 Please welcome Marty Namco. I want to tell you very briefly how I learned about co-coaching. I had a friend back in the 70s who was your typical Bay Area person. She hated profit, she hated capitalism, she hated money. She was a true Bay Area person. And she said that there was a movement in the 60s and 70s to replace professional counselors with peer coaching. And how many of you would get offended if I cursed, by the way? Anybody? She said that those stupid F professionals don't help that much anyway. And that had a certain resonance to me. And so she said there's this thing called co-coaching. Because a lot of what ends up being useful is being a good listener, asking a few clarifying questions, and maybe gently making a few suggestions. And where each of you coach each other, so there isn't, to use again, a good Bay Area word, there isn't a power imbalance. You're coaching them for the first half hour, they coach you for the second half hour. And so it's been over 10 years now. And once every two or three weeks, by phone, we simply spend the first half hour and he brings up whatever issues he wants. And I coach him by basically listening, well, asking good questions, tentatively making good suggestions. And then the second half hour we switch roles. And I tell him about my issues, my issue. I start with an issue. He listens, asks questions, and then there's a follow. You know, then at the end of the session, we simply set up another appointment. No money changes hands, no power imbalance. We're doing it over a decade because it's work, it works, and it's fun, easy. Sometimes there's a need for broader input than just one person. And so I made a list of the eight people in the world who I most respected, no matter what their field was, who I most respected but who would be good in a group. They're not dominating of a group and they're kindhearted. In the end it's about that, not everybody is. A lot of people want to compete with you, make themselves feel superior to you, make you put you down because it's fun. We don't, on TV or in the media, we think, oh, everybody's always so well-intentioned. BS, that's not true. But I made a list of those eight people who are smart, therefore had a lot of ideas, good listeners, and truly benevolent in their spirit, kind of hard. I asked eight whether they wanted to meet, try meeting one time for a month, for one hour, I call it the Board of Advisors. And there's six of us, we've had one drop out, one added, and we, you know, simply when the person finishes, you know, he gets input from the group, sometimes they make suggestions, sometimes they ask questions. First they always, and that's the process that I'm going to be explaining now. The person says their problem sometimes in 10 seconds, sometimes in three minutes. The group then can go and ask a question for clarification or to help facilitate the person's coming to his own conclusion, because that's what's always best. If you don't invent it yourself, you're more likely to reject it, or it's more likely to be wrong because you know yourself better than somebody else does. Because you've got all kinds of psychological crap going on in your brain that helps you reject the wrong ideas that are wrong for you for some crazy reason or not crazy reason and make you accept ideas that are right. So the best thing that a co-coach can do is to make your first shot, try to get the ideas to come from them. Is that clear? I want to explain that, say that again. It is important for a co-coach or even a professional counselor to make their first choice to try to tease out the idea to come from them for two reasons. One, simply the ego of wanting to feel like it's your idea and not, that it's that person's idea, not yours, that's empowering to them. Two, because they have a screen that you don't know about of factors, things that they know won't work for them and would work for them. So even though it makes you feel kind of lame, because if they're coming to you for advice and say, oh, I've got this problem with my girlfriend or I can't get a job or whatever it is, the natural thing is you want to show how smart you are and they'll feel good if you give them great advice, you should resist that. Because in the end, while they say they want the advice deep down, they either don't and would love to come up with themselves or because they have a good filtration system. They know themselves for their whole life. They know the things internal to them that you can't know, the little crazinesses that we all have. So you start by trying, even though they're asking you for advice, the good co-coach says, well, tell me something more about that problem. Flesh it out. So even in explaining it, they get a better understanding of it. And then say, okay, what have you tried in the past? And they list that. And they may not actually tell you what they actually, they may lie and say they try because they're embarrassed to say the day that they hadn't tried it. But just simply getting them to say that will get them to clarify options. And then asking, okay, is there anything else that you might want to try? You're still trying to tease out as much as you can from them. But I am not a fan of just leaving it to them because you may have something to offer. So after you've gotten all of the good ideas to come from them, then if you have a good idea, then they've brain-dumped. Now their brain is more open. They feel heard, their ideas have come out. Then if you've got a good idea, then is the time to say, okay, is there, would you mind if I shared one other possibility? Then you, and then you couch it. This is California. In New York, you would just lay out the argument. But in California, you've got to use what I call California couching. Which is, I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea to, yeah, I know it makes you puke, but you know when it works. Makes me puke too, believe me. So I wonder whether it might be a good idea to, blah, and then you sort of, and then you close the sandwich with what do you think, right? I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to do blah, you know, maybe to contact the, go to a library of resume coaching event or whatever. What do you think? That is the way in which you can make your suggestion without engendering defensiveness appearing like a know-it-all. It requires a certain amount of subverting of your ego. The coach must suppress his or her ego, must say, my job is to serve. Because after the first 30 