[UNKNOWN]: music playing [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Coaches Rising podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Today I'm joined by Kyle Dietrich and we're going to be exploring the initiative that he co-founded after the enormous wave of federal layoffs in early twenty five.
[SPEAKER_01]: He created a collective of coaches who coached public servants and social sector professionals to help find their way forward and I find it a really inspiring [SPEAKER_01]: movement, a way that the coaching industry is adapting to the times that we find ourselves in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Kyle Dietrich is the founder of Grounded Idealist and the co-organizer of the coaching collaborative, which is this global initiative mobilizing thousands of credential coaches to support tens of thousands of public servants navigating job displacement and transition. [SPEAKER_01]: Kyle is a certified empowerment facilitator and trauma-informed leadership coach.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got more than twenty-five years of experience leading large-scale peace-building, new monetary and assistance programs in complex contexts, including Haiti, Niger, Turkmenistan, and Burundi. [SPEAKER_01]: And he served as the training and leading director of USAID's bureau for humanitarian assistance until early, twenty-twenty-five. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's dive in his podcast with Kyle Dietrich. [SPEAKER_01]: Kyle, so yeah, really good to be with you today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm really excited to actually share what you've been creating with the world, because I think it's really beautiful. [SPEAKER_01]: And first of all, let me ask how you do. [SPEAKER_00]: It is so good to be with you and to have come to know you through our work and the work that you've built for years. [SPEAKER_00]: It's been deeply influential to me and my own journey as a coach. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, in this moment, I'm doing really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel very [SPEAKER_00]: rooted in possibility is how I would say it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a beautiful place to be considering everything's unfolding. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's one of the invitations, perhaps, being made I was thinking about [SPEAKER_01]: the work of coaches in our times. [SPEAKER_01]: And I've got some thoughts about that. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll hold that thought and because I will get into this, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'd love for you just to begin to tell your story, you have a company that grounded idealist and you've created the coaching collaborative. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a really beautiful initiative. [SPEAKER_01]: Could you tell us what that is and the story that led to its creation? [SPEAKER_00]: Sure. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks Joel. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm a coach, I'm a leadership coach and a trauma-informed coach.
[SPEAKER_00]: My primary role for the past twenty-five years has really been centered around international development and humanitarian assistance. [SPEAKER_00]: And so mostly an implementer of programs around the world, a lot of them focused on peace and conflict. [SPEAKER_00]: Most recently I was working at USAID, USAGNC for international development. [SPEAKER_00]: and was leading the training and learning team for the Bureau for humanitarian assistance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so earlier this year, with the new administration, there have been lots of changes, lots of cuts in particular to certain agencies, including USAID. [SPEAKER_00]: When I was losing my job and experiencing like many people hundreds of thousands of people are going through periods of deep personal and professional transition, job displacement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a coach, looking at thousands of other individuals like me, you know, living lives of public service, working either for the government or for implementers, contractors, nonprofits, et cetera. [SPEAKER_00]: We really looked at how can we support individuals navigating these transitions?
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a coach, looked at my network of coaches and lots of different coaching groups, I'm part of, including yours, [SPEAKER_00]: And just put out a call on LinkedIn and said, hey, who wants to essentially raise their hand to provide pro bono coaching to thousands of displaced workers? [SPEAKER_00]: And again, this is not a partisan movement. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a political effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really about humanity and about supporting who are we if we don't support people. [SPEAKER_00]: And as coaches, this is our calling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it really overwhelmed, we have almost three thousand coaches who signed up, showing that their own commitment to service, to giving back [SPEAKER_00]: And wanting to be part of something positive, I think, again, looking at the world right now, there are a lot of things that don't feel aligned with our values and who we are, that don't feel good. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of dysregulation in the water in our politics and the way we consume information.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we saw ourselves essentially as an antidote, as a way of, you know, a container that could hold people, help people ground, build their own individual and collective resilience. [SPEAKER_00]: As with coaching as a starting point, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So coaches signed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They offer three free coaching sessions, and then we had thousands of displaced workers from essentially every government agency, all of these implementing organizations, as well as universities and nonprofits. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's an incredible array of people that are lifesaving scientists, FEMA first responders, humanitarians, and this is a global community of people, both coaches and our displaced workers.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are from around the world, and this became a social movement. [SPEAKER_00]: that started with coaches as essentially the fertilizer and the container to nurture [SPEAKER_00]: and help people clarify. [SPEAKER_00]: So who am I? [SPEAKER_00]: What's possible now? [SPEAKER_00]: How do I not just become numb and stuck and frozen in this transition? [SPEAKER_00]: But look at it as an opportunity to clarify my values, my vision, my strengths, my purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now we're on a journey. [SPEAKER_00]: We went from this passion project led by a number of displaced workers like myself into really thinking about what is possible here. