Latest / CLEAR Performance Coaching / Podcast #15 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - GET PEOPLE UNSTUCK - The Stuck State

Transcript

Podcast #15 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - GET PEOPLE UNSTUCK - The Stuck State · CLEAR Performance Coaching

0:21
SPEAKER_03: This is where leadership performance practically.
0:31
SPEAKER_03: So you can step in and show up on purpose every day.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to Clear Performance Coaching Podcast, where we take ordinary leaders and help them become great coaches who create extraordinary results.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: My name is Rick Timlick, and I'm here with Dan Bracken.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: And I'm Kent Vaughn.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you heard our last episode, we left you somewhere uncomfortable on purpose.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: We were sitting with real obstacles, no solution in sight yet.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: We were at you know the card where we had talked about the current state where we're stuck.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: So today we're gonna walk through the breakthrough funnel, and we're kind of gonna get into a few questions that we would deliberately ask.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: And we are in card 41, which is about the stuck state.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, just as a kind of a kickoff and getting into it, can can you walk me through that that funnel that we have on the stuck state, the barriers there?
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, you what you if you're really gonna get out of this, you've got to be honest with yourself about where are you really?
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And there are these five questions to ask.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Really, what is the current situation and the circumstance?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's really be honest about where are we?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say it very well.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: So there are these barriers that people are facing, and we want to really be honest about and really flesh it all out.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: First of all, what is the current situation and the circumstance we're facing?
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Let's not sugarcoat it, let's not gloss coat it, let's just see what's really going on.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, number two, what are the people that you're dealing with, what are their perceptions?
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Next, what are the systems and processes that are getting in the way that you've got to deal with?
2:29
SPEAKER_00: What is your thinking and where is your self-esteem?
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to get after it?
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Are you really kind of done?
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And finally, understanding weaknesses, your weaknesses and the weaknesses around you.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Those are what we have on the card.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, Sam, you've done this more than anybody on the planet.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: What do you do about this?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: How do you use this?
2:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, to give us a little bit of context, you know, I usually, when I'm trying to help someone get unstuck, we spend some time on their current state, what they like about it, what they don't like about it, and then we go to their future state and we say, okay, what do you want in the future?
3:04
SPEAKER_01: And there's usually some gap between those two things.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: And that that introduces how we talk about the stuck state.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: There, if there's a gap, there's something keeping you from that future state, right?
3:18
SPEAKER_01: So the things you just suggested, you know, what's the situation and circumstances, the people and their perceptions of you, and you know, systems or processes may be flawed.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: You your own thinking and self-esteem could be the problem.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, this is this is one of the things that I think that when I'm when I'm approaching this, I really challenge people.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I ask them how they're the barriers.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: How how they are the barriers?
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, what how are you the barrier?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Most people love to blame.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, these are the reasons that I'm not getting my future state.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: It's some other person, some other situation, some, you know, some life's not fair, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: And I'm and I'm like, okay, so what's your part in this?
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's keeping you, what's holding you back?
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Right?
4:06
SPEAKER_04: Right.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: And then this this is shocking to people sometimes.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: And and I like what you said, Kent.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: We need to be authentic.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: You got to be real.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Be real here.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: You got to really understand it.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Because people love to play the blame game, they love it, and they don't want to take accountability.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: No kidding.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, I often reflect, you know, the first obstacle that they're trying to tell me.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I almost want to sit there for a bit because it's usually not the real obstacle.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: It's the one they can grab first that's easiest.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: But when you sit there long enough, they start to share kind of the deeper one.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: And that deeper one is really the one that they want to talk about, or the one that's really keeping them stuck in there.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want to get to the root of the real problem.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: The root, the real barrier.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: What's the real barrier?
4:52
SPEAKER_01: What are made-up barriers, and what are the what are what are the real barriers here?
4:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: The one thing I love about this card, you know, as with all the cards, this is a process that coaches can walk through.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: But this card specifically, it has very clear categories, right?
5:09
SPEAKER_02: Like we talk about circumstances, people, systems, thinking.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: How does a coach figure out which category they're dealing with?
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, they have to be an active listener, right?