minutes we're going to switch roles and then he can serve me, right? But it's, you subvert your ego, your role is to tease out the truths from that person, what they've tried, what they might try. And then when you make your suggestion, it is not to show how smart you are. It is this humble crap of, you know, I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea and stuff. And in the end, that's, if you just, just keep that in mind, those, the little model and it's in your handout. But if it's just, you start by, what is your, whether it's in one-on-one co-coaching or you assemble a group of people. And by the way, this group of 100 people here is a perfect audience. Because first of all, you're self-screened. You're worth, you, you cared enough about your life to get your butt out of bed early on a Saturday morning. And in here, that self-selects for a motivated group of people. So you may well, when this is over at 12 o'clock, I urge you, I think we may have to clear the room, right? Do we have to clear the room right at 12? Yeah. But hang out in the lobby, network, schmooze amongst yourselves. Find pairs who might want to work with each other. Or a group of three or four or five who might want to work with each other. And I was just told, I mean, it's probably better to do it at one of your homes or whatever, but there are some rooms here. If you're stuck and you need a meeting space for three to six people, talk to our wonderful librarians. And they're likely to find a place for you at some time, maybe. So that's it in a nutshell. Also, normally, while it's fine to use the people here as your source of co-coaches, I would encourage you to think about your friends who you do think are smart and whom you trust, who are benevolent. Because they do know you pretty well already, and so they have a head start. You have a head start with each other. So, and just share this simple little model. Don't get insecure and think, oh, I really don't know how to do this. It's too hard. I swear on my mother's life. If you just follow those simple little general principles, and I'm going to go over them again one more time to kind of lock it in. First one thing when you haven't said, whatever, everything's confidential. That's the rule. It's the Vegas rule. What happens here stays here. So you can be taught unless the person about to commit murder or something in which case I might encourage you to do something about it. But short of that, even if it's their drug addiction or it's their whatever it is. By the way, it doesn't have to only be about career. Sure it can. You know, I want a new job or I hate my boss. I want to improve the way I work. I want this, but it could be about relationships. It could be about money. Could be about addictions. In my co-coaching, which I'm going to tell you a little bit more about in a minute, or in the group, we talk about everything. Nothing is off limits. And that's exciting and that's fun. And that's free. I have had a lifelong fear of death and dying from when I was 10 years old. And it has tortured me forever. And I decided I had tried professional therapy, didn't do squat. I read every book in the world on it, didn't do squat. And I decided, well, it wasn't worth my risking anymore money on it. But maybe if I talked it out with this friend of mine, as part of this co-coaching thing, maybe that's a good thing. And that's how I started. And the reason I'm mentioning that is to show the range of things that you could talk about. There is nothing off limits. Body image, wanting to get married. Your daughter who's driving you crazy, looking for a job, all of it. The model is, it's harmless model because we're not turning you into shrinks. Well, tell me about your toilet training, right? You're being essentially what a good friend should do. I promise to keep things confidential, step one. Step two, tell me about the issue you'd like to talk about. Step three, what have you, maybe a follow-up question. Tell me a little more about the problem. Simple, those things, those clarifying things. They sound simple and idiotic, but they end up being critical to making changes. So tell me more about it. What have you tried? Is there anything else? You can always go back for a second. What else have you tried? What else do you think you should try? Would you mind if I make a suggestion? And finally, let's summarize. What do you think you, and this is a great ending question. So what if anything, that's a great phrase because you're not putting that way, take the pressure off them. What if anything, would you like to try in light of our discussion? They say, yes, they'd like to try it. Would you like to, would it help you? I would then say to make a formal commitment that by next session, you'll have tried this or is that phony pressure? I give them choices all the time and that's it. It's no more complicated than that and you will, I can pretty much say you will both, derive tremendous benefit from that simple little process. And after the half hour is, let's say you could, sometimes the process takes that, that takes a half hour. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes. So if that person still has more time, their time is sank or sank. It's their time. Is there another problem you'd like to discuss? They get the full half hour so they don't feel they'll ever get short changed. Then at the half hour, I'm not religious about the half hour. Sometimes with my co-coaching is 25 minutes, it's 33 minutes, but roughly, give or take. The end of that roughly half hour, switch roles. The end of the hour, simply schedule another appointment. Again, not rigid. Some people are more, have to do it every week. No, it can be, let's look at your schedule. When you think we should set it up next. Because different people, sometimes people are in crisis times in their life and they want to meet more, they could want to meet in three days. Sometimes eh, I don't think I have a lot going on. Let's do it in three weeks or a month. It's good, no problem. Flexibility, phone, Skype, Google Hangout, in-person, coffee in a public place, in a private place. Fine, answer is yes, always yes. Totally individualized. Unlike whether a professional, where you've got to show up at his or her office, your appointment is at 10.45. See, my job is to try to put me out of business. Can't always, there's a place, I know a lot of stuff about career, believe me, I can add value, but I really think it's best if I can help you empower yourselves.