The Four Most Valuable Ways Great Coaching is Helping Me Today

You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, I'm sharing the four most valuable things I'm getting out of the coaching I'm receiving. So stay tuned. If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter. It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them. Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because for a change I wanna share what it feels like for me to be on the receiving end of some amazing coaching. Also to share that, in case you didn't realize it, part of what makes me be a great coach is that I get great coaching from a lot of different coaches all the time. For me, there's so much value in working with great coaches. Because they make me better in every possible way. And it helps me stretch in ways that I might try to do anyway, but it's just so much easier when you have the support of great coaches. I've just come back from an amazing retreat where I got to spend two full days with my favorite coaches and my favorite peers. There were about 150 of us total hanging out together for two days. Sharing breakthroughs, helping each other have more breakthroughs, and helping each other figure out what the next big thing is. What's the next win? Where do we wanna stretch next? I got to thinking about how much impact this experience has on my success, in my work, and in my life. And I wanted to share that with you because I think there are lessons for everyone there. When we were wrapping up the two days, one of the takeaways that I made note of was the following. Here's what I wrote. I am delighted to realize I'm operating from a whole new place, a whole new level, a different identity compared to last August, just a few months ago. The two big differentiators have been launching a new program that I had been unsure about launching. In other words, taking action even when I wasn't sure I was ready. And talking regularly with one of my colleagues and peers that I've created a peer coaching relationship with. There were such huge lessons for me there, in that I didn't make a lot of changes. Even though I'd come back with a lot of things on the ambition list and the to-do list. There were really two things that I took action on that were more impactful than all the others. And I realized that when I took those actions, it changed everything. It changed my perspective. It changed the place I was operating from. It elevated my identity in new and interesting ways. The journey is unending. And what I want to share with you is that at least for me, it gets a lot more fun when I have regular support from coaches that are awesome and from peers who are awesome. So today I wanna share the four most valuable things that I'm getting from the coaching I'm receiving right now. The first thing, and to me this is always one of the most valuable things in having a good coach, is identifying what's in the way that I can't see. We all have blind spots. That's the human condition. And because they're blind spots, they're hard for us to see, by definition. Right? The meaning is embedded in the phrase itself. That's one of the most fundamental jobs of any good coach is to help you see that. And to help you identify what's the best way for you to move past that hidden obstacle, whether it's to dismantle the obstacle or move around it, or both. That's an ongoing journey. And lest we think that we can just like tackle our blind spots and then move on and never have another one. That's actually not how it works as you are probably well aware, living your life. We uncover one, we deal with it, we move on, and then lo and behold, here comes another one. One of the things that I always use for internal awareness around this is that if I'm feeling resistance around something that I can't explain or that doesn't feel super clear to me. Chances are very good there's a blind spot there somewhere. There is a hidden obstacle. There's something in my way that I can't see clearly. I will go straight to a coach with that and say, Hey, this is what's going on. I'm working on this thing and I am feeling all this resistance. And I can't identify the source of it. Can you help me talk this through? And a great coach will ask you the right questions, and pretty soon you'll have identified whatever the obstacles are, and often there's more than one. But once they're out in the open, then you can deal with'em. Some particularly helpful insights that I received during this retreat on this topic of identifying blind spots and hidden obstacles, was first a question. Which was, are you a byproduct of your fear, or of the impact you want to have in the world? Both of those, your greatest fears, the thing that's holding you back. I would do this thing, but, ah, I don't know. I'm worried that this will happen. So that's a vision. That's a vision of an unwanted future in which that bad thing happens that you're worried about. And then there's the vision of the impact you wanna make in the world. And what I found really helpful was to be reminded that both of those are visions that we hold. And we all have them. Most of us in Nonprofit work have a pretty clear vision of the impact we wanna make in the world. Although I always caution my clients that the vision you have for your organization's impact is one thing. The vision you have for your personal impact in the world is another. They're related, but they're not the same. That vision for me is very clear, as I suspect it is for most of you. But we often don't think of our fears and our worries as being a competing vision. They're just our fears and our worries. Or sometimes we treat them as fact, which is even