This is The Coaching Inn, a podcast from 3D Coaching. Welcome to today's Coaching Inn. I'm Claire Pedrick and today I'm in the great conversation with my colleague Ruth Bennett. Hello Ruth. Hello. How are you today? I'm all right, thank you. Yeah, I'm good. Looking forward to our conversation. Yeah, because you and I started a, what do I do about my CPD conversation, didn't we? Yeah, we did. It's been bothering me for ages and yeah, I just need to... Think about it really.
I want to think about it. want to think about it. And we've had loads of emails over the last few weeks from other people who are asking the same question. So how do I decide? Often they're saying, I've done training with you. How do I decide how to go deeper, further, more? And it's a tricky question, isn't it? It is because it's how, it's not just, what's the next step towards a thing. It's not just the next, what's the next step towards the thing.
It's a, what, what's the thing I most want to learn that's going to engage me, that's going to take me to new places. It's going to challenge me that I think there's lots of things in there. Yeah. And there's also something, isn't it about what's, what's going to be the most useful thing for the people we work with? Yeah. So there's a personal thing. Yeah. And there's also a professional thing. Yeah, I totally went down the personal thing there. I'm not feeling judged at all.
just kind of, I'm interested that that's where I went with that. And I think in our profession, you know, I think we live in a world of book junkies and learning junkies who also seem to have stationary fetishes, but that's not, maybe we can do another podcast. on what is it that makes coaches obsessed with pens and notebooks? But there is, isn't there, there's a real question about what am I doing this for?
Yeah. Yeah, I- Yeah. So right now, as you're thinking about your CPD for the next three years, what are your questions? How the heck do I even think about what might be next? I don't even know where to start. I don't know what's out there, what would be useful for other people, what would be useful for me. Your book junkie thing resonated when you said that phrase because I'm doing that. I'm listening to quite a lot of books and that's great and I really enjoy that.
I'm not convinced how much of it goes in if I'm really honest because I'm choosing to listen rather than... there is something about reading and underlining and all that kind of thing that I find a bit different but just time-wise I'm doing a lot of listening so it's how do I engage with something that's actually going to have some meaning and it's going to take me to a new place I think. So meaning and impact that? Yeah, probably years in hand. Yeah. Do you know the best advice I was given?
I can remember Aboudi Shabi, who's on the staff at Henley Management College now, and he and I went out for a drink just after I got my MCC, my Master Certified Coach credential. And he said, well, Claire, how are you going to, you know, what are you going to do now for your CPD? And I was a bit done with courses, I have to say at that point. You can have enough courses, can't you? And not there's anything wrong with courses, but actually I was a bit done.
And he said, find somebody that you think you've got something to learn from and follow them for a while. That's interesting. And that led me into some really great CPD over the next five years. Where I chose a teacher and I traveled with that teacher while I thought I still had something useful to learn. And I'd auditioned that teacher. Well, not really, but you know, I'd heard the teacher speaking at a conference. doing a 45 minute session.
So I kind of knew what they were like, and I kind of knew that that would be okay for me. Yeah. Because sometimes it's not, is it? You spend a lot of money on a course and you get there and you think, my goodness, this isn't me. Yeah. what i've also just thought in that moment is do i Is it important that CPD is about coaching or is it about something? that is not directly about coaching, but is something, a sort of sideways thing somehow.
What you mean, like my fetish for doing improv lessons, which I'm still going to look for when we all open up a bit more. Cause I think that I'm going to learn loads from improv and I think it's going to be huge fun. And that's not direct, but it's sort of indirect and sort of a bit on task. Yeah. And what I love about that, I'm slightly real at your word fetish, but anyway. Is the thing that that's, that's a, that's obviously a real interest for you.
It's not, it's not something that you feel you should do. It's like, no, hang on. Maybe I should ask you that. Is it something that you feel you should do or is it something that's a real interest? It's a real interest because I did the workshop that we ran with Stuart Reed about coaching with presence that was a whole day on improv. And actually I loved it and I learned a load about coaching.
