E037: Becoming a Coach

now on to this episode. Hi. This is James, and this is Jane, and here

we are again with another episode of The World of Work podcast, coming at you live, or actually, we're not really not laughing brilliant coming at you recorded coming at you with a two week delay from sunny Edinburgh. Anyway, here we are.

Sorry. Can I just pick you up on that already with not starting Well, James just said, Sunny Edinburgh, it was hailing as I walked in the

door. Yeah, I got it's only April. Come on. What are you complaining about? Well, they say snow in April means more snow in May, it means really good summer. Oh, right, okay. Well, fingers crossed. We'll check back in in the summer and see how much sunblock we've had to put on for the heat in Scotland. All right. So before we get into it, you can get in touch with us. Website for Wow podcast.org, check out stuff. There we put like, you know, show descriptions, all that good stuff. Social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, we got all that stuff going on. And probably tweeting us is the best way at the WoW podcast. We're pretty active on there.

Yeah, I'd like to do a bit of a shout out. Bit of a shout out, right? Because everything else is doing really well, and everyone's chatting, and we get shouts on LinkedIn, and people talk to us on Twitter, Facebook, not so much. They're probably just saying, Well, no, I run the Facebook page because James isn't even on Facebook. Well, exactly. That's why, that's why we don't like it. And also,

I will do you a deal if you come and find, find the WoW podcast on Facebook, I personally will start a conversation. I am a little bit sad about it's feeling a bit down in the dungeon. So that's it's a facebook.com forward slash, the

WoW podcast. And while you've been promoting Facebook, I've been tweeting about negative aspects of Facebook on a regular basis. Yeah, I have have about some really interesting maybe they deliberately, maybe we've got some bad stuff about Facebook for a bit, but I was kind of interested in was, there were some, there's a really good article in Vox or something like that, about the content moderators and how face like, the culture of content moderation within Facebook, and how that part of our organization works. And, yeah, I mean, it's like, it's dreadful.

So I want to be really, really clear, right? Facebook is just a symptom of monopoly behavior. Over 500 years, this has consistently been the case where monopolies and published publication cross. Bad things happen. Yeah, that's just a fact. Yeah. People go read about

printing, you can make some decisions about your behaviors, but you know, maybe get rid of Facebook. We know. We know you're just a victim of you know, your circumstance,

yeah, yeah. All right. So anyway, so that's a little diatribe on Facebook. Um, so anyway, more importantly, let's move on to Apple. Why don't you get onto iTunes and write us a review. If you can do that, that'd be great. We really like those. We don't really ever ask people enough. So we've done that a few times, and we've got a wow mail as well, don't we? We've got our mailing list.

Yeah, you can sign up to our newsletter that goes out alongside the podcast, and you can do that at our website, and we will send you a little newsletter, email newsletter with goodies in it and links and people that we think are interesting to read about. Yeah,

cool. All right, so that is the kind of formalities at the start. It's like the exits are here, the bathrooms are there, but no fire alarms, because I don't listen to that. Well, everyone listens to our stuff. It's really important anyway. So today we're going to be speaking about coaching. We did this a while ago, and once again, it's a bit of a special episode. We've got Gillian McMichael again, and we had a conversation with her a while ago, back in series three, when she was a guest, where we talked about series three so long ago, yeah, where the last conversation we talked about, kind of what it's like to be coached, and the relationship between coaching and behavior change. Line of series three being about behavior change, but today's conversation that we're going to be sharing in this episode is all about becoming a coach and being a coach. So we know that some people out there are interested in developing their coaching skills. We know that these are important in a lot of roles in the workplace and leadership. And we

talk, we talk about the role of coaching or a manager as well, which is really helpful. So don't you know if you're listening, it's absolutely for you guys too. Yeah, well, everyone better. Don't want to be a permanent coach. Yeah, everyone benefits

from coaching skills, right? I mean, particularly in modern workplaces, that's really important. Parents, parents, yeah, well, yeah, I've had a lot of conversations with people about coaching as. As parents, which is interesting anyway. So once again, we're treating our conversation with Gillian as a research round up for a week, and as with last time, really what we're trying to do with this is to help listeners get close to a master coach and hear from one of them about their thoughts on that the journey of becoming a coach and what it's like to develop and to develop the skills that coaches use and what the industry is like. Reflect on that a bit as well. So a running order. Usual definition discussion coming up, but we'll just really hammer back to our brief because we've covered a lot of the definitions. Then we'll do the interview list of a week stories, couple final thoughts and top tips, and check it out.

Check in. How you doing?

I am over the moon. Over the moon. Might not sound it, but I am. That's good. You can ask me, why? Yeah. Why? Ask me why we are

recording this on a Thursday. Yeah, we both just chat, and we have spent pretty much the whole day planning bits of stuff that we're going to be doing over the next year. So that's why I'm over the moon. It's exciting. It's proper exciting. So James has been showing me through the development of our website, which is now live. Yeah, and we've been talking about some ideas. We've got some future projects, and we've set ourselves some goals, and I'm quite excited. Yeah, doing some planning and dragging dropping stuff around, and

we've scheduled like, a whole year worth of recorded podcasts, which I'm super excited. It's

really fun, isn't it? And we were both saying, when we're doing it, that that's really important to us, because we really enjoy it. So, um,

yeah. And as I get I'm getting quite, quite busy with some of my other work, so I'm really excited to block time,

yeah, to get the real space and to do in a focused way. I mean, it's a good way to do it. So that's why, yeah, I'm in every exact same place, from a check in perspective, it's been a really great fun day, and it's fun to do this as well. So that is good. Would you like to definition up the audience?

Yeah, I'm gonna be super quick. Do you want a dish for defs?

I would strong dish. No, no, you always try to get these things in and no, that was listening to one of our podcasts the other day, and you started making puns. And I was just like, cut you dead. I was like, no, no puns. So I would strongly advise listening to our the episode that James just talked about in series three around coaching, because it's really helpful. Yeah, I think it's episode 25 I think is when it was

so it's definitely, it's series it's in series three. Yeah, and really, there's two types of definitions that I'm going to whiz through. One is about the kind of conversations that are developmental conversations, so counseling, mentoring and coaching, yeah, and then the other thing is about the types of coaching, which is things like life, career solution based transformative So very briefly, the difference between mentoring coaching and counseling. Oxford Dictionaries talk about mentors being experienced and trusted advisor. We decided that last episode that mentoring was really about lived experience and using that to help someone develop coaching was much more about creating thought provoking conversations. ICF define it as partnering with clients as a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their potential. And counseling is much more about solving psychological and personal problems. Yeah, the other side

of the things. So just one of the conversations I've had is, but also coaching is forward looking and about like, you know, create reaching destinations in the future and making things better in the future, whereas a lot of counseling is reflecting on stuff in the back in history, or at least it can be a little bit more backward looking. So in some of my sort of coaching training pieces, I've been advised that if something turns into a reflection on the past or an annual analysis of a specific sort of event in your life, then that kind of stops to be coaching. So

interesting. I would disagree with that fundamentally, but yeah, that's an interesting definition. I would say, Yeah, I guess some of my best conversations with people that I would consider coaching conversations is where they've learned to reflect on how they've behaved in the past and how they would do it differently. And I think

that how you do it differently in the future is the coaching future is the coaching bit. But I think if you're just looking at and analyzing stuff in the past, then it's less helpful from a coaching perspective.