more dangerous. Like, well, I would go do this amazing thing in pursuit of my vision of impact, but there's this problem. If I do that, something bad will happen over here. And so I'm not gonna do the thing I want to do because this other thing. So a super helpful perspective for me was to think of both of those as competing visions. One is a vision of what you don't want, and one is a vision of what you do want, put very simply. But here's the thing, whichever of those two visions are dominating your mind will be the thing you're making most of your decisions from. And that to me was the powerful insight. To remind me to pay close attention to those fears and worries that are always hanging around and to not just stuff them down. But to say, okay, you're over here and if I'm not careful, you'll become the dominant vision. You'll become the thing that is pulling most of my attention and getting most of my focus. And as soon as that happens, then my decisions start coming from that. And we all know how that works out. Another thing in this category of identifying the blind spots and the hidden obstacles is, and this is particularly relevant for stuff that we may not realize. It might not be directly related to our work, right? A lot of our hidden obstacles don't come from, oh, well this decision maker over here will be mad if I do this or that. I'll get in trouble with somebody somewhere with this. That's one set of stuff. But a lot of what's going on, because we're humans, in our journey as a human through life, there's stuff that's happened to us that has been difficult. There's been Big T and Little T Trauma. There's been all sorts of things that shape how we operate in the world and can often be the source of some of the most vexing hidden obstacles. Because you can't trace'em directly to something that's related to the work. It's rooted in something else. A really useful thing that a coach shared with me during this retreat was this idea. As long as one of those things lurking around is still affecting you. In other words, it's coming up for you. It's triggering emotions and getting in your way in some way. That as long as that's still affecting you in some way, that means there's still something there for you to learn. There's a lesson yet that you haven't gotten. When you finally learn the lesson, you can let go of the thing that's been poking at you. It's still poking at you'cause it wants you to learn the lesson. Once you learn it, you can dismiss it. And here's the thing. When you let go, you create space to let in the new thing, whatever that might be. Sometimes it's the new thing that you wanted in your work universe that a personal hidden obstacle was creating problems for you. You can let that in. Or sometimes it's, we let go of one thing and we let in something else into our emotional world. It covers all the territory, but that business of, if it's still poking at you, it means there's a lesson yet to be learned. And the most productive thing we could do is try to figure out what is the lesson we need to be learning from it so that we can release it. It's like, got it now. Thank you. You may go. And then we create space for more awesomeness to come in. Another area of huge value that I receive from coaching is getting specific instruction and feedback in areas where I'm growing my skills. I'm always looking to grow my skills. First of all, things are changing so fast all the time that if you're not learning new skills, you're not keeping up. But I also am always looking for how can I help my clients get their results faster, more easily and more powerfully? And whatever I can learn to help my clients do that, I want that. So I'm constantly learning in all kinds of arenas. I am continuing to learn in the arena of brain science. I'm continuing to learn in the arena of messaging and marketing and engagement and the use of voice. All of those things are areas where I'm in active learning mode and skill development mode all the time. So that I can keep getting better so I can help my clients get better. And I have decades of experience in most of this. And that's great. It means that when I learn a new skill, I get to integrate it into an already robust skillset. Other things that I'm learning are brand new to me. I'm starting from scratch on some of them. But the common denominator is when I have a coach to support me and guide my skill development and learning, it goes so much faster. I'm working with two different coaches in the arena of voice and storytelling. Each of them brings their own very powerful skillset, and I'm working on different things with each of them. I just had a session yesterday with the storytelling coach. And you know, I already have a lot of good storytelling skills. Then I work with him and I'm like, oh my goodness. The layers, the layers of more. The level of skill that I can develop and that I can then share with my students is amazing. He'll teach something and then we practice it and get coached through it. And there's nothing like crafting a story in real time and then getting instant feedback on it and saying, this part here is totally on point. This part over here, oop. See what you did there? You missed an opportunity or you pulled my attention away from what's really important or whatever. The subtleties of how to make your story as powerful as possible. It's just amazing how much room to grow there is. What I'm doing now is taking my skills to the next level so that I can help you take yours to the next level. And the speed with which I learn because I'm getting coached in real time on the drafts that I'm creating is night and day. It's an accelerator. It just throws rocket