You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. I'm Claire Pedrick and today I'm in conversation with Shaney Crawford and more about Shaney in a minute. But if you want to get our podcast every week as it drops, remember to subscribe or follow on the platform where you listen. End of begging letter. Shaney, welcome. Hello. So what to say about Shaney?
So many things. So working backwards, Shani is the wonderful human who sent me a message and said you must interview Oscar Trimboli. And you said you must and he said yes. I'm so glad he did. I'm so glad. There's so many, there's so much symbiosis and so much, you guys are of the same mind about so many things that I wanted to see what happened when you were in the same room together. And what a delight that was. Yeah, on all fronts. Thank you.
So working backwards, you are a student on our level one coaching training and working backwards before that, you found us and you sent me the most wonderful message and said, I'd love to record some videos about my experience of training with you. And here's video one. So lovely listeners and viewers, I'm going to drop that in now and then Shani and I are going to pick up the conversation. Hi, my name is Shani Crawford. I'm originally from Canada.
I've been living in Japan for more than 20 years and I'm the head of an international school in Japan. I decided to become a coach because I lost a lot of weight in a 12-step program that involved having a sponsor. And speaking to the sponsor every day really opened up my mind and my... life to the idea of having someone help me with myself. And then through this program, I also became a sponsor myself and started to learn about how to hold that space for other people.
And this was one of the reasons why I started to look into coaching. I decided to do the coach training specifically with Claire because I like her idea of simplifying coaching and coaching not being about specific models or like a direction that the coach wants to go in, but having it led by the thinker and having the space be available. for all of the things that are going on inside the thinker's head, rather than having the coach lead things in any particular direction.
So the coaching training starts tonight. I'm super excited about it. And I offered to Claire to be a guinea pig and follow the course. along with, for example, doing podcasts or video recordings to show the journey that I go on through this journey through this trip. I don't have any previous coach training. I don't have any previous coach experience other than having been coached myself for six sessions by an excellent coach. And so I'm a blank slate and I'm ready and excited to learn more.
So, Shainey, that was then. This is now. So tell us about you and your journey now, and then we'll hear a bit more about your training journey. So, how it is now. So I've just finished the first year of the program. So I did transforming conversations and the active learning. facilitator training sets and the coaching lab. and I have around 80 hours of coaching, practice. Yeah. And, and so I'm, the next step is going to be going into the mentor coaching mentorship.
Yeah. think it's called, coaching, mentor coaching. That's it. and. I am 100 % on this course. I love it. I was very nervous when I first started and I'm like, don't know, is this, you know, is this something that I could even do? Am I going to like it? Am I going to be okay at it or, you know, even good at it? But yeah, I've loved it. I've loved every part of it. It's a direction for my learning to go. anything, you can learn anything and it can be applied to your coaching.
So I love that as a lifelong learner, just, drives me forward and I love it. That's amazing. So tell us a bit about your story and how you got to Japan. Okay. So I, when I was in high school, there was, I'm going way back. So when I was in high school, there was a gap student, who had taken a year off between high school and university from England and I loved this idea of, I learned about taking a gap year from this person. I eventually, when I graduated, I applied to do a gap year in England.
So like on the reciprocal program with England. And I did that for a year in like 1990. And when I went back to go to university, I was like, okay, you know what, you get your degree, then you get out and you go somewhere fun again. So I know that there were a lot of people in my university who are like, and then you get your commerce degree and then you work in the insurance industry and this kind of thing. And I was like, no, no, no, there's the world to see. There's a big world out there.
And Canada is a big country, but it was too small for me. as soon as I graduated, I applied to a bunch of different places, Russia, France. I was considering applying to India and Japan. And I did apply to Japan and Japan was the first one to say yes. So I'm like, I guess I'm going to Japan. That's so amazing. And now you're still there. Now I'm still here. that was 20 or more than 27 years ago. I've been in Japan for a total of 27 years since then, but that was 1995 when I came for a year.
I was planning to come for a year. Wow. Yeah. And you work in an international school? I do. So I am the head of my school and I've been the head of the school since 2011. I came to be the head of my school by a very unusual route. I was working at the school at the time and the previous head of school passed away suddenly. And on my 40th birthday was his funeral. And there was a meeting of the board of directors at the funeral where they decided that I would be the next head of school.
And so I had given a eulogy to this person who was my mentor and I did not expect him to pass away. It was a very sudden passing and that's how I became head of school. like, no, I was not ready for it. I suddenly became a leader and had to learn lots and lots of things to become a better leader, like crash course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about where the interest in coaching emerged from. Where did that begin to sprinkle for you? So one of my colleagues asked me to coach him.
