#1769 What Forty Years Of Coaching Has Taught Me - Harps

I put it all in the same bag. Let's just call it working with people one on one or one on group, or one on two or three or one on team. But what have I learned on my journey in my time helping people to self optimize, to get the most out of their mind and body and training and skills and talent and resources and opportunities. What have

I learned doing my job? And the reason that I think this might be irrelevant and important discussion is because so many of you that follow me and listen to me are coaches, or your trainers, or your leaders, or your managers, or your parents, or you're in some kind of position either often or periodically where it's your job to essentially coach someone. So even though you might not do what I do or what I've done, I think there'll be some ideas and some insights and some stories

in here that might be helpful to you. If not, they might be interesting or not. So I've written down ten things I could, literally I reckon. I could sit here for two hours and come up with one hundred insights or one hundred you know, factors that are important when you're thinking about this. But I'll start with and we might do another one see how this one goes. But so number one, what forty years of coaching has

taught me Number one? Number one is I need to understand, like really understand the person that I'm working with, that is, understand how they think. And this is not new territory for you and me. I'm sure if you've heard me, But back back in the day, when I was at nine and twenty years old and I was working in gyms and I was writing programs, I wasn't a personal trainer per se. At stage, I was a gym instructor. I was writing programs and giving advice and roaming the

gym floor like a fucking panther, an insecure panther. Just that should be That should be the title of the show, The Insecure Panther, Just helping people. But I realized I realized early days, and I maybe didn't articulate it this well, but I realized early days that how much I understood about you know, training an anatomy, physiology and dumbbells and barbells and treadmills and all that kind of stuff and helping people get fit, lean and strong and functional, all

of that was really important. But understanding the person that I was working with was more important. Because if I didn't understand them, if I didn't understand their values or their goals, or their background, or how they thought, or what inspired or motivated them, or what scared them, or what their potential barriers were, if I didn't understand that stuff, then I could not be a good coach. I could not be a good trainer or instructor or teacher for them.

So I didn't really articulate it that way back then, of course, But I didn't know early on that being able to show someone how to do a deadlift or a squad or whatever it was, a chinup or a bench press was one thing. But being able to understand the person in front of me and to be able to build connection and rapport and trust and respect with that person to help them get where they wanted to go.

They were two different things. And while it was important that I understood how bodies worked and adapted to different kinds of stresses in a training environment, it was more important that I could connect effectively, communicate effectively, and build a relationship effectively with that person so that we could, over the long term, create the outcomes we wanted to so and this is a really neglected component I think

broadly speaking, I'm talking in general terms. You may be an exception to this, but I think broadly that people don't really try and understand others. And there's that, Remember I've spoken about that thing called the false consensus effect, where we just assume that what we're saying they will understand because we think we are speaking and because it makes sense to us, therefore it will make sense to them.

But it's important to keep in mind that the only person in the world who thinks like you, I mean you, listener, The only person who thinks like you all the time is you. The only person who lives in your mind? Is you the only person who lives in your subjective reality? Is you same with me? So it's almost crucial, or it is crucial perhaps that we go into especially when

we're talking as strangers. We go in situations mindful that they may not understand us or probably don't understand us, and so it's important that we do our very best to understand the window through which they are viewing this moment in time. So understanding, remember, understanding is not agreeing or aligning necessarily, doesn't mean you like them, doesn't mean

you support you. Know, you can have somebody who's got diametrically opposed values, ideas, or beliefs, or political affiliations or lifestyle. Doesn't matter. You don't need to be like them, and they don't need to be like you. You just need to understand them so that you can coexist harmoniously. Number two on my list of what forty years of coaching has taught me is that people will lie about their behaviors. And this might bother some people, and some people are

going to go, I never lie. Well, if you never lie, you're a fucking unicorn. You're a human unicorn. Because anyway people lie, let's not do a let's not do a show on that. I think I might have done one. But the truth is that when it comes to how people eat and how people live, and how much they drink and how often they exercise, and how committed they are and what they did last time and what stopped them last time and what they're when nobody's looking behaviors

and habits are, most people will lie. And that might not be a popular thing to say, and it might be a white lie, as my mum says, or it might be something profound, and it might be every now and then. You know. It's like when someone says to you, do you want to go out tonight and hang out and do this? And the truth is you are free, but you just don't want to go out with them, and so you but you don't say, look, I don't really want to go out with you. I'm free, but

I just don't want to be with you. You'll say, quite often, yeah, look i'd love to, or yeah I can't because I've got this on all that on right. Well that's a lie, that's an absolute lie. But it's a lie for a reason. I'm not endorsing line. I'm just saying this is part of the human experience. This is what happens. People fib people bend the truth, people, you know, whatever you want to call it. If it's not true, it's a lie.

