Men’s Coaching Foundations 1: Challenge Identification

by Leigh. Posted on November 28, 2013

28 Nov

NOTE: If you haven’t already read the article ‘The Problem with Men‘, please do that first. It’s necessary background information for delivering effective coaching.

You can’t fix a problem until you know what it is.

Well, actually, that’s a lie. You can fix a problem without knowing what it is. You can keep trying different methods, techniques and tools until you accidentally stumble onto something that seems to work and the problem seems to vanish.

I know this because before I knew what I was doing, this was my approach.

I would try and try and try and eventually (most of the time), the problem would vanish.

The problem with this is that at best, it’s hit and miss. You’re just throwing mud at the wall and hoping that something sticks.

And at worst, you could be taking the client down a path that not only doesn’t eliminate the real challenge, but actually makes it worse.

You could be reinforcing the very issue that the client came to solve and leaving them with a tougher road ahead.

To make sure you don’t end up not only wasting yours and your clients time and money, and exacerbating the challenges they’re facing, you MUST start any coaching session by identifying the ACTUAL challenge that your client is facing.

How do you do that? That’s a good question.

There are two KEY concepts that you must understand to be able to do this effectively.

1. Identifying his Dependence

The first step in any coaching session is to work out what the real challenge is for yourself. Not to blurt it out and throw it in the clients face, but to understand for yourself, what’s really going on underneath the surface.

You have to work out for yourself, what the client is depending on to have what experience.

NOTE: If you haven’t done it yet, read this article. It’ll help you understand what Dependence is and how it works.

Both of these parts are essential in finding the actual challenge because different people can depend on the same thing for different experiences and also seek the same experience through completely different pathways.

A client could be chasing women because he feels disconnected from people around him and wants to feel connected.

A client could be chasing women because he feels insignificant and thinks getting a woman will make prove that he’s significant and important.

A client could getting into physical confrontations because he thinks that will prove he’s significant.

The desired experience and pathway that are being followed are two totally separate elements and you must identify both of them to understand the real challenge that your client faces.

This becomes especially important in step two as you can’t facilitate a client working out what’s going on if you don’t know for yourself.

Don’t understand what I’m talking about? That’s because it’s explained here:

2. Fostering Independence

Answer this: If you just tell a client how he’s being Dependent and how to fix it, have you helped him become more Independent?

If he implements that solution, he might be less Dependent in that one area of his life. He might have dealt with his Dependence on women, on money, or on french poodles, but what happens when he faces another challenge?

What happens when he’s feeling stuck and frustrated and wants a way to deal with it?

Is he going to be better at finding his own solution? Or, because you just told him the problem last time without helping him realise the problem for himself, is he just going to be Dependent on you to show him the answer again?

Helping a client develop Independence doesn’t just involve showing him how and where he’s being Dependent and then telling him how to fix it because all you’re doing is making him Dependent on you to identify his problems and give him solutions.

Whilst you might help him be less Dependent in one area, you’re fostering Dependence in another.

And whilst this might be great for your coaching practice and bank balance, it’s going to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the change you make in the world.

This is why in order to really help the client develop independence, you must avoid telling them the problem and solution and always help them identify their own challenges and solutions.

“Do I just sit there in silence then?”

Yes. That’s what you need to do. Just sit there in silence. Winner’s choice 😉

Of course not. The way you facilitate a client finding his own challenges and problems is instead of telling him the problem or solution, you ask him questions that lead him to discover his problems and solutions.

You don’t tell him: “You depend on women’s responses to feel good about yourself.”

You ask him: “If you didn’t depend on positive responses from women to feel good about yourself, would it matter how they responded to you?”

You don’t tell him: “You’re dependent on other people’s permission to do what you want.”

You ask him: “If you didn’t rely on other peoples permission to do what you want, would it matter what they thought of you?”

Asking questions forces the client to analyse his current situation and helps him develop the ability to independently identify his problems and solutions rather than becoming Dependent on you for solutions.