Yeah, what I would say is that if you look at the different types of coaching, so you've got life, which, as we discussed last time, I'm still not sure what life coaching is, it seems to be a catch all. Yeah, it's kind of like a personal career coaching, team coaching, those are kind of the topics that you're covering, whereas the methodology is traditionally falls into things like solution based or outcomes based coaching versus transformative or receptive coaching. Solution or outcomes based, I see is very present, rooted in the present quite often, because it's usually, how do you get from A to B, where you where you can I tend to describe it as there's a real world solution that you need to

navigate. Yeah, you've got somewhere you want to get to, yeah. Or you've got or, you know,

I still see behavior change sitting within solution based, I can't stop shouting at my stuff, yeah. Is a thing that needs to be objective, that you work, yeah.

Where? Is, and I, as I referenced in the last episode, I hate the word transformative coaching. No reflection on anyone who's a transformative coach. I think what you do is brilliant, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of transfer. But transformative coaching is about the way we talk about it. Is certainly about helping clients change who they are, yeah, or their perspective of the world. Yeah, how the world works. It's their beliefs. It's their values. Yeah,

the most common thing I find in this is about changing and raising people's aspirations. So the most common thing is, here's who you think you are, yeah, is actually what you're capable of, and here's what, how the world might want that.

Yeah. So, so whatever beliefs that hold you back, what are the unhelpful things that that you think of as truisms that prevent you achieving your goals. How can we reframe your interpretation of a world to some extent, to help you?

And really commonly, and I think this is really relevant for the coaching pieces about bravery so consistently comes up in my coaching when it's not solution specific around bravery and and how can you encourage people to be more brave? Not, I'm not talking about being more risky. I'm talking about genuinely saying things where they are not 100% confident. Yeah, the confidence piece is a common thing for a lot, super,

super common thing with people I work with. Yeah. So those are my definitions. Very simple, very quick. If you want them in more detail, or you want to explore that. We talk about it bit more in series three, the coaching episode,

cool, so we'll have a chat with Julian, or we'll play the chat with Jillian in a minute. But before we do that, I mean, you coach people, right? Yeah, you have conversations with

I do most of my, fact, all of my coaching is industry specific, and therefore there's a large chunk of mentoring

going on. Okay, so I mix it, yeah, okay. I guess my question is, what's you know? What is it that you find the best bit about what you do? What do you like most about that line of work?

From a selfish point of view, I get a proper hit when people have goals that they achieve, and they directly attribute some of the success to me. So there's from a very real ego point, yeah, email yesterday, I have just been given x, and it's a trustee position, and I, quite simply, the sentence said I wouldn't have been able to get there without

right? So, like, vicarious success or something like that. Is that fair or recognition or impact. You know,

I've had impact, but then I think within the actual process, and enjoying the process, it's about seeing people raise their aspirations, which I've just mentioned. So for me, I work really quite a lot with people in middle, middle and the level just below senior management. So and quite often I have conversations, and they tell me at the beginning of the conversation, they you know, where do you want to end up? And they'll say, one or two hierarchical levels above themselves in their own organization. Okay? And then I will take them on a journey where they talk about a much more broad career with much higher aspirations, either hierarchically or in completely different ways. They might live their life more fulfilling for them to some extent, potentially, and to see them even open their mind enough to consider that that is one option for them, yeah, and that it might be an option for them is an extraordinary thing. I love it. It's like my favorite thing, when someone looks in the eye and you say to them, Well, hang on. Do you think that is achievable if you wanted it? Do you think it's achievable? And to hear them go from Don't be crazy to Yes, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's enriching. It's probably my favorite thing.

Yeah, okay, and that's good. So I guess from my perspective, in terms of the sort of coaching conversations I have, I'd say it's similar to yours, and that I'm not exclusively coaching. I, you know, I don't just ask questions. I do mentoring and advice to some extent as well. And again, it's because most of my conversations are about domains that I'm reasonably confident in, in terms of what I get out of it. I like that helping people achieve. I like that. I like the improving optimism and confidence and in the moment, actually, in the moment of coaching, I really like the mental thought process of trying to understand and find questions and explore, and I find it quite an immersive and focused way to be. You know, you're really paying attention to somebody, and you're thinking through and you're trying to identify questions that they might not have thought of or find new ways to look at stuff. So it's kind of an absorbing intellectual process to some extent as well, which I like. So I do enjoy it. And is there any particular topics that's your favorite

topics? That's your favorite? Yeah, I guess most, pardon me, most of my conversations start with work related things, predominantly identifying goals in relation to work. But one of the things that I enjoy is when, after X amount of time, you know, one session, two sessions, whatever it happens to be, half an hour or three hours, the individuals I'm speaking to start to reflect on their personal situation, and suddenly they raise questions that are more deeply personal, that maybe they've not expressed with others before. That really. To their relationship with work, and then seeing that connection and having them start to open up and talk about those and find new ways around some of the things they challenge. I think that's interesting, something else. So my

favorite without question, is where you get people who have they've probably outgrown their role, got a little bit cynical, and they are behaving not to their abilities, but instead to their pay grade or job title, and might literally send them to me all day long. Fine. There is nothing more fun than having a conversation with someone who's I mean, they're in the process, so they want to learn, yeah, but they've become blinkered to the fact that they're behaving based on what it says on paper, not on who they really are, yeah? So they say, Oh, I'm not a leader because I'm not a manager. Well, you are, because everyone in the room listens to you, and your manager can't deal with you because you know more than they Yeah, they look at you, go, I might done that on occasion, and if anyone's listening, who's had coaching for me in that, trust me, you're not alone, and I'm not talking about you, because there's like, loads of

you funny, all right, so, so that's kind of like our intro chat. Why don't we hand over to our conversation with Jillian process, and we'll check in in a little bit. So here we are. Here's another chat with Gillian McMichael. All right, so let's move on to research Roundup. And as we said earlier, we're going to do it a bit differently. Again, we're, you know, we're focusing on coaching, as we said, and as we've done in prior episodes on coaching. We're going to have a conversation with Gillian, who did a lovely episode for us in series three, where we looked at coaching, what it is, and how it fits within the idea of behavior change, which was the focus of season three. What we're going to be doing today is focusing on coaching and learning a little bit. Little bit around how to become a coach and the journey of being a coach, and a little bit more about the industry for people interested in coaching from that angle. And as I said, we've got Gillian again since it's been a while, why don't we start with a bit of an introduction. So Gillian, do you want to introduce yourself again and let the listeners know a little bit about yourself? Yeah, thank

you, and thanks for inviting me back. Yeah. So I'm Gillian McMichael. My company is full circle global. We're a leading coach training provider based in the UK, in Edinburgh and London, but we also have operations in United Emirates and also in Europe. So I'm also a master coach, which I didn't mention last time, but I suppose it's quite a nice acculator. Yeah. It sounds like something from like a spiritual Eastern, yeah, yeah. So that's Yeah. So it's nice, nice to be back. So thank you. It's

really lovely to be back. I found our conversation last time really interesting, and it actually got me thinking quite a lot. And one of the things I regret not things I regret not asking you was what brought you to coaching in the first place, and I think it's really relevant for this. And what keeps you here?

