Coach Ajit (01:28):
After some time, it may feel like everything that you're doing is so repetitive that what you are coaching and how you're taking a client through a particular journey is so repetitive. And this tends to be a challenge when you want to create great outcomes for your clients. When you want to stay present with your client, when you wanna be aware for your clients, when you really wanna take them through a really exciting and interesting journey, but you in your mind are telling yourself the story of, oh, I'm being repetitive, I'm being repetitive, I'm being repetitive. And that has been a question that I've heard enough times from new coaches that I wanted to bring your attention to. What's understanding what may be happening for you when that narrative is going in your mind and what really is happening as you continue to grow into your full power as a coach.

Coach Ajit (02:18):
And from that, the second part of the conversation that I wanted to share with you today is where I'm talking to Patrick. Patrick talks about how he was struggling to believe that he is a good coach and that sometimes he struggles with his family and his, his friends to be able to see Patrick in a different light. It's a very interesting question. And that's a very interesting question that comes very often for somebody who's starting the journey for the matter, even for season coaches. And that is why I wanted to bring attention to it. How to really rethink the way you think about you as a coach and your progress as a coach, how do you really work with your family? How do you really navigate the conversation with your family, the coaching conversation with your family? So we'll explore two different questions, but they are deeply connected. So listen in to what Bruno and Patrick had to ask during Certified Life Coach live calls. Bruno. What's up, my man?

Bruno (CLC Student) (03:14):
starts being very recognizable, uh, even, uh, I guess that ever since I started like coaching, it also seeps in into my day to day conversation. And my girlfriend, for example, she also always recognizes when I start going like Socratic questioning on her and she calls calls out on me. And she, she actually says that in the beginning, it was like really cool. But now it starts being like, okay, I know what you're doing. So I wonder how do you normally approach the situation?

Coach Ajit (04:20):
Um, so is it your girlfriend that has recognized this or your client's hold recognizing it?

Bruno (CLC Student) (04:25):
My girlfriend pointed it out.

Coach Ajit (04:27):
Okay. So,

Bruno (CLC Student) (04:28):
But it, it also makes me self-conscious like, even before she said this, I kind of feel like, huh, it looks like I'm doing the same thing again.

Coach Ajit (04:36):
So Socratic questioning is the same thing again, but at the same point of time, you don't have to, right. So the reason why you will feel it's repetitive, or it may feel repetitive. One of the reasons it could be is because you are using it like a playbook instead of using it from the place of curiosity. Right? If I'm curious about, Hey, Bruno, what's happening, oh, what's happening for you next? And what's happening for you next? I'm doing the same thing, but you will not feel that I am repeating myself. What you would feel is like, oh, he's just asking questions. Even if you've seen me do it a hundred times, right? I'm doing the same thing in any of my coaching sessions ever. Pretty much. It's the same stuff that I really talk about in many different ways, but it's many different ways.

Coach Ajit (05:20):
It's the same stuff. So if somebody sat down watched one video of mine, they probably don't have to watch the next one, but they are still watching the next one, because the way I approach it is different, right? The way I'm presenting it is, is different. Now your family, your girlfriend, your deep close friends will recognize it a lot more because they have seen you without it. Right? So I've seen you without the power of coaching. So it will take them a hot minute to get used to the idea that that's just who you are becoming, right? It's like, um, if you have gone from unhealthy to healthy and the same friend meets you at two different times, they're like, I see what you're doing. You're judging everything that I'm eating. You're looking at everything that I'm eating. You're wondering if you want to eat it, but you don't want to eat it because you know, you are a healthier person.

Coach Ajit (06:03):
You don't wanna make that decision for yourself, right. Stuff like that would happen slowly, but surely they get used to it because it becomes your being right. But the thing that you don't want to do is you don't want to become so templated, but at the same point in time, when you're starting, you are templated. Right. So it's fine. So remember one of the calls we talked about this model of unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence, right? It's called, um, somebody mentioned the name at that time too. I forget the name. I think it's, it's a competence model it's developed by somebody else. I don't remember the name of the model itself, but basically what happens in our life as you are even exploring coaching Bruno, there was a point in life when you didn't know what coaching was and you had no competence in it because you didn't know it existed.