Now, this might all seem very abstract without a concrete example so let me walk you through a typical coaching session.

Let me run you through an example:

EXAMPLE: Help, I'm running out of things to say!

Client: Help me! I’m running out of things to say when I’m talking to women. How do I fix this?

Coach: Ok, we can work on this. Running out of things to say isn’t the problem here. It’s a symptom of the problem. You’re running out of things to say because you want something and you think that running out of things to say is stopping you from getting it. So, what is running out of things to say stopping you from getting?

Client: Well, I meet hot women and start talking to them and then my mind goes blank. They just end up walking away and I end up standing there feeling stupid and hopeless and… alone.

Coach: Ok, so what do you want to happen?

Client: Well, I want her to be attracted to me!

Coach: Is that it? Is that the end point? Do you want her to be attracted to you and then just walk away afterwards or is there more? How far do you want this to go? What’s the end point?

Client: Oh, I see. Umm… Well, sex would be great, but more than that, I just want her to flirt with me and be attracted to me. I want her to want me. I want to be wanted.

Coach: And how would you feel if that happened?

Client: Umm… I don’t know. I guess I’d feel important, connected to someone… I’d feel like I was valuable and could achieve things. Like I was significant.

Coach: Ok, great response. So help me out here. I’m just trying to put this all together in my head. Can you just fill in the blanks here.

How do you currently feel when interacting with women?

Client: Umm… I feel hopeless and alone.

Coach: How do you want to feel?

Client: …connected and significant.

Coach: And how are you currently trying to experience that?

Client: …by getting women to like me and approve of me.

Coach: Great. So you currently feel hopeless and alone, you want to feel connected and significant, and the way you’re trying to experience that is by trying to get women to want you. Does that sounds like an effective way to feel connected and significant? Can you ever control what people think of you? Can you ever guarantee that they’re going to respond positively?

Client: No, you can’t. When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound very effective at all. It sounds difficult and stupid.

Coach: And how do you think this is effecting the way women respond to you? Do you think they’re excited by talking to a guy who needs their approval? Do you think they get a little wet around a guy who feels lonely and hopeless?

Client: Yeah, I see…

Coach: Great, because this is the real problem here. It’s not that you’re running out of things to say or that you want to feel important and connected, it’s that you’re trying to feel important and connected by getting approval from a place that you simply can’t control. And what’s making it even harder is the fact that you’re currently not the kind of Man that women want to respond positively to and so it’s making it even MORE difficult.

Client: Oh wow, I see that. I’m depending on women to make me feel good and the fact that I’m doing that is making them even less reluctant to make me feel good.

Coach: So talk to me about running out of things to say… Is this the real problem or is there something deeper?

Client: It’s just the surface level of the real problem. Isn’t it? So what’s the solution? If getting it from women isn’t going to work, what do I do?

Coach: That’s a good question…

In Conclusion

That’s one example of why it’s necessary to work with a client to find the actual problem they’re dealing with and how to do it in a way that fosters Independence.

If you just worked on coming up with things to talk about, then not only are you not fixing the real problem, you’re reinforcing the idea that it’s important to get people to respond positively to you.

This is the end of Coaching Foundations 1: Challenge Identification. Once you know what the issue is, you need to facilitate the client finding a solution to their challenge in a productive way.

You can read how to do that in Coaching Foundations 2: Finding a solution.

The Problem with Men

by Leigh. Posted on November 23, 2013

23 Nov

Despite what it might seem like on the surface, through the stories you’ve been told by personal development gurus and seen on the nightly news, the problems and challenges faced by Men aren’t multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, socially manifested distasters.

There aren’t hundreds of different issues that need to be addressed by hundreds of different and individually tailored solutions.

There is only one problem.

One simple, single, core issue that’s responsible for the pain, frustration, disappointment, and hopelessness.

