 Hi, I'm George cow and I'm really happy to be here with Molly Gordon. So Molly and I have gone back quite a few years I'm not even remembering. It's probably almost close to 10 years by this point and Molly has well first. I want to say hi to you Molly great to have you here. Thank you. Hi, George Yeah, thanks for doing this. So let me kind of share with the the viewers Your background a bit. We are going to be talking about Sort of the power of coaching today So for all of you who are coaches and who are transformational Service providers of some kind you work with clients to facilitate Some positive change within their life. This will be an interesting conversation for you Molly has been coaching actively since 1996 and of course she's certified and she not only is has been coaching Since 96. She also has been training Coaches for years and mentoring coaches and that's really her passion these days She is also passionate about social justice and I'll have her explain how that's related to coaching and she really Wants to mentor coaches Because coaches a lot of coaches are leaving a lot on the table in their in their work with clients They don't really see what they have to give in themselves and also they don't really understand a lot of coaches don't don't Don't aren't skilled in in in capture and seeing the capacities that the client has in themselves and really bringing that alive So Molly welcome to this conversation. Thanks for being here. Thank you George. It's wonderful to be with you. Yeah, so There's a lot we can talk about but We we mentioned a little bit on social justice and I want to kind of start there and then we can go into go into Coaching skills, etc. So How does you were in you know before we started recording you were mentioning the roots of coaching and how that relates to social justice? Maybe you can talk about that bit right hmm as I've looked more and more deeply at Social justice issues in this country, you know, I came into it as a well-intentioned good person wanting to see justice done for more people and There's an element in that of When some circles is called white saviorism. I mean I genuinely came in I'm the good person. I'm gonna help I Intended well, but I was blind to I was blind to the richness of lived experience Understanding spiritual understanding Philosophical understanding economic understanding all kinds of understanding that marginalized communities of all sorts Whether they're marginalized on the basis of gender sexual preference Neurology ethnicity race whatever it is Every human being has something to bring the tape to the table about being humans and we have left huge segments of society and millions of In of individuals with access to intelligence and wisdom and compassion and information There's a way in which George it looks to me like every being on the planet is here as a teacher and right now 55% of the teachers aren't being listened to in fact we expand it to the natural world 90% of the teachers on the planet are not being heard from So I'm committed to social justice not just because I want justice to be done Which I do but because as a living being I want the benefit of all of the wisdom all of the beauty all of the intelligence all of the possibility and I'm sorry, but white people can't deliver that Yeah, and the roots of coaching You mentioned our lot of people don't realize this, but yeah well, I Have a sense. This is my story. So it's made up my sense is that coaching emerged as a part of a process of collective and individual evolution that it's a developmental phenomena in the world and that I Felt that for a long time and as I look more deeply at like black feminist thinkers Indigenous thinkers. I see some of the threads of Early coaching some of the glimmerings we had about human potential Some of the glimmers we have about alternate ways of knowing even some of the methodologies we use around values and communication and sharing those are there's a lot of there are models for that in indigenous and and other communities and Some of the coaching models have actually been drawn from those Without permission, which is problematic. There's just a trove of understanding. I think that I Don't want to make an overgeneralization here But I observed them on black and brown people there tends to be there are often understandings about Community and group identity and how to support each other that I find lacking and Contemporary white society, I think that that a lot of the pain at work Might be addressed if we had some of the collective Understanding that some of the marginalized people seem to have and I am I this is a new glimmer to me I'm just kind of going holy cow. We're trying to solve Problems that other people have solved Or we're trying to understand things that other people have some understanding of and we need to bring that in so I think there's a collective communal Whether we call it the collection collective unconscious collective intelligence community All of those things they think are very important to community to coaching and that Marginalized communities often have a better understanding of them Yeah So when it comes to How you coach or how you mentor coaches What's what have you noticed that a lot of coaches are Underdeveloped in what what kinds of capacities or you know ways of ways of doing their work What I would say is coaches are underdeveloped in the area of mystery hmm That there's a tendency I think it has Based in something very honorable coaches want to deliver value And it's a very human thing to think that that value resides in you if I'm responsible for delivering value It's up to me to find the value and bring it over to your house But as you know coaching is more of a collaborative Co-creative process of Revealing value discovering value uncovering value and I hold that as a Very real dimension of coaching and I think it's the most overlooked and underappreciated dimension for newer coaches I think many come in with a an Intuition of it they believe in it, but it still exists kind of in a magical realm and I see new coaches either Just like close your eyes and tap your heels three times. I Want to go home. I want to go home and it will happen magical thinking or not accessing those resources at all and There's a it takes the sermon in practice to be able to deliberately Dial in a fruitful space of not knowing a fruitful space of wonder the fruitful space of exploration and I love listening for that and helping Coaches notice that it's available Hmm so for the person who is Feeling on the hook of that for delivering value How can we Kind of let that burden go a bit more. Yeah, I think in the method for letting it go is going to vary widely I Think each coach can look to his or her Spiritual traditions and the spiritual doesn't need to be religious, but whatever your understanding of how Intuition inspiration creativity renewal resilience the whole Complex of traits that are rooted in what I would call the spiritual dimension of being human So look to your own tradition. I don't think any tradition has a Corner on the market and every tradition provides a way in to look at it. So look at that Challenge yourself to both when you're coaching and outside of coaching look for the Resilience