Welcome to Idemics Performance and Wellness, where world leading coaches and scientists explain how
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Sanjayanti, co founder and CEO of Idemics Coaching. Coaching has played an important
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Thanks for listening and see you next time. Welcome to our first episode in
our Coaching, Performance and Wellness series in twenty twenty four. In these episodes,
Jamie and I will tackle various topics in coaching, performance and wellness to
break them down. To kick us off, we're going to talk today about
the connection between those three topics. We throw those words around a lot,
and the connections sometimes aren't always self evident. To kick us off, We're
going to go through five rapid fire questions. Yes or no answers only allowed.
So Number one, is coaching only remedial? No? Okay? Is
coaching the same as therapy? No? Is life coaching the only time of
coaching? No? Can I get coaching that will help me in my career?
Absolutely? And is coaching just for sports and fitness? And no?
Excellent? Great. So let's start by talking about, as you were saying,
this connection between performance and wellness and coaching, and let's talk about what
are those ties? How is coaching connective performance and wellness generally? Big picture?
So I think the three are so closely intertwined in my mind, and
maybe the best analogy that comes to my mind to explain this is when any
of us thinks about our health and goes to a doctor. We don't just
go to a doctor when we have a problem. We do that too,
but we also go to a doctor to get a health check, to talk
through where we are, what problems we might be experiencing, and the doctor
acts as a thought partner to us in helping us both analyze and understand our
own goals for ourselves and then creating a roadmap to get there. So and
in the medical world we think of that as preventative medicine. But in the
coaching world, how do we think about that, Because it's not necessarily preventative,
right, We're not preventing problems, but we are using a coach to
do what. In that sense, I think we're using a coach as a
thought partner to enhance our performance and wellness. Right, So, whether that's
our performance in our professional lives, in our personal lives, in our familiar
relationships, and that ties directly to our mental and physical wellness in terms of
our self esteem, our self confidence, the closeness and intimacy we feel,
and the relationships that are important to us in our lives. And so in
a sense, it's really like a flywheel, right, Because if you're performing
and you feel well, and you're able to get the thought partnership of a
coach to do those two things, then you're really achieving your best self right
because you're achieving your goals, you're doing it with an advisor, as a
coach who's on side, who you can really use to get objective advice and
to actually clearly roadmap your pathway to get to the goals you're trying to achieve.
And before we dive into the process, actually, why should I work
with a coach for example, or why should someone work with a coach as
opposed to talking to a friend. That's a great question I would put it.
I think the best way I have of putting it is whether it's your
friend, your brother, sister, parent, spouse, everybody in your life
that you know and have a relationship with is a self interested party. A
coach that you develop a relationship with is really an objective outsider. Their job
in a sense, is to be your thought partner and provide that objective advice.
And because there's no other relationship that pre exists, they're able to do
that. I think it's hard for friends to do that. I've definitely found
it's really hard both for me to do it as a partner to my husband,
it's equally hard, I think for my husband to do it as a
partner to me, because in the back of your mind are always the considerations
around the nature of your relationship with that person and the future of that relationship.
Yes. Well, actually reminds me of a personal story that I have
where I had a friend who came to me seeking advice around a problem that
she was having. And ultimately, while I pride myself on being direct and
honest, because I'm thinking long term about you know, what happens if there's
one outcome up to this problem versus another outcome if I advise and speak about
it in one way down the road, it could impact our friendship. Yes,
And so to your point about you know, having advice from friends.