fuel on your progress, which is amazing and I love that. Some really cool tiny assignments that I got from my coaches at this retreat I found incredibly valuable. And one of them was a pairing. We're setting goals and intentions for the coming six months, and the pairing was to identify at least three metrics you were going to track to measure your progress. Whatever you've picked that you're working on, what are the metrics that will tell you whether you are making progress? So cool, I did that. And then the paired question was, and what are habits you're going to commit to to help you reach those metrics? I was like, oh, wow, that's really cool. It's different than a to-do list or an action item. It's what habits am I going to create? And that produced a different list. Of course, I still have the to-do list. I've got my action plan, I've got my to-do list, I've got all that. But the habits to be created that will keep me in integrity as I pursue hitting those metrics, that's a game changer. Little stuff like that that just helps you see things in a little bit different way and gives you a success hack that's gonna just make everything easier and get you to your result faster. That's what I love about great coaching. Another huge value is peer support. Now I'm in a unique space because I'm in a giant coaching group where almost everyone in that group is also a coach. So that's a little unusual. But it would apply even if that weren't true. Because here's what happens when you get in a room full of people who are smart and ambitious and good at their work, and they're growing an organization, or they're growing a business. They're leading into their vision of making major impact in the world. That's what all these folks have in common that really matters. And what happens in a container like that is that you're going to get perspective from an outside ear that's really smart and that's good at listening and can ask really good questions.. Every time I sat down to have a meal. I sat down and had a conversation at lunch. The woman I was sitting next to, she's not in Nonprofit. She works in a completely different niche. She's in the healthcare space. I was sharing with her that I was really jazzed about a session we had just been in that was on vibe coding, which is a skill area that I'm about to leap into that I know nothing about. But I'm gonna get good at it'cause I know that it can have a powerful impact on the work that I do with my clients. And immediately as I talked through a thing that I was getting ready to do, she saw the hole in it. She listened and she saw the hole. She was like, oh, that's awesome, but you were gonna do A and then B, what if you flipped them? What if you did B first? And then she gave the reasons why that might be strategically better. And I was like, oh my God, you're totally right. I was caught. I had a blind spot. I was focused on one thing, on one particular outcome that I wanted to make sure happen. And she saw the larger perspective and the total impact and outcome that I was going for, and she was like, I think that's backwards. I think it's B then A. And she was a hundred percent right. As soon as I made that switch in my mind, then all the rest of how to design this thing flowed so much more easily. So this is a woman who doesn't know anything about nonprofits. But she listened to the purpose, the impact that was desired and the structure I had created. And she was like, oh, nope, that's backwards. And then five minutes later I did the same thing for her. She was laying out a thing that she was working on, that she had designed. And basically what had happened, she had drawn a conclusion prematurely and decided that meant that she had to take this thing in a specific direction. And I just asked her a couple of questions. I said, well, wait a second. Are you sure that's the only conclusion to draw? What if there's this other conclusion? What if it meant this other thing? And her reaction was, oh my God. Actually, I think that's the thing that it really means. I think the conclusion I drew was not really helpful. The real issue is this thing over here that you flagged. And then she redirected around that. And again, for her, all of a sudden everything flowed much more easily. What we had done for each other was ask a critical question that surfaced the blind spot, helped each other see the blind spot, bypass it, and once you either bypass it or remove the blind spot, the obstacle. Suddenly then the flow is unblocked and it can just move naturally. The power of that is incredible as a one-off. But the other most impactful thing that I did was that, at that August retreat, one of my colleagues and I committed to talking with each other for two hours every two weeks. And without fail, every two weeks we get on a call and we coach each other through whatever we are working on. Not all of it is intense coaching. We talk for a couple of hours. Probably an hour of that is spent on our actual work and coaching. And the other hour is we're building a friendship. We're building a relationship. So I'm learning about her family and her pets. She's learning about my family and my pets. We're learning about what else we like to do in life that's fun and that makes us happy, and that fills us with joy and recharges our batteries and all of that. Because of course, we're not just our work. And so for this to be a productive ongoing relationship, we wanna really know the other person. That has been so powerful for me. And one of the things that it's done is help me avoid the traps the subconscious will get caught in.' Cause here's what'll happen. As humans, our blind spots and our hidden obstacles