So there's something I think about what do we need to fulfill the requirements of any professional body in terms of continuing professional development? What do we need to fulfill the requirements or the expectations of the people we work with to keep us fresh? And what makes us come alive? And it's that, it's the life bit, isn't it? Although my current journey is scaring the living daylights out of me, Ruth. Why is it scaring you?
So I did all that learning about partnership for about five years. then so following a theme has also been a useful way of me working out what to do. So I followed the kind of partnership learning and did all sorts of things that really helped refine and deepen that. And then that got me into the world of power. And in conversation with somebody who actually we must get on as a guest on here, that got me into the thing about privilege.
So I then talked to some leaders of colour who I'm working with and said to them, what should I be reading? And that's got me into a book list that is taking an enormous amount of courage to read. And I'm kind of looking for some company on the way to do that work because I know that it's a really important and significant piece of my learning and my deepening.
And it's going to need more courage because this is about me and my whole life story, my upbringing, my attitudes, my beliefs, my inner world. And it's going to challenge me. I've been teetering. on the edge of the introduction and the very beginning of chapter one of Me and White Supremacy by Layla Said. And she warns in the introduction, this is going to be deep work and it's going to be hard and you're going to need to go slowly and you might need to come back to it.
And I completely get that. And I've teetered on the beginning of the first little bit of chapter one and it is supremely challenging. And I know I'm just going to have to take a deep breath and jump in because I know that there's going to be some really good learning there, but I also know it's going to be hard. And I'll kind of do that, I think, as a combination of my reading and taking that to my supervisor.
And I might also look for somebody else who I can also take that to, to do some deepening stuff. But, you know, this is personally challenging stuff. And I guess for me, that's where I am on my journey. Yeah, about going a bit harder inside. So do you, are you in a place then that you feel like you know what you need to do to do that next jump? I know exactly what I need to do. What's going to make you do that? Can you stop coaching me? I'm not trying to coach you, I'm interested.
Well. I've just sent my husband out to get me the workbook from the bookshop that I ordered on Me and White Supremacy, which is a journal. And I think that using their journal will give me a kind of a shape to think into, which I think will be quite useful because it's funny, isn't it? I thought I've just bought some new notebooks, stationery junkie, and I thought that one of my new notebooks would be a place.
to think into, because I think this is something that needs journaling and reflecting, and that's not my normal style. But white space scared the living daylights out of me, because I think this is going to be deep work. But it matters. And you mentioned something about company as well. Yeah. Actually, yeah. And who we travel with really matters.
So my latest CPD is that I have a wisdom circle of people who I met on the last formal course that I went on as a delegate and we got on well and thought we'd like to learn together for a season. So we kind of do our own, create our own learning space and CPD to try things out and to talk deeply about stuff. And that company of like-minded people also matters.
Because when you rock up to a course that you've paid money for, you don't know how many like-minded people you're going to find, and you'll probably find lots, but you'll also probably find the person you don't want to be in the room with, because that's what happens, I think, for most of us on most events like that. But can I ask you about your next bit of... Yeah. So how do you go about finding who you want to keep you company? How are you going to go about finding that?
That's not meant to be a challenge question for you as much as a kind of curious question of how we find our people in a way. Maybe it's both. Well, that's the question about how do we find our tribe? Yeah. So I've got my current tribe, but I think that at some point I might need to take a detour to be with another tribe. So I can remember when I did my coach supervision training and in last week's podcast, we were with Geoff Matthews, who I met on that course.
And I chose to do my supervision training with a tribe that I was not part of. Intentionally? Yes, because I'd done my coach training through one professional body, which happened to be the International Coach Federation. And ICF coaches tended to go for their coach supervision training to one coach training school that trained supervisors. So I knew that when I got to that school, I would be with like-minded people who'd been formed in the same way that I had been formed or a similar way.
And I decided not to do that. So I decided to go for a completely different school of thought where the people who were there had been formed in a completely different way. And that was not easy, but it was also really useful. Because otherwise I think there's a danger of kind of colluding when we're always with people who are like us. So how did that? work out. You obviously found some like minded people like Jeff.
