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, I'm Claire Pedrick and today I'm in the good company of a number of very generous coaches who have been willing to offer their time to come and talk at the Coaching Inn about how they got their first 50 coaching hours.
And I'm sure on the way we're also going to find out how they didn't and what they probably wish they'd done differently if they were living their coaching life again. But let's see. So welcome. I'll introduce you one at a time. Welcome Angela Christie. Just give us a bit of a sense of who you are, Angela. Thanks Claire for the invitation. And I think I got the last seat at the bar. So I'm very happy about that indeed.
I rediscovered coaching during lockdown and trained in between sort of, you know, releases of lockdown. So we had 60 hours of face-to-face training. and we managed to squeeze them in as soon as lot time was lifted off we went to London for another 30 hour sessions. I completed that training in May last year. So I'm 10 months the other side of graduation. So still a very, very new coach indeed. And so that first 50 hours is still very fresh in my mind.
Brilliant. Prior to that, I did work in the pharmaceutical industry. So I had leadership roles in global pharma companies. mostly in operational and technical roles in drug development for oncology. So a very different change of scene to now be running my own business, or at least trying to in coaching. Welcome Angela. So Mukul Dewan, tell us about you and your coaching journey. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation and really excited to be here.
My coaching journey kicked off with lockdown kicking on. So I trained during the lockdown and then one year in now have been actively coaching, passionately coaching. And I think it's the second most satisfying and fulfilling thing that I do in life now. The first one being spending time with my four-year-old daughter and nine-month-old daughter. Very excited and passionate about coaching, but still always feel that it's new. And I feel okay with that.
There is so much more to learn, but every client, every conversation brings in something new. And that re-proves to me every time that how following the coaching ethics and the journey and holding the container and truly being a coach can be so much powerful. very much happy to be here. And like Angela said, 50 hours, the first 50, very fresh still, doesn't feel long at all. And I think one of the most exciting sort of set of hours and clients that I had during the first 50.
So would love to share more and hear more as well. Thank you and welcome. And can I just tell you, if coaching doesn't still keep feeling fresh and new and different and a bit into the unknown, I think we're not doing it right. Because I think every session needs to feel a bit new and fresh. Because every session is different, of course. Thank you. So, Jessie Buscombe, welcome. Thanks, Claire. Really good to be here.
So, I'm Jessie and I think my coaching journey or coaching experience is probably in two halves. I had the first half being... I guess a coach is part of my leadership role within the civil service and following some internal coaching training. And then a very different side of my journey when I left the civil service and set up as a professional coach, which I did around two years ago. So it was actually just before the pandemic started.
And I've been doing that work alongside working as a consultant, which I've done across local government and in the charitable sector. yeah, every session still feels very new and I'm still learning like all the time and enjoying it as I go. Good to hear that and welcome. And Jamie Drew, hello. Hi, Claire. Yeah, thank you for inviting me to join you today. Bit of background to me. So I've been coaching informally for about seven or eight years.
I was a management consultant and then took the decision as coaching and supporting other career development became more of an interest to me to professionalize my coaching. And that was about two and a half years ago I made that decision. So I've coaching since then.
Really excited about today's topic is one that's It's really important for any new coach, these sort of tips, so into the world of coaching, how to get those first clients, those first hours and take those brave first steps, something that really interests me. And I'm really excited to be sharing with you today. And we're excited that you're all here. So who's going to go first? Shall we start with the best or the worst strategy? Let's go with the best. What's the best strategy?
I'm happy to lead out if you would like Claire. Yeah, go on Jamie. I think, so before we go into into tactics, I I was reflecting on this and I think the key whenever you're trying to sort of your coaching practice off is you've got to be brave enough to put your hand up and just sort of say, that's it, I'm doing it now. And that's the first tricky step. How you then go about doing that. I'm sure the rest of the panel will have some great ideas on what they recommend, what they did like myself.
I think the first step is to have the confidence to put your hands up and say, hey, world, I'm coaching and I need some clients and I'm happy to coach you for, normally it's for free. But take that first step, I think is key and getting to that place is really important in the journey. Brilliant. Thank you, Angela. You had something to say. Well, first, I just totally agree with Jamie, actually.
