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. And before I introduce you to today's guest, just a reminder that if you subscribe or follow The Coaching Inn, then you'll be able to get every single episode as it downloads, including next week's. And maybe you already did, in which case, thank you very much.
So today, my guest is Ben Dooley, who I have noticed all over the place in the coaching world. Then I just reached out to Ben and said, we should talk. And then when we talked, I said to Ben, you should come to the coaching in. here he is. here I am. So Ben. Well, thank you.
off, thank you for inviting me to be a part of this because I, I just, there's a couple of things I love just talking coach and going into like really deep layers and levels and challenging and myth busting and, kind of breaking norms and going beyond the levels. And I love also reaching out and helping coaches, whoever I can. I get the best of both worlds. I get the best of three worlds because I also get to engage with you. Challenging and myth busting. you're so in the right place.
I can hear people on their run going, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. Probably somebody's also pressed stop, but that's okay. I want my myths. I will keep my myths. Okay, go ahead. So listeners, if you think Claire Pedrick is opinionated, welcome to Ben Dooley. So Ben, tell us a little bit about your story that got you to this place. will tell the story that skews into myth busting and disrupting and all of that.
a lot of this was I got into coaching because I was doing I was on my own path of doing workshops of personal growth and finding that really incredibly insightful and helpful looking at the world, looking at my situation and problems and issues and relationships in new ways that I hadn't learned elsewhere. And that's a lot of what we do in coaching. But this was a workshop that I was participating in. And they said, if you want to.
If you want to get, if you're repeating a class, then you could partner up and be with somebody. And so I found that I would meet up with the guy who was going through the first time and I said, how you doing? I'm doing all right. Except, you know, my boss is kind of being an idiot. And I would go, well, you remember that lesson that we did way back two weeks ago? Yeah, you're right. And I found that to be tremendously rewarding.
And so in just telling other people about it, somebody pointed me to this strange new thing called coaching. And 21 years ago, that this was still, it was more knowable in like the California regions. And it was kind of making its way into the Midwest, which is where I am. And it was pre global. And so it kind of dawned on me, this is something I need to do.
And When I did, and I'm sure many coaches here are watching or listening to this, and probably your experience, when I walked into that training, there was a part of me that woke up and said, now I'm here, and this feels right. This is where I need to be. And I had been doing, I had been successful in... keeping things going in other businesses. was an actor in Chicago doing commercials and voiceovers and products and things. And I was doing okay.
And it fulfilled a lot, but coaching somehow clicked in a different way. However, and I was hungry for more training and more of like, how do I get really good at this? How do I get better? And I got trained and at the time there was no Here's what's the next step. Here's how to get better and stronger and sharper. There was lots of other, even at that time, there was lots of other additional tools I could bring in. I could take a class on appreciative inquiry.
I could learn how to do disk and I can, all these things I could bring in, but there wasn't anything that really dug and dove into the depths of this is coaching. So I put myself on my own journey of that. And along the way started coming across contradictions and grand assumptions and kind of misrepresentations with well intentions and well meaning. But if you look more closely at what they're really telling you, it actually does not make sense.
And so there was lots of inconsistencies and glossing overs. That was part of our training. And that's when I started getting even more confused and starting to really find my pathway through and recognizing first and foremost, if I'm across something that's not making sense or confusing, then it's most likely just a collapsing of two or more things. And we've now made a bold assumption.
I can remember when I started my coach training in the 1990s, being sent a foot more than a foot, 30 centimeters team of handouts and being taught we're not experts, but then then there were 10 or 15 pages about every kind of person you could coach and how to be an expert in coaching them, which is dissonant. to saying that you're not an expert, but you need to have a handout that tells you how to coach them. or the versions of that is, well, you're not a real coach, but go out and coach.
Yeah. And so in fact, just got off talking with a new coach earlier, just did basic, fundamental one time, like initial training. And I said, you need more because You're going to get more tools. You're going to get more skills. You're going to get stronger and better. But even then. That first weekend with training. Your coach training organization said go out and coach somebody. So there's a truth to both sides and we naturally we naturally fall into an either or way of thinking.