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we have lots of other offerings. [SPEAKER_00]: We're developing group coaching, [SPEAKER_00]: created an incubator that's really going to support the future of international development and public service more broadly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're really just trying to see what's possible. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we're five months in and they've just started to formalize as a tax exempt entity as a team. [SPEAKER_00]: We still haven't paid ourselves. [SPEAKER_00]: We're working towards that. [SPEAKER_00]: But I would say this is created just such a groundswell, not just the people who are benefiting, we would think of as the workers, which have overwhelmingly felt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think transformed by this, but the coaches. [SPEAKER_00]: And the way I say this, and this is a long answer, but I often say things like love and hope are not nouns but verbs. [SPEAKER_00]: And love is something if we need something to pour into, we need an object of our love, or that love becomes a suppressed energy. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is why when we lose people in life grief becomes unexpressed love, then we don't have a place for it to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've created a container for people to pour in, essentially, their love and their hope and build something that's different from, I think, what we're seeing overwhelmingly around us. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the power, I think is what we're creating. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to explore a bit later about what is possible, you mentioned that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, could you say a little bit more about what you've seen happen, you know, you're connecting coaches with this place workers? [SPEAKER_01]: What kind of things are happening? [SPEAKER_01]: I know you are also connecting coaches with [SPEAKER_01]: well-known thought leaders and trainers. [SPEAKER_01]: I also did a session for you guys and I thought it was just an incredible experience and I can share more about that later. [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, what's been happening?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you seeing happen? [SPEAKER_00]: And I do want to pause here, if I can, because Joel, you've been very influential in my life. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the twenty-twenty-two summit that you encroaches rising organized. [SPEAKER_00]: That connected me to some of my teachers, Thomas Jubel, Nicolusiani. [SPEAKER_00]: I did long courses with both of them, and it become aware of so many other people, and have listened to your podcast, tended some of your programs.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have to say to the audience, the folks listening, if they don't know, because they might know you like me as [SPEAKER_00]: somebody who interviews and is present-seen, great, thoughtful people, you're also a wonderful coach.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having you come in and speak with our group and we've had Thomas, we've had Amy Elizabeth Fox for Mobius and Otto Sharmer, Jennifer Garvey, Berger lots of individuals, thought leaders that that your community would know, but you also came in and did such a masterful job at just present-seen in terms of the process, not content necessarily, but the process of transformational coaching [SPEAKER_00]: And we had overwhelming, you know, great feedback from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yes, we've had a number of sessions that are both resourcing our coaches because if we're really honest, [SPEAKER_00]: This is a different moment. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we're trying to do is different. [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a traditional career transition that we're going through. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a collective trauma.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we wanted to work with Thomas, you, Amy, and others to really create a curriculum and an experience that would resource our coaches to navigate and help accompany people navigating this transition and this complexity more effectively. [SPEAKER_00]: That's why we had all of these sessions in parallel.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of content, uh, resourcing and skill development sessions for our displaced workers, which are focused on building resilience on collective futures, but also on the more practical and tactical elements about career, using AI and LinkedIn, right, resumes, interviewing, working with recruiters because that's the reality of where these folks are. [SPEAKER_00]: I say it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you look at kind of Maslow's hierarchy, [SPEAKER_00]: And the pyramid, the folks in our network are navigating both the base of the pyramid, the core needs and the top because it is about their identity and their self-actualization, because these are individuals whose entire lives were anchored in purpose. [SPEAKER_00]: And so how they pivot with purpose is going to be critical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just meeting those base core needs, but so understanding the alignment and creating the sense of clarity and wherever they go is a core part of it. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we have these sessions. [SPEAKER_00]: We have the coaching experience. [SPEAKER_00]: I would say we've created a community.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's people who are wanting to in needing to grieve and process and figure out [SPEAKER_00]: what this means, making sense of it and this is what's hard about us as we have all of this data because thousands of people have signed up with us. [SPEAKER_00]: And every week it's a different agency or it's a different sector that's affected and you kind of get a pulse and a sense of what's going on in our country and the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by who's in our network and who's signing up and how people are responding [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think ultimately on the coaching side, people want to give back the reason they're doing this is they are service aligned and they see that grounded idealist organization fills essentially a values aligned to gap that we don't see in a lot of the other, the news or what's going on right now. [SPEAKER_00]: And so while we want to help people get jobs, that's not our core purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the grounding, the aligning, the building of resilience, the building of community. [SPEAKER_00]: So we can reimagine [SPEAKER_00]: right, a future together and help incubate and nurture those futures that we're essentially seeding with this moment. [SPEAKER_01]: And do you, what have you noticed with the, you know, the people that have lost the [SPEAKER_01]: that roles, what's the impact of them of being able to come in and receive coaching?