I was hanging out with my friends Sandy Grason and Mary Kay Morgan last night and at one point the topic of coach training and certification came up. As a general rule, when it comes to my own life I tend to care a great deal if the professionals I go to are certified or licensed - such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, therapists, contractors and day care providers, etc.; but, since the coaching industry is so NOT regulated it has turned into an industry where you have people who are practicing with all levels of education and experience.

Now, personally I paid my $4000 dollars and got my certification but I think that was much more a function of my very long academic background (I finished my last graduate degree at the age of 31 and I’m pretty sure there’s still another degree with my name on it out there:) than the fact that I really needed it. Trust me, you go through 5-6 years in graduate work in the fields of counseling and sociology and “coaching school” is not entirely necessary.

But, one of the things that did come up during the conversation was that while we’ve all experienced amazing coaches who have never taken a coaching class in their life and have had other coaches with a list of credentials who were quite bad, the ability to come up with really powerful and effective questions is not always as easy for those who haven’t been trained. I love questions. There are moments when you ask the right question at the right time and there’s instant transformation. So, I decided to write a super quick list of what I consider to be the 7 most effective questions you can ask during a coaching session. They are not always appropriate but when they are, watch out. Hold the space for the person to answer and be prepared for some dramatic shifts in thinking and behavior.

Here they are:

1. What if that feeling/thought/story was no longer important to you? What would you be able to do/accomplish if it weren’t?
2. Why are you choosing to have this experience?
3. How is this working for you?
4. I hear what you are saying but I would not be the coach you wanted me to be if I let that go. What about that is true?
5. If you were your own coach, what kind of coaching would you give yourself right now?
6. What is the value of your current belief/thought/attitude?
7. What would you have to believe in order for this to be true?

These questions are great to have nearby when you’re coaching and also so that you can ask them of yourself if you need some clarity of your own.

If you have any more really effective ones you would like to add, I would love to hear them.

Here’s one of the dilemmas that often comes up when it comes to providing coaching or consulting services - are you responsible for the results your clients get?

I think I am getting closer to the answer but I wanted to share a little story that brought me to this question in the hopes that it will serve you in some way today.

The other day I was making some changes to the programs I have been offering in an attempt to not only streamline my offerings but to give people more of what they want. And, I know I am going to be offering a BRAND new program at the How Much Mojo Retreat I’m co-hosting this September in Boulder with the fabulous Sandy Grason. But, I was experiencing a bit of a challenge coming up with a price point that felt good.

So, I decided to consult my fabulous money mentor Kendall SummerHawk and here was one of the pricing strategies I worked through. (Incidentally, if you don’t have the “7 Money Mindset & Pricing Strategy Secrets of An Authentic Million Dollar Coach” I highly recommend you get a copy. It’s THEE best program on money mindset I have ever seen.)

The exercise goes like this. Pick the fee that feels good to you. Now…double that. If you’re like many people, that new, doubled price might scare you just a bit. So if it feels like too big of a stretch, ask yourself this question: What would have to happen in order for this fee to feel good and authentic for me?

This is when it hit me. I knew immediately what my answer was. I would have to know that I could absolutely deliver and guarantee the results. And here’s where the problem comes in. I have worked with enough students, clients and customers to know that I can’t guarantee results. I can coach people on things, tell them what to do, map out a plan and a strategy and teach them a tool but after that, it’s out of my hands. Whether they do any of it or not is up to them. And whether they experience their desired result may in the end, have very little to do with me. A concept that is not always easy to embrace when you are the kind of person who will go to great lengths to help people reach their goals.

The bottom line is there are too many variables that impact the results a client will get from working with us. Here are just a few:

• Implementation - We can’t make anyone do anything so if you share a strategy you know has worked and they don’t do it, that’s not your problem.
• Desire – Some people say they want to be successful but they do things that sabotage themselves all of the time. While we can motivate and encourage them and hold the space for them to work through some of those things, we can’t be responsible for what they do with it.
• The “Idea” Factor – Some people are hell bent on their ideas, whether they are good ones or not. Let’s face it, not every idea is a good idea. (Just drive down the street and see how many restaurants and specialty shops have closed in your area in the past 18 months). So, while we are there to support them and teach them some strategies and tools that have worked, there is a very real possibility that the idea is no good. That’s not our responsibility either.
• The “It” Factor – I know I could be ostracized from the coaching community for this belief but I actually don’t think that everyone has “It”. And by “It” I’m talking the “It” of the million and multi-million dollar empire. There are some people that I have worked with that have very grand plans for what they want to have in their life. In fact, I almost never get people that just want to make 100k and call it a day. I work with people who want high 6 and 7 figure businesses and the emotional, spiritual and financial freedom to go with it. (Mind you many people usually have lots of plans for what they want but little if any plan at all for DOING what it takes to actually get it.)