Coach Ajit (06:51):
Right? So you were unconsciously incompetent, right? You had no awareness of it and you were incompetent about it. Then one day you realize, oh, there is something called coaching. And that can be powerful. Or that that's the moment where you became consciously incompetent, right? Where you are like, oh, I know there is a thing called coaching that can help me live a better lie. Reality around me have be better and gimme an alternate career option. These are all amazing things, but I don't know how to do it. Right. So that's a conscious incompetence right now. The stage that you are at is called conscious competence. You know what coaching is, you know how Socratic questioning works and now you're building competence around it, right? So you, you're making a deliberate effort to learn something. And when you're making a deliberate effort to learn something, it's obvious that you're making a deliberate effort, right?

Coach Ajit (07:37):
Because you're consciously building competence and you'll be in that stage for a little bit. Right. But there would be a point where you switch over where you don't even think about what you're doing, but you start doing it. And that's called unconscious competence where you don't even know you're really good at something, but you're good at it. Right. It might be for many things that you've done for a long period in your life, if you are an athlete or if you're a swimmer, a swimmer doesn't know, but they really swim very well. They're unconsciously competent about it, right? There's uh, if you're a really good cook, you cook great meals and you are like, I don't know how I do it, but I do cook great meals. And that's because you've got unconsciously competent about it. So that's the state you wanna get to because then it's something that just flows through you without making any effort.

Coach Ajit (08:19):
And people don't recognize because that just is you. And they can either accept you for who you are or not accept who you are. Right. So it's kind of like one of those things, which is also what we talk about in bioengineering is how habits are created, right? Once you have developed the habit and you have to build a baseline of habit, right? There is, uh, when you build a new habit, you can't say let's optimize the habit. You can't optimize the habit when you're starting the habit, right. You're starting the habit. You just build a baseline system first. You see it works. You come up with a template that works for you every single time. And then you optimize it. That's kind of like going from conscious competence to unconscious competence. You don't optimize something that you haven't even developed a baseline for right now. You're developing baseline for it. Right. And that's true for everybody that is new to coaching. And that is just starting out or has one to three years of experience in it. You're building conscious competence. You are building a baseline, you're getting your rhythm done. Ajit's model, Ajit's model... but you're developing your model on Ajit's model. Does that make sense?

Bruno (CLC Student) (09:20):
Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. It's very reassuring. And the, the message that I get is more like, you're fine. Like stick to it. You're going to outgrow like the struggles that you're having right now.

Coach Ajit (09:32):
Yes, you will. And just be, just be mindful that whenever you find yourself in a rhythm of repetitive questioning, see why you see that as repetitive questioning. Are you trying to just ask the question that are in the model or use, or are you staying curious? So it require a little bit more awareness as well for on your part to go from conscious competence to unconscious competence to see, oh, okay. I'm following the model that I learned, but how can I switch it over and stay curious to this conversation? Because Socratic questioning is just a curious questioning model. If you really think about it, right. You're just staying curious to what's happening for the person and you are asking Socratic questions, do default to them.

Bruno (CLC Student) (10:11):
That's perfect. Sounds great. Thank you very much, Ajit.

Coach Ajit (10:13):
Absolutely. You're welcome, man. Hey Patrick.

Patrick (CLC Student) (10:16):
Hey there. How are you? Uh, hope you had a great new year.

Coach Ajit (10:19):
Great new year. Thank you for the story that you submitted on Certified Life Coach. Thank you very much.

Patrick (CLC Student) (10:23):
Oh yeah, of course.

Coach Ajit (10:24):
Appreciate you. Yeah, thank you.

Patrick (CLC Student) (10:26):
Um, it's really cool to see what's coming together and this, uh, coaching package is definitely, uh, a value to my community. So I'm, I'm grateful for it. And hopefully see you all at Mindvalley University. I guess, where I'm struggling right now heavily is just like getting, like, I know I have a lot to offer actually, Coach Fran talked about this in the last part of the call, just trying to get myself to believe that I can do this, helping people and actually start taking money from this on a, a more regular basis. So just curious, like this is pretty much the same thing. You just talked about conscious competence working on that, but do you have any suggestions for people that are getting started starting to make a little bit of headway, but still struggling and feeling like, oh my gosh, this is very overwhelming to make it happen. So..

