Vinod Jain leads this conversation where I share the path that led me to coaching, what I believe about certain things, and how coaching works.

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Conversation Highlights

  • More about Vinod Jain (Episode #68)
  • A typical day for John
  • Money Coaching at Capital One
  • Early influences and career path
  • Getting clear on personal beliefs and ultimately personal ownership
  • Early career dissatisfaction and overseas travel
  • Seeing a theme of meaning and seeking more of it through coaching
  • Ending unnecessary suffering
  • The importance of reading
  • Getting into podcasting
  • Untangling Christianity podcast
  • 100 podcasts/blog posts idea
  • The path of following different interests
  • The power of genuine curiosity and deep listening
  • Leading From Within with Stephani Roy McCallum (Episode #65)
  • John’s first coach Carolyn Campbell (Episode #72)
  • Personal insights that come from speaking out loud
  • Coaching the person instead of the problem
  • Resonance as an indicator
  • Holding a perspective that other people are creative, resourceful and whole and what that brings
  • What’s the formula to good coaching?
  • Making money vs. serving
  • Letting go of attachment to outcome
  • Does everyone need a coach?
  • Can you coach yourself?
  • Setting the coaching agenda

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Credits

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Transcript

This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.

John: Today I’m being interviewed by Vinod Jain. Vinod was a guest on the podcast back in 2018, and in the past year, this year being 2019, Vinod was actually a client. So during our time working together, Vinod asked if he could interview me To practice and have the experience of interviewing. And I said, absolutely. So what we have here today is that conversation that we had. We cover everything from where John was born and raised to how he got into coaching, where he started his career. And we also go fairly deep into what coaching is, what I love about it. How it works, how it doesn’t work. Here’s that conversation with Vinod Jain.

Vinod: For those who may not know, John is a certified professional coach who runs a business called Co-Creating Owner Success. Besides offering one-on-one coaching, he also does monthly podcasts and blogging on different topics. I personally listen to many of these podcasts. And I’ve been enormously inspired by those conversations in which he engages his guests on topics related to personal transformation. Today I’m going to turn the tables on him and engage him in a conversation, giving us a chance to get to know him better. Before I proceed, from a full transparency perspective, let me acknowledge that I am taking coaching from John, for which I’m very grateful. John, let me begin by saying thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to get to know you in this conversation.

John: You’re welcome.

Vinod: So let me begin by asking you, tell me, how is a typical day for you as a coach?

John: Yeah, so high level is, uh, wake up fairly early. Fairly early to me is 5 or 5:30. Have a cup of coffee, uh, sit and maybe do some personal reflections, some reading. I got on this meditation kick about almost a year ago, actually the same conference that you and I were at, but didn’t get a chance to meet up personally. So anyway, I might do 10 minutes of meditation or so, and then my day typically starts maybe with calls as early as 7, 8 o’clock. And I split my time right now between a— A contract role with Capital One. I’m a money coach at their Portland, Oregon cafe. And so I split my time between doing that, where I get the chance to do life coaching with the general public, and my own business, which is primarily focused on one-on-one coaching. So I might have on a given day a number of different conversations with people, either potential clients or current clients. And typically wrap things up around 5 or so, and then dinner with family, and then might come back and do, you know, some email or administrative stuff for an hour or so after dinner. Although I’m trying to curtail that.

Vinod: I see. John, that sounds good. And I’m going to come back to this topic of your coaching role and your coaching work. But let me ask you a little bit about Your life in general, where did you grow up? Uh, which part of the country? And, uh, tell me a little bit about your background.

John: Okay. Well, I was born and raised in Southern California in Orange County. And then after college, I went to college locally, got a job at a big bank in downtown Los Angeles, became a certified public accountant. Moved to a public accounting firm. So, I did all that for about a total of about 5 years and ultimately wasn’t happy and satisfied doing that. And that led me to leave my job and go traveling. So, I spent a few weeks in Minnesota and then I ended up in Europe. Oh. Spent about 6 months at a Christian study center there. Came back to the United States for a period of time and then ended up going back to help this organization with their financial bookkeeping. I see. And did that for a while. And then one thing led to another, ended up in Massachusetts, changed, ended up leaving that organization, changing careers and going into software development.

Vinod: I see.

John: And lived there for 6 or 7 years, got married there. And then decided we wanted to be closer to family and friends and moved from Massachusetts to Portland, Oregon, where I live now.

Vinod: Wonderful. Wonderful. Um, so I get a good, good view, good feel for your career. Um, when you were growing up, any, any special influences, uh, uh, which kind of shaped your thinking now? Um, like for me, um, when I talked to you, I had shared that, uh, I had a chance to spend a lot of time with Jain monks and so on. But I was just curious, what are their influences in your life which shaped the person you are today?