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that might in some way be a difficult question to answer. [SPEAKER_01]: It's very unique to each person. [SPEAKER_01]: Are you getting a sense of feedback from them? [SPEAKER_00]: We do. [SPEAKER_00]: We actually just finished a whole series of focus groups. [SPEAKER_00]: We have feedback forms. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of the data is shared on our LinkedIn and our website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, overwhelmingly, let me say it this way, just stepping back from the question is, most people who are signing up for coaching with us have never worked with a coach. [SPEAKER_00]: And so they also saying that as coaches, a lot of times we know that people don't know what coaching is or what to expect. [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you're in this acute crisis, a lot of people get go to that base of the pyramid. [SPEAKER_00]: And so what they want is essentially a career counselor.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to step back and do some education about what coaching is and say we're not career counselors. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not therapists. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not consultants and all of those things are wonderful, but this is what coaching is. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to help you tap into your own inner wisdom, your own truth to clarify and align and deepen within you. [SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: The processing, the visioning, [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's been hard at times people come in and we've had to get them to slow down, right, to sort of back up. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I think Nicholas and Thomas, you similar language, but it's this idea that the doing needs to come from the beam.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we're at this repetition, compassionate for engaged overwhelmingly in the doing, and we are reacting and not grounding and responding to this moment, then it's a disservice to our spirit. [SPEAKER_00]: to the emergent properties in us, because we need to stop. [SPEAKER_00]: We need to say, oh wait, am I implementing expired dreams? [SPEAKER_00]: Is this still true for me that I wanted to be doing XYZ?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so by and large, again, the data is hard and aggregate to kind of sum up because we're talking thousands of people. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think people feel more resilient overwhelmingly. [SPEAKER_00]: They feel more grounded and able to process. [SPEAKER_00]: That means dealing with anger, that means dealing with sadness.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means also naming the things that they're feeling without just suppressing them, which we know becomes frozen, energy that's inaccessible, potential in us. [SPEAKER_00]: But then it's a lot of the, you know, just, I'll say it this way as somebody who's both a coach and dedicated my life to this service-oriented work. [SPEAKER_00]: we're often helping other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is, right, we are a type, we are an archetype, coaches often fall into this category as well. [SPEAKER_00]: We are orienting our entire energy outside. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're encouraging these individuals to do is to ground and to give back to themselves. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of this might end to help them understand how beautiful and powerful their story is.
[SPEAKER_00]: and how they can kind of, I'll say also this point, I think is important to say it's a little different from your question, but we ask people, we do live events, we do online events, and we often ask people, how happy were you in your last job?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say half of the people in our community weren't happy in their last job, and that is important to name, because when it's taken away from you, [SPEAKER_00]: You off all of a sudden, romanticize, attach, probably forget some of the harder parts, but that is helping to build agency and clarity about a weight. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is a woman, my true regardless of the agency or the sector. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of us wanted things to reform.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to see ourselves in power roles and body roles. [SPEAKER_00]: And okay, so if we do that and we reframe this moment as an opportunity, [SPEAKER_00]: What is possible? [SPEAKER_00]: What's the new dream? [SPEAKER_00]: You might be not looking at your dream job immediately. [SPEAKER_00]: It might be a survival job because that's a reality. [SPEAKER_00]: But as you're doing that survival job, what is the dream?
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the past, what's the thing that's been getting in the way of that dream? [SPEAKER_00]: And so slowing down, looking at our limiting beliefs, our core belief architecture, our patterns, the stories we tell ourselves that are getting in the way of the things we want and try to create in our lives. [SPEAKER_00]: So coaching does that. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we've received tremendous feedback. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our coaches are wonderful people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're incredibly active and they want to give back. [SPEAKER_00]: They want to be part of, again, a politically but a social movement that is part of healing and restoring and repairing and really building agency and empowerment within people. [SPEAKER_00]: People are so hungry for this right now. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what I'm so inspired by with this in that, you know, a coach is rising.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've often said, coaches can play a role in our times, helping us navigate these times. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I'm just delighted to see coaches responding in this way, meeting people who've [SPEAKER_01]: experience this rupture in their lives that, you know, coaching not just as a, as a kind of form of way of being that humans can embody as being as being gifted or brought to people in need in their sense. [SPEAKER_01]: And that just touches me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you're saying now, it just seems like also right now, one of the key roles a coach can play is what you're describing really is like to be able to [SPEAKER_01]: meet the sense of disregulation that is caused by the disruption that's happening in the world and you could extend that to all of this really.