That's a really good question, actually. So my background, I think I mentioned last time, was human resources and learning and development, and I did that for about 12 years, both in London and Scotland and Edinburgh, and I felt a little bit kind of frustrated with my HR role and learning and development role, because I worked for a consulting firm, so it was all about the bottom line, and people did come, unfortunately, second. So what happened was I was going through some changes in my own life. I was kind of asking those questions. Got to be something more. Need, a more rewarding job than this. And although I loved working with people and I really developing others, I felt, as I said, restricted. And then all of a sudden, my friend said, you know, have you thought about coaching? And I said, You know what, I'd really quite like to explore that, because the company that I work for had operations in the US, and coaching was really big, and it's still really big in the US. And so I was lucky enough to be involved in a project where we looked at bringing coaching skills back into the organization. So that was my although I've been coaching for a while, but it was more advisory coaching, not proper coaching, as I would call it now. And that was my first introduction. So once I I got coached myself, and I got coached by an ICF and international coach, Federation, coach in America, and it completely changed my whole outlook. And that was my first kind of proper personal self development experience that I'd had for quite a long, long time. So that was my introduction to coaching. And I thought, Hmm, sounds quite good. Quite like the idea of this. And so coming back and rolling, rolling out the project and so forth, after about, I think it's about after six months ago, actually, I really want to do this full time, right? So I left my job and set myself up, and haven't looked back since, yeah, so it's been amazing, actually. So I suppose what's kept me is the absolute belief that we all have amazing potential within us, within us, and knowing that, actually, you know, after loads of research, that we only ever, kind of ever reach 10% of that potential has kind of driven me on to kind of help more and more people get more of their potential out there and to live and work within that potential more so I suppose I find the job rewarding. I feel I'm like most probably, I feel at times I'm the luckiest person in the world, and I feel very humbled actually by the interactions that I have on a daily basis and the fact that you can, through a purposeful conversation, you can encourage and support. Support and help people to really achieve the life that they want to lead. It's pretty amazing, to be honest. Yeah, it's pretty powerful.

Those are, those are fairly, fairly clear reasons to keep and see why it's still going. You referenced in there about developing your own coaching skills as part of that earlier journey. What do you think the benefits are for someone? Let's say they don't want to be a coach full time, but but they want to learn to improve their coaching skills. What are the benefits to people? For me, I

always, I always believe it's a life skill. So I think you know, if you learn to coach and have coaching skills absolutely guaranteed, you'll have better and more effective conversations. You will know yourself more, so you'll know your strengths and maybe the areas that maybe are not not so strong in, and so it gives you that deeper self of awareness and understanding. I think you can build a better relationship with yourself and be more impactful in the in the conversations, in the work you do, because you know what drives and motivates you. So I think just even as a life skill alone, I think it's, it's brilliant, whether you want to use them in a professional context or not, then that's different. You know, it doesn't, doesn't really matter, because I think the skills that you learn, you can take with you in everyday life, interactions, and

you know, from your experience of becoming a young coach, what would you say some of the specific skills are that you learn by being a coach? What kind of

Yeah, so for me, listening, really, listening at a deeper level. So, you know, sometimes you listen, but you don't always hear, yeah, and had many managers like that, you know. So I think actually, genuinely listening and hearing somebody and then asking questions on the back of it, I think my questioning skills have got better. I think my listening skills have really, definitely improved over the years. But I think also that understanding others and actually appreciating where other people are in their lives, in their journeys of their life, and I think that just gives you greater insight to yourself, actually as well. And off the back of that,

what do you think the benefits are to organizations who invest in coaching skills and their staff

lots?

Obviously, I'm bang the gong for that one, but no, I mean lots, actually. So for me, you know better, overall communication between individuals and team members, retention is reduced. So staff retention turnover is good. You see a solution focused approach, rather than I've got a problem. Can you help me. So there's much more, I think, I think generally, just a greater self awareness. People will go the extra mile because they feel valued. And I think overall, you'll see much more effective people in the workplace, as I said, achieving that, achieving what needs to be done in less time, because they're much more solution focused. Yeah, is that your experience,

James? Because I know you've, you've worked in organizations where coaching has started to be brought in, yeah.

I mean, the last organization I worked in, we brought in coaching, and we have in that organization brought in coaching at the senior levels and at the senior levels. It's a powerful, powerful tool that, like you said, supports retention and supports a deeper set of development within the leaders. I've got some challenges around some of the areas that we're being focused on, in terms of developing skills for leadership. So that's a question or something I disagree in around what makes a good leader, but we were good at embedding some of those skills, which I don't necessarily think we should have done where we struggled in the organization I was in was to bring coaching in at some other lower levels, right? So throughout the organization, and we talked about it, but we weren't as good at it as I think we should have been. And I think part of it goes down to an understanding of really what some of those coaching skills are, and giving people the time and space to learn them, and also giving people the space to actually use them in their roles in the world, I

think so. Jill and you mentioned in the previous episode we recorded about how you're really passionate about leaving everyone should have access. And for me, until we crack, and in the nonprofit sector, particularly, we have this challenge until we crack a way of getting those coaching skills into people earlier in their career, so that they can peer coach, so they can reach outside the organization, help each other out. We're never going to make it cost effective enough, and there's always going to be this big jump, isn't there between those who can afford it and in the organizations invest

absolutely but I think that, for me, kind of goes that area of actually, maybe organizations creating more of a coaching culture, yeah. And I think that's where you can see the benefit quite quickly, actually. So if line managers, regardless of how experienced they are, so even if you start from the bottom up the bottom up the way, rather than bottom down, you know, if you can equip those line managers or those team leaders in how to have effective coaching conversations at work, then you're going to get a lot more peer to peer support through that. You'll have more effective conversations, better dialogs around career performance, all of that kind of stuff. We'll see. You'll see a massive improvement. But I think it is. It's not necessarily about investing in one to one coaching. It's also about investing in training and skilling managers and leaders to have better conversations at work. You know, you