I think that was one of my biggest barriers was, you know, coming out of a long term career in, you know, in something that you were hopefully relatively okay at. And now you're trying to do something very new that no one else knows you for is really difficult to put yourself out there and say, actually, this is what I'm doing now. I'm new. I'm right at the very beginning of, you know, of this as a, as a new journey for myself. And can you help me?
And I think that just takes such a long time for me to get over that and to be brave and bold about it. However, so the simple and the softer way in for me was within the group of peers that I trained with, we formed a coaching circle. So that was a really nice way of having a regular session with someone that you already knew and you trusted. and also to be coached by someone that you already knew and trusted and to use that as a learning experience together.
And that was a really nice way, I think, to begin. We then got quite cute about it and thought, actually, now that we all know each other rather well, we're feeling very good now. I think we'll actually form a coaching circle with the cohort of trainees that came before us who have got more experience than we have. And let's see if we can form a coaching circle with them, which we did as well. So that was great. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.
So there's a lot I'm hearing so far about offering it for free. We need to talk about the courage of the money as well, don't we? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I did all my kind of first hours pro bono and that helped me build up pure kind of just coaching expertise. think it's my reflection on pro bono work is it really works when you treat it as seriously as if it were paid. So you go through effectively with the client, you know, a form of contracting.
Okay, you're not actually exchanging money, but you get the degree of commitment from them that you would expect from a client if they were paying and you get a chance of coaching some coaches on a longer journey. through my pro bono, I was coaching some people for, you know, six, eight sessions. So that was quite a long-term relationship. And I think that really grounded me.
Having said all of that, my other reflection is none of that stops the sheer moment of terror that I felt the first time that I realized that I was going to charge someone and they were actually going to pay me, which is like quite a thing that makes me laugh now looking back because I'm more settled with that. And I guess what makes me laugh is why that I still haven't figured out why that was so strange for me because people, you know, I'm not, you know, fresh out of college.
People have been paying me for work for some time now. I'm well into my career, but it still was for me a really strange thing to get paid for coaching at first. And there was a definite wobble. I felt like I was stepping, you know, from one stone across a river onto another when I moved from pro bono to... to paid coaching and there was a definite feeling of a kind of warble as I did it.
Isn't it interesting that many of you have been sold out by organisations, as in, don't mean that, sorry, that sounds weird, but know, customers have bought you through organisations that you've worked in, probably for a significant amount of money more than you're charging for coaching. But there's something about us talking about it for ourselves, isn't there? Yeah, I think so. And for me, that was kind of wrapped up in the real difference from being an employee to being self-employed.
So the kind of two things got compacted and I haven't still, I still haven't worked out in my head and kind of welcome other people's reflections. Was it just an awkwardness about self-employment in general or was it something about you know, the one-to-one relationship of coaching and charging in that context. It's an interesting point you raised, Jessie. I think my thought on that is that I think it's also the profession itself, the service that we are offering as coaches.
If I made, I don't know, a curtain and sold that, there is a product that I'm selling and I might feel more comfortable asking for money for it. But then they like the curtain later or not, it shrinks, it loses color, that's beyond, that's both cells. When it comes to coaching, coming new into coaching, what I'm offering and who am I as a coach is so new to me right now that creating value of it and creating a proposition that this is what I offer.
And at the same time, the challenge that how do you promise value for the client? I think is one that certainly held me back initially before I started charging money for my coaching practice. And that's why the first 50 hours felt very easy and fun because this challenge and barrier of charging money wasn't there for me for sure. When I trained, we had to do 40 hours of coaching practice and I did all of that pro bono, like some of you said already, and it felt very easy.
The hundred hours after that felt very difficult because I had to start charging. And now it's starting to feel easy again because one, there is a little bit of, know, client base, there are referrals, I'm feeling more confident. I also know how much to charge. And I also know perhaps when not to charge and be okay with it. So this journey of 50 hours to start with, to where it is leading me personally as a coach is very, very interesting one, but yes. The first 50 hours felt very easy.