What is it? Well, to understand it, you have to understand something about to internal drives and desires of Men. And to do that, we have to go back to the core.

What do Men really want?

For centuries, people have pondered the mysteries of life.

– Where did we come from?
– How did we form?
– Where are we going?

And most importantly, what do we want?

Whilst the first three are hotly debate topics with many different people backing many different opinions, the fourth is much simpler to answer.

It’s plastered across billboards, blasted at you through TV screens, and it screams at you from every second page of most glossy magazines.

We desire: Experience.

We want to feel… Happiness, excitement, love, connection, freedom, passion, power, and move away from any experience that feels wrong.

Whilst you might think that our evolution has made humans logical and thought based creatures, we still can’t escape our mammalian desires.

Whilst we can use logic to solve problems and create the greatest constructions this earth as ever seen, the deep drives that fuel these achievements is experience.

Here’s a simple experiment you can try to see this in action.

Think of an object our outcome you’d like: maybe a job you’ve always dreamed of, a competition you want to win, or even a girl you’d like to have in your life.

Then, as you’re thinking about it, ask yourself one simple question: In this moment, why do I want this?

Don’t drift off into explanations about evolutionary psychology or social conditioning, just focus on your present moment desires.

In this moment, why do I want this?

Keep going down until you get to “…because I want to feel xxxxxx”

Then, when you’re at that level, ask yourself one more time: “In this moment, why do I want to feel xxxx?”

There’s only one place to go from there: “Because it feels good.”

You might be surprised to hear this but this is something that one group of people have known for a VERY long time and have actively exploited it for their gain.

No, it’s not personal development gurus or psychologists. It’s the last place you’d think of that also, the most obvious group when you really sit down and think about it.

It’s advertisers.

Have a look at any really successful advertising campaign. What makes it so powerful?

– Is it the long and detailed lists of components that went into each product?
– Is it the wide variety of colours you can purchase the product in?
– Is it the dry and monotone narrator explains all the features of the company warehouse where it was made?
– Is it the cold hard facts about the sales process?

Or is it something deeper? Is it something very powerful, real, and visceral?

Advertisers don’t sell you on a facts, figures, stats, and information, they sell you on experience.

Watch this Ferarri ad:

This is a car that actually has the technical specifications to blow most cars out of the water, yet there wasn’t one mention of what’s under the hood.

Instead, they sold something else.

The lines and curves, the open road, the roar of the engine, the drifting in and out of lanes, exotic locations… They didn’t sell you on stats and figures, they sold you on experience. They sold you on sex appeal, on power, on freedom, on excitement, on adventure.

They sold you on everything you currently don’t have in your life but want.

Here’s another example. See if you can work out what they’re selling before you get to the end.

You might guess sun glasses, but you’d be wrong. They’re selling a lifestyle. They’re selling a world that’s out of reach to most Men. And most importantly, they’re selling the experience of what it’s like to exist in that world.

They’re selling the feeling of power or importance… They’re selling you on the feeling of being a Man.

Have a look at any powerful, moving, and inspiring advertising campaign and you’ll see that marketers and advertisers have known something about people for a very long time that most personal development guru’s still haven’t worked out.

Why does this matter at all?

Good question.

If the core desire behind any decision you make is to experience something – whether that be have more positive experiences or less negative experiences – then what does this mean for the guys you coach (as well as for your life)?

It means that every decision you make in your life and the guys you’re coaching make in their life, is to move closer to or further away from an experience.

Every one.

On some level, even if you don’t recognise it or aren’t consciously aware of it at this point in time, you’re attempting to move towards an experience or away from it.

The experience might change over the day, the hour, or even the minute, but there’s a driving factor.

This is the reason you eat the food you eat and drink the drinks you drink. This is the reason you chose not to approach that woman in the street and why you’re beating yourself up about now. This is the reason you chose that job and why you’re trying to find a new one right now. It’s all about experience.