know what that would mean. James only return on investment. Oh, no, that is true. Yes. Sorry. James has a Julian. Julian hasn't heard. Probably experience this. But James got a bit of a thing about return investment. But I was also thinking back to my ranting, uh, obsession about feedback culture and how much better I can imagine people would be at taking feedback, which we argue is quite significantly the most important thing to giving feedback, if they've been through that experience of learning coaching skills, right? Yeah,

because then it becomes a developmental conversation. It's more more observational based. Then, oh, can I give you feedback? Yes, we all immediately think the worst. Yes, absolutely. And also, no, you can't. Thanks. Yes. I'm not ready to

hear before we go on. You know, we in the organization that was in, we look to try and bring in some of the coaching aspect at lower levels and bring some skills in sort of manager and senior manager levels. And one of the things that I struggled with when I was trying to have conversations with people was making the shift away from the having a coaching conversation with somebody for the benefit of a person having the conversation versus the benefit of a person receiving it. So all these people were having conversations, but they were doing it for their own agenda, as opposed to genuinely trying to help a person that they were working

with. I like it. I like it when people try and, in their their own style, try and give you advice, and then just walk away like they've scattered gold on you. Yeah. What do I do with that? Yeah. What do you want me? How? How do I then put that into practice? And what's in it for you understand, and how does it help you develop as a person? And I'll be more effective, great. So, and, yeah,

I'll be tired. Okay, so one of the things I think would be really helpful, pretty much, we find our listeners are tend to be mates. A lot of them are where you were at the beginning of this journey in HR, or their emerging leaders. What? Um, what's the process for becoming a coach? How is, what's that journey like? Was it? Was it a hard one? What are the practical steps to it? Well, I

think that the key challenge is finding the right training provider. I think, you know, it is a bit of a minefield out there, and it can be a little bit kind of precarious in terms of finding the right person or the right organization for you. I think the key thing is, is that there are three professional bodies within the UK and actually, well globally, we've got the International Coach Federation, but you also have the Association for coaching, which is based in the UK, and you also have the European mentoring and coaching Council organization as well. Now those are three bodies that provide guidance and advice on who are the right providers. Now, we always decided to go with the International Coach Federation, because we wanted the global reach, and also because they've been around for 26 years plus, you know, they're kind of the leaders and the pioneers in best practice coaching. So I think my advice would be your first stop would be to do your research on the providers in your area. Have a look at the costings, their background, their qualifications, and also, if they're affiliated with a professional body or not, coaching isn't regulated, as we know, and I'm not sure, having sat and been a board member of the ICF a number of years ago, I'm not sure coaching actually will be regulated at this stage. However, there is a real desire to raise the standard of coaching across globally, across the whole world, in terms of, you know, the qualification standards and so forth. So for me, I think when anybody is looking, I would start to look at, well, who's providing the qualification? Is it a professional qualification? Is it recognized for one of those bodies? Yeah,

okay. And if you, if you choose a body and go with it, what's your actual journey like in terms of your training? What you know? What is that? What's it like? I guess? Yeah, well, I

mean, there's a number of qualifications you can do. There's the approved professional coach route, or there's the accredited route. And approved will mean that you'd need to get a minimum of 60 hours of training. Specifically? It fits, actually, it fits with all of them. Actually? Yeah. So there's a number of hours that you have to do, minimum, 60 hours to get your practical

approach and journey. You're going to go out there, you're going to do it, and then someone's going to give you feedback.

So a mixture will be a number of days, coach, training, learning, the skills, the tools, the techniques, the model, the competencies, if your competencies are related to the program, and then there'll be practical element of actually putting into practice what you've learned in the classroom. And on average, with any qualification, you have to do some practical, real kind of case study where you're coaching people and you get dedicated feedback. And so for those, I would say there are alternatives as well, such as university courses, which are equally as good, but take a different approach, because they're very suppose they're steeped more in theory rather than practical application. And my advice would be to decide depending, depending on your learning style. You know, Are you a person that really likes the theory and the hypothesis around coaching, or is somebody that would like the practical application? And I think that's where I would start to choose your provider accordingly based

upon that. Okay, and so you mentioned at the beginning of this that you are a master coach, which is a fabulous title. See that actually the aspiration? What's the day like for you as a coach and a leader of an organization like this? Well,

it's busy. It's good. It's good. It's good. So yeah, so it's a mixed bag, actually. So obviously, running a business is an aspect of nurturing current client relationships and continuing to build those and to seek for more work, because at the end of the day, running a business at the end of the day, so work needs to come in, but it's also about meeting clients, whether that's new clients, or working with clients on a one to one on team basis. I always start my day with meditating and getting myself in in the zone for my for my day, and mixing up with a bit of exercise, whether it's yoga or running or whatever that might be. And then I'll come into the office and just do what I need to do. So as I said, it'll be a mixture of managing the team. We're at the moment deciding on designing some new courses for kind of our suite of programs that we offer. But also I do, personally, I do a lot of kind of corporate work as well. So I'm very much kind of consulting with organizations, and I do a lot around supporting organizations with their coaching culture as well. So very varied, very enjoyable. And as I said, love every minute of it, really, but you do need to, I suppose, for me, maintaining that level of activity, you need to make sure that I've got a bit of self care going on at the same time. And is that, is that the biggest challenge being a

coach? I think so. I think when you get if anybody's like me, and they love it, it can get quite addictive, and not because it's all about you, because it's not about us at all. It's about the other person that you're working with. But actually, when you see somebody change, they physically change their facial expressions, change their how they hold their body changes, and you can see them really achieving major things in their life. And I think it's it's a such a positive space to be in. So sometimes when you go back to normal life, you have to realize that actually you've got to come out the coaching bubble and get on with normality. But I do think self care is very important, because when you're giving a lot and holding the space and people going through such big changes, you need to make sure that you're topping yourself up.

Yeah. So do you find it emotionally tiring having coaching sessions?

I find it energizing. Energizing. Yeah, it's the opposite for me. I find it very energizing. And I think, as I said, if you enjoy your work, that it doesn't feel like work. So that's another challenge. If you love your job so much, you don't really feel like it's actually going to work, and then it can all merge.