[SPEAKER_01]: You only have to look at the news and right now it's day by day things unfolding that one of my main practices is just like being in touch with my nervous system, my attachment system getting activated and being able to meet that [SPEAKER_01]: with compassion and love. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a dojo in a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that does that kind of changing role of a coach in being able to hold space to meet grief in the way that you're talking that I think is important to underline here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that also, if I zoom out, there is a sense of an evolution retention at play, which is [SPEAKER_01]: like having people sort of look at their lives and go, hey you know I wasn't actually that happy in my work and what is this an invitation into and and that that's that there's an evolution of consciousness on a more collective scale taking place including even the birth of the collaborative that you've created you know that that's an entity that didn't exist
[SPEAKER_01]: six months ago that now exists in the world, in response to what's emerging, and that has embedded within it, you know, this beautiful values and frequencies of consciousness. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I'm struck by a certain, you know, whilst it's devastating, there's a kind of certain poetry to it as well. [SPEAKER_00]: There is, if we allow ourselves to feel that, right, I think, [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a beautiful tension, almost a dance playing out right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Most of us are embedded in an outcome that I think prevents us from seeing the bigger dance, but I would say it this way. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a painful dance. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not always easy, but there's an unfreezing, an unthine of centuries of trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Colonialism, racism, sexism, pain stored in the bodies, sort of the permafrost of our really epigenetic, our human lineage.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's happening right now that's unfreezing that because consciousness is emerging and becoming right to this sort of tipping point of normalization at the same time there's an asymmetric vertical development happening and so some of us are choosing to restore and become more embodied at a time that new trauma is being created [SPEAKER_00]: new scar tissue is being created. [SPEAKER_00]: And so there are competing forces right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the dance that I feel is we are becoming more attuned to all of these things trying to do the deep integration work. [SPEAKER_00]: That is way, I mean, we're talking hundreds of years. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not been done. [SPEAKER_00]: Thomas talks about beautifully about this, the context of intergenerational trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time, we can't deny that as that, you know, permafrost unfreezes, [SPEAKER_00]: and thoughts we don't have the resources to hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: the collective feeling of all of the tribe. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know what to do. [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying, we're trying to navigate. [SPEAKER_00]: And then at the same time, there are new waves of trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: Depending on what weak it is, it's new conflicts, it's protests, it's popular uprising. [SPEAKER_00]: It's all kinds of fits and starts. [SPEAKER_00]: I would say like old systems are holding on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like flashing red signs of the old ways of doing things are trying to hold on, but they won't. [SPEAKER_00]: We are up against these deep evolutionary planetary edges of life wanting to move forward. [SPEAKER_00]: And to advance in ways that are more regenerative, more sustainable, more grounded, more interdependent. [SPEAKER_00]: But there's a lot that we're up against. [SPEAKER_00]: And we have to recognize that dance. [SPEAKER_00]: And to name it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't simply name, we often talk about a trauma response as a form of intelligence. [SPEAKER_00]: which helps to humanize it and allow us to feel not stigma and judgment around our own trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: But that's at the same at the planetary level as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to name that these terrible systems are somehow trauma responses that we have to name and say it's some way that these terrible things serve us planetarily historically, I don't know, but they're baked into the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're baked into the frame social fabric that were up against [SPEAKER_00]: And what I say, and this is why the work we're doing is so important if I can bring it back to this, is the people we most need to face these complex challenges, the public servants, the mission-aligned mission-driven professionals, are the same ones that are being removed from their positions of influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their ability to meet this moment of deep complexity, the metacrisis, as we talk about it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why what we see as our work is so important. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just about helping people get back on their feet, although that's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about rooting outer development and inner development and helping those that are in these beautiful positions of influence around our critical, most compelling social issues continue to have a role to play in helping us progress. [SPEAKER_00]: to make our lives safer, our water and air more drinkable, our environment, everything that we care about, those of the people in our network that we're trying to help. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, but there's a dance.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't an inevitable progression that we're going to be up against. [SPEAKER_00]: Right? [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. King said, life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others? [SPEAKER_00]: Coaches answer that question. [SPEAKER_00]: King also said, we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're doing is creating a container for infinite hope that allows us to support other people that happen to be those public servants. [SPEAKER_00]: At a time when public service has an entire norm organizing our society is eroding. [SPEAKER_00]: The things that make us better, that create deeper senses of belonging and interdependence, is how we show up for other people and how we serve. [SPEAKER_00]: And we need more opportunities to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're one, we're a part of this constellation, right? [SPEAKER_00]: What we call these islands of coherence. [SPEAKER_00]: We're one of those islands of coherence providing opportunities for people to pour in their hope. [SPEAKER_01]: I think those islands of coherence are so important because of the regulative capacity within those islands.