  But, statistically speaking, not everyone has what it takes to make it really big, right? I mean if everyone had “It” there would be hundreds of Julia Roberts and Robert Redfords. There would be unlimited people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. And, there would be an Ali Brown and Michael Port on every Facebook profile. But that is clearly not the case.

  Now this is not to say that a 100k a year business is not good enough or that anything shy of Ali Brown is a failure. Not at all. But in your life as a coach or a consultant you are going to attract people to you whose goal it is to have a million or multi-million dollar business but 9 out of 10, for whatever reason, likely won’t reach that mark. Is that your responsibility? The answer is no.

And just to take a chapter out of my own life, over the years I have had more counselors, teachers and coaches than I can count. And, I would venture a guess that for each and every one of them I did not implement everything they suggested, use every tool they provided or experience all of the results they “promised” or that I could have. And I know for sure I am the only person responsible for that.

So, while on the one hand it is our responsibility to accurate portray who we are and how we can help our clients and to provide them with our knowledge, experience and expertise to give them the best possible shot at accomplishing their goals, it’s not our responsibility when they don’t achieve the results they want.

In the end I learned two very important lessons: 1) I can’t base my fee on what I predict the outcome will be for them or what I want to see happen for them and 2) I need to come up with a new answer for “What would have to happen in order for this fee to feel good and authentic for me?:)

The next time you sit down to create a new program and it’s time to set the fee, do yourself a huge favor and double it. Then consider this: What would have to happen in order for this fee to feel good and authentic for you? You will be amazed at what you learn about yourself and in the end, it will ensure that you set your fee at a place that feels really authentic and totally in alignment with who you are and the kind of value you offer to your clients.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
- Calvin Coolidge

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, the practice of persistence never ends. Persistence is continuing to act no matter how you feel.

Today I was writing my book and I started to feel frustrated that the words weren’t coming and that I couldn’t perfectly articulate the point I was trying to make. So, I got up and ate some angel food cake. I was not hungry but I didn’t want to feel frustrated anymore. After a couple of bites I said to myself, “Would you rather feel frustrated or gross?” Frustrated won out.

So, I sat back down to write. Another roadblock appeared and I got up to go to the bathroom. Next thing I knew the Windex, 409 and scrub brushes were out in full force. Apparently I thought cleaning the bathroom could not wait another minute. In the middle of my cleaning frenzy I said to myself, “Do you want to be a writer or a cleaner?” Easy answer. The rags are still sitting on the counter upstairs.

Finally, a few more pages written, another pause because “it” didn’t come right away and I looked up to see my sweet little Blue Heeler staring up at me. “She looks like she needs some love” I thought. Or, in other words, she needs a walk. So out we went. While we were out there I had some great ideas for my book. I knew I was in the right place. My mind was acting but not “working”. I was happy and felt creative and had no desire to go inside. So, I stayed out for a while and came home and jotted down all of my ideas. Heavenly – work that doesn’t feel a bit like work.

Still, later I got to thinking about this idea of persistence. I know it’s important, in fact critical to success but sometimes not persisting (in my case when the 3rd distraction appeared) is not a bad route to go.

Had I persisted I would have likely reached a more judgmental stage about why I couldn’t produce what I wanted in the moment than the mindful stage I experienced when out on the walk. When I was cleaning the bathroom I found myself criticizing myself for not getting it right and then again for using the cleaning as an excuse.

However, when I was walking, I was mindful but present. I knew what I was doing – but I had no judgments about it. I was including the experience of not always having the right words without making myself wrong for it. Perhaps a testament to my awareness once it happened for the 3rd time or maybe just a testament to how much I love being outside and moving my body:)

In any case, this experience made me want to find a bit more about the connection between persistence and procrastination. And, I found an on point article called “Mindfulness and task persistence: Not all self-awareness is a good thing” by Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D.