Coach Ajit (11:11):
Hmm. So one is the conversation that we just had. And I'm gonna just add on to that, to give you another perspective or another lens that may be happening again while I'm answering these questions on these calls. Lot of time I'm projecting, right? I don't, I don't really know what's happening in your life. I come from a place of saying, Hey, I've lived this experience. What is it that was happening for me at that time? Right. So another thing that happens at this 0.1 is the curiosity and feeling like you're rhythmic. And so you need to get into the space of curiosity and stay with the process. Another one is that sometimes what happens is we listen to a lot of dialogue that happens around us, right? So for example, if you are putting yourself into a circle of other new coaches, right? What will happen and tends to happen, nothing wrong with it, but it, it, it does create a false reality in a mind.

Coach Ajit (12:00):
Very often a word gets thrown around called imposter syndrome or not feeling good enough to, to coach someone or am I really ready? Like, there are many ways of saying the same thing, but all you're really saying at that time is that my projection of how the world sees me and my projection of myself is not matching and is not in tune. Right? So what's happening is you look at yourself and you say, oh, Patrick, you just started. You have not even finished the course. How could you coach anyone? Right. That's how you are looking at it. Right. Your community is looking at Patrick and saying, wow, Patrick's creative. This amazing group program. I'm really excited. That's why I paid money for it. I really wanna learn from this guy. Seems like it'll be awesome. Right? So a community is seeing an awesome Patrick and Patrick himself is looking at himself and doubting if he's worthy of actually taking these people's money and if he's any good, right?

Coach Ajit (12:50):
So there's a mismatch between how the world sees you and how you see yourself. And this is a classic imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is a gap between a way of looking at imposter syndrome is a gap between how the world sees you and how you see yourself. So if you really wanna bridge imposter syndrome, if you want to really, uh, get past that, am I good enough? Uh, I, if you wanna get past that, I need a little bit more experience before I can charge anyone money for it. All you're really looking for is how do you fill the gap of self-esteem from how you see yourself, so it can match the expectation of the world and you don't have imposter syndrome anymore. Is that making sense until now? Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I like that. So what you're really leaning into is to ask yourself, Hey, okay, what is it that I'm telling myself mentally as a story that are unconscious, probably at this point that I have to bring awareness to and say, what's the story that I'm telling myself that tells me that I'm not a good enough coach, or I have imposter syndrome, or I'm not, you know, uh, I need more experience or I need to do something to finally be ready to do the work that I have to do.

Coach Ajit (13:54):
What is the unconscious story that I'm telling myself? And that will be an observation that you will all have to make at some point, if not right now in your life to say, what is that story that I'm telling myself? And you will come to presence with the stories that reflect from either from your childhood. These stories will come from your childhood. These stories will come from your adulthood life and your work life. That's often where all these, uh, false beliefs are created, especially with somebody who's already hurting themselves. And so they project their hurt on us. And so they tell us we are not good enough, you know, things like that, that happens always. Um, and, and, and then you you'll find those stories. And as you find those stories, we do the process that we, that we have learned all this. Wow. Right.

Coach Ajit (14:35):
We challenge our thinking. We organize our mind. We say, okay, what is a better thought? What is a more empowered thought that I can have that helps me create progress in this direction? What is the more empowered thinking I can choose that will create progress in the direction of building my selfesteem? So you don't have to limit yourself to what has happened in the past. The stories that have created in the past that are bringing the imposter syndrome in the present, because Patrick's not the same Patrick anymore. Right. Patrick's a different Patrick than the Patrick that was maybe criticized at some point was made to feel like they're not a good enough employee or good enough friend or good enough lover or whatever that was then build a story that tells us today that we can't be a good enough coach. Right. So it's a, it's a lot more about self-esteem and building that self-esteem up than actually about, uh, about actually not being good enough. Right. You just don't believe that you're not good enough. And that's most of the time, like 80, 90% of the time, that's the case you, most of the time, how the world sees us is far greater than how we see ourselves. And so the change of the story that we need is a change of story of ourselves

Patrick (CLC Student) (15:41):
Absolutely. Yeah. I think I, I feel that I'm stepping into it. So I appreciate exactly that what you said. Cause I think that's where I'm going. Then, then the only down the hard part is like my family, like you said, on the last person, like your family has seen you before. So they're judging me. They like, they don't wanna be coached. They don't like, and then they're limiting beliefs come into me. Cause I'm like, oh, like, am I really doing this or whatever. So that's, that's the biggest challenge is like, my community sees this Patrick and my family sees this Patrick and they're two very different people. And sometimes that's being really hard to resolve as well right now. So