John: Yeah, so I grew up in a very Christian family. I went to a Christian university. And that has shaped my life in some interesting ways, maybe not the typical path. In the sense that that was one of the things that I, when I left my job after 5 years, left working for 5 years, it was kind of a sense of a quest of like, is this true? Does this make sense to me? Does this— it had just never completely clicked with me, I guess, in a way that God was real and the things that I’ve been taught completely made sense to me. Right. And so, that launched me to Europe, to where I met my wife, to Massachusetts. And I guess if there’s any theme there, it’s just been kind of a continual path of personal discovery, maybe personal improvement, but really like, yeah, really getting clear, like what’s true and who am I and what— What is it that I really believe about the world and myself versus what everyone else tells me it is or should be?

Vinod: So there was a strong urge in your mind through college, and I guess around the time you went to Europe, where you had this— was it a spiritual yearning or was it a sort of a personal desire?

John: I think it was more of a— well, that’s kind of funny. This is actually a great question because actually, so you know what it really was? It was personal ownership, which is kind of one of my deals. Of course. And it was getting really, really clear, like, do I own these beliefs or don’t I? Is this true for me or is it not? And I guess in my travels and going there, I got rid of a lot of stuff that I came to believe was not true. And I would say I’m still kind of searching. I’m still kind of like, yeah, there’s— I think that there’s something out there. Um, but what it is and how it all works, I, I— that’s still very much a work in process. But I, for whatever reason, I just, I have a hard time believing that this world is just a big accident and was, you know, just a random explosion in outer space. Like, there’s, to me, there’s just too much complexity and too, yeah, there’s something else going on.

Vinod: So you’re basically saying you felt this kind of pull inside you to sort of find answers to key questions in terms of what is my purpose, what is my role? And, you know—

John: Well, more of like, what do I believe? Like, is this, Is this— in other words, I’ve kind of held to this and I’ve kind of kept trying to do this for the first 27 or 28 years of my life.

Vinod: I see.

John: You know, am I going to carry it around for the next 28? Or do I get rid of this? Or what do I do with this? Yeah, so it was, it was, and it was, I wasn’t happy. Like, I wasn’t real satisfied in my work. And I was like, there’s got to be something else. And a good friend of mine was like, you need to get out of the United States. You need to travel. You need to see the world. And that was a great opportunity to do it.

Vinod: I guess there is something about travel, which kind of exposes one’s brain to the larger creation and larger stories or like bigger stories than we are used to seeing or hearing. Right.

John: For sure. Yeah. I mean, well, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of, it’s almost two things. It’s like, it, it helps you to see that there’s a lot of different things out there. And then it also helps to remind you that we’re all kind of the same.

Vinod: Yeah, I see. So just staying on the same thread, in your career, you know, you were just mentioning you are a certified public accountant, and you’re doing this work with— after that with the software development. At what point did you feel drawn to sort of exploring the coaching as a potential field? Was there a sort of an anecdote or some story where one day you said, you know what, let me look into what this is?

John: Well, I think the genesis was, oh, maybe 10 years ago, where I hit another point in my career where I was not totally satisfied. It was kind of funny. I was talking to a therapist and I remember asking him, you know, is there a— do you know of a therapist for your career? Oh. ‘Cause, you know, this is really interesting. And, you know, again, the theme of self-discovery, this is really interesting from a personal perspective, but I feel like my career needs a therapist too. And he said, oh yeah, there’s this lady that does career counts, career coaching or career counts. I don’t remember what he called it, but He— I met with her and it turned out that she had trained through CTI, the place I ended up doing my coaching training at. And I worked with her for, I don’t know, maybe 9 months. And yeah, so that was just, again, that was a process of, I thought I was gonna through that, like start my own business. Ah, I see. And that it would be around project management and That just didn’t seem— yeah, it just didn’t seem to be meant to be at the time. And so I kind of re— taking a lot of the things I learned in coaching, I kind of doubled down on the roles, the different roles that I had at the company that I was at. And then it was about 3 years ago, 3 and a half years ago or so, maybe 4, that I started thinking, you know, there’s gotta be something. What’s the next thing? What’s after this? And I had found myself, I had transitioned to several different roles and found myself in a role and an environment that I realized wasn’t good for me. I was like, okay, something needs to change. Either the environment needs to change or I need to change. And ended up changing teams and had a new manager that was very receptive to lots of different things. And I mentioned that coaching was one of them to her. And so, yeah, so one thing led to another and I ended up taking one of the CTI classes and really liking it. And then I took all— ended up taking all 5 of them. And then I said, you know what, I’ve gone this far, I think I might like to do this as a next career of sorts. So I got the certification, took on clients and— Yeah, the rest is history.

Vinod: Was this a sort of an emotional pull you felt like, or you felt like, you know what, I could be good at it?

