#1871 The Science & Business Of Coaching - Bobby Cappuccio

like right now, we'll go it's eleven thirty three. You're listening to the You Project, Bobby tell me about So there's these little fillers in the in the middle that always happened in radio that you just get so used to, Like you said that cat, it's in radio where you're telling people quite often, especially if it's live radio, what the temperature is, what the time is, what station they're listening to, who we're chatting with, and what's coming up next.

But you do that on autopilot, but on a podcast you don't do any of that, Like, I don't ever break mid mid kind of thing and say, listening to the new project, we're chatting with Bobby. He's on every week, he's a regular. You can hear him here blah blah blah blah blah, and now back to you. We don't do that. But I like that. I like the non radio kind of organicness of just going wherever we want

to go in a podcast. I think it's it's the closest thing to a natural, authentic, just real world conversation that happens to be recorded.

their characters. And it's about, you know, they live in a building in Manhattan and there are murders, and they go out and they investigate these murders because, you know whatever, their acting careers have failed and they're old and what else are they gonna do? And they go through all these shenanigans and they make a podcast about it. It's a great show. What is it call only Murders in the Building.

I thought we would talk about if somebody wants a coach. Now, when I say coach, I'm using that as kind of a blanket term for it could be a trainer. It could be an exercise physiologist. It could be a dietitian. It could be a high performance coach. It's going to help you with, you know, any kind of endeavor. It could be what we some people call a life coach. It could be a health coach. It could be a

business coach. But the bottom line is if you want to find somebody who's going to help you get you get where you want to go with whatever area of endeavor, anything from doing your masters to building a business and brand, to losing fifty kilos or improving your health overall or whatever it is, relationships, coaches, everything. So I thought we might go through you and I might just wax. And that means you do one, I do one. I've bumped

into a million coaches, as have you. You've trained coaches, I've done the same, and you would never say this, but I think you're one of the best coaches on the planet. I have met all the coaches on the planet, but I've met a lot over a long period of time, and you are in rare air. And so I'm interested, and I think our listeners would be interested to know what are the kind of boxes that we might want

to be ticked if we're going to work alongside someone. Now, before we kind of go through this checklist of yours and mine, are there any kind of general guidelines that you want to give people as they're thinking about beginning to work with somebody in this kind of capacity. Not so much a specific attribute or quality of the coach, but general advice for people thinking about going down this path, Bobby. Now they're thinking about hiring a coach, Yeah, about using

someone in a professional capacity. I'm not talking about getting a training buddy or a walking partner. I'm talking about I'm going to invest some dough in getting someone to work with me in whatever capacity to help me create change on planet met and to move the needle, to create more momentum, and to help me create the outcomes that I've struggled to create so far.

self education, self direction. Why a coach exactly? And you don't even need to know the answer for that, because one of the things that's great about coaching is it helps you get clarity about what it is you truly want versus why you want it. I know, in our coaching program, not mentioning it, so no self promotion here.

One of the things that I loved about the data we pulled is there's a population of people, a significant percentage of people that come into coaching going I want this, I want to work on this, and kind of like halfway through the process they're like, no, no, no, that's not what I want. I really want this. And that's beautiful because they came in thinking they wanted something, but then when exploring at a much deeper and broader level,

they realized, no, I don't want that. What I'm really actor is So if you don't have that answer, that's great. But the answer to that question in your mind kind of frames what you think a coach is, what your expectations of a coach are, and it might actually bring it to the conclusion that you might not need or want a coach. Now, clearly I'm a big advocate of coaching. I think everybody should have a coach, maybe not like

continuously always, but you know, on an ongoing basis. But you might want a consultant, you might want a trainer, you might want to mentor an advisor. When you say coach, what's going to be different?

my own business. I really want to start my own business. And it's not so much the business per se, but rather what you think the business is going to do for your mental and emotional health, for your lifestyle, for your level of joy and pleasure and satisfaction, for your ability to live in line with in alignment with your purpose and values. Where oh I want all that stuff. I just see the business as a vehicle to that stuff, you know. So it's like when I wanted to lose

thirty kilos when I was a fat kid. Yes, I wanted to lose thirty kilos, but really for me, the weight loss was a conduit to being socially less invisible and maybe somebody would like me or love me, because now I wasn't what I thought was this unlovable, large lump, right, And what I really wanted was connection and belonging and to be seen and better self, you know. And so I guess that's kind of the thing that I want, is beyond the thing that I want?