And I didn't know what that meant. I was like, okay. I said yes, because I like saying yes to things. But then I was like, what actually is coaching? And so I started to look up information about coaching. And I believe that what brought me to you specifically was a podcast by Robbie Swale. where you were, and I don't actually remember the content of the podcast.
I should have looked it up before today's talk, but yeah, I was listening to him and you were on and I was like, yes, that person talks about coaching in a way that makes sense to me, that resonates with me. And I want to be a coach like her. wow. That's beautiful. And Robbie will be super happy when I see him on Friday. yeah. Please do tell him. Cause yeah, it was very inspirational. wow. Because it's funny, isn't it?
Because you do podcast like this and you've no idea where it's going to go in the world and what people are going to listen and who they are. Yeah. This podcast goes out to 128 countries. That's amazing. So amazing. Isn't that incredible? But yeah, so there you are in Japan listening to Robbie Swale and there was I. Yeah. And what actually, and I can't remember the timeline of this, but there were two things. So that was one thing that my colleague had asked me to coach him.
And then there was this other part. I actually have lost more than a hundred pounds in the last two and a half years through coming to an understanding of my relationship with food as being an addiction and getting treatment for that through having a program where I have a sponsor. And I talked to the sponsor every day, just for 15 minutes. But through that, and then once I was able to get some level of recovery, then I could become a sponsor.
And that was another reason why I was like, I don't have any training in this. How do I be a good sponsor? And I realized the importance of listening because I realized how much I benefited from somebody listening to me for 15 minutes every day and really listening. not giving me advice, but listening. And so that is where Oscar Trimboli comes into the story because I wanted to learn how to be a better listener. And he's the person to find out about that from.
Yeah. So you've been learning from him for a while then? I have, you know what, I'm kind of, I'm a little bit crazy, I would say. And when I... find out about something that I'm interested in, I want to find out everything. And so I think that I've listened to all of his podcasts. I literally went back and listened to all of them. And I did the same with yours. just want to know. I think I haven't listened to the entire thing, but almost everything on both sides.
And I'm still going back with some of them. Yeah. So, yeah. I just wanted to know more about listening. So you made it your mission. Yeah, yeah. So what do you know now that you didn't know when you started on that listening journey? So I didn't realize how bad a listener I was. So I knew that I needed improvement, but I didn't realize...
So on Oscar's website, he has a quiz that you can take to see what your... I can't remember what the wording is, but what your listening demon is or something like that. It's not quite that bad, but it's something like that. And I realized that I didn't, like, know that I've known this all along, but I didn't realize that it was actively causing me not to be a good listener, which was interrupting and finishing people's sentences.
also listening to my own voice in my head rather than listening to the other person, like listening to solve or listening to give advice rather than just listening. So yeah, that's been a huge learning point for me. Not just in coaching, but in life. Yeah. And then you signed up to our level one program. Yes. Yes, I did. I, I looked around for a bunch of different programs. and like I said, I found you through, through Robbie Swell.
And I also really appreciated through listening to one of your podcasts, you're thinking about, the cost of, coach training.
And it not being prohibitively high because they are all prohibitively high And I'm not rich so, you know, I I yeah, I I'm a single person and I own my own house and I have lots of expenses and I don't have you know $10,000 to spend on become and on trying to figure out whether I want to be a coach or not And so I really appreciated you're thinking, I remember you saying, like, how much is an hour of your time worth? And you can pay me that. And I thought that's brilliant.
That's, that's, yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, accessibility is one of the things that's most important to us. So whatever's written on the website, you know, if people are in countries, for example, where they don't earn that much, then we can have a conversation about it. Yeah, I was in conversation this morning with some colleagues about that very thing. interesting. But you know, if you're to charge $10,000 for a course, you fill it up with stuff to make it worth $10,000.
But the problem with that is that you're then over teaching people. And then they feel they need to use all of the things that they learned for $10,000. And then at some point in the future, they come back to 3D coaching and say, how do I simplify? Right. It's a very interesting journey. So accessibility was an affordability was one of the reasons and the Robbie Swale thing. Thank you, Robbie. Yes, yes.
So as we encountered that first session in Transforming Conversations, what was your experience? So I was scared to coach, because you get us coaching right from the get-go. So that was, I was very nervous about that because I was still all up in my head about like, can I do this? And this is this right, is this right thing? And am I going to be a good coach? And you know, I hadn't met any of those people who were in the cohort. And so I was nervous about that.