In the article the author sites a new study that provides evidence for the important role of mindfulness in self-regulatory success. Sounds great but the thing that really caught my attention was their results.

“. . . these results suggest that mindful self-awareness, particularly nonjudging and nonreactivity, can have a salutary effect on persistence at a difficult task. Higher levels of self-consciousness should contribute to improved persistence on a difficult task due to awareness of a discrepancy between one’s goal state and current state that leads to efforts to reduce the discrepancy. However, the theory of metacognitive awareness (Teasdale, Segal, & Williams, 1995) suggests that judgmental and reactive thoughts triggered by a difficult task lead to less persistence because they promote self-criticism, frustration, and impulsive decisions to stop, whereas mindfulness promotes acknowledging self-critical thoughts or frustration and allowing these experiences to dissipate.”

You can find the complete article here.

This is exactly what I experienced and from talking to many others about this topic, what others experience as well.

Yes. Just another feather in the mindfulness cap but what does this mean for you when you find yourself procrastinating or persistence challenged?

Remember that this is all part of the game but that when you make yourself wrong for it, you end up creating a much bigger problem. By simply being aware of what’s going on, including it in your experience, and not judging yourself negatively for it, you will likely get more out of it than you likely would have if you had persisted just for persistence sake.

I love passing along ideas that make me say “damn, that is a really good idea” so in the category of that, I wanted to share this with you.

Like me I am sure you have a million ideas swirling around in your head at any given time. You see something on the street and it makes you think of a great idea. You go for a run and the ideas for your next program come flowing out. You go the bathroom and out comes another, right?

This is how many of my ideas get played out. I sit down with my hubby at night and while he is happily watching Nova or something like it I say “hey, listen to this”, which usually results in a very playful look of “here we go again”. Sound familiar? So, last night, after I had shared my latest theories on some spiritual revelation I had, he said “You must be exhausted. This is what you come up with on a daily basis. Does your brain ever shut down?”

So, I got to thinking about what happens to all of the ideas I get. Some I write down on notepads, some are on napkins and some are still left swirling in my head. When I do get them all organized what usually happens is I have one of two thoughts. 1) I have to put this into action, even though I have a hundred other things I’m working on. 2) If I don’t do this, I’ve somehow let myself down or let an opportunity go or not honored that it’s a great idea, even though it’s not the right time.

Then today, naturally the solution came to me. Totally unsolicited and out of the blue. Somebody shared with me that somebody had given her an “Idea Box” as a gift. It was a beautiful wooden box and it was designed with one purpose in mind - to hold her ideas. Brilliant I thought. This box accomplishes 4 things: 1) It dedicates a specific place that will hold all of the ideas safe so they do not get lost or forgotten. 2) It honors what can come from an open mind even if it might just be the right idea at the wrong time. 3) It preserves the idea without giving it a job. Sometimes an idea is just an idea and that’s all it will ever be and that is okay. 4) It creates a dedicated space for you to put all of the ideas that are swirling around in your head and it makes room for more to find their way in.

I love this. I had never thought to actually create a sacred space, a box to put all of my ideas inl. Now I am looking at a beautiful box filled with the ideas I’ve had in just this week alone for my book, my new programs, my upcoming retreat, and my vacation next month. I feel good knowing they are in there, that I don’t have to do anything with them if I don’t want and that I don’t have to waste any more energy dragging them around with me.

Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my coaches and it was one of those moments when there was a pretty considerable gap between who she was being and who I was being in that moment.

But before I go on too much further let me explain what I mean by who we were being. While some people believe that you have one general way of being in the world and that how you do one thing is how you do everything, I have a nearly opposite view. We are complex beings made up of body, mind and soul and we “show up” in many different ways, wearing many different masks. There are a variety of agreements we made prior to putting on the physical clothes our souls are walking around in on this Earth and we each have a personal mythology that begun way before we ever entered our physical bodies. These are our archetypes or our energy guides that direct us toward our spiritual purpose.

There are many archetypal patterns that express themselves through our personalities and life experiences and they work within us to support our personal development. We do not have one way, one purpose and one path. We have many and these archetypal patterns are representative of them. They are a source of power for us, helping us to identify and amplify our brilliance, awaken our potential and rid us of limiting thoughts and beliefs. The challenge we have with any of our archetypes is to recognize the opportunity it provides us to learn a lesson and to grow.