John: It was kind of both. I mean, it was, it was a sense of like, oh, I could be good at this. And it was a sense of, this is really satisfying. This is really real. Like, so this really, by the way, thanks for doing this. Because as I’m talking, I’m like seeing all these themes that I hadn’t really seen before. So throughout my career and my life is this theme of meaning. Like, I wanna do something that’s meaningful. And what I was finding in these coaching conversations I was having with people is that we were talking about really meaningful stuff. Either it was me being coached by other people and finding greater meaning and clarity in my own life, or it was doing it with other people and realizing, oh. I like to say that, you know, I help end unnecessary suffering. And I think a lot of, a lot of the things that we struggle with are a lot of times unnecessary in terms of like the things that we put ourselves through that with the help of another person, we could untangle.

Vinod: Were you like in your education? I, my assumption is that you are bringing in your coaching work a lot of other education or experiences from other sources which help you see this pursuit for meaning? Does anything pop into your head in terms of those learnings or perspectives which you sort of relate to?

John: Yeah, if anything, I think they kind of propelled me forward. So like I used to be really into personal productivity, you know, getting things done and that kind of stuff. And I kind of found that a lot of that stuff had kind of a, you know, after you’ve done the 10 tips to overcome procrastination, there’s something much deeper going on. So, you know, whether it be my study of personal productivity, my own experiences with therapy, reading on any number of different topics, psychology, personal improvement, productivity. Um, I feel like each of those things has kind of fed this in some way. And yet, even though I’ve been doing it for a while, I still feel like in many ways I’m just getting started. Like, I’m constantly discovering.

Vinod: Hmm.

John: New resources, new topics, new things, whether, you know, through the coaching community I’m in, the ACS with Steve Chandler, like there’s 50 different coaches in that program with tons of different experiences in so many different areas. Like they’re continuing to expand my awareness and what I know and new skills.

Vinod: Were you always a voracious reader? Was that reading sort of capacity kind of fed your desire to learn more and extract the meaning from all of that exposure you had as a reader?

John: I don’t know if it was intentional. I mean, I was— so my family was kind of unique in that we had a TV, but we didn’t really watch it. Like watching one program, I remember for some reason watching Little House on the Prairie Once a week was like, if we were allowed to do it, was a big deal. I see. Um, we might watch a football game or 2 on a Sunday or Saturday, maybe like the World Series, but like in terms of our family was just total readers. So yeah, reading has always been a fairly large part of my life. Like it’s a, it’s one of the first places for like relaxation, you know, as part of my kind of morning routine. I’d read before I go to sleep. Like it’s, yeah, I’m always reading something.

Vinod: Yeah. And, uh, was there any influence from your parents, by the way, uh, uh, in terms of the way they taught you, the way they brought certain values of their own or their own experiences in the US or anything like that?

John: Not that I— I mean, setting aside like the Christian influence of church and reading the Bible and that kind of stuff, um, not, not in particular. I mean, my dad was a college professor, so he was very much a reader. My mom was a reader. Um, everyone in my family is a reader. So yeah.

Vinod: That’s good.

John: Yeah, there was just kind of a culture of reading, I guess.

Vinod: I sense that that’s a You know, a lot of us take that for granted, but—

John: Yeah, I hadn’t even really thought about it.

Vinod: Right. But when we’re talking to other people, uh, and we’re trying to understand where they’re coming from and what work they’re doing or, uh, what may be going on in their head, and, you know, you try to support them, I guess, uh, reading gives you that experiential base to sort of relate to. So I was going to ask you the other piece of your work. You do a lot of podcasting. Tell me a little bit more about that. Were you always interested in having deep conversations with people, or how did you end up using podcasting and this conversation As part of your coaching work.

John: I love how you’re weaving all these things together, maybe without even realizing it. So, so the podcasting thing, I was like a very early adopter. I think I had an iPod way back in the day and I got onto podcasts listening to— there was this author named Anne Lamott and She has some kind of Christian— I think she’s— anyway, for some reason, I was looking for interviews with her online, and I came across this notion of a podcast. And I started to listen to some podcasts on Christianity and other things. And I always kind of thought, you know, one of these days, I’d like to, like, have my own podcast and just talk with a co-host, and this would be fun. And so, coming right back to Christianity, in 2010 or so, someone gave me a book that made me really angry and frustrated in ways that were really, really familiar. And so, a friend that I had met in Switzerland at this Christian study center, He had been a Christian growing up, then he had been an agnostic, and then he had become a Christian again. Hmm. I said to him, I said, hey, would you read this book with me? There’s something that just doesn’t work, that seems wrong, but I can’t figure out what it is. Would you read this book with me? And I think we should record our conversations, and maybe these conversations would serve other people, and maybe someday I would figure out how to make this a podcast. I have no idea how to do that. So, it was great because I had, well, it wasn’t great, I guess. I take that back. I had a family member, an uncle that had passed away, and we used to have the most amazing phone conversations. He was just like my favorite person to just talk to on the phone. And we had always joked that we would have a podcast. Nice. But I had never gotten around to figure out how to record a conversation. And he passed away. And so, we never recorded any of those conversations. And so, that was kind of a regret. And I thought, well, I want to figure it out anyway. So, the long and short is, we recorded conversations about this book and other things related to Christianity for about a year.