I was also amazed because you get us, you do coaching quite early on as well as a demonstration. and the first, that first session I was blown away by, it was so short and so powerful. and it, really drove home the idea that it's simple. It needs to be simple and that the coach needs to do less, not more.
and so I feel very, very lucky to have learned that first rather than, you say, you know, spending $10,000 and learning all the techniques and all the gimmicks and then having to unlearn all of that. Because I had as well that there were a few people in our cohort who had been coaches or who had been in coach-like positions who had trouble letting go of that. Whereas I had nothing to hang on to other than what you were telling me to do.
It's really useful to hear you say that because you know, you design something and then you don't know how it, know, people say, that was great. But actually hearing you at this stage in your journey, talking about how it lands. Cause for me, you get that demonstration in session three, and then in session four, you're practicing. But what I want in session three is that, is that you don't go, that's weird or wonderful or full of special things that you really do experience.
quite how straightforward it is and simple and light and all of those things. And I know you then get the, could never be that simple. But what I like is that you could also see exactly what was happening. Yes. Yeah. It was very obvious. It was very clear just with with Stokers, with the container and then setting the person off on their journey and then bringing them back to land the plane. That's all it is. Unless we muck it up.
Unless we as a coach, you know, pull them back down to land when they're not ready or, know, whatever it is. It's us that makes the complication. Exactly. Yeah. And also great affirmation about going straight into practice in session four. Yeah. What you don't know is that in our training notes, it says that the purpose of session four is to get to the end of session four. You've just got to do it. actually it doesn't matter about the quality. doesn't matter about anything.
What matters is that you've done it once. Cause once you've done it once, then you can do it again. I would definitely agree with that. Like, yeah, instead of spending all that time doing theory, theory, theory, theory, theory, just watch a demonstration, do a demonstration. Like they say in the, in medical terms, right? Watch one, do one. Yeah. Yeah. interesting. So it's based on good medical theory then. Medical training anyways, as far as I know, I'm not a doctor. Well, that's good to know.
That's good to know. So by the time you got to the end of Transforming Conversations, what did that feel like? So I remember asking you, like, what do I do now? Do I just go out and coach people? Am I allowed to coach people? And so I felt, I felt, I wouldn't say I felt ready to go out and coach people, but that it was clear that the next point of my learning had to be informed by me having done coaching. And so I realized that I just had to bite the bullet and just start making it happen.
So I did. what happened when you did? It was amazing. you know, good, good sessions and bad sessions. I think I wouldn't say bad sessions, good sessions and, and hard sessions where the hardest part was keeping, keeping the person contained, keeping the conversation contained or trying to contain a conversation when it was clear that a person just wanted to take me, wanted to explain all the parts to me. and especially in those early days, I didn't know how to interrupt or to redirect or to.
Recontain. and I'm, and I, it's still hard. I'm still not great at it, but I'm, I'm, I would say I'm getting better. but yeah, so sometimes there would be a full hour of the person just saying what they wanted to say. And like you say, sometimes that needs to happen. and, and what I ended up doing one time was just letting that person say all the things that they needed to say.
And then at the end saying, okay, so you've said all the things that you need to say, let's meet again and see if we can process some of that stuff. yeah, I felt, I felt okay about that. I felt terrible at the end of the session or I was starting to feel terrible. Like I haven't done anything here. this isn't coaching. This is just complaining or explaining. but I feel like I was able to sort of save it at the end. And then we had a good conversation the next time.
there's a couple of things that come up for me as you say that. And one is, think that once we recognize that actually being heard is the thing that they need, if we stop trying to do anything else, then they will feel truly heard. Right, right. Where it doesn't work is if you're trying to talk and I'm trying to coach you. And then you don't feel heard, I feel we're not doing any work.
And we end up in this in this kind of argument all the time where I'm trying to get some coaching questions in and you're just trying to speak. When Oscar was on the, how many name checks has he had so far? He was on the podcast the other day. And having looked at his book, I I really have sat with the thing that he says about people needing to be heard.
And I think for me, there's a difference between people feeling they ought to tell you their story when they don't need to versus it being a really important thing that their story is told and heard with you bearing witness. And having thought about that, I had somebody in a face-to-face coaching conversation where the whole of the first session was hearing. And at the end of the session, this person said to me, I've never felt truly heard in one place before, all the bits.
