#324: No Program? No Problem: Master the Art of Client-Led Coaching

Michelle:
Hello there. Health coaches today is all about the art of coaching, which is different, right? Coaching is different than teaching is definitely different from prescribing, and I think sometimes or often we think I'm just a health coach. Can I really help anyone? I'm just a health coach. Have you ever felt that way? Just say yes in the comments. If you've ever had that cross your mind, maybe you need more certifications, maybe you need to go back and get another degree. Is anybody going to take you seriously? You're just a health coach. Listen, in my experience, and that's 15 years, right? 15 years since I became a health coach. What I've seen is that as just a health coach, we can make a far bigger difference in somebody's life through the art of coaching than any of that other stuff. You can have all the degrees, all the letters after your name.
Are you actually helping people change their lives? Giant question mark, because people already have access to information, they get prescribed things all the time that they don't follow through on coaching is like the magic pixie dust that turns all of that information, all of that. I should do this, I should do that into action and results. Before we jump in, I'm going to do a quick shout out to our sponsor practice, better practice, better handles every aspect of managing your health coaching practice. I am talking billing, scheduling, note taking, online programs, all of it in one convenient place for you and your clients. They even have an app that makes it so very easy, even on the go. I used Practice Better for years and years in my health coaching business. I recommended all the time and for all of my listeners, you can save 30% on your first three months when you go to healthcoachpower.com/pb, that stands for Practice Better. So today I'm joined by Katey Caswell, who is my head coach inside Healthy Profit University, to talk about why to be a great coach, to really master the art of this whole coaching thing you don't need and arguably shouldn't have a structured coaching program. And we're going to share a lot of real life examples today. So this should be fun. Katey, thank you for joining me. Can you share a little of your coaching background with everybody?
Katey:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me Michelle. I'm Katey Caswell and I have been a health coach since about 2011. I'm board certified. I've worked with thousands of women, not quite as many men, but in various scenarios and situations. I've also worked with health coaches coaching them to be their best self and their best health coach self.
Michelle:
And so Katey and I, together combined, we have, I didn't do the math, decades. We have a boatload of help coaching experience to share with you today. As I was preparing this episode, I was thinking about a client of mine that I worked with about five years ago now. She was such a sweet woman and she was fairly typical in the sense that she was coming to me, she was looking for more energy, she wanted to lose a couple of pounds, that sort of thing. But in our very first session together, what I heard come out of her mouth was so much more than that. I heard, I mean it was crazy. I heard about a poverty stricken childhood. I heard about losing parents at a very young age, so much hardship. And I was thinking as I prepped this episode, I was like, you know what?
If I had followed the provided plan given to me by my health coaching school, I would've said to her something like, okay, okay, great. Thanks for sharing about your incredibly difficult childhood. I'm so sorry. Today we're going to talk about whole grains. It's like a record scratch moment. What on earth would that have been? Can you imagine? I just heard a woman share that she grew up in deep poverty and the next part of the conversation is going to be about this prescribed topic of the day, whole grains. So especially as a new coach, it is, I know it is so tempting to want to follow a curriculum with your clients, but that's an example and I have many more where in practice it just doesn't land. It doesn't work the way you think it's going to. So Katey, I know you've had experiences like this. Can you share one with us?
Katey:
Oh yeah. I actually just had something last week, Michelle. We were supposed to talk about protein, right? Because important as a health coach, you want people to have your protein and the woman comes in and she was like this, and I was thinking in my head, is she having a really big problem with protein? But instead of talking about protein, I said, alright, so I know we're supposed to talk about protein. That's what you said you wanted to talk about, but what else is going on? How are you doing? And she shared with me that I couldn't help her with the other things. So that's why she wanted talk about protein. She was very stressed. Her son was in prison, had been convicted, incarcerated, was in prison. Her husband was thinking of leaving. They had a flood in the house and she was having trouble at work, but I couldn't help her with any of that. So let's talk about protein and instead we talked about some other things and at the end of the call she said, I have no idea what protein I'm going to eat, but I definitely, I'm in a much better place. So just last week this happened to me. Yeah,
Michelle:
Wow. And so in that case, it wasn't you saying this is the protein session, but even when the client sets a curriculum for themselves, same, the difference between yesterday and today could be last week or last session. And this session could be quite dramatic, crazy, even if they said, let's talk about protein. That's wild. Absolutely.