Yeah, so I, yeah, but I found like minded humans, rather than like minded coaches who'd been formed like I'd been formed. Yeah. So there's something about spreading, finding people who are finding our tribe, but also not looking for that in the same place all the time. Yeah. And I think that gives us a nice breadth, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Because one of the things I was thinking about when we just popped off for a coffee break before we started recording this, Ruth, was There's a difference, isn't there, in CPD between breadth and depth. So sometimes we choose to go for more tools, more gadgets, more fancy things to give us a bigger breadth. you've trained in one kind of coaching, so you go and learn about career coaching or some other kind of coaching. So there's a breadth there.
But I think there comes a point where we need to go, where we need to do depth. That's what I want. Right now. That really resonates. And I suppose I, not to make it about me, but I don't know what to go deep into. What area. But you know that you want to go deep. Absolutely. Can I offer what I said to somebody the other day? Yeah. So I got an email from somebody who said, how do I choose my next bit of coach training? And she, that was in relation to going for accreditation. So it needed to be.
acceptable to her professional body. And I said to her, I happened to be speaking at a coaching conference that was free the following week. And I said, why don't you come to this coaching conference and just go to go to loads of sessions, but go to the sessions thinking, is this something that I would like to go deeper with? Because it's like it's like having the tasting menu at a restaurant, isn't it?
Yeah. where you're trying it out and then and she came back to me and she said it wasn't those things. Well, that's good because that's really good information. But I think trying things out gives you a sense of is this a teacher I want to follow to learn from for a season? And is this a thing that I would like to deepen in?
Because I think one of the fundamentals is if you're going to learn, make sure that you're learning from somebody who is a really experienced practitioner in the thing they are teaching. Yeah, yeah. Because you and I were just talking about Sean Lambert, who's kindly agreed to come on a podcast in a few weeks time, who's really gone deep into mindfulness.
But I think most of our listeners at the stage that you're at, and I know Ruth at the stage you're at, you you want to be learning from really great people. So you need to check out that they're really great. Yeah. And that their style of communicating is a style that's going to work enough for you. Yeah. So you've got some clues.
And even as you talk about, and when you first mentioned following a person, a couple of names of people in our conversation have popped into my head, people that I rate and I think make a huge amount of sense. I like that they're not coaches. The two people in particular, neither of them are coaches. And I'm wondering. what next I suppose maybe I'm answering my own question maybe this just make me a book junkie?
Maybe I go and read a few more of their books as a starting point or follow them and you sort of try and engage with what they're engaging with on social media. That would actually be more interesting because that's about their current thought, isn't it? There's something about a book that you wrote that came out last year that you wrote three years ago and you're thinking has massively moved. And check out podcasts because that's another great way of listening to people.
Yeah, I listened to the podcast of one of them actually, the other one wouldn't have one but. But they might have been interviewed on somebody else's. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing that I've just done is that knowing that my next journey is about white privilege and power and those kind of things, I've asked people I rate who they would rate. as somebody to learn from. So can I ask you in another conversation who you rate?
You can, but I'm not going to say that here on the podcast today. There's also something, isn't there, that if you need CPD. So Ruth, your journey now as an ICF coach is that, is that you will need to renew your credential in three years time. Yeah. At which point you'll have had, you'll need 40 hours CPD. Okay. And by the time you get your master certified coach credential. I love how you said, yep. Yeah, of course I'm going for that. You're going to need 200 training hours.
So, so one of the questions is what's the gap between the number of training hours you've got now and the number of training hours you need to get for that, not for now, but to think about. And therefore what's the significant piece of number of hours training you need plus what's the deepening hours training that you need. Because if you can get that, because bits and pieces are really valuable, but too many bits and pieces are too bitty. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I love the sound of the training that you did a number of years ago. And my problem in my brain goes, is that just because I love the last thing somebody has told me? Or is it something that is really of interest to me? And I think that's also one of my challenges is trying to unpick. maybe not unpick that but just settle with things and just not just jump to the last thing somebody told me was great but to really filter it through whatever I need to filter that through.
And that raises another filter for me because we talked at the beginning of this podcast about my what's my personal development, what's my professional development and what do the people I work with need me to have developed in. Yeah. And I guess the question for me is, does 3D coaching need two of us to have done the same development, which could well be true. It could well be true. Or actually, do we you to have done something else? Yeah, it's more important.
