Intro

This is a living document as my thoughts and philosophies adapt, but I aim to give greater insights from me to others since it is rare to see someone’s inner methodology. Remember this is my style – there is not a right or wrong answer to this – take time and experimentation to develop your own.

A coach inspires action and decisiveness in the coachee. A good coach is not responsible for the outcome but helps the coachee find the best way – usually minimizing or eliminating mental and physical obstacles.

A coachee is ultimately responsible for communicating their desires and then taking responsibility and action to achieve said desires.

Details

Why a coach?

A coach helps a coachee to attain their goals. Oftentimes, the greatest limiting factor is the coachee’s own mental roadblocks or mindset – not abilities, and a coach can help mitigate or work through these mental roadblocks. Sometimes, even with a good mindset, a coach can help to outsource the coachee’s mental management of goals and tasks.

Why does any sports team have a coach? Leadership, direction, and challenge.

I believe that we all already possess the potential to achieve, but we cannot do this alone. A coach’s mission is not to fix or force anyone – but to be another person on the coachee’s team that can support and help when needed. A coach can also give more specialized attention and action-driven advice. This is contrasted with most friendships or romantic connections that usually maximize the maintenance of said friendship or romance. Sometimes (though not always), trying to be a coach for a friend or a lover can harm the relationship depending on the dynamic.

There are very few things that we can truly do alone in life – why think any differently for goals?

Not Knowing Everything

My role is not to have all the right answers. In fact, it’s better that I don’t. My experience and knowledge help, but those do not override the importance of coaching:

LISTEN first to then UNDERSTAND.

Instead of guessing, assuming, projecting, or giving advice, just give the value that the coachee wants. And in not knowing everything, I can discover the solution(s) through asking. Every coachee will have a different idea of coaching in mind, and my job is to tailor to that.

In general life coaching, it is difficult or impossible to be an expert in everything. The better goal is to think of how to better or challenge the thought process of the coachee.

A coach who thinks or knows everything is an egotistical fraud. These types can often be seen on social media, and in the male self-improvement space, they tend to have a combination of a lot of tattoos, piercings, money, cars, drugs, women, big houses, and most of all big egos – with very little true happiness.

Beyond that, the goal is not to know everything nor be a simple chatbot (asking simple questions and giving simple responses).

To Begin, I ask:

Initially

These questions are great to ask to begin understanding the issue:

• What is your:
  • issue?
  • goal?
  • desire?
• How best can I help you?
  • Ideas
  • Planning
  • Accountability
• What are you struggling with?
  • Self-sabotage
  • Lack of belief in self
  • Understanding options or methods to achieve something

Over Time

These will depend on the challenge, but when the context feels right, choose the right question to ask to understand deeper the problem:

• What do you want? REALLY what is it that you want? – not what society, your family, friends, lover, teacher, boss, etc. want
• What are 3 reasons that this negative idea or belief can be a good thing?
• Negative thought or framing? – challenge the truthfulness or usefulness of such thoughts.
• Do these negative thoughts serve the person I am trying to help?
• Can they even be true or is there a bias? (almost always it’s bias or thought pattern)
• Does this particular thought motivate the person to take action OR freeze up in fear, sadness, hurt, etc.?

Mindsets for my response:

These are more of vague guidelines, but that is the secret: tailor the response as needed:

• Listen first, then give advice – maybe the coachee already knows the solution but is telling themselves “No”. Oftentimes, I find only making the solution clearer to the coachee (after they’ve told it to me) is the best way to go about this
• Answer in a humble way or “mirror” the dialogue (“this sounds to me that X”)
• There is no “right” thing to say
• It’s not my job to tell someone what to do (they must want it themselves first) but to challenge or help them through their thinking
• Sometimes I suggest a solution, but I always ask “Does this seem like the best/a good solution for you? Why/why not?”

Mother Teresa Mindset

An even more abstract way of approaching coaching is less mechanical and more personal.

How do you think Jesus, Mother Teresa, Buddha, [your favorite person], etc. approach this?

Mother Teresa supposedly approached her life with the mindset of:

(paraphrased) “I am the vessel to help channel the love of the other person back into them. I’m not fixing anything – no one is broken. The greatest good that any one person can do is:”

• go home and love one’s family
• give and give and give (love)
• help the person that is physically there, face-to-face

Or in simpler words, the person can solve their own problems. My job is to care to ask them enough things to get them to that point similar to the Socratic method.

Action

Since this page is written from my perspective as a coach, the Action section will revolve around doing coaching or becoming one.

Getting Experience

There are many great ways to practice listening and “be” a coach. For me, the easiest way has been to talk about my experiences in life (military, software, bartending, marriage, divorce, fitness, marathons, travel, relationships, learning a new language, moving to a foreign country, etc.) in a very open and vulnerable way – and to express my desires and plans for the future, even if the idea is not clear in this moment. And just as importantly, to admit my mistakes, failures, faults, and more. This has gained me a greater level of trust and built rapport.

From there, I try to avoid offering advice (though sometimes I accidentally do and that’s okay). Rather, I try to ask questions, mirror their words, or even probe more (Why? How? or make inferences like: “That sounds difficult to overcome”, etc.). After a while, people just started asking me about my life or what they should do in a given situation. These people, often friends, knew of my desire to be a mentor or coach, so I made sure to frame my advice in this context – sometimes blatantly. Again, the key is: demonstrate your own value and wisdom in a proper way and not to force your viewpoint or advice onto the other person.

Start Coaching By

I personally started by…

• Practicing giving value and being there for my friends, family, and strangers
• Coaching for free – maybe can turn into a business after enough experience and reputation
• Telling people I wanted to practice being a coach in context X such as goals, dancing, diet, relationships, etc.
• Following already-existing coaching people – but don’t get stuck in overconsuming. The idea is to TAKE ACTION
• SAVE ANSWERS of common questions or FAQs –> Turn answers into articles
• Collect testimonials**
• You don’t have to wait… start now

Internet Forums and Groups

Beyond friends and family, there are plenty of practice grounds for listening and advice-giving on the Internet. At the current moment, I personally have only practiced in more private forums and closed groups.

Once you delve more into this realm, you will encounter your niche and community that fits better with your own style and philosophy.

Easy Start: Coaching on Reddit

Use Reddit as a testing ground for writing and communicating, but note that Reddit is frequently toxic and/or helpless within its own communities. This can still be good practice, but I would recommend not to get too stuck here. Reddit was recommended to me as a more accessible and generalized public area if you really want experience, so I have included it here for the general audience – although I did and do not use it.

In these subreddits, keep in mind:

• Sort the subreddit by Newest
• Respond with encouragement to new posts: “Good job opening up and asking…”

Subreddits good for general goals

These are typically more motivated people who want to take action and change their lives:

• r/getdisciplined
• r/letsgetmotivated

Maybe w/ caution in the realm of dating

Again, these are likely very negative subreddits from people who are more interested in complaining in the moment than taking action – that is okay but just keep it in mind. The audience is more male-dating related. This could be a better area to practice without the expectation of changing anyone’s mind:

• r/asktrp
• r/letsgetlaid
• r/relationship