Vinod: I see.

John: And then, he— I was at a conference, and the speaker, Jonathan Fields, his challenge to the audience was that the thing that scares you the most is probably the thing that you’re meant to do. And so, I thought to myself, well, that’s a really interesting question. What am I most scared of? Hmm. And I thought, well, well, I guess I would be really scared about talking about Christianity, especially in today’s culture. And then I thought, and doubly scary would be to, like, record something that anybody in the world could listen to, including my family, and publish it. Like, that would be really, really scary.

Vinod: Right. And I guess part of your apprehension, I’m just curious, were you also apprehensive about that, hey, I might say things which people around may not say, you know, may not agree with?

John: Oh yeah, everything. Yeah, I had all kinds of fears from Well, the person that gave me the book would listen to it. My family would listen to it. People that had certain assumptions about what I did and didn’t believe would— that had never really asked or maybe didn’t want to know. They would have— they were gonna have a front row seat. And so, and then just in general, you know, Nice. people could have listened to it and said, wow, this guy’s a total idiot. And so the fascinating path that this took was, then I started talking to my buddy Greg, who had done, we’d done all the recordings and he was like, yeah, we really need to start publishing these things. And so after this challenge from Jonathan Fields and thinking about it, I was like, okay, now I’ve got to figure out how to turn these raw recordings into a program. I didn’t know what I was doing. Right. So I got this free program called Audacity. And I started playing with it and I started watching videos on YouTube and I started, I think I bought a training course and I just started like, how do I stitch this? ‘Cause I did it all kinds of different crazy ways.

Vinod: Nice. So Audacity is a, I assume like some kind of a software application?

John: Yeah, it’s an audio editing program. Okay. But we had done all kinds of crazy things like where I had done a recording At my house, my friend was in Canada. So, we’re separated by thousands of miles. And anyway, we had— I had created 2 or 3 different ways to create these recordings. And then I had to figure out how to put them all together so they sounded like a conversation. And so, from that, our podcast called Untangling Christianity was born. And we did— I did about 150 of those. We did 100— we did an episode a week for 100 weeks without missing.

Vinod: What was your audience like? And are they still available?

John: Oh, yeah. They’re They’re out there in the wild. Um, yeah, they’re still there. And it was such a great— what it helped me to do was really find my voice because— That’s right. Like, just basically publicly, just— now, initially when we started publishing this, like, is anyone gonna listen to this? I don’t know. I think in total, I think at its peak, it had probably anywhere from 200 to 400, between probably Like some episodes have been downloaded over 400, maybe 500 times.

Vinod: And were people giving you a fair amount of feedback? We

John: got some. Some people, people were generally favorable. We had a few people that didn’t agree with us and that was totally okay. But yeah, the huge takeaway from that was I had this inkling of doing this thing and then doing it and then through it, Through it, I learned because I edited so many, I mean, hours and hours and hours of audio. I got really good at editing audio.

Vinod: Right.

John: I found my voice. I think I became more articulate, more clear. And then that led to offering to produce another person’s podcast. And from that, I ended up producing probably 3 or 4 other people’s shows. I still produce one to this day. in addition to my own. And then, Untangling Christianity kind of ran its course for me. And I thought, you know, I want to— so, I turned that over to my co-host, Greg. He still runs it. But I was just like, I want to have a podcast where I talk about whatever. And I got this challenge at a blogging meetup to do 100 blog posts. And the idea was that after 100 blog posts, you would have some sense as to what your message was and what you were about and what was resonating with your audience. And I thought, this is perfect. I’ll do 100 podcasts. Sure. And I bet by 100 episodes, I’ll be clear on like who my audience is and what I’m doing. This was before, I think this was during maybe my coaching training, but I can’t even remember now. And so I started doing podcasts on whatever, like project management, running meetings efficiently, which was kind of one of my things at the time. And over time it morphed into personal development and other things. And I think I’m at 70-something, almost 80 episodes. And I have horrible, I have horrible cover art. But the idea was just to publish and experiment and learn.

Vinod: 2 thoughts come to my mind when I hear that. One is that you were doing it way before you had an idea of that you’re going to be a coach. You know, it was, oh yeah, it was a passion you had. And sort of, it was exciting and, you know, it was engaging for you. And as you said, in the process, you, you know, found a passion area where you were energized and you were doing it without like a, I’m going to make money out of it.