5:22
SPEAKER_01: They have to listen.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And they have to listen to understand.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: They have to use their intuition, they have to listen with all their faculties, right?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: To really try to hear what's really going on and then ask powerful questions.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Coaching is all about listening and asking powerful questions to try to uncover, to try to uncover what's really going on.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: So I always ask permission to ask questions about certain things so that I can have better understanding.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: So that I can have a greater impact with people.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, Sam, when you talked about people being a part of the problem, a part of the barrier, it reminded me of this guy we all heard speak years ago named Anson Dorance.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Anson Dorance was the this crazy winning coach at UNC Chapel Hill for the women's soccer team.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: He won 21 national championships with this team, with these teams, right?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: 21 NCAA national championships.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And he had a record like 934 wins, 88 ties, 53 losses.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: He he did some amazing things there.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And when he was speaking, somebody asked him, so why do you coach the women's team instead of the men's team?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're so good.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you coaching men?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: As if there was something better about coaching men than women, right?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'll tell you exactly why I coached the women.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: I used to coach the men.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: But the men, when you would tell them after a game or after practice, hey, you made this mistake, you didn't do this thing, you should have done that thing, you missed this kick or whatever else, they would always say, It wasn't me, coach.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: They said, I didn't do that.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: He said this again and again.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: He said, You would have video of the game and show them and still say, That wasn't me.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: It was their jersey and their number.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was thrace.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not trying to throw athletes under the under the bus because we've all been athletes, and of course, Sam was a great athlete at Georgia Tech for years.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: But it is fascinating how many people, and men in particular, who want to see, yeah, it wasn't me.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not me.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: It's somebody else's.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: It's almost human nature, right?
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, this guy won 21 national championships.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I think he knows something about how to bring something out of folks, right?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: So I've got his book back there, signed a copy of his book.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: He was an amazing coach, but anyway.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and deeper than human nature, it's actually embedded in our psychology.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, we have that reactance.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: If you want to argue with someone's obstacle, they're gonna defend it.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: And the irony is when they defend it, they actually become more committed to it, even if it starts to be a very weak obstacle.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, to me, like the trick is I stick with what they say and say, tell me more about that obstacle.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and at some point they start to see the fault with it.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we naturally stick with it, we hold it tight.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, I had this conversation with a leader at Mercedes-Benz several years several months ago who was really in a stuck state, and she was complaining about why one of her peers went to their boss, who went to their boss, who went to their came down to her, and I just said, Well, that's that's frustrating.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Why do you suppose they didn't come to you?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Why do you suppose they went to their boss who went to your boss who came to you?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, maybe it's because the last few times they've come to me, I've blown up and I didn't respond well, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Now I couldn't have said that to her, because she would have said, Yeah, that's not me.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: But but when I asked her, you know, uh, why do you think that is, she had to really get think through it for a minute.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And you know why I did that?
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Because I learned so much from Sam and Rick, right?
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Watching what they've done, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_00: I just said, Well, why do you think they did that?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Instead of telling her why they did that, just ask her.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: And then she had to get really serious about it.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that that alone was probably one of the single biggest shifting points for her as a leader in our coaching together.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Every time we met about, you know, that that was the big shift.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's kind of what this is, right?
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Be really honest, this is how they can start to make a shift.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the barriers, the the barriers that are in the way of you accomplishing your vision, it's really a discovery process.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to discover what the systems and situations and circumstance and thinking, and all like you're trying to discover what's the real route to keep you from making the progress you want.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: So it's like a journey from a coach's perspective, being curious and having you know, having an open mind and really, really trying to track with someone can help them.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that doesn't lie usually is the data.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: And when you confront people with data, we we often say, Ken, we've said this for years, Rick, we we behave ourselves into success or failure.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: And you know, if we're if we've had a failure, we need to know and identify the behavior that led us to that failure.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes looking at the data can can help us that we didn't do something consistently, or we weren't clear in our communication, or you know, we sabotaged ourselves.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a variety of things that get in the way here.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: Now, the reason we want to identify this is so we can overcome it.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: That's the key, right?
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Identify the barrier, whether it's within you or outside of you, so you can overcome the barrier, so you can use learning from that to hit your future, desired future state.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, completely.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: Sam, I'd love to hear from you.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, someone whose stated obstacle was external, like they're blaming the circumstances, or my boss didn't, or this budget, when really the obstacle was internal.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: How do coaches surface that difference?
