The Complete Life Coaching Master Class

The concept of coaching is that each individual is whole and capable, and can achieve whatever it is they desire to achieve, but they’re often blind to it. The purpose of the first coaching session is to gain insights and accelerate understanding with you and the client.

To target those purposes above in the first coaching call using the Personal Professional Profile, you want to start by understanding who the clients are and where they want to go. You can do this by focusing on the client’s view of her goals and objectives. You’re taking what the client said in the Personal Professional Profile or the previous introductory meeting, and just building on it. You want to understand who the client is in more depth and where the client wants to go. Specifically, one of the most important things you want to do in this first call is to get clear on what the client’s goals are so that we can measure them.

The next step, after you’ve gotten the client’s viewpoint on the goals and objectives, is to start to help the client become more aware of what’s true today regarding those goals and objectives. To do that, you may want to coordinate the goals the client shared with you in the introductory call with goals the client shared on the Personal Professional Profile form.

When you are getting the client’s viewpoint around her goals, you want to make sure the goal has clarity. For example, one of the goals we’ve seen this client share is: “I want to be a better leader”.

Some clients will send you their Personal Professional Profile form all filled out right away. Other clients simply have a lack of follow-thru, and you may find that you get to one or two days before your first coaching call, and the client still hasn’t sent the PPP form back to you. What can you do?

It’s your turn to better understand the client and her goals.

Now that we know the clients goals, it’s time to identify assets the client has to help her move forward and obstacles the client has that may be getting in her way. In other words, we want to figure out who the client is, what her gifts and talents are, and how she is wired to meet those goals. We want to identify the tools the client has at her disposal that you both can rely upon in the future to move beyond whatever obstacles pop-up.

One of the best assets you have from that PPP form that the client filled out is access to the client’s strengths to meet their goals.

Another great asset you have from that Personal Professional Profile form that the client filled out is access to the client’s current weaknesses or obstacles to meet their goals.

One of your key roles as a coach is to try to help people recognize that whatever they see as their shortcomings is not who they are. Instead, they have created a behavior pattern of that shortcoming. Watch as the coach does that below.

In the first section of this chapter, you learned how to get clarity around the client’s goals and objectives. In the second section of this chapter, you learned how to leverage the client’s strengths and weaknesses.

It’s your turn to highlight historical strengths and weaknesses of the client.

It’s time to help the client choose a thing or two that the client can do in each of these areas over the course of the next couple of weeks, that will be moving the client in the right direction. These things should be a bit of a stretch, but also things that the client would be comfortable and confident to take on.

By the end of this call, we’re going to have a better picture of what each of the client’s goals mean for the client.

Let’s take a look at the client’s second goal to see how the coach helps her select a second stretch task to work on.

Often times the client will say one goal, but as you dive deeper, it really is the result of something completely different that the client needs to work on. Take a look at the interaction below with the coach and the client (who said lack of production was an issue, but it really was an organization problem)

We’ve learned that you always want to take notes during your coaching calls, including this one. These notes are ‘relatively organized’ but they’re not something you would send to a client. You don’t have to take all these notes and organize them or rewrite them. Instead, you just take them and read them after the call.

It’s your turn to assign the client comfortable stretch tasks at the end of the first coaching session.

Clearing the path to coach the client into the future really means that we’re helping clients begin to get ideas on how they are going to live their life while they’re achieving goals. You want them to have a vision of balance and integration as they’re working on their goals, so that this doesn’t become a sprint that is unsustainable.

In order to do that, the first step, even before the call, is to review the client’s SMART goals to ensure you know how to reconnect to her goals and capabilities.

As you are starting to solidify the goal(s) and the measurement of those goals for the client thus far in the coaching process, you also want to check in on that stretch task you assigned at the end of the last coaching session. You’re checking in on any commitments the client made to do from that call. And then, you can ask the client what helped her succeed with that commitment.

Recall in the morning of the day of each coaching call with the client, you spend about 5 minutes getting feedback to connect yourself with what the last conversation was that you had with your client in the last coaching call. Your goal when revising the notes for the next coaching call, is to find out what the key things are that you want to check-in with the client.

It’s your turn to reconnect the client to her goals and capabilities.

After you have gone over where the client was with the stretch goal and how that came out, the next step is to talk about how the client can continue to move in the direction of the goals that are important to the client in a way that is fulfilling and integrated in the life that they desire, without becoming too challenging in those other key areas in their lives

To begin this process of focusing on client goals to enhance life integration, we want to start by getting more specific and SMART on the lagging indicators of the goals of the client.