There was no judgment on me myself as a coach. I had only learned the grow model. So all that I needed to try was that. And now I know so many more tools and I'm wondering which one to go with. So I think the pressure, the variables that impact the journey as I am going through it is changing. And I think it's becoming more now what to let go than what to learn more. really? Good. I'm glad to hear that.
Yeah, was just going to say, think for me, I have never sold anything in my entire life and coaching feels like you're selling yourself. It feels a little bit unclean. I must be that right there. It just feels awkward. So I've had to kind of completely change the words. I'm not selling, I'm communicating. And if I feel like I'm communicating, it takes away all of that sort of negativity, you know, the negativity that I have around selling a product or a service.
And so I'm more comfortable with that just by changing the word. How bizarre is that? Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Jamie? Yeah, Claire, we were straightening some money, which I love. It's really come up so much in my first 50 hours. I just want to share a step that sort of interim step between pro bono and paid for that I found really useful. think I would do. I mean, if I wanted to start from scratch again, that is the charitable donation sort of route.
you can you can ask your coachee rather than paying you which might feel uncomfortable when you might get nervous around that or not paying you and that that has some challenges as well which I'd like to discuss as well. You can ask them to make a donation to a charity of their choice and you don't even set the price and they go how much and you go however much you want to donate.
You can either decide before the session or you can decide after the session and you may ask them much they may tell you, but it doesn't really matter. The idea is just to take a sort of interim step between pro bono and and archery coaching and I found that quite quite useful and something I would probably do more on. Just to extend on that. Claire, go on. I was going to say that's a great way of finding out what people think you're worth if you actually do know what they've donated.
At the end of this session, I'd love you to donate. So I still do pro bono stuff and I don't ever do anything for nothing. But I say, I don't mind what you pay, but I ask you to make a donation to a charity that's close to my heart. And some people give five pounds, five dollars, and then other people give 250 pounds. And all of the above is fine by me. I tend to do it with people who I know can't afford much. And it's a much more dignified way, I think, than kind of negotiating fees down.
The best advice I was given when I was new to self-employment was never work for anything that's not your full fee or a bunch of flowers. Although I did then once work for a bunch of flowers and they gave me a bunch of flowers and a bottle of champagne and I already had a suitcase full of kit and I had to take the whole thing through the gate of Victoria Station then get it home and it was a nightmare because it was one of those upy outy bouquets. So who else? What are we thinking about money?
Can I make one point I learned when I was starting out as well, Claire? Yes, please. Many people will accept the invitation of free coaching and they'll commit to it. And Bessie, you mentioned prepare for a free session as you would a paid session. Your professionalism kicks in, you prepare it the same way. Unfortunately, there are some people that if something's free, won't commit in the same way.
you buy a 50 pound ticket to go and see a a concert or see a sports event, whatever it might be, you'll turn up. You won't just let that ticket go. If you pay nothing for a ticket, it might be five minutes before, or you might see the notification come in, and you might just think, you know what, there's better things on TV right now. I'm gonna go and do that and send some wishy washy apology now. I've had that.
Lisa, I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, but I've had late cancellations for a free session. I wonder why that is. So just something to consider that I would encourage all listeners to consider when they provide bonus, really connect commitment early because a zero fee can often mean zero commitment as well. Yeah. And Sarah Short from The Coaching Revolution, who was on our podcast a couple of weeks ago, she would say, don't do it.
for that reason, because free coaching doesn't bring in paid coaching, free coaching brings in more free coaching. And there is something, isn't there, where you're trying to get up your hours so you can get your credential, but there's also been an expectation outside COVID. I don't know whether they've changed it back post-COVID or wherever we are in COVID now. But the ICF, for example, had a requirement that only 20 % of your hours were and the rest had to be paid.
So it's an interesting one to navigate. What are other people's thoughts about money? I agree. think I agree with Jamie in terms of zero fee, commitment. I also think that the pro bono for me personally is not a complete no-no. Like any product, again, people do sampling when they launch new stuff. People do marketing and advertising on television or wherever it is when they have to let people know that this product exists. And when I do pro bono, that is my investment in terms of time.