11:00
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, oftentimes I'll have someone say, Well, I'm not getting the barriers my boss and the way my boss thinks of me.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Right?
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not getting the chances that I need to get to this next level.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And then so that's when I get all perky.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh yeah, it's exciting because I'm gonna say, Well, why do you think your boss?
11:20
SPEAKER_01: I ask a series of questions.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Why do you think your boss thinks the way he thinks of you?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: What could you do to change the way that your boss thinks of you?
11:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, those kinds of things to get them.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: I try to draw out from them, I want them to understand from a different perspective, look from a different perspective to see if it can open up their mind and give them some additional insight to to move their desired future state forward.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: But it's funny, you know, people love to say, well, so-and-so's keeping me held back.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, like, why?
12:01
SPEAKER_01: And what could you do about it?
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And how would you what's a different way of approaching it?
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Have you tried different ideas?
12:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, help me, you know, let's let's go through a learning journey on what you could possibly do here.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: That but that gets us to the next state, which is a breakthrough state, but try to set it up with a real clear understanding of what's going on in their in their life and their relationships.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think of you know, almost all of the consulting engagements that we do on our end, we really get clear on what the problem is.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: And it goes to that old adage, you know, a problem well defined is half solved.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: And yet, as coaches, our role isn't to define the problem for the individual, it's to help them define it and get clarity around that.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: And and the problem we're trying to solve here is what's keeping them stuck.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: And the more we can get clarity from them around that, the more that that problem becomes well-defined, and you're halfway to likely the solution.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: It's important here because when people are they can identify what's keeping themselves stuck, then they're closer to taking inspired, self-activated action.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: But if they don't know what their part in, so often people are not clear on what their part in the problem is.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Once they get an inkling of or an understanding of how they could be sabotaging or how they could be a the barrier themselves, then that then that gets them closer to activated action to overcome those things to move an initiative forward.
13:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: Kent, I'm sure you've had this lots.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we used to call it the attribution theory where I'll excuse my poor performance because of circumstances, but I'll criticize your poor performance because you know he's lazy or inconsiderate, or you know, he's self-serving, or any of those things.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: We we give the attribution, you know, softer on me and harder on others externally.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: You must have come across that, you know, hundreds of times in your career.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: How would you help someone see that?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, it you know, there's it reminds me of an old saying that says, we judge other people by their actions and we judge ourselves by our intent.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And when you say that, you can see it kind of hits them between the eyes, they're going, okay, so because what you say is, well, that's not what I meant, or that's not what I was trying to do, it's not my fault, or whatever else.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, that that that doesn't move the needle, right?
14:36
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't help.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I love what Sam and you both have said.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you look on the back of card 41, it says, make a list of what's caused them to be stuck and prioritize the list.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: So make the list.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: So you have all these things, and then the next thing I think with the list is to say, all right, what can you control?
14:54
SPEAKER_00: What can you do something about?
14:55
SPEAKER_00: So many times people waste all of their energy and effort on something that they can do nothing about.
15:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way to ensure the stuck state stays the stuck state.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: So look at the list.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can't control that, can't control that, can't control that.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: What can I control?
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can control this and this, I can control what I do about those things.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the watch outs that's really important is that it says don't let people get paralyzed because of their obstacles.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Because when they get paralyzed, they're just looking at things they can't do anything about.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: So don't get paralyzed.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And the way you don't do that is you start by looking at what can I control?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second big watch out.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Teach people to use their challenge as a stepping stone.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a challenge, it's a stepping stone, and then reframe to ignite hope and foster possible solutions because you're looking.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: These are the three watch outside here.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know them.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Just you pull out the card and say, Hey, let's work on this together, right?
15:48
unknown: Yeah.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: They get motivated because they go, Oh, here's one or two things I could do.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: All right, what are you going to do about that this week?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do between now and the next time we talk?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Now you got a recipe for success.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Sam, I think you bond your head because you've done this a million times.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my Kent, my Kent, my my favorite thing here in these three things is this idea of the reframe.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: The fastest way to empower someone that inspired activated action is to get them to change their frame of reference.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Because then they can then they can create their own feelings, which are going to energize action, which are going to drive results.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And there's a million different ways to help people reframe their thinking, right?