Now that we have the leading indicators set for the goal, we need to look at the obstacles that are getting in the way for the client to achieve those leading indicator goals.

We have now addressed the client’s capabilities. We have talked about who the client is when she’s great (loyal, committed), we talked about her energy, we talked about her success. We reconnected her to her gifts and talents. We talked about how she became aware of who she was being when she was being harsh with herself and how she became aware of how she would show up differently and how much better it would be.

It’s your turn to help the client focus on the her goals while enhancing the client’s life integration.

Once we’ve gone through the above tasks for the client in this second coaching session, we want to again (just like in the first coaching session) assign the client some exercises to do to enhance their goals and their life fulfillment.

We’ve already gained a great deal of insight into this clients goals, including three year goals and objectives. What we want to do now is to actually cast that vision out a little further so that there’s a ten-year vision in it and fine tune their mission.

Prior to actually having the next call you will want/need to transition the client from the previous call to this one so that the client has had some time to start to think about her mission, her vision and her key values ahead of time.

It’s your turn to transition the client to the mission, vision, principles stretch task to help her take hold of her future.

It’s time to actually go into the coaching session where we go over the actual stretch task with the client. We want to go over the mission, vision, values and see how things went. In particular, we want to start with the Mission.

Where some clients happen to be they have to get a good positive energy twist.

It’s your turn to connect the client’s mission to their life.

Do your clients have an action plan for their life? Many people create a life plan or a business plan or a relationship plan or a health plan and then discover years later they’ve never stuck to it. Either the plan was too large in scope, leaving it unattainable, or it wasn’t practical enough to be actionable and useful in their practice. You’re about to learn a short and sweet ten-step recipe to create a goal plan that will help your clients set meaningful goals AND achieve them.

One of the most inspiring things for your cl to write down one hundred things he wanted to do before he died. Prior to this moment in his life, Jason had never thought about those things before. Before this day, it was all about just showing up and seeing what happened that day (the wandering generality).

What is your “why”? Why are you even getting out of bed in the morning? What is your why for doing anything? What are you even showing up for? You’ve got to be in touch with your why. You really need to be in touch with that “why” in order to make the “how” more doable. Otherwise, there’s really no energy behind the actions you need to take to do things if you don’t know where the actions are going to lead you.

The ten-year vision gives you the image of what you want your life to look like ten years from now. Your ten-year vision needs to be absolutely different from the person sitting next to you. What joy is there in just running somebody else’s version of your life? You’ll learn how to create your own vision later on in this lesson.

You’ve got your mission. You’ve got your vision. How are you going to identify who you are on your journey? How are you going to execute or accomplish your vision or realize your mission?

When your actions are in alignment with your strengths, then magic happens. That magic will put you on the right trajectory to your most amazing future, including the ten-year vision you’re trying to accomplish. Your strengths are those things that make you feel powerful and energized.

If you are in business, this step will apply. When you created your ten-year vision in step three, you already wrote down your ideal client (income and assets), but that’s not enough. What is it about those people that would make you excited to have them show up on your calendar?

If you are in business, this step will apply. What toolbox are you going to bring to your business or your life? How are you going to do what it is that you do? Your life or business process represents the proprietary steps you will take to ensure that you provide the most value and deliver the best process and product to your target audience.

It’s time to bring your ten-year vision closer to you. If you’re on your life journey with a clear mission and you’re reaching your three-year goal, then that puts you in alignment with your ten-year vision we talked about earlier.

For you to be where you want to be in three years, what has to happen in one year for you to feel good about your progress? The answer to that questions for you is your one-year commitment.

The quarterly building blocks are three commitments that, if completed, will put you in line with your one-year commitment above. Your quarterly building blocks can focus on any of the pieces to your one-year commitment above.

Your playing-field reality represents the challenges and opportunities you have right now to achieve your goals and visions. What current challenges or issues are you facing right now that are getting in the way of achieving your goals? What current opportunities do you have right now that can help you achieve your goals?

Many people are spending time each day working in their life or career doing things. However, they often are NOT spending additional time on a weekly basis when they’re not in their life or career, working on their life or career with something called a Weekly Reflection (See Appendix B). That would be an area where it would not be unusual for a person at any point in their career needing some work on their life or career.

Write down the one hundred things you want to do before you die.

Using the word columns below, fill out the Mission Statement with principles true for you.

One of the most powerful, yet underutilized, tools we have for propelling our lives forward is a compelling vision. These visions, when optimized, involve all of our senses and engage our emotions.