So there's a kind of organisational strategic question there. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. But I think the fundamental, I can remember 35 years ago or more, when I was talking to people who wanted to work in overseas development, I used to encounter people who had enormous amounts of knowledge, enormous amounts of knowledge, but they hadn't actually ever put it into practice.
And there's something about always having a balance of skill and knowledge and experience and really remembering to hold those in tangent. So it may be at some point, my next piece of development, which has kind of flown through my head sometimes and been suggested by others, might be to do a PhD in coaching. But if I did that now, I would be doing that on the back of my 13, 14,000 hours. in the room, which would make it look different than if I'd done the other way round.
So there's something about what order do we do things. There's something about balance and not being overweighted at one end, not the other. And I can remember years ago, somebody saying, somebody was talking to a group of learning junkies and I was in the audience and he said to them, what have you done with what you already know? What a great question. What have you done with what you already know? Yeah. That's a really good challenge, isn't it? is for me anyway.
Because that really helps us to not overweight on something and underweight on something else, I think. Although I... Okay, so I'm beginning in my head immediately to go into beat myself up place of, well I'm really rubbish because I've done all this learning in the past and it hasn't taken me anywhere and I need to watch that. That's not constructive and that's not where I need to be. I need to think. I need to make sure it's a balanced thought, not an opportunity to bash my head with a stick.
Maybe it's an opportunity to check in. Where are you now? What do you know that you didn't know when you started out on this journey? Yeah. And what's the next thing that you need to learn so that you can be the coach you want to be in the future? Thank you. But there is, think, if outstanding coaching is about how we be, as much as it is about what we do, then some of our development needs to be about how we be and not just about what we do. And that's the uncomfortable learning, isn't it?
Because that's the bit that really challenges on who we are. Right to the core. And that's the stuff I think is... deeply more interesting for me. That's where I want to develop most. I suppose that's where the depth thing comes in. I want to feel, however uncomfortable, I want to feel challenged about me as a person. So is that another strand? So we talked about personal development and professional development, and now we're talking about human development. Maybe.
Yeah. I don't know how that's different from personal in one sense, but... So it's an art, isn't it? This deciding rather than a science. And I think I've got a lot. What's interesting is as a result of this conversation, I've got a lot of questions and it feels that's OK. But I've got a lot. I've come out with more questions than I came in with. However, that feels OK, because I think that's just about processing. going on a journey towards, I love that checking in thing.
think that makes a lot of sense to me. So just like we would in coaching, where are you? Where am I now? And what do I need to do to get to where I need to be? That kind of thing. And you'll remember from my book, there was a moment when I destroyed the notes that I came into this with because actually they weren't serving me anymore and I needed to take a different path. And that formed me in a lot of coaching hours.
You know, that was a, it was a great thing, but it had served its time and it was time to simplify and to deepen. Yeah. So one of my checking in is how complicated is this? And actually my last training, I chose to choose a teacher who never does, he doesn't even use a flip chart. Absolutely not PowerPoint because it's about embodied learning rather than head learning. Wow, we've covered a lot today. We have, yeah. I am so interested in our audience. How do you choose your CPD?
Not what have you chosen, but what are the kind of, what's your core criteria question that helps you really get a sense of what CPD might be useful for you next? And we would love you to share that either by commenting on Podbean on the podcast, or commenting on a LinkedIn post or Facebook or Twitter, or by pinging us an email to info at 3dcoaching.com.
And then we'll make sure that those ideas are shared with others so that we can gather our collective wisdom about this question about how do you choose your CPD? Because it's deep, isn't it? Yeah. And important. Yeah. And actually it's not necessarily about how much money you spend. It's about the quality of the thing that you do. All that glitters is not gold as they say. Brilliant. So thank you for listening everybody. If you want to contact us, you can get us at info at 3dcoaching.com.
and we look forward to seeing you next time on The Coaching In. I'm Claire Pedrick and I've been in conversation with my colleague Ruth Bennett. Bye everyone. Bye. Bye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, please share the podcast with a friend who might also be interested. And if you'd like to become one of our regulars at The Coaching In, you can subscribe at Podbean or on iTunes. We look forward to meeting you on the next podcast. You've been listening to The Coaching In.
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