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I noticed in that session that you named that I did with you, the beauty of it in a way was that people were just coming forth to share themselves. [SPEAKER_01]: beautifully and coherently. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was saying maybe even in their co-incoherence there was a beauty about the truth and depth of their hearts from where they were speaking and that inside of that process there was a kind of co-hearing taking place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my sense is that that's where in these communities we can come back into a sense of [SPEAKER_01]: exploration, a sense of possibility, and then create initiatives that can impact the world. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm wondering about that for you because there's unintended consequences.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about when the China invaded Tibet and then all the Tibetans would displace, but actually that proliferated Tibetan Buddhism around the world in a way that it wouldn't have before, [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think, do you see possibly, you know, and maybe this is getting back to the what is possible question, do you see that there are possibilities for these people who have been displaced but have all this
[SPEAKER_01]: expertise and sense of purpose to create new initiatives or come together in ways that, you know, may create something that was unintended but has a positive impact. [SPEAKER_01]: Like is that taking place even? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it is, I think we're in [SPEAKER_00]: I think our organization and our movement has realized that we're pivoting from an emergency response. [SPEAKER_00]: In my work in our development, we talk about different phases.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, I was in Haiti for a couple years after the earthquake in twenty ten. [SPEAKER_00]: The first phase is the emergency response, the humanitarian response. [SPEAKER_00]: And then that can't last forever. [SPEAKER_00]: It shouldn't last forever. [SPEAKER_00]: We need to move into a space of recovery and then hopefully regenerative programs sustainable development. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the arc that we hope for.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a program, we have been in a sprint of emergency response and now we're trying to recalibrate slow down this [SPEAKER_00]: This is a marathon. [SPEAKER_00]: How do we take care of ourselves? [SPEAKER_00]: How do we take care of our people or coaches so that we can be fit for purpose for a longer term, right, effort? [SPEAKER_00]: So that's just context.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say it's part of what I was saying before in that I hope the outcome and this is part of what I've tried to bring into my work and why I've moved from being an implementer only to being a coach because [SPEAKER_00]: Again, going back to the question and how happy were you in your last job and a lot of people said, eh, not so happy there were things and that's most of us, that's not just our sector, that's any sector and there are lots of reasons for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think people are looking for and what we believe is important is [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, the outer change that we're seeking has to be rooted in our own inner work because what was happening and why I became a coach and a facilitator was there was a deep disregulation that was being transmitted. [SPEAKER_00]: Go back to Haiti or Burundia was there during the Civil War, other parts of West Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: There, you know, if you're delivering humanitarian assistance, you're engaging in partnerships with community around any issue, any sector. [SPEAKER_00]: If what I'm doing is undermined by my transmission, my unintegrated trauma, my own baggage that these countries can ill afford to have, and I am transmitting dysregulation, that's a problem. [SPEAKER_00]: Not to mention a lot of these systems historically are neocolonial, and we have to decolonize them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to localize them. [SPEAKER_00]: We have to do all kinds of things different, which the people within them know [SPEAKER_00]: and we're actively working to create more inclusive localized programs and systems. [SPEAKER_00]: And so what I think we want to do as we think about reimagining the future of these sectors is to have the leaders, the emerging leaders of them, be more trauma-informed.
[SPEAKER_00]: have deeper senses of self-contact and self-awareness, have an anchor in their own inner development as the key instrument for outer development. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not just jumping into the doing and the what we're stopping with the how and the being, just how am I showing up in my transmitting coherence and restoration [SPEAKER_00]: in countries that are affected by acute or chronic crises, conflicts, disasters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what we're trying to do to essentially create a new programming, a new coding for this entire system of public service. [SPEAKER_00]: Because for me, that's what's been largely missing. [SPEAKER_00]: That is at the core of the disregulation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know, choose your issue if you look outside at the world, [SPEAKER_00]: The issue comes from our own disregulated system that is manifesting disregulation, that is creating all of the conflicts, that is creating all of the inequities, the living out of sync with the natural environment, all the climate crisis that we deal with. [SPEAKER_00]: All that is rooted in ourselves. [SPEAKER_00]: None of it is outside of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so how we show up into these discussions, into these moments, we are living out of balance with the planet. [SPEAKER_00]: We are living in unsustainable ways. [SPEAKER_00]: We are doing things in that, you know, the power balance has to completely shift with how we engage with other countries in particular, the global south. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what we're trying to kind of build and embed within the future, as we incubate the future of public service.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you just go back to your point of, you know, people coming in and at first, you know, kind of wanting career guidance, career counseling, but then [SPEAKER_01]: and being invited maybe to slow down or into their interior, do you have you found that people are like open to that? [SPEAKER_01]: And when they do it, they start to go, oh, you know, like, oh, right, what's your sense around that? [SPEAKER_00]: My sense is overwhelmingly yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a system we've created on the back end that essentially tries to do vetting, sorting and matching of coaches and clients at scale because we're talking thousands of people. [SPEAKER_00]: And that system right now, we're at ninety seven, ninety eight percent successful. [SPEAKER_00]: A few very few come back and say, uh, and the few who come back and say, uh, I need a different coach. [SPEAKER_00]: It's because they want a career counselor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what that says is the ninety seven ninety eight percent who we say trust the process trust you know the magic of unexpected connections because we can't do heavy matching we don't have the capacity to that we have our own beautiful system that does it to good stand we have humans that vet all the matches but overwhelmingly people are trusting the process and coaches know by you know the agreements they sign because of their training they know how to meet people and expand the container right I always coach you know often as a nest