16:28
SPEAKER_01: A million different ways.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that in future podcasts, but the reframe of the thinking can really help you on your journey of resilience or achieving goals despite your obstacles.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a really key thing that um that's worth you know studying and getting really good at re reframing circumstance can help you a lot.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if I just push on that a little bit, Sam, because I really want you to help us here.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes my stuck state, and I'll just speak for Rick, can actually really be stuck.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Like I start catastrophizing things or or I get into mind reading where you know I just know that that person's never gonna approve this.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: When we hear that, that kind of the obstacle is really about the thinking right now, not the circumstances, what do you do then?
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, you challenge the thinking, right?
17:23
SPEAKER_01: So, and you do that with curiosity.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: So let's say you you the circumstance you just shared where you have some doom and gloom thinking, right?
17:32
SPEAKER_01: And a powerful question you might ask is, well, how could the setback that you're experiencing, or this obstacle or this barrier, how could over how could how could you use that barrier to catapult you forward in ways you never imagined?
17:48
SPEAKER_01: How can you make this bad thing that happened, you know, let's say they're blaming someone for something?
17:54
SPEAKER_01: You're you're treated unfairly, you got a poor performance review.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, my question would be well, like, what did you learn from that?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And and how can you make that, how can you leverage that poor performance review and what you learned from to catapult you forward in ways that no one can even imagine?
18:13
SPEAKER_01: How can it work for your good?
18:14
SPEAKER_01: How can this setback, this barrier, this challenge work for your good?
18:19
SPEAKER_01: Now you gotta be you gotta be careful here.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: You gotta use some emotional intelligence because if someone had a real catastrophic setback, or they've really done some stupid stuff at work and they're high in emotion, you know, you say, Well, one day this is gonna be all better, right?
18:38
SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna work, right?
18:40
SPEAKER_01: That won't work.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but to but to say, but to just just pivot just a bit, like what do you think you learned from this and how can this benefit you in the future?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: My son Bo, who's an executive with a large development company, is under a lot of stress, and he had some catastrophes happen yesterday in one of his buildings, and then he has these budgets he has to still do, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_01: And he's he's locking down.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And my questions to him, I just go through a series of questions that say, tell me more about this, so I get an understanding of what's going on, and then I try to help him reframe the circumstance, like what good can come out of this, what learning's coming out of this, what could you possibly do because of that?
19:24
SPEAKER_01: It's just more of just being honestly curious without judgment and getting people to see from a different perspective.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: So you can use curiosity, you can use data to get them to see from a different perspective, you can tell a story to get them to see from a different perspective.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: What are some other ways to help people see from different perspectives to change their frame of reference?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, I live in East Tennessee.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, for those of you who don't know, right?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: I only say that because Dolly Parton's kind of a big deal around here.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And she just passed a couple weeks ago, right?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And I and I don't I I think Dolly Martin's fine.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a big follower of hers.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: I didn't listen to a lot of her music, but some of it.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: But but anyway, my wife was watching a special the other night, and one of her breakout songs, and she'd been successful, but one of the songs that really took her to the next level was this song, Jolene, right?
20:13
SPEAKER_00: About a woman trying to steal a woman's husband.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And in the interview, someone said, Wow, one of your breakout songs was this song, Jolene.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Where'd that come from?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, I haven't told the story before, but the real reason I wrote it was because my husband was hanging out too much with a woman named Jolene.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't cheating on me, I don't think, but he I was traveling out with my career and he was hanging out with this woman.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what am I gonna do with us?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So she wrote a song about it, Jolene, don't steal my man, right?
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And then it became this mega hit, sold millions of songs, right?
20:45
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, what happened?
20:46
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, he came back quickly.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: He thought, okay, I gotta, I gotta get my act together, right?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And so what could have been a horrible thing, and you hear all the time about entertainers and other people, right?
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Their marriages break up and so on and so forth.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: She said, I didn't want my marriage to break up.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to keep my husband, and I wrote this song, and most of us can't do that.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: But she took what could have been a really terrible experience and created something that turned out to be, you know, kind of one of her one of her, you know, incredibly well-known songs because of a bad thing that was happening.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm not saying you write a song about something, but it's fascinating how she turned what could have been a devastating situation.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: She said it would have been devastating, her best friend in her life.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a great story.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's an example of how to get someone to change their frame of reference, right?