John: No, no, it was, it was total hobby. It was total learning. It was, the only goal was Let’s try to do 100 weeks. Let’s try to get to 100. And, you know, I don’t think there were any fluff. There were no, like, bogus episodes where it’s like, oh, we just did this so that we wouldn’t miss. But we always seem to have something useful to talk to. And 9 times out of 10, it was my own curiosity. It was my own, like, hey, Greg, what do you think of this? Or, hey, I found this article. I think this is crazy. Or— Wow, I think this article makes some really good points. What do you think of it? But yeah, then at a certain point, it just kind of ran out of gas for me. And I kind of turned it over to Greg and just said, if you want to keep this going, great. But I don’t— I’m interested in other things. So,

Vinod: right.

John: So he’s— yeah, he still kind of keeps it going. And, um, yeah, but it was an amazing learning experience. I mean, yeah.

Vinod: John, um, with this, all the podcasts you do, uh, Tell me a little bit about the power to have these heart-to-heart conversations. You know, it’s like a little bit of storytelling, even though there may not be a story in it. Tell me what happens when people start to speak from their heart and sort of blend in their past, their future, their present, and share with the world what they think and what they know? Is there some sort of magic which happens, or do you get increasingly good at in terms of drawing that story, or you find surprises?

John: It’s— well, it’s a little bit of all that, I suppose. What’s most surprising and interesting to me is that Like one of the really crucial skills of a coach is curiosity and listening. Mm-hmm. And I can’t tell you like how many fun conversations I’ve had with people where I started with kind of a rough outline of, oh, these are the things I’m curious about, or this is what, you know, this person I met at this conference, like I’m thinking of one person like Stephani Roy McCallum was A year ago. And actually, she was at the same conference we were at. And, you know, she had this whole thing around leadership. And I had an introduction to her. And I was just like, well, this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. So, um, I’m really curious about this whole idea of leadership. So, hey, would you have a conversation with me? Mm-hmm. And she’s like, yeah, sure. And I probably had, I don’t know, 10 or 15 bullet points of like ideas for that conversation, but I had no idea where it was going to go. And yeah, and then like another really favorite one was the recent one with Carol Campbell. In fact, Carol Campbell, the episode Stranger Talking, Carolyn was my original coach. She’s the one that I mentioned a little bit ago. Okay. And that conversation was just totally driven by my curiosity and whatever she— like, I kind of knew what she was up to, but not quite. And it was just curiosity and listening. And in that process, kind of, maybe this gets at your question a little bit. There’s, I guess there’s kind of some magic. And in fact, I’m experiencing it right now. As you ask me these different questions about different things from my past, I’m seeing threads and connections that I’d never seen before, simply because I’m talking.

Vinod: Right.

John: Which happens in coaching. You know, people have all these epiphanies and they’re like, wait a minute, you didn’t really do anything, John. You just asked me this question. And it’s like, yeah.

Vinod: Does the same kind of thing happen in your coaching conversations also? Although this is not a podcasting thing, but it’s a conversation which happens. And I guess people find incredible new insights Or learning about themselves as they are talking. Yeah.

John: And I’m seeing that more and more and more. In other words, I would say, as I become a better coach, I’m coming to see more and more that my power is the space. The— that’s kind of an overused coachy term, but sometimes coaches will say, I’m holding the space, but it really I’m finding more and more that some of the biggest impactful conversations I have with people are not the ones where, like, I say something profound.

Vinod: I see.

John: It’s the situations where sometimes we just sit in silence or something pops into my head. I call that intuition. Usually it pops into my heart. I’m listening from my body. And all of a sudden, as we’re talking or they’re talking, something just pops into my head. And so I just blurt it out and maybe it hits them a certain way. And maybe we just sit there in silence as they think, or maybe they riff on something.

Vinod: And then they have an aha moment, which is maybe unexpected or unanticipated.

John: Yeah. And I like to think that that aha or that epiphany happened Because we consciously met and that we both, well, maybe I kind of facilitated the process and, quote, held the space for it. But then we also kind of, which is the basis of the CTM training model, that we co-created it together. In other words, in our conversation and in our back and forth with each other, this third thing emerged.

Vinod: Interesting. Sounds good. So, John, I’m going to pull you in another direction. I know the work you do is around personal transformation, and so I wanted to learn a little bit more about what are the typical challenges and opportunities you see with your clients when They engage in personal transformation. Give me a couple of examples. Well,

John: what’s funny is most of them don’t engage me from the perspective of, hey, John, I’d like to hire you to personally transform me. No, but it’s kind of the outcome or the byproduct of all of our work together is that there is a transformation at some point. And that’s really the goal. Like, the goal of coaching is not to, quote, solve a problem. It’s ultimately to change how the person shows up. And in showing up differently, they often show up differently into their problem, and then their problem kind of solves itself, if that makes sense.