Does that make it harder for you to maintain boundaries between you and your clients? Or actually, is that something you find? No,

I'm very good at the boundaries. Piece for me, this is a professional relationship. It's one where I can help them get where they need to get to. So I never kind of blend any of that friends and socializing with with clients. I think it's very important actually, to keep the relationship really objective. I think it's important that both client and coach have their professional boundaries. And

obviously it's taken you a while to learn the things we've learned along the way. Um, maybe I'll phrase it in a circum circumnavigating the question, kind of like, what types of mistakes might other people make on their mistakes I've made that process of developing and becoming James. She's a coach. You

can take it, go on. I can take the hat question. Um, honestly, you make loads of mistakes, so you give too much of yourself, is one mistake very early doors, kind of, I think you know, when you have a lot of empathy for people, that can turn quite quickly into sympathy. So there's times where you've gone home and cried and not known why. And you know that sometimes transference can go on, which is not helpful, but you need supervision and support for that which is great mistakes. And just in terms of generally running a practice. So, for example, trusting people, it sounds awful, but trusting people that they're going to pay your bill and then they don't pay your bill, and you end up being a credit control, debt management person instead of being the coach that you wanted to be.

No, it's not finance world, right?

So you know, those are the mistakes where. So there's something about really getting yourself set up and getting organized from the outset if you're wanting to do coaching. And the other thing is, remember, for me, and because obviously we train a lot of coaches as well, lots of coaches come into this because they they care and they want to make a difference, which is wonderful, but you've also got to have a commercial head on you, because if you want to be an independent coach and set up a business, then you have to go out and knock on doors, so people need to know that you're around and you're available. And I think that can be quite a difficult challenge at the beginning, and it's a mistake that I think I've made, and others have made, that you think work will just appear, you know, and then it doesn't, and then you have to, then pick up the phone, or, yeah, do other things to try and meet new

clients in um, I when I went to university, I knew a lot of people who trained as vets. For some reason, like all my friends, were vets, and nearly all of them stopped being vets very shortly after qualifying. And they became vets because they wanted to work with animals, and they all stopped being vets because they learned that they were working with people, right? So it's about being clear on what you're actually getting into. I think

it is. I agree with that. And I think, you know, I think, for me, that there is something there around having that business head on, whilst also balancing the care and wanting to make a difference. And if you can get that balance right, you can be really successful. But as a trainer. Provider. I mean, we've been quite lucky. I mean, 68% of our clients have gone on to be successful in their own coaching practice. The rest have either taken it back in house, or others have just decided that actually, that selling and marketing themselves isn't for them. And I think you know that then becomes a life skill, or you could do voluntary. So there's an opportunity to use your coaching skills. But still, you know, if you want to make a business of it, you've got to

have the right head on. Yeah, and you said you've been running this organization. Was it 18 years you've been doing? Well, I've been doing coaching for 18 years, and I set up in 2004 fine.

Okay, so that's about 15 years we've been running this organization. Have you seen a change in the demand for coaching? What's for what, I guess, what's the public perception of coaching like now compared to where it was in the beginning. And demand changed. I think it's

changed quite a lot, actually. So when I started, when I used to go networking, and, you know, you do all the rounds and stuff, and then you'd get comments like, Oh, here's another coach. You know, as you walk through the door, you're like, oh, gosh, you go again. So, so, you know, I think there is this kind of, when I started, it was life coaching. Somebody thought it was a tree hugger, obviously, which we're not, but everybody thought it's very Americanized and all of this kind of thing. And actually, you know, there is a time and a place for all of that, and it's equally as important. But I think there was this kind of it's not going to last. It's a bit of a new fad. But actually, over the years, what's happened is that there's a real desire for people to invest in their own development. And I've seen a lot of that change. So organizations are sending their people to become coaches. A lot of organizations are doing that. And then we've also got a lot of people taking back control over their life in terms of how they want to lead it. What do they want to be doing with their life? And I think, as we know is that challenge isn't the question that I always say that at the moment, that we've lost our leadership in the world at the moment, and I think more and more people come back, but a sense of, you know, we've got, not got any kind of core leadership. So actually, people are finding it now from within themselves. And more and more people are asking about, well, what's my purpose? And trying to find more purpose in the work, I suppose, and and that's been the big shift, both from a corporate perspective and also from a private perspective. And it's not just happening here in the UK. It's happening all over the world. And we've seen that in cultures where perhaps they've been much more subservient. In cultures where they've been much more Yes, we'll, we'll kind of do what we need to do and be told what to do. And now, actually, that the whole dynamic is changing of who they are and what they're what they're all about.

I think it's really interesting. So for listeners, we're recording this episode a week before Brexit may or may not happen at that given time in March, and there's two people that I've seen emerge in the last week in very different contexts that I think are brilliant at showing how people have taken ownership of their own journey. One is the New Zealand Prime Minister. They've had a terrible tragedy over there, and she has very clearly gone out and defined who she is, and it is completely different from any other leadership model we've seen. And the other is a ex rapper and historian called a Carla who has been talking taking on my personal favorite, Piers Morgan about knife crime and what the racial quantities. And I think there's a really interesting thing about both of them that they have clearly mapped out their own journey, and it has a very clear sense of self. And I don't, I don't believe that can come without really deep, meaningful conversations with other people in whatever form. And it may be, it's professional coaching, maybe it's not, but there's clearly something about developing their own sense of identity. Well, it's going back to yourself and being clear on who you are, and the certainty that comes with that is powerful.

And I think for me, it was coaching. I guess the link for me is that for me, it was the experience of coaching, and also I do quite a lot of mentoring in my sector, and it's the mentoring and that role and that open got dialog that's helped me understand my own and I think

there's something about I think what you described with those two individuals is that they really honest with themselves as well. And I think when you start on any learning journey where you're looking within, you have to start being really honest with yourself. And it's that sense of really looking in the mirror and seeing who you are and what you're all about. And you might not necessarily always like what you see, but that's okay, because learning will come through that, and you'll understand more about yourself. And I think it's then about using your voice, and I think by sharing who you are. And again, you know, we don't always show that side of ourselves, and I think that's most probably what's missing in many leaders. But actually, you know, if we started to show who we really are and be true to that in terms of true to ourselves in that authentic sense, then actually we'll most probably make greater connections, and people will achieve so much more so.

In the spirit of that, I'm just curious as you, as you mentioned you had coaching yourself when we were talking previously, what do you what aspirations Do you still have? Because you're running a great business, you're doing work you love, how do you keep yourself motivated? What are you looking for?

I think I've most probably set myself to what we're my own kind of lifelong learning journey. I think that's something that I've found. I've realized that I am a lifelong learner. I didn't know that actually in my earlier years. I think that's come in my 40s, actually, I. So I think for me, there's that quest to get to know who I really am and so finding my purpose. And I strongly believe that my purpose is now to help others find theirs. It might sound very cliche, but actually it is in the work that I do, you know, I've set the intention, and I'm kind of on a quest to keep doing this and really help others understand who they are, so they can get the lives that they want to lead and have the careers that they want to have, and have that more meaningful life experience. So I think for me, it's about continuing. I don't think I'll ever be the finished article. Far from it. I think the one thing I've learned over the years is that actually taking that good look and actually understanding warts and all the bad bits you know, are actually equally as enriching with all the good stuff that you like about yourself. And I think if you're prepared to do that level of work, you'll find a sense of more peace and happiness within so that's my quest over the next few years, is to continue to grow and develop and understand more about myself so that I can help others do the same.