The objective is to tap into and amplify our deepest desires, which, in turn, release a constant flow of energy to empower our actions forward.

Describe your ten-year vision in extreme detail below. (Consider these areas: personal, professional, financial, spiritual, physical, mental, relationships, etc.)

Our principles are the ethical guideposts we plant that help us make decisions in alignment with our best selves. In the following exercises, we are going to discuss and identify three different types of values.

Research shows that the majority of people do not make full use of their talents and gifts at work. In fact, only one third of people believe they use all of their strengths at work and are contributing to their organizations in a positive manner. These exercises are to clarify exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are and to help you inventory how much time you are spending doing those things that make you feel strong and give your performance an edge.

What kind of people truly boost your energy when you work with them?

It’s time to bring your ten-year vision closer to you. If you’re on your life journey with a clear mission and you’re reaching your three-year goals, then that puts you in alignment with your ten-year vision we talked about earlier.

For you to be on target for your three-year goals above, what has to happen in one year for you to feel good about your progress? The answer to that question for you is determined by your one-year commitment.

The quarterly building blocks are three commitments you aim to accomplish in the short term. If you do them this quarter, they will put you in line with your one-year commitment. Your quarterly building blocks can focus on any of the pieces to your one-year commitment we discussed above.

Your playing-field reality represents the challenges and opportunities you have right now on your path to achieving your goals and visions.

Once you have gotten this far, you are ready to get into the actual “traditional” coaching that most people think of when they think of coaching.

When you get to this stage in the coaching process, you already know what the client’s goals are. You know the client’s short and intermediate goals from the PPP process. You know the client’s long term mission, vision and 10-year goals form the MVP process.

It’s your turn to address the right coaching goals for your clients.

Now that you know the coaching goals of the client, you need to ask questions that provocative and deep enough to shift the energy of the client. They are soul searching because they create that “ah-ha” moment that every great coach is able to create. They are able to influence how our clients see the world and their frame of reference.

One of the most powerful tools I have ever seen for coaches to use again and again in coaching calls are GPS questions. These are questions that help a client get very clear about where she is in relationship to her vision, what the gap is, and then help her identify actions that will shrink that gap.

Empowering questions are powerful, open-ended, clarity seeking, probing, challenging, thought-provoking, future directed, solution oriented questions that cause a person to search for answers and new possibilities.

A coach must be able to evaluate whether the client is making progress or not. In this way, the coach can evaluate, inspire, and allow the client to see his/her progress. This is particularly helpful when a client hits a slowdown period. The coach and client evaluate the client’s progress based upon already established (between the coach and client) criteria.

Sometimes you will need and want questions to ask your clients that pertain to a specific area of their lives. Recall there are ten major areas of each client’s life that are broken out into Life’s Top Ten List below.

It’s your turn to ask the right questions during a coaching call.

Now that you know the goals of the client and you’ve asked the right questions to help them find new breakthroughs and new revelations, it’s time to employ the tools as a “coach-sultant” that will ultimately lead to a transformation in the clients’ lives.

If you want to get some coaching clients, you’re going to need to call them and set up a meeting with them. Even though this isn’t easy for most coaches, (because it’s essentially prospecting), and coaches don’t need to do a lot of this, there’s still no getting around it.

It’s time for the telephone call to set an appointment with the prospect for an introductory meeting. This initial meeting is complimentary (free). It’s designed to see if it’s a fit, and as such, you will not be charging the client for this introductory meeting.

It’s your turn to craft your personalized phoning language to set up an introductory meeting with the prospect to explore a mutually beneficial relationship.

When you pick up the phone to call prospects who may be considering coaching, it is only natural that they will have objections and pushbacks. There are a lot of ways prospects can push back on the call. It’s the prospects job to push back. Remember, people aren’t accustomed to change. If you understand that and know this is natural, it will help you be calm and collectively handle those objections, and attract them even further. Below are some of the most common objections.

It’s your turn to handle objections to an introductory meeting that detach from the end result and still show value and the possibility for a mutually beneficial relationship.

Sometimes the prospect will not answer the phone when you call. In fact, that can happen more often than not. Below is what you can do when that happens to ensure you maintain a relationship and keep one foot in the door for a potential call in the future.

It’s your turn to contact prospects that don’t answer the phone. Some of the language below is language you will say personally, and other language you will ask your assistant to do. Either way, it would be worthwhile for you to practice so that you understand it and can explain it. (If you don’t have an assistant, this will also be beneficial for you).