your own thoughts and assumption, your stories, your patterns. You know more about you in the right environment where this knowledge is evoked than anybody else. So it's not your coach that's going to be driving transformation. Your coach is going to be creating the environment and the guidance through which you can be the architect of whatever it is you wish to build in your own life. I think

that's really important. You don't always want that. Like, if I want business advice, I might go out and seek a mentor, and this person might have built multiple successful businesses, be way more successful than me. At that point, I'm going to want to do what my mentor does or tells me to do. It doesn't mean I'm not going to ask questions and get feedback, but pretty much, this

person holds the knowledge, they hold the skills. I require that, and under this person's tutelage, hopefully I'll learn from them and acquire the skill sets from them that I can use sustainably. Art What are coaching it? Coaching is coaching doesn't put anything into you, It draws things out.

literally had personal training clients for years and years. But one of the things that being understanding somebody well and observing them over time and caring about them and having a bit of a snapshot of how their body and their mind and their emotions work, but also being the observer like that that gives like if you have a coach, that's that they can see things about you that you can't see about you because you've never been on the

outside looking in. You've always been the inside looking out right, And so I like that that I can give people, and other people so too, can give me perspective that I can't have, you know, because I've never sat and had a coffee with me. I've never worked on a

project with me. I've never been around me when I'm losing my shit or being a selfish prick, right, But other people have, so, you know, And as painful and as uncomfortable as this can be, I think, you know, for me, it's like having a coach is not having a fucking fan club. It's having a coach. It's having somebody that they will support you and encourage you when it's warranted when I think, that's what I do anyway. But also if I think somebody's maybe needs a hard chat, I'll do that as well.

understand the how and the why behind coaching. And one of the things that they start with in their editions is a writing reflex. This is something to watch out for. A writing reflex is where a coach knows what's wrong with you and they can fix you. That is the surest pathway to frustration and being stagnant in your trying transformation process. You can get it's not a coach that you want to hire. As a matter of fact, it's probably not a coach. Now, when does a coach challenge someone.

So one of the things that a coach tries to stay away from is being overly and this is going to sound counterintuitive, overly enthusiastic around praise, and they stay away from criticism, they stay away from opinions, but they do live very tightly in the realm of observations because observations causes reflection. It could cause a shift in perspective, and it could lead to behavior change, which ultimately is one of is one of the objectives with a coach.

You are hiring a coach because you are looking to change behaviors. There's a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid, but ultimately you're doing one thing and you're looking to do another thing for a variety of reasons. So when you observe, and this came up recently, somebody says, well, God, I really wanted there's so much to learn, but it's like I have a horrible memory and I can't learn anything.

I have such a hard time. You know, coach isn't going to go, wow, that's great that you're really self aware. You know, they might they might say, okay, so this is something that they might reflect like, this is something that you're really frustrated with. On the one hand, you really want to grow in this area because you value YadA YadA YadA based on our conversation. But on the other hand, you feel like you're in this stumbling block and it's like you struggle with the very process of

learning that you know is necessary to get there. But a good coach might then say, well, where did you learn that? Or how long? How long have you had this belief system or this storyline? When did it start? Curious? How has this served you thus far? In what way is this? Does it not served you? So that's a challenge, But that's a challenge where the person has to answer that, not you. So whatever they come up with through their own introspection weighs a lot more than anything you can

hand to them. So a coach will challenge you. It's the way they do it, and they do it by observation because you're spot on there, Craig, I can't see me objectively. As a matter of fact, I think most of us are much less objective when it comes to ourselves than we would assume, which is one of the reasons why coaching has so much value, what are the observations and the empathy. It's coming from a place of

empathy and care. But a coach will challenge you, and I think when they challenge you through in career or I notice when you're in this situation, you do this, you say this, I'm going to ask you a question about that. That's a lot more confronting because the onnus is on the person to do the work, not the coach.

We're in eighty people in a room, a bloke on the stage talking, you know, we're hanging out together for three hours, and the objective kind of practical, three dimensional thing that's going on is Craig Harper on the stage saying stuff to a bunch of different people who are all having a different self created experience and trying to understand the difference between what's going on the thing, the stimulus, the thing that's happening in this physical space we call

a conference room, and then my experience and story around that, and the way that I'm always you know, interpreting data without even knowing, without even seeing my own filter. So I look at something and rather than thinking, oh, this is my story about that thing, I think that is the thing. Whereas every person in the room has got their own story about what's going on, and I talk

about this. I usually walk up to a table of say five or six people, and I do this thing where I say, if this guy right here, what's your name? I ask him his name. I said, if the story in his head right now is that this is fucking boring, Like this is so boring, I go, what's his experience in the moment? And the answer is boredom, Like that's his literal experience. And if this person next to them is thinking this is interesting, this is like Wow, this

is really really fascinating. Well what's their actual real literal experience. Well, it's curiosity or it's fascination. And we go through all of this and I go and none of them are wrong, and none of them are right. But I think what you're doing when you're asking people where did that belief come from? Where does this You're starting to help them become conscious about things that we're often unconscious about or unaware, like we're shining a light on something that normally stays

in the dark. It's our just our normal process that happens without too much critical thinking. Oh, I've always done it this way. Cool, Okay, that's not good or bad. Why can we talk about and by the way, that normal operating system that you have with food or with money, or with online porn or with your relationship, that normal, that day to day habitual, groundhog day version of that. Is it working? Is it working? And what about it is working? And what about it is maybe not working?