Katey:
Yeah.
Michelle:
And just real quick, someone must be thinking, but we're not therapist or what makes you qualified to talk about a flood and a kid in prison?
Katey:
Oh, I just listened to her talk about the flood and the kid in prison
That's right.
What I talked to her about was breathing, which she said didn't work for her, but we approached it from just a different point of view. So we talked about breathing, we didn't talk about baths. She said, everyone tells me to take a bath. I don't have time to take a bath. I said, of course you don't have time to take a bath, but we're going to breathe for a minute, a minute throughout the whole day, 10 seconds, five times a day. And she, we also talked a little bit about morning pages. So I talked to her about journaling, about writing in a book. Definitely qualified to talk to people about breathing. We do it every day. How many breaths do we have a day? And I've been journaling since I was about six and I got my first little diary. So absolutely within that scope of practice because I didn't say, oh, get your attorney should be doing this about your son. I just listened to her and load about that and figured out what her next step should be.
Michelle:
Of course. So that's just to help you all understand that health coaching is a heck of a lot more than protein, fat, 10,000 steps, drink your body weight and water, whatever. We really can do so much more, and I think that point is going to come across several times today. Thanks for sharing that, Katey. I love these real life stories. It helps bring it to life. That's how the concepts start to really make sense. So what we talked about so far basically is a curriculum based approach to coaching or regardless of who set the curriculum, but saying this is the topic we talk about today. It's session two, it's going to be about blank nine times out of 10. It isn't what your client needs. So if you're like, I can't coach until I have a program and your program is essentially going to be this list of topics, be prepared to take that and throw it out the window because your client's going to show up and her son's in jail.
Or I've had clients show up and say, I'm getting divorced. Today's not the day that I want to talk about hitting my 10,000 step goal. So what we want to open everyone's eyes to is the opposite of a program, the opposite of a curriculum, and that is client led coaching. It's letting your client, not even like your client last week, but who she is or he is today when they show up for their session, lead the dance. And that means this is scary. I know, but actually it's a wonderful thing. It means showing up to a coaching session without a predetermined topic in mind. Everyone's head just exploded. Like tell me in the chat, that sounds super scary to you. It's allowing your client to tell you either explicitly with their words, they might say, here's what's really important today. I need to talk about this instead. Or maybe it's through their body language. Maybe it's the look on their face. Maybe it's a tone of their voice or other hints that there's something else actually going on that would be much more helpful for their health and happiness today. Katey, how have you found through the years that client-led coaching is so much more effective than a program set program?
Katey:
Yeah, I mean, you talk about the dance. I think that that's a wonderful analogy. I kind of like to think of coaching as a big puzzle. And if you're not letting your client give you the information that they have, if you are acting like the teacher and they're like, I'm the student, I'm going to sit back and listen. You don't have all the pieces for that puzzle and you've all had a puzzle where you're missing the last three pieces and oh, it's just so frustrating. So letting the client lead allows you to have all the information that you need to give back to them so that together you can figure out what their next step is.
Michelle:
That's a really good way of thinking about it because you think you have all the pieces of the puzzle, but you don't know anything about this client's history, emotional state, what's going on? Nothing. You really only have half the puzzle. You just know what you're bringing. You don't know anything about what they're bringing. Oh my gosh, we have so much work to do by letting the client lead. That's so important. Thanks for putting it that way. Kathy said over here, I think if women in my target market could understand more of how we coach this way, they would buy in way more often. It's interesting because I think there's two types of people in the world. Some people, they want the curriculum, they want the rules. Just tell me what to eat. I want to learn about this, this, I want you to promise that you're going to teach me that.
And I'm probably that person. I'm that type a person. But then there's the other people in the world that are like, oh my god, that sounds really overwhelming. Oh my God, I've done all that before. Oh my God, if I hear one more person talk to me about protein, I'm going to scream. So that's interesting you say that, Kathy, I wonder which type of client sounds like you're going for the type of client who would be scared off by all of that. Randy says, I have yet to use a program, but I'm very new to coaching. I start sessions with what is most important for you to focus on today? Or what would you like to walk away with today? Great, Randy. That's what we're talking about. And we have coaches who we're like, I need a program. Where can I get a program? I got to make my program.