Vinod: So what I’m hearing from you is, uh, you’re saying that people come to you because they have a challenge or problem, they are unable to solve it themselves, uh, and, uh, because they’re, they’re facing some resistance or, uh, they, they don’t see the path forward. And then, uh, but it’s not simple because if, if it was simple, they could have solved it by themselves. Yeah. It takes a certain amount of leap of faith or some kind of a transformation in their mind, uh, mind to see things in a different way or, uh, untangle the webs we create in our mind, right?

John: Yeah. Well, like, I mean, so very generic example might be, uh, someone wants to be, you know, more effective. Maybe they have a team dynamic that’s not working. And so they would, they might come to me and say, oh, well, you know, you’ve worked with teams, you were a manager, uh, you were in software. I want to solve this problem with my team, and I think you can help me solve it. Mm-hmm. Well, my work, my typical approach here is to go really deep with, like, who are they? How are they showing up? What are their beliefs? What are, you know, how are they approaching the problem? What do they think about the problem? What are their values? You know, all kinds of different things like that versus, well, what are the mechanics of your last team meeting and what didn’t work? Oh, well, you know, in other words, I’m not usually working at the level of, oh, your last team meeting didn’t go well? Okay, well, here’s 3 tips for, you know, here’s 3 tips in a podcast on how to lead a more effective meeting. It’s— now I might throw that in, but really the focus of my work— Right. in my digging and my investigation is, who are you as a person being at those meetings? Oh, well, you as a person is avoiding conflict. Well, that’s interesting. What’s that about? Well, you know, uh, you know, or it could be, you know, what would it look like to really show up as the leader of this team? Oh, I have no idea. I don’t know what that— that’s scary. Oh, let’s talk about that fear. What are you afraid of? Well, people might not like me. Ah, okay. You know, in other words, so it’s playing with the much softer, deeper stuff versus, we call it coaching the person and not coaching the problem. Coaching the problem would be, you know, here’s 3 tips in a podcast on how to fix your team.

Vinod: So, do you have a reference point, let’s say, as you are engaging this client in this hypothetical problem and you are being in that moment with them, they are saying their experiences, there are some things they’re doing right, some things they may not be doing right. Do you have a mental reference point or a benchmark for being effective in a group dynamic? Like as a consultant, I do consulting work, we always have some sort of gold standard or a benchmark And as we talk to our customer, we sort of— I always have in mind that, hey, there is this best practice and sort of compare the behavior of our client with that best practice. Do you?

John: Yeah, there is, there is, but it’s kind of a— it’s very subtle. And I would say it’s resonance. So I can usually tell when I’m working with someone And maybe you’ve experienced this in our work together. I can usually tell when we’re really onto something. I can tell by like the tone of voice or excitement level or energy level that, hey, we’re really onto something here that means something to you, that’s really lighting you up in some way. Yes. Or that’s having the complete opposite effect. So yeah, this fictitious scenario where someone wants to lead their team better, That probably started around with a conversation of, I’m not really happy in my career where things are going. Well, what would that, you know, and it could be a question of like, well, what would it look like if you were fired up at work? Oh, I’d be working on a team that was super engaged and we were really going somewhere. Oh, well, what’s, what’s around that? Well, I don’t really feel like anyone’s leading the team right now. Well, isn’t that your job?

Vinod: No, I’m saying at that time is that you mentioned the resonance, you are basically looking for signs or cues which tell you whether something’s working or not working. I’m saying, are there general best practices around leadership you have, you need to know to guide them to say, hey, a good leader—

John: No, no, I’m getting that from them.

Vinod: Oh, I see.

John: I’m coming from a perspective as part of my training as well, that they’re creative, They’re resourceful and they’re whole. So they’re not broken, they don’t need to be fixed, and they ultimately know what’s best for them. So my goal is, and my work is to help them unlock whatever it is that, that makes sense and is most effective for them.

Vinod: Have you found your unique voice or method as a coach? Are you there yet where you say, you know what, I got this, I got this approach, I got this formula, I’m usually successful with this?

John: And my formula for— I don’t— well, I would say my formula, if there is one, which I don’t really think— well, it’s a formula as much as there is one. is really presence. Like, how can I be 100% present to this person? How can this be 100% about them and not about me? How can I get back to making it 100% about them and not about me when I get distracted or I get off course? Mm-hmm. Which happens occasionally. Maybe I get triggered by something they say, or it reminds— their situation reminds me of my own or something like that. Then my work is, how do I return to them? Being coached. So, I have my own coach. Right. Right now in this ACS program, I have multiple coaches. Sometimes I’m getting coached up to 3. I think the record one week was 4 times. So, yeah, it’s being present to what’s really there, listening deeply, and then being coached myself. If there’s any formula, I guess that’s what it would be.