And actually there were lots of clues as we were in dialogue that that was the right thing to do. But the thing that I knew from the work, you know, from the work of a lifetime, but particularly from that conversation with Oscar, was that I didn't need to try and do anything else. So I still am of the mind that people don't need to tell us if they're only telling us because they feel they ought to tell us. But there are some people who need their story to be heard. And it's not the same thing.
how, what signs do you look for? to help you decide which is which? Well, this person was a bit of a gift. mean, almost it felt like they were a plant. They weren't. They were not a plant. But they went, I've looked all up about coaching on the internet and I've checked you out on the internet and I know that coaching isn't like this and it isn't like this and it isn't like this. And I've never had a one-to-one conversation where the other person hasn't told me what to do.
I mean, that does feel a bit like a plant when you talk about it, doesn't it? It really wasn't. And then I said, well, I'm not going to tell you what to do. And then they said lots and lots of things have happened. And I think I said something like, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, which isn't the same as I don't need to know that. I think I said, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but if it's useful for you to say it. then I'm here to hear you.
And they said, need to tell the whole thing in a space with nobody interrupting. so you used the ask them. I did. Principal one, ask them. Yeah, I did. did. And, you know, there were probably a few times in the conversation where I said what I noticed. So there's something about this and something about this. And they go, yeah, but no questions, no right sizing, just simply bearing witness to them telling their whole story in one place without being interrupted.
it's really, the work now is, is based on those good foundations. So, so for me, the distinction is, are they telling me because they think I ought to hear it, or are they telling me because it's really useful for them to say it all? in this space, in which case, sit back, listen deeply. Right. I love the fact that you're now coming around to learning to interrupt, having gone into the listening journey, learning to not interrupt. It's very confusing.
Yeah. Yeah. So if we pick up the story, so you've gone out and you've done some coaching conversations and mostly it's worked. And sometimes it's been a bit harder than others. What else is different for you on this journey, Shani? I would say that... So... If I can say where I am now, I've been, I've, I've, I'm starting to try to define what this would look like if I were to do this as a job. it's, it's always been, a side job that I want to do.
Not, I, I'm not going to give up my, my job as a head of school. but for it to be, Well, what do want to say here? I gave myself, when I came up with this idea of exploring coaching and going towards accreditation, I gave myself 20, I think it was 25 months to do or 26. can't remember something like some, I read somewhere that starting up a new business takes 25 months or some number like that.
And so So I've given myself until August, 2025 to just try stuff so that I don't feel like, okay, well, I've decided this and so that's decided and I can't change it. And, know, this is how I'm going to do this or this is how I'm going to do that. I'm just going to try a bunch of things. so I'm at the stage now where, so I've, I've done a find your niche session with Sarah short on your recommendation. and that's been wonderful. And I've been trying to think, okay, what is my niche?
What would my niche be? And the most obvious one is international school leaders or aspiring leaders. so I have been putting myself out there in that sort of community. But it's been very, very easy for me to get free thinkers, free clients, and much harder to get paid. And that's where I am at the journey now thinking, okay, I like coaching. In fact, I love coaching. And it's been easy for me to get people to trust me to coach them.
But what do I need to do now to get people to pay me to coach them? And that's hard. That's proper hard. I think we need a podcast on that, don't we? Yes. Yes, I think so. Please. I'm in a bit of a conversation with Robbie about one or two things that we might do. Good. will, I will listen. I listen to everything. You might find, you might find a surprise host at the coaching in one day. who you know. so so that's a kind of natural and normal progression, isn't it?
Can I just pick up something you said about sometimes they're great and sometimes they're not so easy. For me, the journey to being an outstandingly artful coach is to narrow the distance from the best session to the hardest session, that the distance is is less distant. than it is when we start out.
So part of the refining the skill is just to make that a little bit less far, but there will always be a distance between the best and the one that's hardest because that's the normal part of life, I think. Okay. So what does that mean? What does that look like? What it means is you're always going to have not the best day. I see. You're always going to have not the best session and that's really okay, but we hope that those are a bit less often. than they were before.
That gap is narrowing over time. Less often and not as, like you learn from it so that you don't make, if you've made a mistake in something, some part of the coaching, you learn from it and don't make that mistake again. So that gap gets smaller and smaller. Or you still make it, but you don't make it so many times. Right. Nice compassion here. Yes. So, so Shani, then you did the action learning set facilitator training. So what was that like? That was, so I went into that session.
So I just signed up for whatever, you know, I could have just done the transforming conversations, but I was like, nope, let's just do whatever is on offer here. And so I signed up for everything. So I signed up for that without actually knowing what it was. And I couldn't even, and even now I have trouble putting all the words together, like action, is this action learning facilitation or is it action, is it facilitating learning or like, I don't even know. I don't even know.