I'm not getting any dollars back for it, but I'm marketing and advertising myself. I'm setting up my own brand and awesome that I can do it when I'm just starting out. I am equally hesitant that is this the thing for me or not? And I can do that without any hesitation by just offering pro bono and get more practice. So yes, I do want to charge money. And I do do, but I don't think Pro Bono will ever be out of my portfolio offer even for the next 10, 20, 30 years.
I think it will always be part of it. Donation is another fantastic idea. I do that also. Either I offer my charity that I support or ask clients, whatever charity they support. And again, there is variety, five pounds to a hundred pounds. People believe what they want. Right. I think it just for me, pro bono donation money, just keeps coaching and my learning from the sessions and value for the clients right at the heart.
But if that's all that continued, then I'm going to think what where the money is going to come from as well, which is, is a separate conversation. But yes, I think pro bono is going to continue to be part of my practice for sure. Good. Good, because it matters, doesn't it? Because the world needs coaching and not everybody can pay for it. Yeah, I think I wouldn't rule out pro bono coaching, but then in general, I think this is a kind of theme for me around starting your own business.
I don't actually believe in like hard and fast rules. I mean, I think whenever I hear people say, you should do this or you shouldn't do this, I think, you know, every business is, unique and every person is unique. mean, some people really cannot afford to do pro bono. You know, I was lucky enough that I had another income stream through my consulting work.
Pro bono had actually an exchange for me because actually I was getting feedback from clients which was supporting my coaching qualifications. So they were giving me things like written feedback that I could use for my qualification. One of my pro bono coaching clients did a video with me that was part of my ICF assessment. So when I think of it as being pro bono, don't think that they like got off scot-free.
I think there was a fair exchange as part of that, that we discussed what I needed to get out of it. And I think looking back, that's maybe why those relationships worked really well for me. And I think the last thing I kind of reflect on with pro bono coaching is I didn't then offer the coaching to everyone. I can distinctly remember actually, I was volunteered someone who kept not turning up to sessions and wasn't reliable and was not taking it seriously.
And I just said really honestly, this is not gonna work for me. because I need a kind of commitment to the process for the coaching journey to work. And so I think whether it's free or not doesn't mean that you should coach everyone. And that's a good discipline to take into your coaching journey. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So interesting times. So Derek Hill, welcome to our pub. Hey, it's great to be in the pub. I'm glad the door's still open. The door's still open. We'll get you a drink in a minute.
Good, good. Just tell us all a bit about you and then we'll catch you up with where we are in our conversation. OK, so a bit about me. I'm joining you today from Henley. I'm at the business school here. I'm currently working through the MSc in coaching and behavioural change. So we've had a fun day on reflective practice. And I have my own coaching practice, which I started up in 2020.
And I'm enjoying growing that, trying to work for organisations who want to provide coaching as a benefit to improve performance for their people. Brilliant. Well, you're very, very welcome. So if we were to summarise what we've talked about in the last few minutes, who would like to just check in where we are? I can try, Claire. think we've, I would just kick this off and what have we covered so far? Ways, got quickly into charging.
So how pro bono charging works, advantages of that, disadvantages of that. We've talked a bit about working for charitable donations and how you can charge your first set of clients at that sort of way. And that's an interim step towards taking those first few steps towards charging for value.
we've discussed some of the challenges that being brave enough to to charge, sorry, for your time as a coach, for the very first time in your career, even though you may have been charged out as a consultant, as a specialist, whatever it might be in the past, taking up those first steps to charge yourself out and your service as a coach takes a brave step. So as we've heard you say that and thank you so much Jamie for catching us up.
What are everyone's thoughts about what are we missing and what are we noticing and what do you want to chuck in the mix Derek. If I may, think in some ways, Jess perhaps sort of alluded to this. I think that first 50 hours is not really just about the payment or not the payment or the charitable donation. It's about what else are you gaining during that first 50 hours? And I think there's an opportunity to begin to develop reflective practice.
There's an opportunity to start to build your referral network of clients. for you to understand who do you actually like working with? Who do you feel that, or where do you feel uncomfortable? Is the subject matter that you feel deeply uncomfortable with and why is that? Or are there people that you are having a reaction to that you think, am I doing that? I don't really quite understand. How can I change my approach so that I can work with this person more effectively?