Vinod: I see. And you know what, that leads me to this question I wanted to ask you very much. You had told me that serving people, helping people is a key motivation or driver for you. You know, it’s not about making money, but kind of the real intent is to serve people. So how do you stay focused on that goal rather than taking care of your own needs? Because personally, you know, I’m an ambitious person and a lot of time, you know, I have set outcomes I want or set some certain goals I want. And, uh, I think it takes a while to learn the art of really having the right intention.

John: Yeah, this is a good one. This is— I struggle with this. Like, I don’t, There’s ebbs and flows. There’s moments of, oh wow, I just can’t wait. Like, I just wanna help this person. And there’s other moments of like, oh, I gotta pay the bills. This is where just Steve Chandler’s teaching and wisdom and coaching in this community has been so valuable to me. Yes. He has this, well, he says, Steve Chandler says it, but I feel like my coach said it recently too, which is this idea of, Do I need this person’s money? Like, no. So in other words, say I’m meeting with someone and it’s like, can I help them? Yeah, I think I can. Do I need the money to come from them? No. Do I need the money to come from somewhere eventually? Yes.

Vinod: Yeah, okay.

John: So it’s this idea of, yeah, not being so attached to the outcome, not being so attached to the money. And I’m as human as the next person. So, Yes, in some moments. Wow, where’s the money gonna come from? Don’t know.

Vinod: I can attest to this thought you have that you spent so much time engaging me and being there for me in the early part of our relationship. And I said, wow, you know, this is the person I want to spend more time with. But, uh, I hear the influences from Steve Chandler and so on. Um,

John: well, and that’s what’s also built on that too is, and I had this conversation directly with Steve and I thought it was really important, which was coaching should not be a leap of faith. And I, this is something I employed myself recently, which was like, you should be able to see the value and experience what you’re looking for in the person that you’re talking to.

Vinod: Yes, yes.

John: And, and it shouldn’t be a sense of like, well, I had 15 minutes with them. We had a little sample session. Well, if I extrapolate that to an hour, yeah, I guess that could help me. Like, no way. So yeah, that was, that was part of, that was part of behind the long conversations that we had over, you know, several times. To say, well, you know, this is what it is. Like, this is the experience. And then at a certain point, it’s like, well, yeah, to continue to do this, there needs to be an exchange of value.

Vinod: Yes, yes, yes.

John: And, and like I told someone recently today, I have these conversations all the time. So that’s like part of my business model too, which is I have multiple conversations with multiple people multiple times, all of, all of. So it’s, in other words, it, it continues to feed into the stream of, yes, yes, I need and want money. Like, I don’t have any shame in saying, yes, I want money, but it doesn’t have to come from this specific person. It will eventually come. And that’s what I’ve seen is that over time it starts to come.

Vinod: No, I, I think you nailed it. I think, uh, and this is what I’m learning about coaching is too, that Coaching is about powerful conversations. And the more conversation you have, which has that powerful conversation, which means which are touching somebody’s heart or mind.

John: Yeah, and my heart gets touched too. I was telling the same person the same thing today, that it’s not a client. And I— and they were like, oh, it was the first conversation we had. And they were feeling like, oh, you know, can you invoice me? And I was like, no. This is a gift. Like, you have actually given me a gift in the conversation that we just had. You know, the fact I said, you know, I learned something in every single conversation I have with someone. I learned something that actually improves the quality of my life and my coaching and everything else. So yeah, it’s, it’s a two— it’s always a two-way street.

Vinod: Well, it looks like that’s the formula. We figured it out. That’s the formula. John, and I think you enjoy, you know, in a real way, these conversations. The conversation is not a challenge for you. It’s not work for you. And I guess it’s coming from your previous hobby where, you know, you engage in conversation and enjoyed that. So it’s like very kind of fun thing.

John: You know, yes and no. I mean, this is something I guess I learned recently with a coach too, was I was finding after certain interactions that I was like really— that it was draining.

Vinod: Nice.

John: And I was learning that over the course of a day, like doing a certain number of them was really taxing. And what we found in talking was the level of attachment. Like, all my training was always around this idea of the coach not being attached to an outcome or guaranteeing an outcome. But what I realized was that in certain situations, I was subconsciously, I was still looking for something, for there to be a certain outcome to decide if it was good or not.

Vinod: Mindset.

John: And it was in letting go of what, I thought the outcome should be and letting the outcome be the client’s, that the freedom came. And I think showing up bigger, like differently too.

Vinod: So, John, we got about last 4 or 5 minutes of this conversation.