I got to spend the next 12 months designing my No. You don't be like, Randy, you got to say what is most important for you to focus on today? That's it. I also think that when I as a coach don't know what's coming, it makes me a better coach because I have to be more present. I'm not just rattling off facts about macros for the 12th time today. I really have to be there. I really have to listen. I really have to hear sometimes it's very much between the lines, what my client is communicating, and that presence is key. When you go to see your primary care physician or you go to the gynecologist or whatever, they're going through the steps, they're doing their thing. But how often does somebody really listen to you in healthcare or otherwise? And even a friend or somebody, how often does somebody really listen to without their own opinions and their own agenda that they're pushing?
That is the gift of coaching and that's the energy that sets you up for really, really powerful sessions that this client is not going to experience anywhere else. So when I was reflecting back to that client where I was hearing a lot of pain in her voice when she spoke about her childhood, I said to her, I'm hearing a lot of pain in your voice when you speak about your childhood. It was like the floodgates opened and just like Katey's client coaching was no longer about protein or should I drink whole milk or 1% milk? It became about happiness and wholeness and self-care and joy. And yes, she wanted more energy. So she traded the early morning workouts that were exacerbating her fried nervous system, and she traded that for afternoons of birdwatching. Guess which one gave her more energy? I wouldn't have known this initially.
You couldn't just say, oh, in general, birdwatching is going to give someone more energy than exercise. But for her, 30 minutes on the elliptical was draining. It was zapping what she had, but spotting a new feathered friend and taking photos in a calm environment, that was what she needed that filled her with that joyful energy. So once again, health coaching is so much more than talking about food and exercise. Thank God it would get boring if that's all we did all day. It is a really beautiful thing. Kathy says, yes, presence links to authenticity, which moves mountains. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Well, Randy gave us a headstart. Randy said this question about what is most important for you to focus on today? That leads me into the how, right? Because I know coaches who have always followed a set plan or who want to follow a set plan are thinking, all right, well, if I'm not showing up to a session going, okay, today's topic is whole grains, what am I doing?
What value am I adding? Why am I even there? So I do want to acknowledge that following a session structure is still very important. Your coaching session. What I mean by that, right? Your session shouldn't be centered around a topic, but you still need to hold space for the flow of an effective session. And if you want to steal my client led coaching outlines, the same ones that I used in my own practice, I'm making them available to you. They are free. You can go grab them at healthcoachpower.com/outlines, and what they're going to do is they're going to give you something to follow and feel grounded by so you're not just free falling through your session like, oh my god, Michelle told me I wasn't allowed to say anything. I just have to listen. I have no idea how this hour is going to go.
This is going to just give you a little bit of structure so that hour with the client doesn't turn into, like I said, a free fall or a messy, they want to pick your brain session or anything like that. You always want to control the container of the conversation while your client is sort of leading the path inside and through that container. So again, my free coaching outlines are waiting for you. They are at healthcoachpower.com/outlines. You can download them right now and get a sense of what we're talking about. Now, generally speaking, there's one word for me. There's one idea that really sets the stage for coaching clients in this way even. It helps me remember where I'm supposed to be coming from, if I can just remember one word, and that is curiosity, because when you're curious, you're not bringing your answers to the table.
You're not bringing your preconceived ideas about here's what this person needs. Oh, I know how to fix this client. And when you bring curiosity instead, that allows for more powerful coaching. I also want to note it also helps keep you within your scope of practice because it's really easy to say, I could have said this perhaps to the client I was telling you about. Like, oh, hey, so I saw here you want more energy, you should take B vitamins. That's what works for me. I have so much more energy now that's not curious. That's also not coaching, telling somebody what they should try. It's also stepping into tricky legal territory that I know we're all worried about. So you never want to be like, I just told my clients to do X, Y, Z. That's prescriptive in nature, so don't go there. Curious instead would sound like, oh, hey, so you said you wanted to have more energy.