I think there's a huge amount of learning in that first 50 hours, which surpasses. any payment from you. Yeah. Yeah. And I really like what you said, Jessie, about fair exchange. So we in fact still offer, so I put out something on LinkedIn yesterday or last week to get somebody who'd be willing to be coached for nothing in exchange for me recording it for a video for training purposes, because Because that is giving and taking, isn't it?
And giving and taking is actually quite an important part of engagements with people. What's the fair exchange? That's one of the principles, isn't it, of systemic constellations coaching. So as you're hearing, go on, Jessie. I was just going to say, I think that that applies like a lot in general to self-employment.
And I spoke before about the mindset shift between being an employee and self-employment and pretty much when you're on salary with a company, the kind of deal is, you're paid for all the stuff you're asked to do. And when self-employment comes along, one of the things that you're constantly evaluating is opportunities that are paid and not paid and what the things that are not paid give you in terms of that exchange.
I mean, we're all here today on a podcast giving a new thank to us Claire for our time, which is fantastic. But you're also giving us a platform to talk about the fact that we're coaches. And if every time I was self-employed, I didn't do something that because there wasn't a direct financial gain. I don't think my business in general would have traveled very far.
So I would just encourage people in their first 50 hours to think about what other things, and that could be, for instance, like posting on social media, being on a podcast, as well as the pro bono work, what other things do you need to do in order to create opportunities for your business that that aren't paid directly upfront, but long-term can turn into work. Yeah. Thank you. So Derek, what are you thinking? Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've covered a lot of great stuff.
Maybe I'll offer something that I was thinking about coming to this call or this pub. I thought about the phrase liberation of learning. And I thought sometimes that, you know, I think about think even my role as a father and my girls growing up and sometimes we have to stop and pause and enjoy growing up, enjoy what we've embraced. And I do think as coaches, we're always learning, but this initial learning, there's a real liberation in it and there's something to be enjoyed.
There's pressure to have a niche, there's pressure to do hours, there's pressure to get your accreditations, all these... tick boxes we want to achieve. But there's also something to be enjoyed that we've made a choice to do something that's very rewarding. And, you know, there is a real kind of sense of kind of freedom that you can kind of start to get new coaching. So one thing I'd say on that is, you know, I've kind of learned to suspend kind of integration.
It's a thing that this period is about, is about practice and being brave. and try lots of new things in coaching, thinking about contracting. So contracting to learn, this is what we're gonna try out in this session. What types of people do I want to work with? How do I want to work with them? And when I heard Jesse talk there, it made me think of a lecture I attended with Peter Hawkins when he talked about partnerships, about the purpose, not about the people.
You know, so, you know, I think that's kind of interesting about thinking what, what is this, you know, what am I doing coaching, you know, or am, you know, is there a purpose to this kind of, kind of coaching? When I first started out, I had Thomas Leonard, who was often spoken of as the grandfather of coaching like 20, 30 years ago. But he said, go out and coach a thousand people. Now, going back to what one of you, somebody said, you you've got to think about your income as well, haven't you?
Very few people have got the potential to go out and coach a thousand people. But there is something about getting that high volume work through that actually really begins to deepen your experience and your understanding of how you do what you do and how you engage in that partnership with a purpose, with another person.
And once people have a few more hours, those people who go onto the coaching platforms really describe the value for them of high volume work because that really gets them to practice, practice, practice and really refine their craft. But that's not for the first 50 hours, of course. So I'm wondering what you did that you thought, well, that wasn't a very good idea in those early days. think one of the things I think I should have paid less attention to was what everyone else was doing.
I think there's a lot of noise when you're new coach coming from social media and various other sources, which is telling you, you need to write a book, you need to blog, need to blog, you need to be posting on social media at least five times every day, every week, or you'll never get a client. just all of that stuff can put you into a of a spin. It certainly put me into a of a spin. And I had to really sort of claw back to what do I actually want to do in the next 12 weeks?
What is my goal and my aim? And really chunk it down into tiny little steps and block out what everybody else was doing or thought that I should be doing. And that really helped me. Because at one point I was ready to say, really don't think this coaching is for me because I can't do all of those things. So regrinding myself really helped. So doing it your way. Doing it my way. And noise doesn't necessarily equate to a good business model, nor to income.
