Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

Sometimes a question doesn’t fail because of its wording. At Level 2, the Relational Coach looks at what is happening for the person and between the two people in the conversation. When the coachee laughs nervously and says she feels “bad at coaching today,” the focus shifts from fixing a question to removing pressure.

Michelle explores how questions can turn coaching into a test, how a coachee can start performing instead of thinking, and what happens when the coach wants awareness while the coachee needs preparation. She also names the developmental edge for Relational Coaches: flexibility should not become avoidance. Offering an observation with choice and respect keeps the conversation honest and keeps ownership with the coachee.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Want coaching conversations that feel like partnership instead of a test? Join the Coaching Academy today and receive weekly resources until class begins in January. VisitCA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

When a question falls flat, how often do I wonder what is happening for the person, not only how to fix my wording?

In what ways might my questions make a coachee feel like they are taking a test?

How do I notice when I want awareness for a coachee and they need something else, like preparation?

What makes it hard for me to let go of where I thought a conversation should go?

How do I balance following a coachee’s lead with offering an observation they may not expect, while keeping it their choice?

Every coach eventually asks a question and knows almost immediately that it didn’t work. Michelle begins the final week of Five Levels in Real Coaching Conversations with a coachee frustrated by a colleague who doesn’t listen, and a coaching question so complicated that the coachee responds, “I have absolutely no idea what you just asked me.”

At Level 1, the Structured Coach may feel pressure to repair the question by repeating it, slowing it down, or explaining it. Michelle explores why a question is useful only if it helps thisperson think, no matter how powerful it sounds, and why the coachee does not exist to prove the quality of the question. She makes the case for humility, for letting go of a question that isn’t serving, and for one simple sentence that can mark real growth: “That wasn’t helpful. Let me try something else.”

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Ready to ask questions peoplecan actually use? Join the Grow By 1 Coaching Academy now, and while you wait for our January start, we’ll send you weekly resources so you can begin growing today. Learn more at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

When one of my questions doesn’t land, what do I usually do first: defend it, explain it, repeat it, or let it go?

How attached am I to questions I planned, learned, or believe sound like coaching?

How do I judge whether a question is useful for this person rather than impressive in general?

What would it sound like for me to say, “That wasn’t helpful. Let me try something else,” and truly mean it?

Where might I be searching for one perfect question instead of staying present in the interaction?

Finding a deeper issue does not mean ignoring the practical one. Michelle closes the week at Level 5, the Integrated Coach, where the coachee returns with new awareness about building part of her identity around being needed, and she still has forty-seven things on her list.

This episode shows how awareness can help practical work finally stick, how a coachee can recognize an old pattern in the moment and choose differently, and what happens when newinformation reveals that part of the problem belongs to the organization. Michelle explores the question, “What is yours to change, and what belongs to the system you’re in?” and why advanced coaching requires the humility to remember that sometimes a calendar problem is a calendar problem. The problem someone brings is not something to dismiss. It is a doorway.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Wherever you are as a coach, there is a next level of growth. Join the January Coaching Academy now and start receiving weekly resources right away. Learn more at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

When a coachee gains new awareness, how do I make sure the practical problem still gets a practical response?

How could I help someone recognize an old pattern in the moment it shows up, so they have a choice?

What helps me tell the difference between what belongs to the individual and what belongs to the system they are in?

Where might I be tempted to make a problem more psychological than it really is?

How do I decide what this person needs right now: structure, relationship, pattern, meaning, or action?

What does this pattern protect? What does it provide? At Level 4, the Transformational Coach asks the coachee what she gets from being the person everyone can count on. Her answers move from stress, to feeling useful, to feeling important, and then to a long silence when she is asked who she is if people don’t need her as much.