creativity intelligence and every human being The definition coaching of ICF has embedded in it I think it's in the prolonged actually that we believe clients to be whole creative and resourceful My edit is coaches realize no believing about it Realize that all human beings. This is not a special thing about coaching clients. All human beings are creative competent Now there are days in which the person in front of me does not look whole creative and resourceful It's on me to engage with that and Still speak to the part of them that is I have a note actually on my computer Awakeness talking to awakeness. This is my Basic guideline for coaching and I challenge myself to find the awakeness in me every day and To look for the awakeness and I recognize the awakeness in everyone. I mean That's beautiful. And of course my mind's you're not a stay Exactly, you know and to engage that not as magical Everyone is you know, but really challenge yourself if I believe that what's the question I would ask if I believe that how much more silence might I allow in my coaching session? Questions is one of the things that I think coaches is coaches are good at. What is a question you find yourself Enjoying asking In your sessions the one that's popping up persistently right now is it's an old one and Michael Bunga Stan year has Has made this very popular anything else If you know or what else Just that opening for more space That's good. Yeah. Yeah, and I I know that really The skill is is really within the the interaction in the conversation. It's not it's not a script. You know that you approach Yeah, the ICF competency actually related to questioning is powerful questioning not powerful question There is no question Right on a list that is powerful. There's only the act of questioning. Yes. Yes, and What have you what has surprised you about? Working with working working with Clients, I mean, you know, we are here to and as coaches I call myself a coach kind of a very non Certified way, I guess I would say but You know as coaches we were as people who are working to bring to strengthen to empower our clients What what has surprised you in your work to you know, well, I guess maybe that's a general question I'm like, what has surprised you in your work with clients? Like what's what's been? Yeah, what's what's been interesting for you? I think what surprises me is that a little goes a long way Hmm, you know, I Had a new client last week and She just had a little little insight little shift in her understanding about anxiety And about she came in wanting to think more positively. She's a person who's had cancer and It's had a like me a bilateral mastectomy. She's been through chemo and radiation her her prospect is really good However, like many people after a cancer diagnosis, she was walking around under sort of a cone of guilt Negative thinking gave me cancer and if I can't control my negative thinking going forward and we'll come back It's like wow, I don't want any human being walking around bearing the burden of their for their thinking but So I just asked her I said does it look to you like you have power over that? And I allowed her space To sit in her answer her answer was no it didn't look like she had power But she had come in thinking that that was a problem and even in indictment. I Should have power over my thinking and she left going hey to me. I don't have power over my thinking and Negative thoughts can run through my mind all day long. I don't have to I don't have to buy that So it's like taking it on it is that little shift in understanding of her relationship to her own thinking hugely beneficial to her even a year ago I think I would have tried I would have wanted to drive past that and Build out that understanding and make her interpretation of that resemble mine and Now I see the value of letting that unfold in her in Whatever unique way it does I'm not trying to control the flowering of the understanding the way I used to Wow, that's that's powerful. Yeah, is there another Client story that comes to mind of some kind of Transformational moment or experience what would pop into my mind is another new client Gentleman who's mid to late career To his surprise is just found himself in the middle of a divorce. He's getting a divorce that wasn't in his life plan He's quite successful and For the first time in many years as a coach. I found myself going through my hard drive looking for values exercises You know, we're going like back to the very beginning the beginning of my work as a coach and kind of the beginning of many people's journey and I'm sharing that as an example You never know where clients are going to come in as a coach develop Ideally, we should always meet our clients where they are so the I Never know what a client's gonna need from me. That's all I'm trying to say Every situation is unique one day. We're doing a values exercise next day. We're making a pro and con checklist You know, there's there is no right way to coach. In fact, I was reviewing a new book by a coach The other day and it's not a lot of good stuff in it But it tried to make It's thesis the thesis for coaching We don't have to do that. You could write a great book about Thai cooking. You do not have to make it About converting me to cut Thai cooking. I can still eat A hot dog and Thai and Chinese and Indian and you know, and in coaching it's like you keep Arguing over the right way to do it. No, let's cook Let's open this up instead of shut it down. Wow, that's great I think this applies, you know, not only the coaching but healing You know and and transformation and of all different kinds. So It doesn't have to be the one the one way So if anybody's watching this and saying well Molly, do you how do we how does somebody work with you? Like what's the what's the next step if they wanted to to explore further with you, right? I have a website Shaboom Inc.com and on that website the contact form anyone who thinks they might want to do coaching or coach Mentoring with me just shoot me a note and I have no obligation Initial conversation to explore Whether or not we should work together or whether or not I have other resources for you that you can use great and it's a Sha boom inc.com Shaboom Inc. And I just wanted to quickly put it on the screen so people can see it So that's how it's felt Shaboom Inc.com great, and you've got a contact page Somewhere in there somewhere. I think I think it's probably on the bottom of the about page. There we go. Yes Yes, yes, that's true. Probably probably yeah, there you go. Well, how to reach me. Here we go. Great Okay, cool. All right Anything else before we conclude this conversation anything any other wisdom to leave us with No, it's just a pleasure to speak with you George. Yeah. Thank you. Same here Thanks, Molly, and I'll be sure to put the link in the notes of the video and that you're also active on your Facebook profile I don't know if you want people to follow you there or People feel free to follow me on Facebook. You know the last month or two. I've been on Twitter more I I go back and forth. I bounce around, but I'm at Shaboom on Twitter. Great. Great. Well, I'll be sure to link that as well All right. Well, thank you, Molly You're welcome. Thank you, George