Can we talk about that? I think this. I think so much of what we do, with so many of the different jigsaw puzzle pieces to our own life puzzle, we kind of do really without too much critical thinking or awareness. And then we have that ability. As you've been with people many times who kind of look at you and go at forty years or forty five or fifty, they look at you go, this wasn't my plan, This wasn't you know? And then you say, or I say, can I see the plan? And they go, what do

you mean? I go, the plan of which you speak grasshopper, can I see it? There was no fucking plan. There was just an idea of how it would all eventuate.

on the very same day. And like one person believes that, oh my god, this is the worst thing. The job markets like so saturated. I'm not gonna find another job. This is the worst day of my life. You know, it's over. And then another person's like, oh man, you know what, this is a great chance for me to do like a little for sabbatical. I'm gonna learn new skills, reinvent myself, get better. Another person's like I didn't like this shitty job and career in the first place. I've

been thinking about making a change. I'm gonna just go ahead and be like, I don't know, like somalia or yoga instructor something totally different. It's like, as you're going through and one person's just got anger management problems, person who was waiting to beat you to death with a brick, and the call parker remember that, and you're like, yeah, like for these people, for that guy, it really is the worst day of his life. It's the end of everything for you all the person, this is a chance

for reinvention and growth. For somebody else, it's a chance to do something completely new. It's a career adventure. And that other guy is going to probably spend the rest of his life in jail because he's murdered you later on that day to the head of the HR department. So it's like there's four same exact thing happened, but there's four different realities and outcomes. It's not like, well, I have an opinion about this, I am going to

engage with the world as if that is true. And the thing I want to bring up from a coaching perspective, yes, that is true, But what else is true? Because there's three other truths in that scenario, and I'm sure it's not limited to those three other truths. What's a possibility? Oh, you know, today I had a random thought. I was sitting down, I was working. I don't know if you do this when I'm doing content creation. I listened to instrumental music because it kind of helps keep me focused

in the zone and creative. I was listening to Henry Mancini's Nadist theme and it's just this beautiful instrumental and it wasn't written for Nadia Komenich, but like it kind of led my mind to Nadio Kominicic and stuff that we were talking about. And have you ever seen the story that the film about Nadiya kominicch No.

She's six years old doing car wheels in a playground? Like, what is she gonna say at six? She says nothing, because this girl is built differently. She just stares him in the face and very slowly and certainly nods her head yes and he looks back at her, and it's it, and he says, so do I And I find that story so powerful, whether it happened or not, or it's a film, you know, like in poetic license interpretation, because she's she's arguably not the greatest that ever lived, like

Simone Bile has already surpassed her. But why do we celebrate a Nadia. We celebrate a Nadia company because she did it when nobody believed it was possible, Like, so there was no precedent, So she attained the unattainable. And that's very different than having that models for you. That's very different and not any less remarkable. I mean, you're competing in the Olympics, regardless, you're a remarkable human being who's endured and invested a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

But to attain the unattainable, then where did that start? It started with two people exploring a possibility. So she didn't win, she didn't win, and a gold medal by earning a perfect ten in nineteen seventy four in the Olympics in Canada at fourteen. It began that day, at six years old, on the school yard.

groups listening now. One group is thinking, yeah, I wouldn't mind working with somebody to help me do A B and C right, and with my whatever it is with my business, my brand, my body, my whatever, my mind, my habits, my behaviors, whatever. And then there's another group who are thinking, I would like to become a coach. You know, I'm fascinated with personal growth and psychology and

human behavior and coaching, you know. So there's two. There's two kind of groups, distinct groups that I'm thinking about in the middle of all of the groups listening now. But so one of my questions out of that kind of awareness is, and I know there's no fucking simple answers, So let's just talk about the answer. How do we

find the right person? Because you know, like, uh, I know, for lots of people, I was the right person, not for everybody, not for every everybody, by the way, Like, if you need somebody who's going to, you know, tell you every day you're amazing and special and incredible and unique. I'm not the person. I'm not the person, but you know, I think one of the reasons that I did okay after you know, lots of failures and fuck ups, but was you know. I literally would say to my clients,

I care about you. I want you to get amazing results. I want to help you explore your potential. But my job is not to make you feel good every day. That's not my job. And if that's what you need, then you don't need a coach, by the way, because that's not a coach's job either. So if we are in the group where we're thinking about maybe working with someone, like, what are the attributes and qualities that you think matter? Or maybe even more, you know, stepping back, how the

fuck do we find that person? Is it recommendation? Is it trial and error? Like I don't think the internet is on that person.