We talked a little bit earlier about how, you know, how there's a bit of a gap in leadership globally, about how people are looking to fill that by understanding themselves more and developing more as people and and that sort of inward looking clarity of purpose. And it feels like that's something that that's progressed over the last 10 or 15 years and become increasingly common and sought after by people. Do you feel that the coaching profession is changing in relation to the way the world is? Do you see changes in what coaches are doing and the way that organizational bodies are structured and what they look for and where they have I

do actually, it's interesting, because mindfulness meditation kind of that whole kind of well being piece is coming is really shifted right into the forefront of late. So team coaching and all the other stuff's been around for quite a while now, but I think, I think more and more people are engaging in wanting to have more of what I would cast as a holistic approach to their lives. And so I'm finding out there's more and more of that coming through, and that has been supported from the bodies. But also what's happening is that more and more people are wanting that, that what is my purpose? Why am I here? What am I doing? So the con, the conversations changed. Whereas before, it was very much about what can I achieve, it's much more now about what can I do for others. Great, and I think there's been a big shift in that of late.

So someone's out there listening, and they're like, oh, Julian sounds like, like I want to be. Oh, that sounds like the beginning, her beginning of my journey. Her journey sounds just like where I am. Yeah. What would your advice be? Well,

I think if you're at the stage of this, go and find somebody that you can talk to. I think, as you mentioned, it doesn't necessarily have to be a coach, but actually a coach will be most probably the best person to speak to, but find somebody that you can work with and just kind of have that initial exploratory conversation and then see how it goes from there,

all right? Well, I think we're kind of getting to the end of it, this conversation, if, if people are out there and they're maybe having a conversation about some coaching for themselves, is there anything to supplement it that they could do to maybe learn a little bit about being a coach. Is there any way to like to practice some of that coaching stuff about committing and jumping in and doing qualifications? Yeah, there is,

I mean, there's loads of organizations, including ours, I suppose that offer discovery days where you can have a taster, not just ours, but loads of other coaching providers that will give you a free day where you can have a taster of what coaching is about. You get a little bit of coaching practice and all of that kind of thing. But alternatively, you know, you can, you can get a group of people together if you wanted, but I would suggest that you you do bit of reading beforehand, before letting loose on on your colleagues or friends, just in case you might cause damage. I'll leave them hanging, but still, yeah. So I think, overall, I think, you know, try and seek out somebody who's running some taster sessions at least that will give you the professional experience that they might be looking for. And just

a reminder everyone listening, your organization is called Full Circle, yes, and you've got bases in the UK, in Edinburgh and in London, that's correct, yeah. So that's a starting point. If anyone's interested in person, if they want to get in touch, I could find it. Yeah,

it's www dot full circle global.com and if you want to email me, it's just Jillian with a G at full circle global.com cool, and

we'll share them to the website. We send out a wow mail with every podcast, just to signpost people to the right directions as well. Any last questions from you?

Jen, Oh, no. I thought that was fascinating. It's great to hear how how things are changing, you know, and to hear a little bit of the evolution of coaching over the last 15 years or so, and the way that the bodies are changing in relation to it. I thought that was really

interesting. Yeah, it's, I've never spoken someone who's been working and coaching for so long, so it's really interesting to hear the very different perspective. So thank you. Thank you. And with that, I guess that finished round up. Half research. Round up. Yeah, that's research. Thank you very much to Gillian for joining us. It sounds like there might be another episode in the pipeline around world leadership

as. You know James, and as you keep telling me that's a different story. Why is it just one? You keep saying just one about world leadership. Now probably just lock me in a room and turn the microphone off. So let's move on. Great. So that was our second conversation with Jillian, really interesting. I don't know how you found it. I always think it's it's really interesting to talk to other people doing coaching. You've been doing it a lot longer.

Yeah. I mean, I love speaking to anyone about their work. I mean, I think works fascinating anyway. And I'm interested in coaching and the side of things, so it's really interesting to get insights from, um, from someone who's been working in this area for a while. Like you said,

Okay, so, given we talked a little bit about the industry, you've got a list of the week that hopefully is quite relevant to this, yeah?

So what I thought we'd do for list of a week this time is to dig up some of our professional bodies that exist in the coaching space. So, you know, as we've said, coaching is a kind of a funny space. It's kind of still fairly new, unregulated. Yeah, it's fairly unregulated. I mean, I guess, for context, right? I'm a chartered accountant, so I've been through that professional body situation. I've done project management. I'm a chartered project manager, so I've been through that. So I've got experience of some of those areas and and for me, coaching feels a little bit less mature as an industry, and I think that's probably because it is and I think that comes across in the sort of variety of organizations and and the sort of positioning of organizations who are out there providing things like credentialing and certification and all that type of stuff, yeah, accreditation to help people understand the sort of knowledge and capabilities of the people that they're working with as coaches. And we touched on some of this a little bit in our conversation with Jillian, but what I've done is I've pulled up a list of five organizations that are out there as sort of oversight bodies for coaching, and I'm just going to mention them briefly so you can see see what they are. So first up is the Association for coaching. You know, it's one of the leading bodies, and like a lot of these bodies, it's got different grading. So it's got an associate membership, a membership and an accredited membership. And they've all got different, you know, levels of training and experience to get through them. The top one in the Association for coaching is the accredited member, or an AC accred, is how they talk about it. And you know, that's the most experience of their coaches. As with all of these things they like to call out. They've got a code of ethics and good practice, and, you know, they've got that sort of regulatory type process in there. So that's the Association for coaching. Then we've got the Association for professional executive coaching and supervision. Now, as it says, this is a body that focuses on executive coaching and also on the supervision of executive coaches. So you know, when people are coaching, they need to be supervised, or they often are supervised, particularly where they've got more complicated coaching relationships. So this, this organization calls that out, and as with all of them, it's got different membership categories. So it's got a practicing exec coach, accredited exec coach, and here that second one, the accredited coach is for higher level and once again, they've got ethical guidelines and all that kind of stuff, usual type of things. Then there's ICF. So we touched on that in our conversation with Gillian among some of the others, and that's the International Coach Federation, and they're one of the largest bodies. They really are international. They run three grades of ADV, associate for professional and the master. So Jillian's a master. I know that to get the master level, you need to have log 3000 hours of coaching, which is a lot of hours of coaching, right? I mean, that's, that's a lot of time. And associate is like 100 professionals, maybe 600 hours. So again, they've got the different levels of stuff in there. And then we've got the international authority for professional coaching and mentoring, 2004 foundation, one of the most recent bodies that's out there. And again, different membership categories, associate accredited professional standards and ethics, blah, blah, blah. And then there's a European mentoring and coaching council. So that's a Europe specific one. A lot of the others are more broad. And again, the European mentoring and coaching Council has got associate master and professional membership. Interestingly, they've got master is the middle and professional is the highest, whereas ICF has got professional as the middle and master is the highest. So you can see the sort of standardization across the industry is not really there. So that's the kind of the difference. And as with a lot of professional organizations, you get to become a member. You go through your training, you've got some theoretical training, you've got some practical experience, and let's be honest, you gotta pay right? That's what a lot of these things is. Or you pay to support the body and to acquire your membership, and then you pay annual subscription fees to be part of that membership as well. So for those of you looking into becoming coaches, those are some of the bodies that you might want to look at. And so I ended up choosing ICF. I guess I chose it because I'm a dual national US, UK. ICF has a fair amount of, you know, visibility in the US. So that was part of part of my driver on that. Yeah, as well as the fact that they're one of the largest organizations. So that's kind of a list of the week professional bodies associated with coaching. Have you Have I missed any? You got any?