Coach Ajit (16:17):
I hear you. So what I, what I tend to do is I tend to not be a coach to my family. Except if I have been asked to, or there's permission that is involved before it starts to happen. So say for example, um, we were having a conversation. My, my family's over from India and we haven't seen them for two years. And of course, when you see family things come up. So some of the things that come up and I simply before even I lean into my coaching hat, I say, uh, are you open to having a conversation about it? Or you just wanna share, right. Because most of the time our family just wants us to share. Let's be really honest. Right? They don't want us to coach. They don't want actually solve the problem. They just want us to hear the problem.

Coach Ajit (16:57):
They want us to be there for them. And that's how they feel loved. Right. So if you have that space and you have that boundary, pre-established where you go, yes. I can take this on. You can say, Hey, okay, let's just talk about it. And that's it. There is no reason for us to coach them. Right. So what will happen is they will keep reflecting back and that's all good. You don't have to think like, oh, I have to create outcomes for them. And I know it's really hard because we feel like, oh, I'm the coach. Like I can help you. I know I can. Yeah. But the thing is you can't help nobody unless they want the help. Right. Right. You cannot help your dad. You cannot help your mom. You cannot help your brothers and sisters and kids. You can't even help your kids until they want the help.

Coach Ajit (17:38):
And when they want the help, you can help. You can pour your heart out and I promise you they'll receive it. Right. Absolutely. So, so the real challenge is again, an internal challenge to say, all right, I know I can help, but I'm not gonna, I'm gonna wait for the permission to show up. Yeah. I'm gonna wait for it to actually be present to the situation where they agree and understand that, um, that they can take my help and they want to take my help. And now we will do the work. Right. And then you will not have that association because when they're willing to receive, they will receive it and they will see change because you're really good as a coach. There's no doubt about that. And that's why the people outside can see it because they don't have the baggage. Right. All the family members are the package of Patrick and Ajit, and Daley, and Laurie, and Mark and Lawson, and Bruno and everybody's baggage is always there.

Coach Ajit (18:32):
Right. They know us way too much. Like it's like, uh, talking to any family member. I've, I've talked to Nita's family member, my wife's family members. Same problem. They have so much baggage. They can't hear you. They have so much baggage. They're like, oh, you changed because you changed. Of course, because you're a growth oriented freaking person. Of course you changed. Of course. But they, and they also have changed. They have just not changed the magnitude that you have changed. So it is almost, you are almost unrecognizable to them. And so they're scared as much as they're curious, they're also scared they can lose Patrick. The Patrick they know is not the Patrick anymore. Right? So there are too many things that are variables in family. So we have to stay present to when we can coach. And when we can't, right. And family judgment is not, not the judgment on your coaching.

Coach Ajit (19:19):
Absolutely not.

Patrick (CLC Student) (19:21):
Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Coach Ajit (19:23):
You're welcome. Patrick. Did these conversation help you in revisiting how you may be approaching your current coaching skills and your current coaching practices? While that is why I wanted to share my conversation with Bruno and Patrick, if you would love to be involved in these conversations. My invitation for you is to check out Certified Life Coach by Evercoach. We are opening enrollment in about two weeks, and we'll love to have you join us in that program. This program brings together a combined knowledge of me personally and my coaching experience, and coaching experience and training experience of my business partner, Vishen Lakhiani, who's the creator of Mindvalley and of multiple bestselling books. When you do Certified Life Coach, you're not only certified as a life coach with us here at Evercoach, but you are also certified as a meditation instructor.

Coach Ajit (20:14):
So it's a dual certification that you get to enjoy. The enrollment is gonna open pretty soon. So look out for our email and our message, so you can learn more about Certified Life Coach. If you enjoyed this particular episode, I'll love for you to leave a rating on Apple podcast or Spotify, wherever you listen to this particular episode, we really appreciate your support for this podcast. And I'm so grateful for each one of you that sends us notes every time this podcast has impacted your life. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is Coach Ajit and you're listening to Master Coaching with Ajit.