There are some archetypes that we all share such as the child or the saboteur but many more that are unique to us alone. These make up our archetypal chart. I’m not going to go into too much detail about that but if you are interested in going deeper I highly recommend one of my mentors Caroline Myss. I have been studying her work for years and she has published countless works on this topic that are easy to find.

In any case what happened yesterday with me and my coach was that she was standing in an archetype much different than mine. I was standing in my Saboteur archetype. I was in the middle of a minor crisis that was manifesting itself in feelings of low self-esteem and choices I was making that were blocking my own empowerment and success. I was allowing myself to be pulled into situations where my natural instinct was to sabotage myself. (Note: There are positive and shadow sides to every archetype but I happened to be working with the shadow aspect in that moment.)

She, on the other hand was standing in the Pioneer archetype. Now, I have not done a full archetypal reading on her so I don’t know if Pioneer is really one of her 12 archetypes but I suspect it is. The Pioneer is characterized by someone who is an innovator and is constantly doing something or inventing something that has never been done before. In the positive this is a very powerful archetype. It’s not enough to just have the ideas but you must also be the person that will implement the vision no matter what.

What happened? My Saboteur felt threatened, challenged and a bit overwhelmed by her Pioneer. And, when she told me something I did not particularly like, I knew the truth of the comment was not in question but my reaction was indicative of a story I was telling. What she said was true. However, it was what I did and how I reacted, from the Saboteur position, which influenced the feelings I had about the conversation. Had we had the same conversation later that night her Pioneer would have had little ability to shake my Visionary.

So, what does this mean for you? Let me explain with this example.

I work with a lot of clients who are trying to fill classes, events and high end coaching programs. Here’s what often happens when they have a certain number in mind and then they don’t reach that goal. They are clear about the facts (the truth of the situation). There were a certain amount of spots to fill and only half were actually filled. What happens next is they begin making up the story of why (the illusion) and that is what begins to take their power. The story may sound something like this….

They didn’t sign up because….

• My program isn’t good enough
• I didn’t market it effectively
• They have found out I’m a fraud
• They don’t like me
• They didn’t get the marketing message

But the truth is that they don’t really know why and neither really do the people who didn’t sign up. Here are some other possibilities…

They didn’t sign up because….

• If they had they would have been traveling on the highway to get to your event on a certain day at a certain time and they would have been in horrible car accident
• If they had, the 3 people who wanted to come along, one of whom was a PR professional with major contacts in your industry, would not have been able to sign up too and so you would not have met them and took a huge step to increase your visibility and grow your business.
• If they had, they would not have been able to send their kid to camp this summer

Sure, the first two may take a leap of faith but no bigger than the one you may take to create your own illusion of why it’s not filled.

So, if we take this to the next step and think about what archetype you were standing in when you confronted these facts, we will have a better sense as to what your reaction would be. If this truth met your victim, you would have likely began the story with the first 5 reasons I gave above. If this truth had met your Visionary, Teacher or Mentor it would have been a totally different story. You would not have personalized it. You would have been able to take yourself out of it and you would have instead said something like, “My event is about teaching a powerful group of women and I don’t want anyone there who doesn’t want to be there 100%. The people who have signed up are exactly the people and the number of people who are supposed to be here to make it magnificent.”

Do you see the difference? Does this mean we are even aware enough at any given moment to just swipe out the archetype we’re standing in for one that better serves us? No, not necessarily. And, there is a reason our archetypes play out when they do. Each experience is an opportunity for us to grow and transform our lives. It is through your archetypes that you are able to see through individual events and experiences to understand the symbolic or greater meaning of them. This vision is what gives you choice, choice to see every event or relationship in your life as a part of the agreement or plan you made of which you do have a say.

So, the next time you are stuck in a place in your business or in other areas of your life and you are finding yourself reacting in a way that is not serving you, think about what archetype you’re standing in and what lesson it is trying to teach you. There’s nothing “wrong” with how you react or any of your archetypes. They serve a purpose far more profound than we are likely to ever know. But, what they symbolize is definitely within our reach and they are one of the many gifts we’ve been given to help us along our journey. But, you must always remember that you do have choice about what story you are going to tell and that CAN make all the difference.