I mean, I don't. I have to confess, I'm not nearly as close to it. I I'm still figuring out. So I'm due to do my coaching qualification this year and and I would have done it last year, but I'm currently studying a master's in Organizational Psychology, yeah. And I feel that the grounding I'm getting in that and the modules I've done so far give me enough, yeah? And, well, you

know what? There's a lot of, I mean, we talk there about the professional bodies, but obviously there's a huge amount of coaching qualification through academia. So for example, the

department that I'm doing my master also does a postgraduate certificate coaching, yeah, and a lot of places do that. And I think I'm figuring out at the moment, so I'm, I'm literally in the process of figuring out which one, and I guess my slight frustration is that I have yet to find one that I am truly comfortable with their approach. And maybe that's because I don't think I'm a coach, but then I didn't want to call myself, right? And that's why I said, Oh, I'm not really a coach. I kind of, Am I, yeah,

and I'm kind of in the same boat. I chose one to go with, but I'm not. I'm not convinced I'm a coach either. I think, no, I want coaching skills, but I want to, you know, I want to have conversations with people in my own way to some extent. Yeah,

I always joke about it. So when people were talking to me about what name my business was going to have, I used to we threw a whole load to me and some friends through a whole load of round around, compassing, navigation, because quite often I feel like the role of what I do is about creating, being a navigator for someone who's trying to find their way, whether that's through a problem, whether that's to another place, whether that's they don't know where yet, and then we Write the map. It's about those navigation skills and that that requires a number of things, and that requires an understanding of their industry and understanding of the sector, but it also requires an understanding of how to challenge them and have difficult conversations and and largely for me, coaching is having difficult conversations,

yeah or Yeah. It falls under that for me, it's helping people explore things more thoroughly that they might not want to explore. So some of it's about and helping them challenge themselves. Some of it's about challenging them. Yeah. And difficult doesn't

always have to be challenging. Sometimes they're just difficult because you don't know what you don't know what the next. And so when I talk about difficult conversations, I just mean they're conversations that I can't do on my own. Yeah? So there are a huge number of conversations I have with myself, as I'm sure we all do every day, the difficult ones, and I don't mean scary or challenging, I just mean literally, I can't on my own. Yeah, have that conversation because I don't know what the next question is, yeah. So that's kind of where I am with. It great to see where you end up. Yes,

it will be. I suspect I will end up wherever you aren't for the sole reason that I'm nosy, and you've already told me a little bit. Yeah, terrible. That's a great reason. She's all about learning.

Cool. All right, so stories from the keyboard. So have you got any reflections on your journey to become the coach that you are a minute? Have you got any lessons learned a long way. Yeah. I mean,

I'm horribly biased because I don't know that I would enjoy coaching. And I will caveat this because I don't know. I'm not saying I don't know in a kind of pseudo dismissive way, I genuinely don't know if I'd enjoy coaching outside of my sector. Okay, I absolutely love being able to share my experiences and my knowledge and use that as part of a conversation. And I think most of the coaching methods I've seen don't allow for that, yeah, okay. And therefore, for me, if I was and it's been, it's when coaching has been most helpful for me as well, is when someone's really taking the time to understand my context. So for me, that mentoring coaching combo is really good. And I would say that my, I guess, I guess my experience of coaching has been that I uh, the other the example I would give you is, you know, you asked me earlier about what I enjoy most about it, and I was talking about people getting, taking, making a move and, yeah, you know, actually having achievement and meeting the impact. Well, I guess my story would be really specifically in that situation, someone who is very clear in where their direction is, but doesn't know how to get there and needs someone to challenge their behavior. Yeah, I did that, and her exact words to me were, I love that you give me direction. Now that's not allowed for really, within most coaching models. Yeah, that's right. And I don't give people direction and tell them what to do. I give people suggestions of how I think they could take direction, yeah, or what direction to move in. But the for me, that's been really satisfying, yeah. And I think it depends who you are, right, yeah, of course, and what you're looking for, yeah, but certainly earlier on in your career, I think that. Mentoring, coaching. Finding a coach that's also got the experience of your industry is

just really helpful, yeah? And I think that really is sort of mentoring with coaching style, or mentoring with coaching questions equivalent. Yeah, it's the equivalent of when a manager has coaching skills, right? Yeah,

yeah, exactly. But it's almost like outsourced mentor outsource, and it's a little bit more independent, and it's also allow and it's more aligned to your personal goals, and yeah, and also,

I'm more able to not put the organ, one of the challenges managers that always have to put the organization first. Yeah, that's right. You can really align to the individual. So for me, that's it. And the one thing I would say, almost like a personal manager, kind of just

no one would ever hire me as their personal manager. You met me, James. So what I would say is, I guess that story is that that coaching that I'm currently doing is all paid for by the organization because they recognize the benefit of someone external doing that coaching, and they very specifically, clearly said to me, when, when they when they started, this is not pure coaching. This will be different for the different people, and we suspect there's a large part of mentoring in it, yeah, but we would like someone who is actually paid to do it, rather than people having to find their own because they're not ready. Yeah, I really admire that great investment in that people, isn't it? Yeah.