You know, look, well, either I'm a great coach and I can go out and coach people or I suck at the coach and I really shouldn't be coaching anybody. but wait a minute. How do I get to be a better coach if I'm not coaching and then, but I can't coach because I'm not a good coach, but I should be a good coach, but I'm not.
And then we throw ourselves into this seesaw teeter-tatter tug of war rather than, and let's be honest, coaching is not about either or for the most part coaching is about how do we get. both and what other options and possibilities are out there that we're not that we're actually excluding ourselves from. And so looking at yes, you are a new coach. Yes, you're not fairly trained. Or as I said to this coach, I said, you're not a Tony Robbins or a Ben Dooley. Like I put myself in that echelon.
But actually, as a coach, I can't compare myself to him. I can certainly, he's a much better business man, but I'm not that, but you are, you do have skills, you do have training, you do have knowledge and experience, limited as it may be, you have more than your client does. And so you get to help your client in some way. More training, more experience gets better, but you actually can not be a full, super huge, incredible coach, and you can coach. Yeah, I hate the word client. Yeah, I know.
I know. It's old school. I know everybody's like, coachees. I'm like, okay. I hate that word too. Okay. Coachees just sounds so weird and they get it. It's leaning into that co-active part. Coach and clients does have that feeling of sort of a different level of hierarchy. I don't know. Why do you hate it? Well, for that exact reason. Because I think that anything that we call people, when we're not calling them people... Because they are people creates a power differential.
And the one thing that I really struggle with is when people say my client, because they're not, they're not yours. Love it. They are human people who've come to us for the purpose of us doing some work with them to support them to do whatever it is they want to do. No, actually, they don't belong to us. I purchased all of them. I went to a store and I bought all those clients and then took them home. That's no, I love what you're pointing to.
again, it's actually it's part of what is kind of a section of what's happening in our culture these days with a lot of this non-binary looking and gender and all of these distinctions. and these roles and this language that we're being and DEI conversations that are huge nowadays. All of these are questioning language that we've just taken for granted and it's just part of our natural common expression. So absolutely, I love that you call that because it hadn't even dawned on me, my clients.
Yeah. well. I know what I mean by that and I don't mean this and I don't mean that. And it's like when I was, mean, and I'm not proud of this, but I remember like 25 years ago talking with a dear, dear friend of mine and explaining to him why it was okay to say the F word because he was gay. And it was okay. No, no, no. When I say it, I don't mean this. I don't mean that. Not realizing that my language unintentionally is hurting. Maybe not devastating.
You know, he probably had a thick skin on this. He probably rolled his eyes and went whatever and didn't take it personally. But for me to not realize that my words carry meaning, whether or not I intended that way. So. I love that you bring in my clients. Now, great. Now I'm going to be so aware of that.
Because we have this goes back to the whole part about coaching is that coaching is about creating a clear awareness of our action of our deed of our of our emotions of our thoughts of our intentions that we have a clearer awareness of what we say and what we do and what we truly mean so that we can be intentional and purposeful with our with our actions in our direction. And so even pointing those little insignificant things, carrying great significance. I think they do.
And I think that there's a real dissonance between partnership that is great coaching and what the coaching schools teach about partnership that isn't as partnership as it could be. And there's a lot of absolutely. And that's one of the things that I find myself doing in more advanced coach training, because I can't go in and change all the coach trainings. Please stop teaching them this. Stop saying this.
But what I can do is then take those coaches, my coaches that I'm working with, my coaches, that I can take those coaches that I'm working with and helping in training and pointing to a deeper awareness of what they've been taught and the inconsistencies or the unintended impact that our language is actually creating. Yeah, because it just completely skews the relationship, I think. Yeah. We were in your story and you'd got to being an actor in Chicago.
Well, so then I started I started coach training and the rest is history. It went to I started noticing those inconsistencies or I would do the things I was being trained and it kind of was like it was confusing. I one of the things that I started getting really frustrated by was being told on one hand, I'm not allowed to ask a why question. To which my first response is why not? So there's that. But then I'm also being trained. I need to work with my clients to find the big why.