What do you think you would need in order to feel more energized? That's a question that's curiosity, and maybe your client says to you, I haven't slept more than three hours a night in the past 10 years. In which case, B vitamins, that's probably not the right recommendation. They probably need to talk more about what's going on with their sleep pattern. So that's that spirit of curiosity I want you to bring to your sessions. Katey, is there another theme or mindset that helps you remain in that coaching position and not accidentally go into recommending stuff?
Katey:
I mean, I'm all about the curiosity, Michelle. I think that that is a perfect guiding point, but I also love the concept of being a navigator because you have to help some people know where they want to go eventually they want to be more joyful. There might be some stops along the way. I want to lose weight, I want to do this, I want to do the other thing, but I'm not the driver. I'm not telling them that you need to not lose weight or you need to lose weight. It's not up to me where they want to end up. My job is to help them get there. What's the next town? There's so many ways to get from New York to California. They could get lost along the way. The internet is out there. The internet has all these different paths and guidance. So I'm their navigator and I'm just helping them get to that next place so that we can make sure that their destination is the same once they get there. Sometimes it changes along the way. So navigator, it's kind of a concept that I've latched onto.
Michelle:
Oh, I like that too. And it's funny because in a sense, they're the navigator, but when someone's like, well, I want this goal, but also this and also this and also that. So now they're going to Michigan and Oklahoma and Florida, but they said they wanted to go to California. So that's where you can step in and say, okay, which one of these do you actually
Katey:
Want? Yes.
Michelle:
For example, that's just human nature I suppose. Sometimes we have conflicting ideas in our minds. We've taken in information, like you said, from various sources like the internet or from our friends or whatever, and so you're helping them navigate through all that, make sure they're on a path somewhere. Absolutely. Otherwise, everyone's just going in circles, right? Randy over here is saying, thank you for providing these outlines. You are so welcome. I just think it's really helpful to follow something to keep yourself and your client moving intentionally through the session, right? Like I said, so it doesn't get messy, and that's why I made these free coaching session outlines available to you guys. So once again, they're at healthcoachpower.com/outlines. You can go ahead and download them now. Give them a try. Real quick, I want to draw a distinction between coaching a client and marketing to that client when it comes to, do you have a program?
Because, and Katey, we've talked about this in past episodes. If any of you go back in our archives, we've talked about signature programs, which are totally legit things. So I stand by the fact that you might want to have a signature program in your practice, and that is for when you are marketing yourself. If you're going to name your program after the person it's for or the problem it solves, you're going to be targeting your marketing towards a woman with thyroid problems. You might have a love your thyroid signature program, great. That helps women know that you are specifically suited to help her. She should probably hire you as opposed to signing up with some other program or some other whatever. So selling a signature program that is a way of communicating the value of your coaching. It does not mean that each session would have, in this case, a different thyroid topic predetermined by you.
That would be a curriculum, and that's what we're saying today does not work very well. So I know this feels like a contradiction, but you can sell, can market a love your thyroid signature program. So that type of woman, your target market, you're working with the same type of person over and over, and when you sit down to coach, you'll find there are themes. There's going to be some similarities. You're always working with the same type of person, but as we know, everybody's different. So when you sit down to that session with a client, it's still client led and she's probably going to talk about her thyroid symptoms. Good. She might also talk about her marriage or her work stress or whatever is most present for her that day, just like we've been talking about. So by supporting her, remember you are supporting her healing.
Even if you did not talk about her thyroid labs or whatever today, even if you talked about with the flood in her basement, you are still supporting her health, happiness, and healing by allowing the sessions to be client led. So yes to a signature one-on-one coaching program in order to market your services, in order to communicate your value. But once you're inside that coaching relationship, you still want to keep it client led. So hopefully that clears up any confusion. I just don't want you guys, I'm a little nervous that you're going to think Michelle said we should have a signature program, but now she says we shouldn't just for remember that like you public facing message, your offer, if you're like hereby client led coaching sessions, people rarely want that. They're really rarely, you know what I want? I want to sit down 12 times and just talk about things.