And then so I would need to go into all of my consultations and negotiations and interactions with clients, especially when it comes to pera habits and personal behaviors, because it is very hard to be totally vulnerable and honest and real and authentic when we are talking about our body or our values, or our beliefs, or the habits that are not always productive or healthy. It takes real courage to be able to do that. And all of us,

me included. Have I ever lied? Course, I've lied, course of li I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I said I've never lied. And this is what we do, and we try to be the best people we can, and I try to I try to be as honest. I think you probably get the vibe that I'm pretty honest and pretty straightforward, you know, But knowing that a lot of people when it comes to this kind of stuff are going to be somewhat deceptive or reflective or perhaps you know, not completely truthful. I think

it's just good to know. So for example, I'll give

you one more example. I would say that ninety percent of the people that I coached over the years who filled out a food and exercise diary, that is, they would their mandate for me was to write down everything that went in their mouth, so whether not that was one tic tac or a crust of bread, or a glass of water or a fucking meal out, or their job was to write down everything that they put in their body so that we could have an accurate insight to energy in and energy out micros and macros and

their habits and behaviors and time that they ate and what they ate, and you know, so that we could then build a model or a protocol that would work for them. I would say ninety percent of what what I saw, not ninety percent of what I saw was bullshit. But I would say that ninety percent of the people that filled out diaries would at times intentionally lie to me or omit some information that is not tell me something, And I'd say, I'd look at the page and I wouldn't.

I don't know if I always knew, but a lot of the times I knew. I'd say, Wow, this is all you've eaten in the last four days, and yeah, yeah, yeah, And I knew that was bullshit. I knew that was bullshit. And so many times over over time, when I got to know people better and I came to understand them better and we built more trust and respect, they would tell me that they used to lie because they didn't want to be embarrassed. And I get it. I've lied

because I don't want to be embarrassed. Also number three on my what forty years of coaching has taught me list is And that's going to sound this might sound tough, but in terms of my clients and the people that I work with, my relationship with them is coach client or coach athlete or or mentor mentee. The relationship is

not friend friend, It's not the relationship. It is very difficult when you have built a different dynamic to a relationship, and that is this is not a professional relationship anymore, this is now a friendship. Well, that changes the dynamic of that relationship, of course, but it also I believe makes coaching in the sense that I'm talking about it now, it makes it much more difficult. And while I really cared about and do care about the people I work with.

First and foremost, I'm their coach. I'm their mentor, I'm their teacher. My job is not to make them feel good. My job is not to be their friend. My job is not to stroke their ego or to make them

feel emotionally great for three minutes. My job is to literally help them step into self awareness and accountability and self regulation and self management, and to help them build mental toughness and resilience so that they can become fucking amazing, so that they can optimize their mind and body and resources and they can produce better outcomes. My job is to coach them to succeed. That's my job. That's the

role I take when I work with people. That's what I want to do, that's what I'm good at the moment that where buddies hanging out. That fucks things up. And that doesn't mean I don't have friends. That doesn't mean I don't want friends. That doesn't mean that it's never happened that a client has become a close friend, but rarely really, because I think what is best for that person is that we maintain this coach, client or coach, athlete or mental mental relationship, because that's what tends to

produce the best results. You as somebody who wants to let's say, let's talk about you potentially as a client

or a mentee or a student of whoever. If you have a coach, somebody in your life that you want to help you fulfill your potential, explore your talent and possibilities, and to create positive change and to build success, whatever that means for you, I would strongly advise you to find the person who is going to not necessarily be the most comfortable for you to be around, but the person that genuinely wants to help you succeed, the person that will tell you, as I always say, what you

need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear. I care about my clients, But do I care that for the next five minutes that they're grumpy at me, or pissed off at me, or don't like me? For I don't care. I really don't care, because it's deeper than that. It's bigger than that. If I care that they're a bit, you know, they've got their nose out

of joint because I gave them a truth. They didn't want to hear in the moment, or they're a little bit pissed off at me, or or they don't like me as much as I would like to like them to like me. Right, Well, that's about my insecurity and

my fear, and my ego and my bullshit. I am way more interested in how well my clients can improvise, adapt, overcome, survive and thrive over the next few years, few decades than I am in how much they like me for the next few minutes or how comfortable they are for the next few minutes. And if you are a coach, mentor teacher, I would my advice is for you to be that version. Doesn't mean you don't care, just means you're giving people what they need to become resilient and strong.