Why is this so important? Why are they doing this? OK, so why good? Why bad? Why? And that's again, we naturally are attracted to simplicity and to just all encompassing blindshed answers and quick fixes. which is why coaching exists is to provide and offer something more than that. You know, in our clients and our partners and the people that we work with, we're helping them to step out of that all encompassing simplicity to really embrace the complexities.
not to be overwhelmed, but to then be more clear and intentional about, here's what I choose, and here's what I know, and here's what I think and feel. So, not being able to ask a why question, but having to ask a why question was absolutely confusing until I just reconciled and said, got it, both are true. Both. Now I get to. Yeah. And I get to prohibit asking why questions for these reasons and for this purpose. And I get to ask a why question for this purpose and this reason.
And one of the main things which they don't necessarily teach and train is that why questions are just a natural automatic default habitual question that we ask rather than asking it with purpose and intention and clarity and focus. well, that's different. Yeah, and there's a backwards facing nature to why and there's a forwards facing nature to why. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because whys are fantastic questions.
And this goes to one of the things that I do really point to in the teaching that I offer, which is you're looking at who are you actually? Who is asking the question? What part of you? And who are you asking the question to? What part of your client? So this clarifies that distinction. If you, the coach who's not really clear and not sure and I don't know what to do, well, I mean, why would you do this? That's not a powerful.
If you, the coach that really knows this and is here to... point and guide and shift and alter and challenge and all those coachy things, a why question can be immensely helpful.
Now, to your partner or collaborator that you're working with, if you're talking to their freaked out, scared, stuck, low, victim, angry, confined, limited, I can't fail yourself, that why question is dead and devastated because it throws them deeper into having to explain and justify and protect and defend because that's the mode they're already in.
But when you're talking to their powerful self, that part that has a deeper knowing that can actually sidestep and take off that veneer of Anakin fear and problem and access their deeper wisdom and their inner power. When you're talking to that, a why question explodes in incredible ways. And that's the depth and the nuance of the work, isn't it? It is. It's who's asking the questions and who are you asking the questions to? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is deeply simple and highly sophisticated.
Deeply simple and complexly easy. Or complexly complicated. I think for me, that's why simplifying the work we do and using less words is really important. Because otherwise what you've just described can get really lost in verbosity and overwordliness, can't it? Most of the time the wording there's involved that lower energy, that lower self, that small self that because we're We're trying to explain, we're trying to clarify.
This is a tactic that we have and a skill to make sure that we are understood and this is clear. And then do you get an understand and all? And yet, when we're tapping into our wisdom and our inner power and we're speaking to that wisdom and the power. It's just that it's the tapping of the wheel. It's that just a little bit here and a little bit there. We don't need to rely upon that clarity and explanation. There's a lot more trust in ourselves and our intuition and trust in the common.
So you're talking about connection. amen. Connection is critical. I want to press your button here. I hate love it. Last time we spoke, you told me your least favourite question in the coaching world. And what's interesting is you've just talked about finding ways for us to be engaged in dialogue with the strong and empowered part of the person that we're talking to. And you know what I'm going to say, so I'm going let you say it. So what's your least favourite question? And why?
who would you have to be? Was that the one? Yeah. Say more. This is a kind of it's exactly what I'm pointing to. It's a magic blanket fix. Question that is offered, and there's several reasons why this bugs my bananas, which is first off, when we call it. If we look at just our natural day-to-day world, we live in a doing and having existence. That is all of what we give our attention to.
We know people, I gotta do this, I gotta have this, I don't want this, I want more of that, I wanna get rid of this, I wanna have this, blah, blah, blah, blah, how do I do and how do I get? And that is our lives. And so we typically don't understand being in that way. Not to mention, We talk about being and we use it in many different forms. Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? So can you be there at eight? All these things that we use being for that is actually doing or having.
So we're using being casually in many different ways and it actually doesn't mean the being that we know as coaching. So in coaching, we know being is something completely different. But in the rest of the world, we look at being as a kind of doing. And what makes it even more weird and confusing is that we start hearing being and doing our actual opposites. For example, and how many times have you heard a client partner? Person.