will stop us. Because the thing becomes hard. It becomes an energy drain rather than a source of inspiration and excitement because there's a ton of resistance. It feels like, oh God, I know I should work on this thing, but ugh, this is really hard, and I'll go do this thing over here that's easier. I'll go do this thing over here that I already know what I'm doing and lemme just get this done. I'll get done these five things over here that I don't have any resistance or obstacles around. I'll just get'em done and then I'll come back to this other thing. You could do that all day long and often what'll happen is you get to the end of the day and you're like, well, I didn't get to that. I'll do that tomorrow. And tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow keeps going. And lo and behold, you never deal with the thing that's really being difficult, even though it's maybe tied to a piece of the huge impact you wanna make. But you avoid it because it's heavy. There's a lot of friction there and it's not inspiring. It just feels ugh, hard. What happens with a regular peer coaching set up like that, is that neither one of us gets to do that for more than two weeks. Because we know that in two weeks I'm gonna have to talk to my friend and she's gonna ask me about the thing. And I don't really wanna show up and say, yeah, no, I didn't do anything. So having an accountability partner, whether they have an ounce of coaching skills or not, is so helpful. Because it forces us to deal with the stuff that's in our way and get to work on it. So I get incredible value from that. And then this last thing is related but it's kind of an overarching value. Which is that the combination of coaches and peers. With the peers we are holding each other accountable. We're checking in with each other. We're giving each other perspective and different ways to think about things. And the coaches are asking challenging questions that really force us to go deep and solve the problem. The combination of that pushes me to stay outside my comfort zone. It helps me do the hard things. Because you know, they're hard and it would be sometimes nice to just do the easier things. I already know how to do a lot of stuff. I could be perfectly content just doing things I know how to do. But would it be taking me to that next level of impact? No. The only way I'm getting to that next level of impact that I wanna make in the world is if I do things I don't yet know how to do or am not yet great at. And push myself constantly to be outside that comfort zone and learning new stuff and growing new skills. So one of the commitments I made to myself coming outta this retreat that's directly related to this, and it's one of those habits I decided to create. Which is that I am going to do something uncomfortable at least once a week. And if it gets to be toward the end of the week, and I haven't done the uncomfortable thing yet, well, you know what's going to the top of the list. When we build the muscle it gets easier. By definition, if it's outside your comfort zone, there's some discomfort. But the habit of doing something uncomfortable at least once a week, what that does is it allows me to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. To say, yep, yep. That's uncomfortable as all heck. I've got a big hair shirt on right now and it doesn't feel good. And it's not gonna kill me. I'm just gonna do it because it's fine. It's just fine. There's nothing that bad about being uncomfortable. I'm gonna get more comfortable with that feeling. And when I do that, it gets easier to just go ahead and do the uncomfortable thing. Over and over and over until that's just what I do. So my four big things, helping me identify what's in the way that I can't see. The hidden obstacles, the blind spots. Giving me specific instruction and feedback in areas where I'm actively growing my skills. Peer support, both coaching and accountability. And using that support to push yourself to stay outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. Those, for me, are the four highest value aspects of receiving coaching that are making a huge difference in my work and in my life. I wanted to share those with you for two reasons. One, if you're not working with a coach, I hope this will help you think hard about how much value you could get from that. And the second is to offer a caveat. Which is to say that I have had coaches that I did not find working with them particularly valuable. So the lesson in that is not that you shouldn't bother with a coach, because who knows if you're gonna get a good one. The lesson is don't settle. Find the coach or coaches who are the right ones for you, for where you are right now and where you're trying to go. Because what I've noticed is that over time, who is the right coach for me has changed. As I've grown and changed, the who's the right coach for me? The answer to that question has shifted a little bit. Now, some coaches I've continued to work with through several years. And others I've worked with for a little bit and it was like, awesome, thank you. That was super helpful. And now moving on. You don't have to make a lifetime commitment here. What I hope you will do is consider the four different aspects of value that I've shared that I'm getting from great coaching. And think about, is there even one of those that you would find valuable in your world? And if the answer to that is yes, then I hope what you'll do is go find a coach who can help you with that. I'm pretty sure it'll make a big difference in your progress, and that's what we all want. Thanks for listening and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.