People don't need to have their handheld, not in this capacity, there are times when people do, but in this capacity as a coach, as a high performance coach, then people need you to help them to help themselves. Number four. Wow, this is taken longer than I thought. Number four on my list is that most things, not all things, but most things most times are on a level a mind problem, a mind challenge, a mind and also a mind solution.

While many of my projects, many of my responsibilities, have been to help people change some kind of outcome with their body, or with their sport, or with their business, or with their study, or with relationships they were in, or communication, or some kind of tangible, measurable outcome, what was underlying the poor performance or the lack of outcomes, or the ineffective protocol, or the inability to keep doing the work. What was the underlying problem was often the mind.

So if like for example, helping someone get in shape physically, sometimes the body is not the problem. Sometimes the body's just the consequence of the problem. The problem is what's happening in the mind. And what's happening in the mind is bad choices, is bad behaviors. Emanating from those bad choices, is self pity, is self doubt, is self sabotage, all

of these mind problems that have physical consequences. And so while we do need a practical physical strategy, for example, with helping someone get fit, lane, strong, functional, healthy, we do need a practical physiological clinical approach to that, of course we do, but also in conjunction with that, or perhaps even before for that, we really need to help people to be able to understand what is happening in that space between their ears, because some people have got

good enough genetics and good enough knowledge, and good enough resources and quite enough time, but what they don't have is a mindset or an attitude or a set of beliefs that are going to help them create lasting change.

And so while I really needed to understand, as I said in my first point, the person, I needed to understand sometimes what were the cognitive and or psychological or emotional limitations that were going to stand in the way of their potential and possibilities and deal with that stuff first. The next thing I learned in forty years of coaching was that I as a coach that me Craig Harper,

I need to walk my talk. I need to be not that people need to look to me or inspiration, but I need to make sure that the things that I talk about, the things that I allegedly represent, the things that I say are important. When I talk about my values, when I talk about what matters to me, when I talk about what is success for me, that it needs to be apparent to people not because of what I say, but because of how I live. That

I am authentic that I am living in alignment. Think about the people that you know that say one thing and do another. Think about the people that you've met or seen or observed or perhaps no firsthand really well, that live out of alignment. And they might be articulate, and they might be knowledgeable, and they might be charismatic, and they might be charming. But you know that away from the person the persona and away from the spotlight and away from the public gaze, you know that are

full of shit. You know that they don't do what they say. You know that they don't do what they tell others to do. And I've said this before, and I've been open and honest about this. There were times when I was teaching people, telling people, instructing, coaching people to do things that I wasn't even doing consistently myself. And at that time, I believe that I wasn't trying

to be but I was. I was a fraud. I was something of an impostor because I wasn't even doing the things that I knew to do because for a range of reasons that I won't go into. And you know, for me, this is an ever present awareness that I have that I need to be congruent. I need to be in alignment. I need to be authentic. One of the biggest compliments for me is when people meet me and they say to me, oh, wow, you're exactly like you are on the show. You exactly like, oh, you're

just the same, And I love that. I love that because that means the crag that you're hearing now is the crag that you'll talk to at the cafe, is the crag that you'll you know, chat to at the event or wherever we might bump into each other. And for me, that is that is who I want to

be and how I want to be. That's not to say that I'm always perfect and you know, I never fuck up, of course it's not that, but but I think that as a coach and as a teacher, and as somebody i'm talking about potentially, you know, but as somebody that people look up to or will look up to or want to rely on or trust or respect.

It is crucial that obviously for ourselves that we just walk our talk, you know that we're in alignment, because it's just the thing to do, but also that people know who you are, not because of what you talk about but because they observe you, they see you, they see how you live, they see how you You know, people can go to the gym seven days a week, they'll see me there. I don't talk about training and not train. I don't talk about stuff that I don't do.

You know, I can you can watch me in public. I'm pretty sure there's not going to be too many things you'll catch me out. I'm not inviting you to do that. By that sounds creepy, doesn't it. It's not a personal challenge. What's my point? My point is that all of us, you me, it's in our interest if we want to be a respected coach, mentor teacher, to ensure that that the theory that we teach is the reality that we live. My next one is that while people like the idea of change, like how many people

have you spoken to? How many thousands of people have I spoken to? Who want to talk to me about? How do I do this? How do I change that? How do I get more of this less of that? How do I how do I overcome that? How do I build this? How do I learn that? How do I you know, all of this is theory, how do I how do I how do I What have I got to do? What have I got to do? More of less so and so on and so even with this this you know, this show right now, this episode,

right now, you're listening to me talk. It's half an hour or so of or however long it ends up being half an hour or so of theory of ideas of me talking. Right. But the value, the value in the theory, the value in the ideas or the protocols or the strategies, the value for you comes down to your ability to operationalize the things that for you are relevant, the things that for you are important, or perhaps the