You put the same individual of whom you have a coaching engagement partnership. no, don't do that. That's really complicated. Go on. How often have you heard? I wasn't having heard somebody say, I'm tired of doing all the time. I just want to be. Well, a bunch of crap. I'm tired of living, I just want to live.
mean, that's really all that is, because what they're saying is I'm tired of doing these things and the cost and the exhaustion and the confusion and the overwhelm and the and the results or. the lack of the desired results that all of this doing is getting me. There's a cost that I do not appreciate or want in this kind of doing. And I want to have a different outcome and result. The real conversation is I'm tired of doing these things and getting these outcomes and results cause and effect.
And I want these other results and experiences and outcomes And I want to be able to do something else. Do spend more time with my family. Do write my great American novel. Do just have some chill time and watch TV or meditate or whatever. Those are all, you're always doing something. And you're always being something and being. Here's the other thing. my goodness. You're opening up a kettle here. But there's just, we can talk here, right? We can do some truth telling here.
There are tons of coaches, including training, MCC coaches. I've sent out the question, how would you describe or define being? And I hear being is this wonderful, majestic, spiritual place. What? Or being is. your inner power and mastery and powerful self. Okay, what they're describing is A being, not being. That's like trying to describe, well, what is a vegetable? A vegetable is a leafy green thing that is crisp, except it will to the refrigerator. No, that's lettuce.
Lettuce is a vegetable, but it's not vegetable. It's not all vegetables. Beings, you can be irritated and frustrated. You can be passionate. You can be excited. You can be exhausted. You can be stuck and empty and scared. And you can be a million billion things. So the being is not just this wonderful, lofty, glossy thing. You are always doing something, even when it's getting there, doing what are you doing? Nothing. You're doing nothing. You're actually doing something.
But you're not being nothing. And you're not. You're always being something with everything that you're Case in point, that whole I want to try to doing, I just want to be. And so then, well, that means I just want to. have some quiet time and sit and relax. That's quiet time, sit and relax.
much, how many times has anybody had quiet time to sit and relax and got nothing out of it because they were being distracted, being irritated, being something, something, something that wasn't serving them in that moment. So get rid of that question because the clients don't understand it. What were. pointing to in the question is absolutely the crux and the critical core of what we do as coaching. It's the language that doesn't. Who do you have to be? Who are you being? All those things.
and then the other angle is our clients also want to look good and do it right and make sure they get it. And well, you know something, so you're asking this question, so they're just going to answer it the best way they can. but it doesn't speak to the depth and the richness and the importance of what that question is truly pointing to. So in my class, I have a whole big lesson and core and breakdown of how to really point and re-language that question.
So they're asking, how do you want to think? How do you want to feel? What do you want to know is true? What is your essence, your role, your mode? Going back to what I said before, if you're talking to that victim, loser, idiot, pathetic moron that will always lose and can never, and what's the point and how could I possibly, that's their being. in everything that they do.
And if you're talking to that powerful self who has an inner knowing and a deeper confidence and a clarity and I don't have this all planned, but I know I can figure this out or can handle it and they're resourceful and they're beautiful, powerful beings. And if we're talking to that, that is their being in everything that they do.
You're describing something that we've been doing quite a lot of thinking about and the way you're describing it has given me some different insight and I'm thank you for that. You're welcome, thank you. I love rambling about this. So we're working with a coach called Kim Whitten who's just written a guest blog for us and she talks about passing, P-A-R-S-E. So passing is you ask this question but actually you've asked another question over somewhere else.
And then the person that you're working with answers the question that's the translated version of what. So you, so I see or hear or sense something in you. I turn it into one of those questions. answer that question. Now we've shifted right away from the work because you're answering my version of what I saw or heard or sense, which isn't what actually happened. that's what you're describing, I think, in terms of.
asking a clever question to which the person that we're talking to will give an approval answer. Yeah. And there's another version of that, which you just kind of reminded me of. When we speak in general terms, that's again, that's a low level, low energy survival tactic. We keep it general because then it kind of keeps it safer.
General and vague and generic is same thing feels safer when we talk specifics That's where parts of the starting a little uncomfortable because then we have to deal with it We have to actually take a look at it can also be empowering Specifics are incredibly empowering whether or not they're uncomfortable there that that's the power of coaching that is what we do in our work is we're actually Taking generic general vague language.