Yeah. Because now you can get a book on Amazon. That doesn't mean that anybody buys it. It means you can get a book on Amazon. Did you know, sorry, this is just a interesting piece of aside. Did you know that the average non-fiction book sells 350 copies in its lifetime? my goodness. I thought it'd be higher, surely. The average non-fiction book sells 350 copies in its lifetime. yeah, each to our own. So what about other people?
What did you, what were the, not sure about that, bits of this journey for you? Well, I just want to share sort of one story, which is a kind of illustration about how you often obsess and worry about something. And then of course, life brings you something sort of different to worry about, but it wasn't the thing you were worrying about, which is that when I was planning my first 50 hours, it was like January, 2020. So my obsession centered on logistically, like where would I coach?
What cafes would I go to that had the best acoustics? How would I ensure there was privacy? Would I ask to go into people's offices? And in event, of course, by March 2020, absolutely everyone was sat at home and all my coaching was online. And so I think my thought for the first 50 hours is, that you often channel your anxiety into these quite peripheral things really.
And of course the wider anxiety is about something more systemic about your performance, about the value that you might bring, but it kind of channels and fixates on these rather like in my case, ridiculous logistic things. So, you know, in the end, so much of my coaching has been online. And I think that I found that a really kind of fantastic platform. But yeah, I guess what's the moral of the story?
I wouldn't sweat the small stuff so much, easier said than done, but looking back, you you're at your best coaching when you're more relaxed. And I think the phrase that I see a lot is how you've got to get out of your own way. but new coaches can be quite kind of anxious. And that's probably something to think about, you know, what are the strategies for managing your nervousness and your anxiety in those first 50 hours?
Yeah. I think it's building on what you just said and linking with Derek's comment around, need to find your niche at some point. At the start, think the key in your first 50 hours is to coach and as we've discussed to learn, get feedback, get feedback as well as post at the end of session feedback to get new ideas, test new things out. But you can do that on a range of clients. And the importance is that practice and you can practice with anyone basically early in your career.
As you get on, need to... build your business, need to be a bit more selective. And I'm sure if you haven't, that's already neaching and the importance of that is as you grow a coaching business, but I would avoid worrying too much about that in the first 50 hours and just getting that time and learning in. And that's something I think I worried about a bit too much. Are these exactly the right clients for me? I covering exactly the right needs? Put that aside and just get in basically.
Yeah, niching is a controversial subject, isn't it? Because if you've listened to the last number of episodes, we've had people who go, you must have a niche. And we have people who go, what's the point of a niche? So there's something I think about going back to what you said, Angela, about doing what works for you. But also not saying I offer coaching to everybody because then everybody isn't really going to know that it's you that you're the right person for them.
But there's something, isn't there, about where do we already have credibility? So when I started out, I had credibility in the not-for-profit sector, and a huge amount of my early coaching came through people who had known me in the workplace. who knew that I was now self-employed and who would send people to see me, lots of that, probably the first 500 hours. There were bits and pieces that came from other places, but most of them came from a place where I was already known and trusted.
And in those days we didn't have social media. So you got, in fact, we didn't have email either. You got it by picking up the phone and saying, would you like a cup of coffee? Isn't it funny how things change so fast? Or maybe you think that's a long time. I don't know. I like that idea of picking up the phone and it kind of reminds me about the need to kind of be brave and do take that step forward.
And I think about times where maybe I wasn't brave or I made a misstep was around, I think there's a danger in coaching coaches early on because you're on a learning journey with lots of people and you think, yeah, we can all coach each other and won't that be cool? But then sometimes those sessions can be a bit clunky and people self-coach and you know, it maybe is a different kind of reality.
And then the other part I would say is like, in the context of the first 50 hours is kind of honor those hours. So I noticed what I did was I kind of be in conversations and think, hey, I could try out some of these new skills in this conversation. like I was some kind of young wizard who just come back from Hogwarts. And I wouldn't contract. I'd just kind of start doing it. then sometimes it worked. Often it wouldn't work.