Michelle explores why changing behavior is so difficult when it is tied to identity, and how the same system can provide both pain and reward. A powerful distinction emerges: beingvaluable and being needed are not the same thing. As the coachee begins to see leadership as building people who no longer need her for everything, delegation, boundaries, and time management all change meaning. Michelle also cautions against replacing complexity with a neat coaching story, because tools, workload, and the organization may still matter.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Why wait until January to start growing? Join the Coaching Academy now, and we’ll send you weekly resources to help you begin developing as a coach today. Visit CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

When someone keeps struggling with a practical issue despite having practical solutions, what might the behavior be doing for them?

How could I explore what a pattern protects or provides without implying the person wants their own struggle?

Where in my own life might I confuse being needed with being valuable?

How do I respond when a coachee says “I don’t know” to a question about who they are?

How do I stay humble enough to remember that tools, workload, and the organization may still matter after a deeper layer appears?

Sometimes a coachee is already telling us what the problem is without realizing it. At Level 3, the Skillful Coach listens for contradictions in her language: wanting boundaries whileneeding to be available, wanting to delegate while needing it done right, wanting her evenings back while worrying someone might need her.

Michelle explores how to reflect those contradictions, how to separate facts from the meaning a coachee attaches to them, and what happens when being unavailable feels selfish. The episode also looks at how constant availability can teach people to depend on us, and how “I just do it because it’s faster” can create the very cycle a leader wants to escape. The coachee moves from shame toward ownership, and the Skillful Coach stays humble: we found another layer, not “the real issue.”

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Grow your ability to hear what people are really telling you. Enroll in the January Coaching Academy today, and we’ll send you weekly growth resources until class begins. Details at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

What contradictions do I hear in my coachees’ language, and how do I usually respond when I notice them?

How could I help someone separate what actually happens from the meaning they attach to it?

How might the people I coach have trained others to expect things from them, and how could I explore that without blame?

Where might my own “it’s faster if I do it” be keeping others dependent on me?

How do I keep the coachee as the interpreter when I believe I have found another layer?

What is it like to feel responsible for so much? At Level 2, the Relational Coach moves from what the coachee is doing to what she is experiencing. As the conversation unfolds, thetime-management problem begins to connect with something more personal: “I hate disappointing people,” and “I don’t want people to think I don’t care.”

Michelle explores how relational safety allows a coachee to admit what she already knows about herself, and howequating availability with caring can quietly fill a calendar. She also names a developmental edge for Relational Coaches: some patterns look noble. Overworking can look committed, overfunctioning can look caring, and people pleasing can look generous. A person can genuinely care and still be paying acost for how they show it, and the coach’s job is to hold both without judgment or glorification.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Want to build relationships where people feel safe telling you the truth? Join the Coaching Academy now and receive weekly resources between today and our January start. VisitCA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

How often do I ask what a problem is like for someone, not only what they are doing about it?

When have I admired a pattern in someone, like overworking or overgiving, that was also costing them?

How could I hold both a person’s genuine care and the cost of how they express it, without judgment or glorification?

Where in my own life might I equate availability with caring?

What helps a coachee feel safe enough to say, “I know I do this, and I don’t know how to stop”?

“My problem is time management.” Michelle opens a new week of Five Levels in Real Coaching Conversations with aleader who is overwhelmed: a packed calendar, a growing task list, late nights, and messages answered after hours. This week follows one presenting problem through all five levels to explore what happens when the problem someone bringsis only the first layer.

At Level 1, the Structured Coach has useful tools: priorities, delegation, time blocking, and routines. Sometimes that is exactly what is needed. But what happens when the plan works for two days and then falls apart, again and again? Michelle explores how practical solutions that don’t stick can be a signal to become curious, not suspicious, and how a coach can invite the coachee into discovery withoutannouncing that the stated problem is wrong. The presenting problem tells us where to begin, not necessarily where we will end.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Ready to coach beyond the first problem someone names? The Grow By 1 Coaching Academy begins in January, and when you join now, we’ll send you weekly resources so you can start growing while you wait. Learn more at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

When someone names their problem, how quickly do I accept that label and move straight to strategies?