This is the reason your client ate the food he ate and drinks the drinks he drinks. This is the reason he chose not to approach that woman in the street and why he’s beating himself up about it now. this is the reason he chose the job he’s working and why he’s trying to find a new one right now. It’s all about experience.

Now, this in itself isn’t the problem faced by Men. Desiring experience is fine in itself. The real problem is something related to this.

You see, desiring acceptance or power or significance isn’t a problem. It’s not going to get you in any trouble or put up any barriers.

The problems, frustrations, and pains that your clients experience is to do with how they try and fulfil those desires.

You can try and experience acceptance by changing who you are so that other people will like you or you can try to experience acceptance by expressing yourself openly and finding people who like you for who you are.

If you try to experience acceptance by changing yourself so that people like you, you’re going to face all the challenges that come with having to be someone different around every person, every time you see them, and then only getting the approval from people who like people who change who they are to please them.

If you try to experience acceptance by expressing yourself openly and finding other people who like you for who you are, then you’re going to experience the challenges that come with trying to find the kind of people who accept people who express themselves openly.

Each pathway has it’s own unique set of barriers and frustrations that you’ll need to overcome to experience what you want.

Stop and think about this for a second: What challenges would a person face when trying to change themselves constantly so that people accept and like them? And how would they change if they decided to express themselves openly and gravitate towards people who accept and like them for who they are?

You can try and experience power by proving how much better you are than other people or you can try and experience power by leaning over your edge and challenging your fears head on.

If you try to experience power by proving how much better you are than other people then you’re going to face all the challenges that come with trying to be better than everyone else, all the time, and then constantly having to prove that so you feel good about yourself.

If you try to experience power by leaning over your edge and challenging your fear then you’re going to experience all the challenges that come from actually overcoming your fears and having to find more to push through.

Each pathway has it’s own unique set of barriers and frustrations that you’ll need to overcome to experience what you want.

Stop and think about this for a second: What challenges would a guy face if he tried to experience power by proving how much better he was than everyone else? And how would those challenges change if he tried to experience power by challenging his personal fear and limitations?

You can try and experience significance by demonstrating how successful you are to other people or you can try to experience significance by making a real difference in the lives of others.

If you try to experience significance by demonstrating how successful you are to other people then you’re going to face all the challenges that come from not only excelling at various activities and endeavours but also finding people who’re willing to validate you for your successes.

If you try to experience significance by making a real difference to the lives of others then you’re going to face all the challenges that come with identifying a challenge that others are facing and be able to provide the support they need.

Each pathway has it’s own unique set of barriers and frustrations that you’ll need to overcome to experience what you want.

Stop and think about this for a second: What challenges and barriers would a guy face if he tried to experience significance by demonstrating to successful he was to other people? And how would they change if he focussed on trying to make a difference to peoples lives?

The problems that Men face have nothing to do with what they’re currently experiencing or what they want to experience, they all stem from how they try and bridge that gap.

Whichever pathway he’s following to experience freedom, connection, significance, acceptance, self-worth, or whatever else he’s chasing, determines what barriers, problems, frustrations, and disappointments he goes through. It determines the story of his life.

This simple three part mechanism – how you feel, how you want to feel, and how you’re trying to bridge the gap – is called your Script.

But it’s not a guys Script that’s a problem. As you can see in the examples above, there are some Scripts that are FAR more functional than others whilst other Scripts create huge amounts of issues and challenges.

The problem with Men occur when they have a Script that puts their desired experience outside the realm of their control and means they have to rely on others to give them what they want.

These are the Scripts that mean guys are waiting for women to laugh at their jokes, for their family to approve of their lifestyle choices, for their friends to be impressed with the girl on their arm, and so on.

The Real Problem with Men

These dysfunctional Scripts all leave Men needing something from someone or something external and so fall under the category of Scripts called Dependence.

A Dependent Script is one that means a Man needs on something outside himself to experience what he wants.