So I just went into the east. It was useful. It was useful, but it was, took me a minute to sort of see what it was. It was useful, but it is not something that I will do. right away. it was that and also the coaching lab, which came late, not the coaching lab, but the coaching across time learning. So I'm not doing work for a company and I may not do that for a while, but that learning is still very helpful to understand about contracts and that sort of thing.
So, I think one of the things about the Action Learning Set Facilitator training is it's a real opportunity for people to learn to share. And that in learning to share many to one coaching with others, we learn to be better partners in the one-to-one. Yes, I would say that for sure. And I liked the way that we could give, we could make an offer if we thought we had something. but we didn't have to.
And so you really thought, didn't have that same pressure that you have in a one-to-one coaching session where you have to say something. they've stopped thinking and they look back at you, it's your turn to say something clever. There's none of that pressure. And so I feel like I learned a lot about making a good offer from that. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it's all about. And Shani, you can now do our presence training online from, from Japan. is that the, is that the, improv one?
Yeah, you can do it online and that's all about making an offer. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. so it doesn't need to be now because you've got other things going on, but, we've, we've designed it just for people like you. I know, I did see that and I want to do it. It's in July, I believe. Yeah, there's another one in November and there'll be more. Okay. Because the world has got to catch up with how great the improv training is. So yeah, I would love that.
I do have a background in drama and just in school and university and that sort of thing. And I was in a musical a few years ago here in Japan. I love that. And the idea of having drama together with with coaching is just, just lights up all kinds of So there's plenty of time. There's plenty of time.
So one of the things that you've done as we're moving towards the end of this conversation is one of the things that you've done is that you've several times since we met you, Shani, you've sent a message and gone, wouldn't it be amazing if... So one of them was, wouldn't it be amazing if we did some podcasts about the training, which we're doing right now. But the other one was, wouldn't it be amazing if we formed a bit of a community out of the cohorts?
And we've sat with that question and really tried to engage with it. And you helped us do some technology, which wasn't so great. And now we've got some technology that's better and it's still a work in progress. But, but a lot of the, community creation that we've now got in 3D coaching is down to you and your and your have you thought about this? Wouldn't it be great?
So yeah, so the supervision community, the next step for us is to find a way of people who are in our cohorts doing training to get into the supervision community free. And that's a technical question that we have with the platform host, because that's the ideal. And the other one is, which isn't it funny that you only realize that things are a good idea a long time after.
of the things that we've just started to do is that on our level two programs, we leave the room open for half an hour after the online training is over. So people can stay for coffee or tea or just chat. And it's really making a difference. So we're going to do that with the level one as well. I love that. if you're free. Yeah, I love that because it does kind of just end. You know, you finish everything and it's like, okay, goodbye.
Which is good if you have something else that you need to do afterwards that it ends on time. But yeah, there is often more learning to be done, learning to be had. I love that. So that's going to be happening. That's great. And people can have the choice to stay or to leave. Because I'm noticing that in my practicing, in my improv classes where I've been looking for the teacher who I've now found, he likes to people to stay on.
But I like to go because it's 8 p.m. in the UK and I just want to go watch the television. But offering that to people as an open offer and saying you can stay or you can go, I think is really important. So, Shainey. Thank you so much for suggesting that you come to the Coaching Inn. It's amazing to spend half an hour with you in your company. Well, I am just, it's such an honor.
Like I say, I've been admiring you from afar for such a long time and admiring the Coaching Inn and wanting to be part of the Coaching Inn. So thank you. And here you are. I hope we'll have you back. I hope so too. I'll do some more training and then we can talk more. Fantastic. So Shani Crawford, thank you for coming to the Coaching In today. Thank you everyone for listening.
Remember to subscribe or follow if you want to get every new episode as they drop and there are some exciting ones coming up. Thank you, Shani. Thank you. Can I tell people that they can find me on LinkedIn if they're looking? Of course they can. You can. Yes, please. How do they contact you? LinkedIn, can, my name is quite unique, so I don't think there are any other Shani Crawford's out there. Shani Crawford, who works with international school heads and aspiring heads. That's right.
And maybe could also work with people new to Japan. yes, absolutely. Yes. Great. I'd be all over that. And I'll put Shani's details in the show notes. Thank you, Shani. Thank you for listening. Bye bye. Bye bye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels.
We look forward to welcoming you next time. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.