Here's an uncomfortable idea for anyone who coaches: when you offer advice, you usually make your client more entrenched in what they already believed.

Dr. David Krueger calls it the boomerang effect. Share a belief, and the other person immediately measures it against their own. Agree, and they confirm. Disagree, and they refute. Either way they end up more firmly where they started — and the coaching conversation has done the opposite of its job.

In this episode of Coaching and Thriving, Dr. Dave and I get into what's happening beneath the surface of a conversation that actually changes something. He spent 25 years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst before coming to coaching, he was one of my very first mentors at Coach Training Alliance back in 2011, and we now serve together on the faculty.

He shares the most elegant piece of supervision he ever received. He'd offered an executive client an interpretation he was sure would help. After a long pause, she said: "First you've got to be with me before I can go someplace new with you."

In this conversation:

• The boomerang effect — why information, facts, and advice don't change minds
• Why the client has to stay the point of reference, and what it signals when we step in with a suggestion
• The map: where the client is, where they want to go, and how those two coordinates let you tell progress from detour
• The circle exercise Dr. Dave teaches — how a coach gets inside it before going anywhere new
• How the first few words of a conversation boot up connection or defensiveness, and set the tone for everything after
• Why insight alone fades, and what it takes to move a change into someone's operating system — the 90 to 95 percent that runs without deciding
• Change as identity, not decision: "at two o'clock, I'm working out" rather than choosing again every day
• Why motivation isn't required — you need a plan and you need to stick to it
• The habits that most often get in the way for new coaches

He closes with two quotes worth writing down, including one from his grandmother: if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.

About the guest: Dr. David Krueger is an executive coach, author, and faculty member at Coach Training Alliance. He practiced for 25 years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst before moving into coaching, and his work focuses on the science of human behavior, decision-making, and lasting change.

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches.  HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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"Am I doing this right?" is the question almost every new coach carries — and Laurie Cameron has a better answer than most: you are right enough for right now.

In this episode of Coaching and Thriving, I'm joined by Laurie Cameron — Laurie describes coach development as a spiral: doubt, then clarity, then more doubt as the next thing you don't yet know comes into view. The doubt isn't a signal you're on the wrong path. It's evidence you're still climbing. Normalizing that cycle, she says, is what lets new coaches stick with it.

We also talk about the moment that changed everything for her — when the coach she considered her idol called and asked her for coaching, and she realized she had to be herself, with the skills she had that day.

In this conversation:

• How Laurie found coaching after asking herself what she'd do if she could get paid for anything ("I want to get paid to talk to people")
• The doubt-to-clarity spiral, and why it never ends — for beginners or 28-year veterans
• Why the business and marketing side is the real challenge most new coaches don't expect
• "Right enough for right now" — permission to start before you feel ready
• How confidence actually gets built: showing up, doing your best with what you know, learning, repeating
• Why coaching mastery is a continuum, not a destination — "there is no there"
• Having a plan, and leaving room for "divine editing"
• When entrepreneurship isn't the right fit — and why that isn't failure
• Laurie's why, the ripple effect, and the reason she has never had a Plan B

If you're mid-program and wondering whether the doubt means you should stop, this episode is the one to send yourself.

About the guest: Laurie Cameron is a professional coach, trainer, mentor, and speaker, and the founder of Wake Up Enterprises. Over 28 years she has trained and mentored more than 1,500 coaches worldwide. Since 2018 she has focused on teaching coaching skills to leaders and managers who want to coach their teams, and she serves on the faculty at Coach Training Alliance.

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches.  HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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Why coaching is less about asking the right questions and more about how you make someone feel.  Most coaches start out the way Dr. Laura Belsten did — trying to ask the perfect question, apply the right model, get it right from day one. Nearly thirty years later, her answer is simpler and harder: stop performing, and start being.

In our launch episode of Coaching and Thriving, I sit down with Dr. Laura Belsten — MCC coach, founder and CEO of the Center for Thriving Leaders, and one of the voices that shaped how I think about this work. We talk about what actually happens inside a client when they finally feel heard, and why that moment isn't a soft skill at all — it's a biological need.

Laura names something most of us have felt but never had language for: internal vigilance. That low hum of Am I making sense? Will this be judged? that keeps a client in a defensive crouch. When it stands down, people stop performing and start exploring. That's where growth lives — and it's the coach's job to make that safe.

In this conversation:

• What thriving actually means — connection, growth, self-compassion, purpose, resilience, and choice
• Why resilience can be built before you need it, and how to start
• Internal vigilance: what it costs your clients, and how acceptance dissolves it
• Curiosity as the engine, empathy as the fuel, self-awareness as the steering wheel
• Why you can't lead a client somewhere you haven't been yourself
• Coaching as "helping others think" — and as a mini vacation in the middle of a work week
• Positive psychology vs. toxic positivity, and the gratitude practice Laura has kept for years
• Helping clients build their own internal navigation system instead of driving the car for them

If you're a coach who has ever gone blank mid-session, or wondered whether your own inner work is keeping pace with your practice, this one's for you.

About the guest: Dr. Laura Belsten is an MCC — the highest credential awarded by the International Coaching Federation — and the founder and CEO of the Center for Thriving Leaders. For more than 25 years she has helped leaders, executives, and organizations grow through coaching, emotional intelligence, and positive psychology. Her free Wheel of Thriving assessment is available on her website. 

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches.  HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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