It might be permission from his friends to do what he wants and be free, it might be direction from his family as to where he should go and what he should do, it might be the smile and nod of approval from a guy he’s never met before as he checks out the girl on his arm.

It could be any number of different external elements, but all Dependent Scripts have one thing in common: they rely on something outside of the control of the guy to experience what he wants.

It’s this external reliance that’s at the root of his issues.

Can you ever guarantee that someone is going to like the way you dress? No, but even if you could, could you ever guarantee that EVERYONE is going to like the way you dress? No, of course not.

So if you clients Script is that he feels insignificant, wants to feel significant, and the way he’s doing it is by getting positive responses from people on the way he dresses, how much control is he going to have over how significant he feels?

Is he ever going to be able to wake up with a deep sense of significance?

Is he ever going to be able to carry himself with that deep sense of calm that only comes from knowing that you made a difference?

Is he ever going to be able to smile in the face of rejection of criticism knowing that it doesn’t matter what other people think?

Dependence is the problem with Men.

This is the only challenge they’re facing.

There’s no problem with drinking. There’s a problem with Men relying on alcohol to bridge the gap between how they currently feel and how they want to feel.

There’s no problem with drugs. There’s a problem with Men relying on drugs to bridge the gap between how they currently feel and how they want to feel.

There’s no problem with violence. There’s a problem with Men feeling like violence is the only way to bridge the gap between how they currently feel and how they want to feel.

There’s no problem with guns. There’s a problem with Men feeling like they need guns to bridge the gap between how they currently feel and how they want to feel.

There’s no problem with corporate greed. There’s a problem with Men feeling like they need far more money than they could ever use to bridge the gap between how they currently feel and how they want to feel.

The list goes on.

There is no crisis that’s plaguing the hearts of Men other than a dysfunctional Script.

If at any point in time, your experience of life is dependent on how someone reacts to you or how they treat you, then you’re not in control. You’re a victim. You’re powerless. You’re forced to wait on the sidelines till whoever or whatever you’re depending on decides that it’s time to give you what you want.

If they ever decide to…

The Real Solution for Men

What if instead of depending on something external to him to make him feel significant, he had a script that allowed him to feel significant through the way he lived his life and the actions he took?

What if, instead of relying on polite approval from people around him, the guy in the last example sourced his sense of significance from supporting, guiding, and teaching people who have less than he does?

What problems and challenges would he face then?

What if his sense of significance came from saving lives at his local surf living saving club?

What problems and challenges would he face then?

What if his sense of significance came from teaching young kids how to overcome the personal limitations through coaching soccer?

What problems and challenges would he face then?

What would change if his Script allowed him to feel significant, independently of how the world responded to him?

If the problem with Men is Dependence, then the solution is simple.

It’s not telling him to ignore his desire to feel significant. It’s not repeating mantras in the mirror in an attempt to convince himself that he is already significant. It’s not trying to meditate away the pain of his existence and reach a higher plane where feelings of insignificance aren’t an issue.

The solution is to find a way to experience significance in a way that doesn’t depend on how nicely people smile at you and what they think of your brand new sweater.

The solution to Dependence is to become Independent.

The solution is to find a way to experience significance through the way you live your life and the actions you take, regardless of how people respond to you.

The solution is to find a way to experience connection independently of how much other people open up to you first.

The solution is to find a way to experience freedom independently of the amount of alcohol you can get your hands on. .

The solution is to find a way to feel powerful independently of whether or not other people do what you want.

Dependence is the problem, Independence is the solution.

In Conclusion

The real problem with Men is that the have a Dependent Script. This is the challenge that you, as a Men’s Coach, need to help them overcome.

This will be your job.

Now, whilst this might sound simple, the actual coaching process has more subtle nuances than you might imagine.

If you think you’re ready to start helping Men make a difference to their lives but aren’t sure how to start the coaching process, then you need to read this:

Coaching Foundations 1: Challenge Identification