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Is use stories.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we we have that in our barriers.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: Like there's the situation and circumstances.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: She had a very clear situation she was facing.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: It was the people and perceptions around that, systems and processes, like thinking and self esteem.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: I think in your example, Kent, you truly articulated how to help someone identify where they are in the stuck state.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: And and then she looked at how can I then get myself out of this.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a great example of that.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: To me, the interesting side of the neuroscience is when we get people to actually frame what's their obstacle clearly.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, some of the language we might use is how do we move from ignorance to awareness?
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Half the time, just identifying that what the obstacle is can produce some visible relief before anything's even solved.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Like when you get really clear on that picture, what the obstacle is, your body starts to calm down from this fight or flight or freeze state.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: So I always found that interesting.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: You can see it.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: It gives you an aha moment.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: You're like, oh, aha.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: So as a coach, when you start to see that, you know you're getting close to, oh, here's really the true obstacle, right?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things I love about these cards is that it tells you how to do it, right?
22:55
SPEAKER_00: So we talked about watch outs.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the powerful questions.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Now you heard Sam say these powerful questions because they're in Sam's DNA.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: He does this all of the time with executives in so many different organizations.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: The first question is to ask them is what is getting the way of your success?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to go through all the things and they're going to be pointing everybody else and all the other circumstances because it's human, it's what we do.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: We're judging them by their behaviors and actions.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: We're judging ours by our intent.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: We didn't mean to fail at this.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: But then the next one is what Sam said, which way you really grab their attention.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to keep yourself stuck?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to keep yourself stuck?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And I have to, you know, I ha I went swimming this morning, right?
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And you come back to the house after swimming, you know, swimming laps, right?
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And you see yourself in a swim trunks, and like there's no hiding it, right?
23:42
SPEAKER_00: There's no hiding that you got more on your waist than you really want.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Wait, where did that Michelin come from, right?
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And there's no, there's no hiding it.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: What am I keeping my doing to what am I doing to keep myself stuck?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I don't exercise, it's just that I eat too many treats.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I know that, you know what?
23:56
SPEAKER_00: We're done with this.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: This is ridiculous, you know?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And so I know I'm keeping myself stuck in many ways.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: I'll get better and then I get worse, and I go up and down 10 pounds, etc.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: But you know, here's the interesting thing.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: I personally go up and down 10 or 12 pounds every year.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: I do every year.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: And I run, I swim, I lift weights, I do all the things, and a lot because my father died seven years younger than I am because of heart failure.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm fighting that, and so my heart's in really great shape.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: We read a funeral of my father-in-law, actually, a year ago, and my one of my brothers who was 18 years younger and a hundred pounds heavier.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Eighteen years younger and a hundred pounds heavier.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: He was a great athlete in school, but you know, like everybody else, so many other people, but I got out of school and quit doing anything, right?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And I heard him say to somebody, Kent got the thin gene, I got the fat gene.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think I heard that.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say anything.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: I thought to myself, we got exactly the same genes, but I keep working at it.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, I still got 15 pounds I fight every year, right?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to throw my brother under the bus in any way, shape, or shape, or form.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: He didn't get a fat gene, and I didn't get a thin gene.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: He was thinner than I was when he you know years ago by a long shot, in great shape.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it it it he's in a stuck state, and we all get there with different things.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: So it's being honest and saying, it isn't a thin gene or fat gene.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: I said the same thing about math.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get the math gene, it skips generation.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And I had a teacher who had to pull me out and say, no, no, that's not the case.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: You're not doing the homework, and you're three years behind.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: So we got to make up three years of not doing homework.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't say I didn't, and then I realized, oh, I did get the math gene, but you can't expect to get the results if you don't want to not want to put in the work.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And I had to put in a lot of work to make up.
25:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: I finally did.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't do that, then stop saying I didn't get the math gene.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: No, I got the laziness gene when it came to that.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: It's because I got so far behind I thought there was no way to catch up.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: But there is a way to catch up.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: I love that it it reminds me, you know, here's one of as a coach, one of my questions I like to ask at the end, like when you're trying to help them see where they are in that stuck state, you know, they'll start to give you things and give you things and give you things, and then they'll usually start to trail off a little bit, right?