John: Oh my gosh, it’s over already?

Vinod: Right. So I’d like to— do you have a final message to those who might listen to this conversation in terms of what you offer in terms of services, coaching services, where to find you, and what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

John: Sure. So the best place to find me is johnpoelstra.com. Uh, my podcast is there, a little bit about my message. Um, yeah, like in terms of services, I mean, we mentioned, you know, podcast production, But yeah, my main thing really is one-on-one conversations with people and I offer them to anyone. So if I guess anything that we’ve talked about today piqued your interest, or if there’s some type of roadblock or something that you wanna get clarity around in your life and you wanna, you know, try me out, do it by all means. And I would also encourage people, Like you can really coach around just about anything. I’ve had coach— I’ve had coaching, I’ve been coached around everything from personal relationships to work settings, to life satisfaction, life purpose, goals. I’d be hard-pressed to find something that you couldn’t coach around.

Vinod: So what you’re saying is the scope of topics or areas where you can get into a coaching conversation is large.

John: Yes. And my experience too is that like stuff in my personal life holds me back in my professional life. So maybe there’s a situation with my wife or my son that’s unsatisfying or it’s eating away at me. Oh my gosh. Like taking that to coaching and clarifying what’s going on and how I can show up differently and how I can be more effective in those relationships. frees me up in big ways to show up differently in my business. Or it even— it’s even like, I even see it like playing forward in like my coaching in terms of like things that I’m willing to go deep on with my own coach, then open me up to other areas that I can then coach people in. So yeah.

Vinod: So, uh, the last thing, uh, John, is if you are such a good coach, why do you need other coaches to coach you? Can you coach yourself?

John: Oh my gosh, no. I mean, well, the best coaches in the world have coaches. That’s my— I mean, that’s kind of a cliché term, but I think like Tony Robbins has multiple coaches. You think of like a coach that both of us know, Rick Tamlyn. I mean, he’s very public. Right. He’s very public and kind of cheeky. And he says, you know, it takes a village to keep this thing going. Um, he talks about having his own coach. He talks about therapists, personal trainers, like he has multiple coaches. That’s right. Um, and I guess I would say to that, it’s the value of a coach is that it’s someone that’s not you. It’s that outside perspective. It’s that person that’s not inside of your head that can help ask those questions that you can’t ask yourself, or maybe they can ask the questions, but they can also listen to and reflect back maybe the deeper subplot or the deeper— like, I had a coaching session this morning with a coach and my coach. And, and so, like, saying a whole bunch of stuff out loud. Okay. And then having them kind of sift through, you know, the theme I’m really hearing here is self-doubt or You know, it sounds like there’s kind of a lack of confidence around this particular area. What do you think’s going on there? Like, oh, huh. Yeah, I hadn’t. So it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s that, it’s having that voice and that reflection that’s not you that I think can really add. And, and, and I would also like to say too, like, you can be fine without having a coach.

Vinod: Right.

John: There’s no requirement that like everyone has to have a coach or their life is gonna be horrible. My experience has been from going like from when I have a coach and when I don’t have a coach, it’s kind of the difference between good and great. So it’s like life can be good.

Vinod: Right.

John: But if it can be great, why not make it great? Like why not accelerate the process of getting to where you wanna go And that’s not always the goal, like speeding it up is— but it’s like, why take 10 years of like fumbling and struggling and tripping over your own feet when you can shorten that process by working with a guide or someone else that can help you discover the path? I mean, they may not show you the path. They may not like unfold the map and be like, okay, well, here’s how you’re going to get from point A to point B. Mm-hmm. But they might be able to say, you know what, what are you trying to do here, John? Are you really trying to climb Mount Everest? Or are you really just trying to like walk around the block? Oh, I thought I was trying to climb Mount Everest. Well, that’s kind of funny because you’re not even like in Nepal.

Vinod: Oh yeah, good point. It’s an independent and objective perspective.

John: Yeah, with nothing at stake. Like, like my agenda for a client Mm-hmm. Is their agenda. My only agenda for them is, what do they really want? Oh, that’s what they really want? Okay, let’s go, let’s go get that. Let’s go figure it out. Let’s go tackle that together. Am I— and am I going to tackle that together? Am I going with like a prescription and a roadmap? No, I’m going with the questions and the insights that I get or the thoughts or the questions that I might have that might propel them forward.

Vinod: Yeah, I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying. And I’m becoming now, you know, kind of getting the experience of the joy of coaching and what one can do with that. And my hope is that through this conversation, people have a chance to sort of get to know you, what your approach is, and sort of make up their mind in terms of how cool it would be to work with you or not.

John: Well, thank you for that gift.

Vinod: No, my pleasure, John, and thank you for your time. I wish you all the best in your work.

John: Thank you.