things that for you need to be implemented. And there might be one thing that I say today, one thing that you know, shit, I should do that, or I should stop that, or I should do more of that or less of that. Well, then the challenge is not that you've heard it or that you've had that light bulb moment, and both of those things are good. But the real challenge is what you do with that, Because, like I just said, the idea of change is not

the reality. People love the idea because the idea, the theory, the intention of change, the intention of personal growth, the intention of getting fit and strong and building a business and doing a course and overcoming a habit and creating

positive out. All that shit is easy when it's just a theory, because you don't have to roll up your sleeves, you don't have to get uncomfortable, you don't have to step into the uncertainty, you don't actually need to do anything because you're still just fucking living in the theory. And this stuff becomes real when we step out of the theory, step into the process, step into the doing, step into the messiness and the chaos and the discomfort of doing the work. Let's do a couple more. So,

I've got three. I think so that this next one is really interesting, and this is quite different to all the others, but I just thought I would chuck it in. And that is forty years of coaching has taught me, or it's given me real insight into the how do I say this, the psychology of value? The psychology of value? Think about you know, any coach, any professional coach or dietitian or I don't know, mentor or personal trainer or xis physiologist or gardener, or anyone who basically sells a

time for money or a skill for money. At some stage there's a psychological agreement and a professional agreement on what it is I'm going to Let's say it's you and me, what I'm going to give you and what you're going to get, and in return, what you're going to give me back for the thing. And so this is about perceived value. So if I said to you, hey, do you want to do some coaching with me? And you said, Craig, I would love to do a one on one session with you, and I said, all right,

it's nine dollars fifty. Now, there's every chance that you would think, what the fuck is wrong with him? Nine dollars fifty? I don't understand. I don't understand. What do you mean nine dollars fifty? I go, it's nine dollars fifty? Is that okay with you? And you go how long is that for? And I go an hour and you

go it's nine. Now there's this, there's this incongruence, or there's this there's this kind of disconnect between because you would have had an expectation of maybe what you think it's going to cost, and then all of a sudden you're like, well, he's maybe it's not the same Craig Harper. Maybe it's a is it a different Craig Harper? Because I'm not going to get a coaching session with him for nine dollars fifty Or you might go, Craig, how much is it for an hour? And I go, it's

two grand? But if you pay right now, you can have it for seventeen hundred, and then you'd think, fucking he is he on drugs? Is he on seventeen Fuck you're coaching? Right? So there's this kind of unwritten understanding that we have of kind of what things are worth

right now. If you are a coach, or you are a let's even say you're a psychologist working for yourself, or you're a dietitian or a trainer or anyone who like I said, you could be a landscape gardener, you could be a painter, you could be a mechanic, it doesn't matter. But if you work for you, then at some stage the psychology or the perception of what you

are worth is going to come into play. Now. I am not talking about ripping people off or scamming people, but if I said to you, let's say you've got a paint, I'm just star. I don't know why I saw this. But let's say you've got to paint a fence and it's three meters long ago. Here's the paint, here's the fence. It's going to take you two hours. And you're like, all right, I've got the paint, I've got the drop sheet, i've got the fence. It's going to take me two hours. It's a nice day. Cool.

I'll listen to Harps on the You Project and I'll paint the fucking fence, and I go, I'm going to give you one hundred and fifty bucks and I'm going to supply all the stuff. You're like, wow, seventy five dollars an hour. Now, depending on who you are and what you currently get paid, you might go, yeah, that's about me, or you might go, fuck, you're seventy five dollars an hour. I'm worth one hundred and fifty dollars or three hundred dollars or whatever it is, or you go,

fuck seventy five dollars an hour. That's amazing. And it's not really about the money, as it is about your perception of that money, and it's not really about what Craig Harper is worth per hour, but rather what you think I'm worth per hour. And it's not about what you as somebody who is selling your time. I am your skill and your knowledge. It's not about what. It's not like there is some absolute number. No, there is just the perception that people have of you and what

they believe you are worth. So when over the years many trainers have said to me something like I know I'm worth one hundred and fifty dollars an hour, and I say, how do you know. I'm not trying to be discouraging or negative. I'm asking and they go, well, I just know now, while positive thinking is good, I go, all right, so you know you're worth one hundred and fifty an hour? Can I ask how many people are paying you that? Usually the answer is none. I go, well,

what are they paying? And the answer might be eighty or seventy or ninety or whatever, and I go, okay, so one hundred and fifty is pretty much double what you're getting. I'm not saying that you can never get one hundred and fifty dollars. I'm saying what are people prepared to pay now for you? And that's not to say that that person can't earn one hundred and fifty bucks.