Well, I just want to be happier I just want more money right here's a penny That'll be a thousand dollars for my effort. Thank you. yeah, could get that business So we take vague general this is just a common tactic and tool that we do in coaching is we take general big language and we distill it down to something clear and specific. Being is actually a very vague and general language because everything in our lives is a being.
So now we get to narrow that down to how, like again, how do you want to think? What do you want to remember? What do you want to focus on? What do you want is your intention? How, what is the emotion you want to bring in? want to feel by the end of this? is, what do want to know is true? When you're done with this, what are you going to look back and be most proud of? All of those are coachy questions that are pointing clearly and specifically to a deeper place for them to look.
rather than who would you have to be? Now, once you've trained your client, now you have a shortcut language. Great, use it all the time. That's fun, because now your clients understand what you're committing to. You're describing precision.
Yeah. Yeah. In a probably not a very precise manner, I, somebody I mentored for their MCC quite a long time ago said to me recently, she said the thing that's changed for her in really refining her skill to do less so that the other person does more is that the precision is the gift that enables them to do the work. It's a, by the way, what a gorgeous word that you brought in. because it truly is.
When we're distilling down into the precision of the agenda of the topic and focus that makes it a whole lot easier of what to do. When we get to the precision of the assignments at the end and where are they going to go? Well, roll out and do something general and generic and vague. They're not going to. But that clear specific number is measuring the specific detail of the precision is what actually sticks with them. Yeah. And it's attainable or not.
But at least if it's not, we've decided it's not. Yeah. And then we can get more specific. Yeah, I just find it really interesting. So, you know, I'm really grateful to her for saying that. Because it's where we learn, isn't it? It's funny. actually writing a writing a deep in depth like MCC article on on kind of this general area, not what we were just talking before, but kind of this precision part. And I hadn't gotten the word precision.
So it's like I had to go back and precision pop that in. But it's absolutely that part of what I point to is And this article that I'm writing is when we talk about smart goals, it's actually let's do smart coaching. Because that's all that it all that we're doing is we're getting to your specific measurable, attainable, realistic and in the time of our coaching.
And then when we're doing homework assignments for if we don't like homework action steps or assignments or invitations and opportunity to answer. But when we're doing those. they're clear and specific and measurable so that people will work you in. I love it. You got me. That is beautiful. That they have, because again, vague in general stays vague in general. Clear and specific stays clear and specific. And then that's where, that's what the people who work with, that's what they get to.
wrap onto more clearly. That's the power of If I may, I'm going to borrow that and put that in my handout on deeper right sizing. Which doing what? I'm just writing a handout. So one of the concepts that I introduced in simplifying coaching was the idea of right sizing. Yeah. Which is making the work the right size, which is what you're describing about it being clear and specific. Yeah. And time limited and all of those other things. But what that phrase. in general Elephant coating.
How do you eat an elephant? One step at a time. That's right. Absolutely. By the way, with a nice bernaise sauce also is really tasty. Just go... So Ben, how do people find out more about your stuff? my goodness. And there's a lot of stuff. But all of it, if you can sort through it all, talk about it, concise, is all at bedo.org. B-E-D-O.org. And that's where there's tons of, you know, like you, I've been doing this for, well, 21 years, as I said.
And so I've got tons of material resources that's available, videos, recordings, there's live calls, there's groups, there's classes, there's Go. BDOO.org. BDOO.org. As in being and doing. B-E-D-O. I know how it works. And as in Ben Dooley. As in Ben Dooley. Yeah, that's an amazing synergy that when I discovered that I I collapsed. It was in the middle class, too.
And I like it was one of those like you see in the movies where like the teacher is talking and then the student like bursts out because something you know, and it's the same thing. The teacher was like talking, talking, talking. My brain is like Be a dude. a dude. wow. And totally freaked them out. So how do people, so that's how they get, they get more of your material. How do they get in contact with you, Ben at BDew.org. Marvelous. Thank you. So thank you so much for coming to Coaching In.
What fun. pleasure. We just barely got started. We'll have to have another conversation. I love that. Thank you, Ben Dooley, for coming to the Coaching In. I'm Claire Pedrick. Subscribe or follow everybody if you want to get next week's episode as it drops. Thank you, Ben. Bye bye everybody. 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.
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