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you think of sort of a person within the nest, you want to be just a little bit bigger. [SPEAKER_00]: than that first, you know, you want to be able to expand, but you don't want to be a huge nest if somebody's like, like, contracted. [SPEAKER_00]: And so meeting them where they are, but with a little space to grow and expand, all of our coaches know that. [SPEAKER_00]: They know how to meet people and expand.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're contracted, they know how to get them to expand, right? [SPEAKER_00]: If they're grieving, they know. [SPEAKER_00]: And we also, you know, we know what our limits as coaches and that we need to refer out because this is a clinical issue that I'm not capable. [SPEAKER_00]: And there is trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we want our coach to be more trauma informed, but also know the boundaries of their own expertise and of coaching as a profession.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in general, I would say the people who sign up for coaching to be coached. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're so grateful that it's a total mindset shift for a lot of them into trusting themselves and to loving themselves and to embracing this transition in a different way. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just this [SPEAKER_00]: kind of scarcity mindset this over-reactive system.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, that's hard because people feel, and again, without getting political people feel targeted, they feel like, ugh, I was doing what I loved. [SPEAKER_00]: I studied for years. [SPEAKER_00]: We have PhDs, we have judges, we have assistant secretaries, we have CEOs in our network. [SPEAKER_00]: Very senior people who've done this for twenty, thirty, forty years. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is all they know. [SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly, it's not just they've lost a job.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've lost a sector. [SPEAKER_00]: It's existential. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, wait. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was the best of us as a country and the word. [SPEAKER_00]: And now we're saying that this is not who we are. [SPEAKER_00]: And then again, because of the political swirl, there's like a persecution of some of these individuals who felt so aligned with their values. [SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to also hold them there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they don't just abandon their mission and their purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: is that that's a dangerous prospect is if all these beautiful people who are driven by a purpose suddenly say oh wait this is not safe anymore I need to go to do something that's you know with more risk of version as opposed to possibility we we don't want that people have to make a choice one based on what's best for them and their families but we want people to double down on public service to say no we need this [SPEAKER_00]: more now than ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to take people based on their risk tolerance based on what they're able to do and what they need, but support them. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think overwhelmingly it's been positive and it's helped people step again more into the integration of where they are [SPEAKER_00]: And I would say in the first couple months, it was a lot of grieving. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of anger. [SPEAKER_00]: And now it's sadness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, right, and it's creating the alignment of, okay, what do I want next? [SPEAKER_00]: Because the reality is, and the reason we're creating this incubator idea, which coaches will be part of, to do group coaching around people and that are aligned around issues and want to build the future of these sectors. [SPEAKER_00]: is there are a lot of jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so even when you come out of that and you feel more resilient and you feel more clear, then you have the job market and you're like, oh, damn. [SPEAKER_00]: There are now ten thousand of us applying for one job. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the reality is we're going to have to create a lot of these jobs. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we're trying to create opportunities for people who do want to become social entrepreneurs, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that kind of brings up that question of what you see as being possible here. [SPEAKER_01]: And we touched in before we started recording about the disruption in the workforce and the US is one issue, but there are many issues, of course, around the world that may actually be benefit from this kind of approach. [SPEAKER_01]: What do you see as possible right now? [SPEAKER_01]: What's your vision where you might take this if you have a sense of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, they're kind of two sides. [SPEAKER_00]: There's the coaching side and what we see because coaches are not just sort of an instrument. [SPEAKER_00]: They're also a direct kind of beneficiary of our energy. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we, the coaching also as an industry, I think a lot of coaches feel like needs to continue to evolve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say moving in the direction of being more trauma-informed is important given what we're experiencing when I talked about it with this sort of fine of collective and intergenerational trauma. [SPEAKER_00]: I think rounding more in our development, they're different perspectives around vertical development. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a critical piece of coaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: In general, what I want to see on this side of the house, we say it, what I would like for the future of our work, is for coaching to be more [SPEAKER_00]: have a higher subscription essentially from people who do social change work. [SPEAKER_00]: And like I said in the beginning, we have thousands of people overwhelmingly very few of them I've ever worked with coaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we as coaches also have to work with people who can pay us and how we can build a living and that's hard particularly for new coaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how can we normalize coaching within social sectors or public sectors or nonprofits or [SPEAKER_00]: Let's be provocative with armed groups, with non-traditional actors that also are deep agents of change, whether it's positive or negative, disproportionately affect the future and the sort of equilibrium of our society, how can we bring coaching as a resource, an incredibly power transformative resource into those spaces?
