speaker-1: Well said. speaker-0: Have you ever read a book called never, never split the difference? So he calls something in negotiation, he calls it labeling. We're labeling the emotion. Now, I just read this book recently, and I've been calling it encapsulation for the past, I don't know, 15 years. Right. And I'm reading this book, I'm like, wow, we're talking about the exact same thing. speaker-1: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. When you were explaining it, my mind immediately went to it didn't go to never split the difference in labeling, but it went to obviously this isn't the application in which you use it, but it's the idea of the one who most clearly articulates and and accurately articulates the pain that the prospect is experiencing in the sales process is most likely to win the deal, right? Like in the sales process when you're working with a with a prospect, you need to drill down deep into understanding the pain that they're experiencing that you're gonna help them solve and the moment that you can clearly articulate back to them the pain that they're experiencing and the implications that that has within their system, whatever they're operating within, that is the moment that they're like, that's right. And then then you can go into here's how I'm gonna help you fix it. And yeah. And I love those. Yeah. And I love like there's something I haven't quite put my finger on, but there's something about like universal principles. It's like as soon as you can take an idea Take this idea and start applying it to other situations, I think is the moment that you have like hit the mark with something. Like your idea of encapsulation seems like something that can be applied to so many different types of scenarios. You obviously apply it in the coaching that you do with your clients. But again, as we've already articulated, it can be applied to the to the sales process, to the to marketing, right? The more clearly that you can articulate the pain that somebody's experiencing in your marketing messaging using the language that they use is the moment that it's going to really resonate with them and they're going to be inspired to take the next action. So I really think that you've gotten to some universal idea principle that can be applied to so many different scenarios with this encapsulation idea. speaker-0: But I didn't know that. All right. So how how did it happen for me? I was like I've been coaching for a long time, right? Twenty-two years. And I was coaching people and they said, Well, can you teach us? I'm like, How do you do that? I'm like, I don't know, I'm just doing it. And he and then they said, Well, but can you can you explain how you're doing it? And I never like sat back to say, Okay, actually what I'm doing as an intelligence has has a logic to it. What I'm doing has a process, a philosophy, a thinking behind it. I didn't know that until somebody forced me to explain it to them. And then I created a model that we use to train other coaches, other people, other leaders. You want to learn how to coach? I will teach you how to coach. Right? So I didn't know that. And so the word encapsulation is just something I invented off the top of my head. And it turns out other people have different words for it. A very similar thing, but I didn't know that. speaker-1: And speaking of universal principles, the idea is that the best way to learn is to teach. So I would imagine that in that process of you having to go through and really break down the philosophy, the intelligence that you have developed and into a packageable way that you could teach it to somebody else made you ten times better at it. speaker-0: Ten times better. Yeah. speaker-1: Amazing. Yeah. I love it. So in the work that you do, I'm not exactly sure how you would categorize it. Like I think you categorize it as leadership coaching, right? You're really changing the in executive coaching. Executive coaching, you're really changing the individual, like who they are, which is probably the most powerful form of coaching. There is other types of coaching. I'm just trying to get at like the homework idea, right? Like you I'm giving you homework, these things that you need to do. speaker-0: Executive coaching. speaker-1: Do you see the homework idea of like I'm giving my clients something that they need to do, maybe more applicable and like, all right, I'm hiring this marketing coach that's gonna help me with the marketing in my business? Do you see it more applicable in those other arenas? speaker-0: I think those are consultants, they're not good. Consultants I see and there's a value, there's a spot for them for sure. I hired somebody who totally helped me do things very differently, huge value, but I don't think that's coaching person. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, cool. And that's just, you know, we talked about inventing language. Like I do the same thing all the time. Like I don't know what to call this thing. The the client results engine, I guess. I don't know, who knows? But yeah, and in this industry the terminology is a little bit murky, like the difference between coach, consultant, advisor, expert, thought leader, right? Yeah, right. For sure. I like it. speaker-0: You can call yourself a guide. We can work on that. speaker-1: Yeah, we can we can go back and forth, chew on it a bit. Kim, thank you so much for the time. Before I get to my final question, how can people get in touch with you? speaker-0: You can look me up, Kim Addis. I'm all over the place. I'm on YouTube. I'm I I'm all over the place. But if you want to learn more about frame of mind coaching, then go to frameofmindcoaching dot com. And if you want to hang out for a bit, you can do that. You can fill out a a complimentary coaching call form and I'd be happy to hang out for a bit. speaker-1: Amazing. And we'll have the links to all of that in the description. Check out Kim Addis everywhere. If what you've heard today sounded as awesome as it did to me, go check out those links. Go set up a free consultation or the coaching call with her. But Kim, my final question for you is a recurring question that I ask every guest. If you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why? speaker-0: It would say what you focus on grows. speaker-1: What you focus on grows. Yeah, why that? speaker-0: Well, I wrote a book called What You Focus On Grows, but for starters. and and I just feel like what you think about and where you spend your time, where you spend your energy, where you put your energy will magnify in your experience. And so I think you need to select very, very carefully and consciously. And I think most people are selecting unconsciously. speaker-1: Can you agree more? What you focus on grows. Kim Addis, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: You're very welcome. Thank you. It was a pleasure and an a speaker-1: Honor. Thank you for listening to my conversation with Kim Addis. The main thing I'm taking away from this conversation is that coaching is a lot deeper than just helping somebody reach the goal that they came in with. Kim made the point early that if a coach becomes the reason the client follows through, the coach has created a dependence, right? And a lot of coaches do this through accountability. The better work is helping the client become the kind of person who can move toward the right goals on their own. That starts by finding and identifying the thinking underneath their behavior, right? I shared a quote from the Book A Return to Love by Marion Williamson, that thinking is the cause where the actions in your life are the effect of your thinking. I don't know. I kind of butchered that, but so a person may say that they want more money, more success, or a better business, but the way they think will shape what they want, how they pursue it, and whether they can enjoy it when they get there. That is why Kim cares so much about journaling and this creative journaling practice and this amazing product that she's created in the journal engine. The journal gives her access to the stories that people tell themselves before those stories turn into decisions, avoidance, conflict, or a lack of follow through. If you want better execution, you have to understand the thinking that is producing the current behavior in your life or your client's life. So if you want to get connected with Kim, you can find her frame of mind coaching and the link to the journal engine in the description below. And if you're an author and you want your clients to engage more deeply with your ideas, and you just want to overall make your book more effective, both for the reader and and as a business asset for you and your business, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It'll show you how to install what I call the execution infrastructure, which will help more of your readers actually follow through and get results and engage with your business. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one.