But there's a real honoring the hour, making it kind of special and taking time to do the contracting. So yeah. telling people you agree into coach and not coaching coaches. Yeah, and not coaching people without their consent, think. There's nothing worse than the zeal of a new convert who asks you a coaching question in the pub when actually all you want to do is talk about the sunshine or...
Yeah. Yeah, although I got the reverse of that, like with my husband sometimes saying, but that's not a very sort of coach type approach. That's because I'm not really a coach at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's about having the confidence, I think, to step in and out of those modes, right? And for people not to kind of expect you to be always coaching. My segue into it, guess, is to say to people, it sounds like you might want to have a different kind of conversation about that.
So I'm happy to talk about that on work time. Because that moves into the possibility of having a coaching conversation, because I don't know about you, but can I be your coach? Or would you like to coach with me? Or any of those things sound just really odd. to me, you may disagree, but it's that dating moment that we need to find a way through, I think.
Yeah, I really agree with what Derek said about careful of coaching coaches, because I think the thing that I still, what I found in my first 50 hours and I still find is that most people don't know what coaching is. So part of the development of the relationship is working out with them a joint understanding of what coaching is and what it isn't. Whereas if you coach coaches all the time, that's a sort of a given and you're straight into it and you're never having to handle that.
Whereas for me, that's still a fundamental part of like the contracted thing is trying to get that common understanding of what coaching is and Apropos of what Claire was saying about having a lot of people referred to you that you've known in the workplace, that's happened to me. But I think the challenge there is where people are looking for more of the mentoring relationship. Can you tell me kind of how you did it? And I can, but let's be clear, that's not coaching.
Yeah. Yeah. So clarity counts, doesn't it? Jamie. Yeah, you're asking what I did wrong or what we did wrong, Claire. just I think I went fresh from a day of coaching, education, learning, coaching from my peers. And you know, start the coaching conversation, it's very easy. What do you want from me? And they know what they want. can respond very easy. And then in the evening, I went fresh into a new coaching relationship. And I hadn't really contacted that well with this guy.
And I was like, right, what do you want to get out of today's session? And you know, hit that hit for the first time with I don't know. No, they just they'd taken up free offer of an hour of my time to be coached, but they didn't know. And that was a that was a lesson. That was a quick lesson for me that and get out of your comfort zone. think I think coaching your peers can can be a good intro step. But yeah, don't make it your your bread and butter.
Your first 50 hours are 50 hours of coaching people in your course and other people that have trained in that first session with someone that doesn't doesn't know what coaching is and they don't know what they want. I mean, it gets sticky. You've raised a really interesting thing because I listen to recordings of coaches coaching because now I'm a mental coach and that's quite a significant amount of my time. That's where I spend a lot of my life.
But I'm constantly saying to them, please don't bring me another recording of you coaching a coach because I can't tell what you're doing. they keep taking over. But not taking over in the way that somebody who's not a coach takes over, you just step out of the way and they do their amazing work. It's like both of you are trying to do the coaching at the same time. And it's really not great. And it doesn't demonstrate the quality of the work. that you're doing.
So there is huge value in it in terms of getting miles and getting experience and getting feedback. And of course, in your coaching circle, Angela, you get a very different quality of feedback, because the the fair exchange in that circle is that you will get much deeper feedback and much more specific feedback than you will if you're coaching somebody else where the exchange might be different.
But yeah, just Getting out there, Sarah Short said on the podcast a couple of weeks ago that somebody had asked her if coaching was a pyramid selling scheme, because it felt like coaches only coached coaches. But I also, my take is that using a different word is sometimes very useful. because it's more English and people are more able to understand. So lots to share. Thank you so much.
And I guess as we begin to draw our conversation at the coaching into an end, my question to you is, if there was one thing that you could say to people in their first 50 hours who were listening to this going, tell me, what would you say to them? What would be your nugget? I'd say consider the first 50 hours as extended training for you and use it as a learning platform. Explore, be brave, make mistakes, with permission record the sessions and very early on start listening back.