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, again, played a small part in that, trying to, that within the US government, within nonprofits, this is a huge indicator for me that coaches want to give back, and they want to be part of social change, not just at the individual level, but the collective. [SPEAKER_00]: So what does that look like? [SPEAKER_00]: What does it look like for coaching to be a force for, for good, and a collective sense?
[SPEAKER_00]: how could it be deployed as an intervention after a natural disaster, after conflicts during conflicts. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not just talking mediators, we're not just talking peace builders, which I am one, but also coaching as a resource. [SPEAKER_00]: And how can we reimagine what coaching looks like as a critical intervention, a targeted intervention with specific skill sets to expand us in these contracted moments of history?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I imagine there's more you might want to add, but I just want to pick up on this. [SPEAKER_01]: What do you, because you've been in some of these places where there's been, you know, disruption, disaster events, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: So, could you say what you see as the potential for coaches being there, you know, maybe traditionally we might even think of [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it would be therapists, but trauma responders, medical trauma responders, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what do you see as the potential role of a coach in those kind of moments? [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's already what we've been talking about. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's the same. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we know whether it's C Suite, Fortune one hundred, five hundred.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same challenges are faced by people across the world, including in sort of moments of deep transition, like conflict, natural disaster, social upheaval, [SPEAKER_00]: And when we're in those moments, we are reacting and contracted. [SPEAKER_00]: We are not always expanded and clear and future oriented and resourced and tapping into our inner wisdom or collective wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not thinking about the future of, and so what a time to write to pause and to slow down, what would it look like? [SPEAKER_00]: Because yeah, a lot of similar coaching, I've worked in a, you know, thirty, forty countries, [SPEAKER_00]: therapy is not a resource, mental health is often stigmatized. [SPEAKER_00]: Coaching is undervalued, but therapy is not often a resource that people have in places of conflict, crisis, and a people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, different future-ditional elders, grandmothers, there are all kinds of great examples of who steps and to fill those gaps. [SPEAKER_00]: But coaching is this job. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's build a movement. [SPEAKER_00]: That's normalized doing our own inner work. [SPEAKER_00]: and relate it to the disregulation happening in our communities and say, oh, the starting point is actually not outside, it's inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just like sitting with two groups and negotiating, it's definitely not, you know, armed conflict, which I call, you know, a shortcut to creative problem solving, which is we often devolve in the violence because we don't have the creative resources to think non-violence. [SPEAKER_00]: We talk about that separately, but let's like think about, oh, what happens if we slow down?
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens if we bring in these skilled, like acupuncture type skilled coaches that can help reframe ground deepen? [SPEAKER_00]: That would be amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we start to look at all this stuff on the outside, is really just a symptom, a manifestation of the inner stuff, which is the root cause and the resource of our collective dysfunction. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's a beautiful opportunity that I don't see it happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We overwhelmingly kind of have to go with our own set, our means. [SPEAKER_00]: We have to find resources as coaches. [SPEAKER_00]: We have to get paid as facilitators. [SPEAKER_00]: But if we normalize it, we build this into program budgets, we normalize this within bigger decision-making. [SPEAKER_00]: What could that look like as a resource? [SPEAKER_00]: Not just for those who can afford it, but where is it most needed?