26:10
SPEAKER_02: And and they'll they'll sit in silence for a minute.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: And then I usually ask this question I say, what question or what response do you find yourself filtering right now that you really want to tell me?
26:23
SPEAKER_02: And then it just opens life where it's like, okay, since you asked, I'm really burned about this, right?
26:30
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, let's talk about that, because that's kind of my entry point there.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: It's what I call letting people gripe it out.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: I actually don't use the word gripe, I use it with a it's a swear word, but let them gripe it out, let them complain it out, and then say, Are you done?
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, is there anything else?
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Is are you?
26:50
SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm keep going.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything like tell me more, help me understand?
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, get it out, get the demons out, the griping, complaining the demons out.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: And then it's healthy, it's cathartic, actually, to be honest.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: It's very cathartic.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: And it gives you a clean slate to to move forward with new direction and new energy.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, I love what you said, Sam.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: If they get it out, and then you go to the next step, which is okay, what how are you now?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing about this?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: What are you how are you causing this better?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Because if you stop there, then they just they just get madder, right?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, now you've gotten that out.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now what part do you have in this?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: What are you need to do?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: What can you control, or whatever it is, right?
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Which is what you automatically go to.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You let them gripe it out, and then you go to okay, now what?
27:38
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, as we think about landing this plane, this episode, what is kind of the main tie-in you want our listeners to know about helping people see where they're at in the stuck state?
27:53
SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important to understand that most people can solve their own problems.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: They have the capability to solve their own problems.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: They might just need some support and some help.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's really important as a coach that when we help them identify their stuck state, like I mean, what barriers are getting in their way, most of them know how to overcome those barriers.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Don't ever underestimate that.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Ken, how about you?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: This the thing I always have to remind myself of, because I'm terrible at this, is that you want to give advice and they don't need advice.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: 99.99% of the time, they're not going to take the advice.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: It could be the world's best advice, and they don't take it.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: So don't resist the desire to give them advice and keep going back to them about what can they do?
28:51
SPEAKER_00: What will they work on?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: What can they take control over?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: What do they have responsibility for?
28:56
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was just talking calling Sam uh a few about a new client who called about some issues with another executive that they want coaching with, and said, be careful, be careful, are you a consultant or are you a coach?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, initially I'm a consultant, but then I'm gonna be a coach.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And I so he and I appreciate Sam's always reminding me of that.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Be careful that we're not there as consultants to tell them what to do.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: We're it doesn't mean you might not share an experience, but that needs to be the minor minority of it, right?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: I think being empathetic partially is helping them understand that you really do understand and see why they would might feel that way.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I can see why you might feel that way.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: You may not agree with them, you may not have had that experience, but really be empathetic.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: You say, hey, I can see why that would bother you.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I can see why that would hurt your feelings or why that would make you feel stuck.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, be it be that kind of coach.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the coach that's like, well, get up and dust yourself off and get to work.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they might need that, right?
29:52
SPEAKER_00: But at least make sure that they know you really are legitimately cared and you're not there just grinding on them.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: If that's the case, it won't take long before they stop talking to you.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: They they avoid you.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: I had a leader tell me the other day that he was coaching one of his team members that started avoiding him.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And okay, that's not what you want at all.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: No kidding.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: I think for you know, for my kind of tie-in, I'll just build off of what you said.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: And notice what we're not asking the leader to do.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: We're not asking the leader to solve anything.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: The whole skill of this state, excuse me, the whole skill of this state is asking better questions about the barriers and really keep diving into that, right?
30:32
SPEAKER_02: That's it's a learnable skill.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: Ordinary leaders, great coaches.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: So, kind of the close this week, you know, we might say, hey, when someone brings you a blocker, don't fix it right away and don't accept it.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: Ask one more question.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: What else is in the way?
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Then ask it again.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: The first obstacle is likely gonna be the story they're telling themselves, but the third one probably is the truth that we really need to get to.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: And so sit in that stuck state with them a little bit longer, coaches, because we're gonna get into the next episode, which is about how to help them with their breakthroughs.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: And the last thing I would say is please read our show notes.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: We have some events coming up, we have some releases and launches and various things, and so we'll add that information in our show notes.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: And so, until next episode, thank you for joining us and take care.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.