So I guess a couple bits from me on experience of becoming a coach, obviously, I'm, you know, I've done all my sort of classroom stuff for approach what I'm doing through ICF, I'm doing my training. I've got other bits and pieces, and I guess a couple bits stand out from me in terms of my own journey. One is the growth in confidence I've had and how much more I enjoy the coaching process than I used to. As with you, I kind of do mentoring as well as coaching, but sometimes I'm more in the coaching space, but really how, with time and experience and working with a variety of people from a variety of industries and a variety of different stages in their lives, everyone I work with work related coaching, how my confidence has grown with that and my ability to help people has grown? So that's interesting because, I'm because it's just good to see. The other thing that I think kind of supports that is the real kind of belief in the process, right? So sometimes I have coaching sessions, and I come out and I'm like, Well, gosh, did I do anything? I mean, like, what was I doing there, right? And I'm asking questions on all of this stuff, but really it's, it's for belief in the process, and the fact that, you know, people really benefit from the reflection and the, you know, supporting and challenging questions and that helps them achieve things. And really, you know, knowing and seeing repeatedly, the benefit of that type of questioning for people is, I probably correlated with my increase in confidence, but also been really interesting to see and reaffirm the approach in lots of ways. So I guess those are my reflections. Okay,

and then I guess that moves us nearly any top tips for people in the world of coaching, tops just before we do Yeah, has anything bad ever happened to you, or is there any mistakes you've ever made in coaching that you kind of hang your head in shame? God, I can't believe I did that. Well, I do that consistently.

So without question, my best was turning up and not having booked a meeting room, and instead of finding somewhere else, trying to do a coaching session in a really busy bar. Yeah, it wasn't busy when we turned up, but by the end, all the work lock came in was drunk, yeah, and we were trying to have a really meaningful conversation. It doesn't really work. And the other thing I sometimes do on Skype coaching, and apologies if you've ever done it, is I forget that my dog is, isn't, is not locked away in the kitchen, and suddenly the dog will appear behind my head on my Skype screen. And so, yeah, suddenly, like, having a really serious conversation, and then they're like, is that your dog? Sorry. Just ignore, just dog move. So those are the two things

I like. Sometimes I have a little mind phrase, and I'm like, panicking about, oh no, I need to find another question. Where am I going to go with this? I don't know where to go when I get a bit kind of lost in that sometimes. And then sometimes I find, if it's a really, you know, interesting conversation, I kind of get absorbed in it, and forget that I'm kind of doing any of the coaching stuff, and I get a bit lost as well, really interesting where they can go next, and I kind of get the stage where I think somebody else is running with conversation, yeah? And kind of forget it,

yeah. That also happens. I think that's normal, yeah. I think when you've got really good rapport with someone, it becomes and I think sometimes that just takes the edge off, yeah, yeah. Okay. Top Tips. Top Tips. Um,

I think what I would say is that, you know, being a coach isn't for everyone. It can be, you know, takes a lot of energy, all that kind of stuff. You got to prep, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I think pretty much everyone in work benefits from having coaching skills, right? So just in the same way that you're not really coaching, you do a lot of mentoring or outsourced management or whatever you want to say, right? But having the coaching skills is really useful, and I'd say that it's probably worth pretty much everyone exploring what coaching skills are and questioning and active listening and all that kind of stuff. I. Um, because I think they're really beneficial. But, you know, I mean, this episode is about basically becoming a coach. I don't think that's right for everyone, but it's worth learning some of those in my life. I know that should not be coaches,

yeah, yeah, but I don't think they'd want to be. No, I think, but I think some of those skills are really useful. I think everyone should

sort of, well, it's like, it's like, it's the same thing, it's, it's, we did a whole episode on taking feedback. Well, feedback, but it was really about taking feedback. And, yeah, it's the same thing. It's useful to understand what those skills are, even if you don't want to use them all the time. Yeah. What about you? So my top tip is to ask for progress reports. Okay, and I don't mean like written reports, but ask people, What are you getting out of this? Is this useful? Yeah, are we checking in? It's good, yeah.

It's been really interesting. It's you have to be brave, right? You have to stomach it. Because people might tell you, this isn't, I was hoping to do a bit more of this or whatever, but I quite often am getting much more confident about what would you like to talk about? And if they don't know, that's fine, then you move on. But quite often there are people, particularly junior staff, who I haven't asked we've got halfway through, and they're like, oh, and I've got these three things to talk to

you on that Well, I start pretty much now. Pretty much all my conversations start with a phase of contracting looking at what that conversation is, yeah, today, you know, what do you want to speak about today? What do you want to get out of today? How will you know that we've had a good conversation? How will it feel about and

I find that useful when people are of a certain experience, yeah, I find so I do some work with very, not very junior, but less career experience people, yeah. And that's much harder for them to kind of look at you a little bit panicked, yeah.

And what I'd say for me is, in situations where people are at that less experienced stage. I do one or two structured sessions, and then I find that by the time I get to the third session, it can become a bit more freeform, but I

still tend to find with some of them, I need to give them options. So I say, Well, we could we talked about this last time so we could talk about this or this? And then they kind of go, Oh, that one please. And that's I find that really helpful, because then they feel informed and empowered, but it's been really surprising to me. Actually, quite often I have, I've been through periods of having conversations with people and so not sure how much they're getting out of it, yeah? And then they've gone, no, no, I really liked it this way, because it's really, I just like talking

it through with you. And for me, that's our belief in the process piece, right? And listeners

can't see, but I've got a puzzle, yeah? Really, that's helpful. And they're like, yeah, really thinking that gives me space. And I'm like, oh, which, of course it does. I mean, like, it's so obvious when you say it

cool. Well, I guess that is, uh, becoming a coach. What it's like to be a coach. Thoughts from a master, mistakes. We make. Some other things good about being a coach, yeah, all things coaching. So, let's get ready to get out of here. If you want to get in touch with us and give us any feedback, coaching feedback, if you want to give us some mentoring, comment, if you want to do any of that stuff, you can email us. We never talk about the email. JJ, at the wild podcast, you've got that dog.org. At the wild podcast.org. Very important.org bit there. And of course, that's our website, the WoW podcast.org, itself. You got us on Twitter, at the WoW podcast, and I guess that's it. Review us on items, yeah,

and I would say, and I've never done this before, and I can't believe I'm going to do it, but I am going to do it. We are. We do both. Do some individual work, not much, but we do do some. So if anyone's interested about that, you can email us at JJ, at the web. Yeah, that's good show, because we do do some, and if you're interesting, then we might be interested.

Oh, look at that. Raise the bar. I just really like talking to interesting. Yeah. Said. Why me? Too. Me too, absolutely. All right. So that is us getting ready to check out. We got all the usual stuff. Facebook. We talked about Facebook earlier. You can always

we talked about Facebook, we talked about iTunes. We didn't talk about LinkedIn, but absolutely you can't find us on there, and feel free to follow us on LinkedIn. We both share quite a lot of content. It's quite interesting. And as always, you can sign up for the while mail at our website, which you've mentioned, cool and happy coaching everybody. All right, that didn't

really that was James is trying to make certain phrases happen. Yeah, they're not gonna happen. Okay? China, it's like the puns, yeah, we'll get there. All right. We'll make a podcast about that, yeah?

All right, yes, we will provide investment for turn on investment. All right, guys, I will see you later. And what do you say? Jen, you say goodbye for me, and it's goodbye for me.