I don't know what with this person who's just going to let me lead. That's not what they're in the market for. We know that's the way to get them to their result, but that's not what they're thinking. They want to sign up for a result. So when you offer a signature program like Love your Thyroid signature program, which feels very valuable, that's exactly what she wants help with, that's going to always sell better than simply offering 12 open-ended health coaching sessions, which she's going to say, she's going to say she doesn't have time for it and it's too expensive. How often do we hear those types of things? Okay, so I hope we cleared the air there. What we've noticed is that a lot of health coaches, and when I say we, I mean Katey and I with all of our coaches inside Healthy Profit University and inside our health coach power community, we noticed that you guys graduate from school having learned about nutrition and functional medicine and gut health and hormone health and all this great stuff.
Often we haven't learned much about marketing and we also haven't learned much about how to actually do the coaching, what to do during the sessions, and therefore there's this huge lack of confidence. You are only going to get the confidence by doing the work, by seeing your clients succeed then in your heart that you have so much to offer. But when you come out of school and you haven't really done the work and you lack confidence, I'm going to tell you what happens. So many coaches who listen to this podcast, just raise your hand. Just say me in the chat. If this is you, you procrastinate anybody. You procrastinate about putting yourself out there. You spend time like building your website, posting to social media, but somehow, oops, I don't know, another month went by. No clients. A lack of confidence is usually behind a lot of this.
It is just going to tank your business faster than anything else because you don't really want to be in a coaching session with anyone if you're terrified of being in a coaching session with someone and you don't think you can help them, right? So I got a couple mes over here on the Yeah, I know. I've been there. You guys, I have gone through this exact path myself. So if you're thinking, oh my God, what if my client does this, then I don't have a plan. What if they say that and I don't have a plan? Where's my cheat sheet? What do I do? I'm scared. We're going to wrap up today with a quick round of what do you do, Katey, you ready for some? What do you do?
Katey:
Yes, I'm unmuted.
Michelle:
And already, yes, I'm like, that's a long hesitation. I know you've been waiting for this. All right. It's like a little lightning, lightning coaching around. So Katey, what do you do when a client says, just tell me what to eat.
Katey:
How about we figure that out together? Michelle, what do you say when a client says, aren't you going to give me a meal plan?
Michelle:
Well, if I gave you a meal plan, then what are you going to do after our sessions are done? You'll never know what to eat again. How about we work on meal planning together, and I'll show you some different ways to go about it, and you can pick your favorite. Katey, what do you do when a client says,
Katey:
I don't know. I say, think you know more than you think you do. We just need to get back in touch with your intuition. Remember, you were a toddler and you knew literally exactly what you wanted to do. Every moment of the day, we're going to uncover your hidden 2-year-old, not the one that screams and doesn't take a nap, but the ones that knows exactly what they want to do. Michelle, what do you do when a coaching conversation stalls and you're not sure what to say next?
Michelle:
My favorite thing to do is, like I mentioned with that client, is reflect back the energy that I'm feeling from someone that day, and I might even couch it with like, Hey, I could be totally off here, or I'm not really sure where this is coming from, but I'm just getting a vibe from you today that you're feeling sad or you're feeling angry, or a lot of exciting energy coming from you today. Just that reflecting back on the energetic level I find opens up the conversation again and sometimes goes in a totally unexpected way. That was fun. We should do more, but we're out of time. Thanks for playing ke. Thanks, and thanks for listening, everybody. Try a more client led approach during your next session, and I think you're going to be surprised how much more fulfilling that session is for you and for your client.
So again, remember those session outlines are completely free and full of seasoned coach experience at healthcoachpower.com/outlines. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can find me on Instagram at Health Coach Power Community or inside our free Facebook group at healthcoachpowe community.com, and this episode has been brought to you by That Clean Life, a platform that makes it easy for you to bring value to your clients and your practice with recipe books and helping clients meal plan for themselves. Just think of all the ways that you can use recipes with private clients and your online programs and cooking classes, and even lead magnets. It becomes so much easier with That Clean Life. They have a ton of recipes for every dietary style, whatever your client is interested in exploring, and you can save 20% off your first four months just for listening to this show when you join that Clean life at healthcoachpower.com/TCL. That's it for today, you guys. We'll be back next week. Have a great one. Bye-bye.