What signals tell me a practical solution is working, and what signals tell me the same issue keeps returning for another reason?

How can I stay curious about a deeper layer without becoming suspicious of what the coachee has told me?

When have I been tempted to decide I know “the real problem” before the coachee has discovered anything?

How could I invite a coachee into the discovery when their tools and plans keep falling apart?

Silence is a tool, not a virtue. Michelle closes the week at Level 5, the Integrated Coach, where more silence does not automatically mean better coaching. The question is always what this person needs right now.

Michelle walks through several versions of a follow-up conversation: one where the coachee is ready for structure and planning, one where a long silence means she has simply lost the thread of the question, and one where the coach offers a reflection and then creates room. She also speaks to a silence many coaches rarely talk about, the coach’s own silence when they don’t know what to say, and the honesty that can replace performance in that moment. The week ends with a larger lesson: silence exposes a coach’s relationship with uncertainty, and the Integrated Coach learns when to protect it, investigate it, break it, or simply sit in it.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Wherever you are in your coaching development, there is a next level of growth. Join us for the Coaching Academy in January at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

What would help me decide whether a silence needs protecting, clarifying, breaking, or simply holding?

How could I check whether a coachee is thinking or has lost the thread of my question?

When might offering a reflection and then creating room serve the coachee better than silence alone?

How honest am I willing to be when my own silence comes from not knowing what to say?

What does my response to silence reveal about my relationship with uncertainty in coaching?

Sometimes silence shows up when a question touches identity. At Level 4, the Transformational Coach stays witha coachee who says, “I don’t know who I am if I’m not working toward something.” Michelle explores what happens as a long-held belief comes into view: if I’m capable of doing more, I should do more.

This episode looks at how new awareness can threaten an old identity, why a question can take seconds to ask and much longer to metabolize, and the discipline of letting one powerful question stand without stacking another on top of it. Michelle also addresses what to do when awareness brings grief rather than excitement, and why depth is not the goal: development is. The Transformational Coach uses silence to serve reflection, awareness, and ownership, not to create intensity, and offers the coachee a choice about where to go next.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Ready to coach in ways that create lasting awareness and ownership? Join us in the Coaching Academy this January. Visit CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

What beliefs about achievement, productivity, or worth might be underneath a coachee’s silence?

Where in my own life might I believe that being capable of more means I should do more?

How could I let a powerful question stand without adding another question on top of it?

How might I support a coachee when new awareness brings grief rather than excitement?

How would I offer a coachee the choice between staying with reflection and moving toward what comes next?

Not all silence means the same thing. At Level 3, the Skillful Coach begins to tell the difference between thinking silence, emotional silence, confused silence, defensive silence, andthe silence of a coachee who has left the conversation entirely. Michelle follows the coachee as a new question brings a different kind of quiet, one that turns out to be protection.

Michelle explores how to notice shifts in pace, breath, posture, and energy without mind-reading, and how to name what is observed rather than interpret it. She cautions against turningany technique, including silence, into a coaching identity, because waiting every time can become as rigid as talking every time. The skill is discernment: knowing when to wait, when to rephrase, and when to ask what the coachee isnoticing, while staying humble enough to remember that only the coachee can say what a silence means.

Have a question or a coaching moment you’d like Michelle to explore on the podcast? Email [email protected].

Grow your ability to notice what is happening beneath the words. Learn more about the January Coaching Academy at CA.GrowBy1.com.

Reflection Questions

What kinds of silence have I noticed in my coaching conversations, and how did each one feel different?

What cues such as pace, breath, posture, or energy might help me notice that something shifted in a silence?

How could I name what I observe in a silent moment without interpreting what it means for the coachee?

When might my habit of waiting become as rigid as a habit of talking?

How would I know whether to wait, rephrase, or ask what the coachee is noticing?