It's to say, if you want your hourly rate, if you want your skill to be valued more highly, if you want there to be a perception of excellence and worth and value, then you need to create that. You need you need to be able to do what you do at a high level, especially when you are swimming in an ocean of people who are doing similar things.

You need to give people a reason if you are a coach to want to be coached in whatever whatever kind of coach you are, or whatever kind of landscape guarden you are, or whatever kind of corporate speaker you are, or whatever kind of service you offer you. We need to be able to give people a reason to say, Look, I know there are lots of fill in the blank,

but this guy, this girl is fucking amazing. I know there are lots of dieticians around, but you need to go and see Donna, you need to go and see whoever. I know there are lots of trainers, but this guy's a fucking superstar. I know there are lots of people that could paint your house, but this bloke, this girl is amazing, Right, And so it's understanding that and then then with that thinking to yourself and starting to consciously

work on building that perception in an authentic way. And so the easiest way to do that, by the way, is not despite what people might tell you, is to just chuck endless fucking things on Instagram or social media. And does that work for somebody? Yes, for some people, yes, it does for a while and in a limited way. But if let's say that you know you are selling, let's say you're worth X per hour, X dollars per hour,

whatever that is. But all of a sudden, you've got this brilliant marketing campaign and people are paying five x. Well when people experience the product, Guess what if you're giving them a one X product and you're charging them five x, do you think that's good or bad for business over time? Because people are not dumb. The best way for you to build your value, the best way for you to create that impression of high value is for you to be fucking great at what you do.

Be great at what you do. When I go to a company and I'm paid quite well, and let's say they pay me five X, I go to a company, I'm doing a forty five or a one hour forty five minute or one hour keynote, or I'm doing a three hour workshop or whatever. It is. My intention. If I'm being paid five x, my intention is to give them a ten X product and charge them five x. My intention is to be fucking amazing. Doesn't mean I always will be, but my intention is to give them

one hundred and ten percent. Silly, I know, one hundred and ten percent of my energy and my skill and my knowledge is to give them every I want to be amazing in that time for them, so that they feel like they got a bargain even though they're paying lots of money. And I think that's not the worst strategy. Let's just do one more. And my last one is this, coaches plans are good. You need a plan, you need

a strategy. I think it's good to go into a meeting or a coaching session with you know, some kind of idea of where you're going and what you're going to do do and potentially have some kind of framework that you typically work within. But it is maybe even more important that you can throw all that shit out if you need to. Sometimes having a set plan, a set protocol, a set framework which is rigid, which is

not flexible. It's I'm going to sit down and I'm going to coach this person and we're going to go through steps one to ten. And it doesn't matter how the fucking session's going. It doesn't matter what I'm seeing or not seeing, hearing or not hearing. No, because this is how I do it. This is how I do coaching. I do coaching this way. Well, guess what that same protocol might be fucking great for some people and terrible

for In fact, not might will be. It will be the strategy of the plan or the protocol or the operating system that is great for me that you coach me and it works. You coach someone else that doesn't work. You use that for me and you build connection rapport. You use it with somebody else, and you build disconnection and distrust because they don't think you're fucking paying attention, because they're trying to tell you shit, but you're plowing on with the process. So plans are good. But so

is adaptability. So is situational awareness. So is the capacity to be flexible in the moment. Who knew I reckon I could do another one of those. Let me know if there was something in that for you. If you don't follow me on the You Project podcast, or if you're not a follower or you're not a member of that group, I'd love you to be one. It's just called the U Project podcast on a podcast group, I think it's called on. Some of you know this already,

some of you don't on Facebook. If you've got something out of this, jump on and let us know. If you've got any ideas for future kind of coaching or these kind of monologue or these kind of just me kind of podcasts. If there's an area or a topic that you'd like me to explore, I'm happy for you to give me ideas and make suggestions. Also going to do a quick plug and that is that on February three. February three, which is not too far away, my new

ten week mentoring program kicks off. If you like the way that I teach and coach in these podcasts, then you're probably going to enjoy that. It's not for everybody, it's for some, it's not for all. It's not inexpensive, I think that's another word for expensive. It's ten weeks. It's a small group, and some people really really enjoy it.

Some people get great value and great benefit. I'm not good at selling, so I'm not going to try and sell you on it, but just go to my if you're interested, just to find out about what it's about. There's actually a ten week syllabus there of what we're doing a snapshot of each week's kind of subject matter. So just go to my website, which is craigharperdot net, click on education and have a look at that. All right, your bloody champions say next time