Those are your professional coaches or your master level coaches, which you know, if they've got that credential, they have invested a lot of hours in training and development into becoming a skilled coach. So that's something really good. But I will say this, Michael Lambert did a meta analysis on seventeen studies exploring what accounts for the variants of success outcomes which within coaching and therapy. He found the thirty to fifty percent of the outcomes depended on the

relationship dynamic between therapist and patient, coach and client. So that's something really important. It's kind of like dating, like just to share something like you know my wife and I Amy. You know Amy and I she I see I listen, you're the best, You're the best. Yeah, I told her about that.

is the relationship. So that's key. And when we were going for you know, like counseling, you know, we looked around a bit and there's just there's got to be this rapport because the first step in coaching is engagement. Like before you get down to okay, well, what are we really going to focus on? What's most important about that? What's our plan? How do we move forward and actualize that. You've got to be engaged and you've got to feel safe with your coach. There's got to be a level

of rapport. And there's a lot of coaches that are fantastic, they just might not be fantastic for you. It's like dating. You meet someone, they're attractive, they're lovely, but you know what, there's no spark, there's no real chemistry there. So talking to a coach in advance would really help. And you know, sometimes you work with a coach and you realize, I know this has happened to me. Hey, this was great, this was helpful. But I don't really think long term,

this is the coach for me. And that's fine. So you might not find the coach you might. You might have to bounce around a little bit. I do think that any coach that has a message like, oh this is this is my message in coaching walk away. You don't have a message as a coach. A client has a message as a public speaker an educator. Yeah, what's your point of view? What's your message? You've got a podcast, what's your message? And a coaching situation like your message

is irrelevant? Yeah, right, So a good coach will probably ask you more questions in the beginning than I think.

this one on one thing with human beings? And you know, how do I build a business and a product and a service around this fundamental thing of me and another human in the gym, you know, And then realizing, oh, it's not only about you know, anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and movement. It's also about conversation and stories and beliefs and values and inspiration and anxiety and fucking body

dysmorphia and all of these variables. And I was trying to figure out how like what's the best way to do this? And then I realized there's no best way, Like there's one hundred best ways. So I would have some people that would literally go, I'm going to train with you for four to eight weeks and then fuck off, and I would go, great, and then they would do that, and then they'd say, but what I'd like to do is could I pop back a once every four weeks for a kind of a touching base, and I go,

you can do whatever you want, you know. And then I would have people who lived one hundred miles away who obviously couldn't train with me regularly, so they would drive down once a month and we would spend two or three hours together. We'd do a workout, we'd have a conversation, we'd do an assessment. We might even go and have a cup of coffee. But we would talk about the last month and the next month. We'd do some planning, we'd strategize, we'd set a timeline, we'd create accountability.

And so there was just in that coaching capacity there was a range of options to suit a range of personalities and practical needs. It's not like, oh, we sell cheese samges and ham sandwiches, pick one or the other. No, there's literally like a small gus board of coaching options, and if what you want isn't on there, we can probably fucking make it out the back and do it anyway.

There is enough empirical evidence that goes into multiple coaching models and methodologies. You don't have to name one after yourself. That's not the coach you're looking for.

And one day I came in like, oh, we've been you know, we've been like looking up and reading a lot on coaching, and you know, we went to YouTube and I was like, okay, tell me more about that, and it's like, oh my god, We're watching all these great coaches, and I'm just like, Okay, So when you're when you're reading about coaching, right, you're picking up a book like Appreciative Inqureer reading about self determination, what are the distinctions? Is anything different than when you are reading

being evidence based tools around coaching? When you see someone coaching on a stage with someone in front of an audience to two thousand people, what are the differences? And I'm not saying that if you do this, I mean I know people that have done this. I know you've done this. I know I've done this. So it's a bit hypocritical. Nick Jarvis, who I think you know? You know, I used to work with him a lot. He's done this.

So but a lot of times when you're watching someone at an event, anyone with an issue in the audience, it's like, Okay, we're off to an interesting start to begin with. Come up, and I'm going to coach you. When that person gets off the stage, right, If people in the audience are going, oh my god, that coach was amazing, that's not a coach. Don't hire that person. That person is performative, and they are a talented speaker, and they are a question askser, which is not the

heart of coaching, is not asking better questions. I am so sick of hearing that shit. That's not what you want. You don't want a coach that is a spectacular performer, because when you watch a really highly skilled coach, it kind of it's almost like, what are they doing? It's kind of a little bit boring. Who really shines in

that process is the client. And it takes so much skill and years of practice to show up and be caring, empathetic, open, curious and have everything look like you're doing barely anything at all. But you're just asking questions, you're just reflecting things back. If there's not there doesn't have to be that area of boredom because coaching is very exciting because

it's dealing with the client's favorite subject themselves. But if you would watch someone and go, oh, that that's like a superstar coach, it.