[SPEAKER_00]: If coaches as we're finding want to give back, [SPEAKER_00]: want to be part of community, not just the one on one, because coaching is very lonely. [SPEAKER_00]: We're doing this one on one sessions. [SPEAKER_00]: They're confidential. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't talk a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: Coaches are so happy that we have a community. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the same with coaches rising. [SPEAKER_00]: It's this big, beautiful community. [SPEAKER_00]: So let's leverage that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Move people and give them opportunities to give back and be of deep transformational use. [SPEAKER_00]: We're coaching is so underrepresented and we see the highest return on investment. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a powerful proposition. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually makes me think of, in a moment asking you about, would you like to make a call out to anyone listening to, you know, maybe, it would be a good connection for you, but is there anything about the sense of what's possible that you haven't named yet that you'd love to speak into? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I can speak to both of those. [SPEAKER_00]: So we definitely still are looking for coaches. [SPEAKER_00]: For better or worse, our community of displaced workers is growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just the United States that's affected. [SPEAKER_00]: We see a lot of the multinational, the multilateral system, the United Nations. [SPEAKER_00]: agencies being affected obviously lots of other organizations around the world that are connected to either US government or UN or other agencies. [SPEAKER_00]: We see lots of contraction of funding by you know partner countries in Europe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that has effects on jobs, both in their countries and around the world. [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, that this is going to continue to be a reality of deep seismic shifts in the workforce. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there are other things happening to, like AI, which are going to continue to reduce and shift jobs and create jobless placement. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think we want to hold as much as we can for as long as we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we definitely are looking for coaches in our website as groundedidealist.co. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's an easy sign-up form and process for coaches who want to sign up. [SPEAKER_00]: It's for three pro bono sessions initially. [SPEAKER_00]: And then beyond that, like I said, we have group coaching and other offerings that we're developing. [SPEAKER_00]: Just the short answers to the second part of your question about what's possible with our workers.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's mostly what we already talked about. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we want workers to feel resource. [SPEAKER_00]: We want them to feel really more aligned, more connected, more embodied. [SPEAKER_00]: that they, however, wherever they go, and there's no wrong answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they open a flower shop, if they pivot to the private sector, if they go to local government instead of federal, if they go onto philanthropy or they become a teacher, these are all things we're seeing and they're all beautiful responses and ways of pivoting. [SPEAKER_00]: and giving back their skills. [SPEAKER_00]: And we just want to help them. [SPEAKER_00]: We want to help them figure out their dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Deepen the clarity and help them feel more restored so that how they move is more self-regulated and is continues to be anchored in whatever that current dream and vision for their life is. [SPEAKER_00]: And we hope part of that is it could be three percent. [SPEAKER_00]: It could be five percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how many is really thinking about the future of these sectors and spaces [SPEAKER_00]: that they've dedicated their lives to and how they wanna be part of reimagining them. [SPEAKER_00]: That's part of where we see our role. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's part training coaching, workforce development, it's part social movement and social incubator, really embedding consciousness within the future of public service. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's critical now more than ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing the unraveling of the old ways of doing things, but they're not gonna happen on their own. [SPEAKER_00]: We need conscious leaders, [SPEAKER_00]: driving and supporting and nurturing and all different levels and roles, the future, our collective future. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, beautiful. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do hope coaches listening to this come to you and feel inspired to offer their services.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to reflect back again like how inspired and to see this initiative and what it stands for and the impact it's having. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like I really feel [SPEAKER_01]: excited to see how it unfolds because it does feel like that kind of the unintended consequences kind of thing of what will emerge out of this, what flourishing might may emerge out of this sense of disruption.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's beautiful because that's what coaching and for me it really stands for is like, yeah, it's kind of taking a stance for a sense of [SPEAKER_01]: possibility. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, Carl, I don't know if there's anything you'd love to share to end with. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you've made a beautiful call there and did you name the URL of the website? [SPEAKER_00]: I think you just had it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's grounded ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: .co and we have a LinkedIn page and you can engage with us there. [SPEAKER_00]: I think I want to say this too. [SPEAKER_00]: One is to thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: You've built this beautiful model for us of an engaged global community committed to elevating consciousness, elevating the practice of coaching. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we are happy with [SPEAKER_00]: to learn from you, to continue to explore collaboration and content partnerships.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have so many ideas and I'm my approach to all of this is deep collaboration. [SPEAKER_00]: We call it a coaching collaborative. [SPEAKER_00]: We alone are not going to fix anything. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do our part, but this is a constellation of actors and we have seen so many [SPEAKER_00]: great, you know, groups form organically out of this, this moment of kind of collapse and upheaval.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have lots of great partnerships that we benefit from, learn from, work with, and we also both to you, coaches rise, but also anyone listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many talents and skills that we could benefit from, whether it's new content, new programs to bring for either coaches or displaced workers, [SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's a lot of things we simply don't even know yet that we're just trying to kind of hold the emergence of this movement and are excited to do it with other people because there are so many synergies that we will, you know, we will find together. [SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you, Kyle. [SPEAKER_01]: So much. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Joel. [SPEAKER_01]: Here we are. [SPEAKER_01]: We're at the end of the podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Just do a heads up again. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coaches rising.com. [SPEAKER_01]: Put your name in the sign up box there. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll also find some of our other offerings online trainings for coaches there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just want to end by wishing you well and I'll see you again next time.