How do you even sound? Well, how do you come across? There is far more value in that. than letting the world know you're a coach now because then you'll have 10,000 people selling you how to set up million dollar businesses. And that is very, very disappointing because it's gonna take time, right? Not in the first 50 hours. just, yeah, it's extended training. That's what I'd ask listeners to do. Thank you. Extended training. That's a really interesting one. Who else? I'm gonna go for it.
Cause Mikul's showed us that these kind of questions it's good to get in first and not be the last one. So I absolutely agree with what Michael said about the videoing and viewing those videos because that can be really tough to do but the return on that awkwardness, return on awkwardness is really valuable and I learned a lot from doing it but it didn't. feel very nice thing to do and I didn't enjoy it.
I didn't enjoy doing transcripts and all my er's and um's and all that I did, but really valuable. So make sure a lot of those sessions are recorded. And then the second point I'd just like to say is like, it's not a solo journey and maybe think about what can help you on that journey and the team or the support structures that you. you could put around you.
And an example of that I would say is around supervision, is I had an early point where I needed to go to supervision and I'm really glad I had it there. And I wonder if there are other people that may have had experiences when they haven't had that support and then it can feel very isolating and very kind of worrying in a way. So I would say, know, just think about what you need and... and get that in place as well.
So you're saying that a safe place to go before you need it is an essential when you need a safe place to go? Yeah. Thank you. Angela, Jessie, Jamie. I think I'd say focus on what you want to do and how you want to do your own coaching and build your own coaching business. Drown out the noise if you possibly can, all of it is going to be helpful. And just picking up on that last point, think finding a tribe, find your peer group, use your peer group, have a support structure in place.
Many people who come to coaching have worked in team environments. And when you're outside of an organization and outside of a team structure, that was one of the things I found quite difficult was that isolation of being on your own, unless you have people around you that are at a similar stage to yourself in their coaching journey and their coaching business that you can rely on. Thank you. Thank you. Jessie and Jamie. Go on, Jessie.
Okay. I've got a few, which might be cheating, but I've had long enough while everyone's talking to do a really bad thing, which was not listen fully and start writing down my own stuff. So don't do that as a coach. That's not good coaching. But okay. Here's, here's a few things. I mean, they're just all like a magpie. I've picked it up from other people's ideas.
I think in the first 50 hours, Like just make sure you are doing some of that coaching with real people on real issues, because that's the only way you'll learn. I love to what kind of Angela was saying about, I think of it as like the tyranny of the shoulds, let go of that. Avoid anyone who says, should, you should niche, you should do this, you should do that. You know, can read and you can absorb best practice, but you have to find your own journey.
And then I think, Alongside supervision, which I had, I would actually also encourage people if they can possibly afford it or if they can access it through pro bono routes is to have some coaching yourself. Because one of the biggest things actually about my first 50 hours I felt was that I had to kind of look at myself quite a lot. mean, coaching is not a journey for the faint hearted. It involves a lot of work on your own stuff.
And for me, I think that threw up quite a lot of issues about my own work that I needed to look at with a coach. And that also helped me see like different styles of coaching. So I actually saw two quite different coaches over the course of the first year I was coaching. Fantastic. Thank you. Jamie. So I've got to go after the summary. That's not very fair, Jesse. Thank you. So in which case, maybe I'll just close with this one. Enjoy it.
know, worry about the where the money's coming from, the type of plan, etc. In the future, the first 50 hours, just enjoy it. It's going to be awkward sometimes it's going to get clunky. You're to fail. Doesn't matter. You learn from it and you improve. that's what you want in your first 50 hours. You want to be a better coach so that you're ready to shoulders back and start to start to move forward. And that's that's when it starts to get a bit trickier. Right.
But first 50 hours, just enjoy it. And let every one of those hours be with someone who can be your teacher. Because even the falling over is a lesson, isn't it? So thank you. Thank you, Angela Christie and Derek Hill and Jamie Drew and Jesse Buscombe and Mikkel Dewan. We'll put your contact details in the show notes so that people can make contact with you if they would like to. Really appreciate your exchange of sharing your insights for a seat in our pub.
And I'm Claire Pedrick and you've been with us at the Coaching Inn. So bye-bye everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. Thank you. Bye. Thank you, everyone. 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.
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