As friends, we want to be as open as honest as possible, but
we always have an interest as well, right in whatever we're advising. On
the contrary, I will say that, you know, one of the things
that I've always heard our coaches on the IDMX talk about is this fact that
they are a servant leader, so they are really there and to have the
best outcome for you, right, without that level of self interest, and
that's what being a servant leader actually is. Yeah, that term is so
interesting because it's entered a lot of organizational behavior and performance and management and leadership
discussions, and I think we understand what it means in that context, but
I think it's so applicable to coaching because the coach really is acting as a
servant leader for each client as an individual or a team if they're working with
a group of people, to help both achieve the goals of that individual or
team, but equally to really serve their interests very directly. Right. I
think that's where the individualization of coaching is very different from any other learning or
development methodology that you could access. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely cool. Shall
we dive into sort of coaching and the different steps that somebody would go through
if they work with a coach, Yeah, because I think so many people
have a question on what coaching actually is, like, what does it constitute,
what does it mean in terms of the process that you go through in
working with a coach. So you know, we'll start with the first step
that you and I've been talking about, which is really this evaluative step,
and really that step looks at three things. Do you want to talk about
the three things that we contemplate in that step? Actually, so I'm going
to address too, and then you should address the third. But I think
you know, first where are you today? Right? And second where are
you trying to get to? And third? And then the third is looking
at all the forces that influence your thinking around what you think you want and
what you think where you think you're going. That's your internal dialogue or inner
critics, which is often said as well as the external forces, the messaging
that you get from your social circles, your family, your friends, that
tells you this is these are the things I should should have and want in
my life. Yeah. Absolutely, And I want to go back to the
doctor analogy here because it's it's I think, a really good illustration. When
we go to the doctor, the doctor asks you a series of questions about
exactly where you are today, right, how are you feeling, what would
you want to improve, what problems are you having? And when you articulate
those goals and how you're feeling today, They also then ask you where you're
trying to get to right, and then they begin asking you a series of
questions about the circumstances of your life. What are the external force that surround
you? Do you have time to get enough sleep? Do you get enough
exercise? Do you eat healthy enough of a diet? So there's so many
elements where they're acting as a thought partner to you in much the same way
that a coach does, I think for an individual, and particularly at that
first stage where people were trying to think through sort of that sort of introspection
period of who am I, what do I want? Where am I going?
And then we moved to the second phase. Once you sort of have
done that identification process, then we move into sort of this clarification phase where
the coach really weighs in and helps somebody identify what their goals really are.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that, yeah, I sort
of A recent example comes to mind. Some months ago, I tore my
ACL and I went to the doctor, and the discussion we had was reading
caused me to be very introspective because obviously I wanted my ACL to heal and
my need to be better. But the doctor asked me a series of questions
which oriented around what were my goals in terms of the activity level I wanted
to have. Was I going to be fine not skiing again? Did I
want to get on the tennis court again and play competitively? And those goals
were incredibly important because the treatment plan that we then put together in terms of
the physio, whether I required surgery or not and so on, was all
dictated by those goals that I had articulated. Yes, and so very much
in that way, a coach comes in and will help you figure out what
that help you figure out what steps and what questions to ask so that you
can analyze where you want to go, which leads us then to the third
step, which is the roadmap step. So I think the roadmap is probably
the single most important thing. You know. There's been so much research and
literature on this around goal setting and then goal achievement, right, and lots
of people are great at setting goals. What they're less good at, especially
when they're big goals like I want to become the CEO of my company or
I want to start a new business. Those are big goals, and it's
really a necessity to take those big goals and break them down into a series
of smaller goals, which then results in a roadmap, right, Like,
what are you going to do first, second, third, et cetera.
And that process I think a coach is particularly and uniquely trained to take someone
through. And really I think it's dissecting big goals into smaller incremental steps to
them create the behavior change. And it reminds me of a story of a
friend of mine who worked for a big corporation. They had a huge workshop.
First, it was a hybrid setup where they had a workshop and then
they had in one individual or maybe two individual sessions with a coach, and
my friend working in this big organization said, what was the workshop topic that
I don't I don't remember, but it was around it was empowered communication or
something along those lines, right, yes, yeah, And so my friend
when she met with the coach said that, you know, people who speak
first and speak the loudest are the ones that are heard, and I can't
do that, so I do not My voice is not heard in these meetings.
So how do I how do I make sure that I'm seen and I'm
heard? And the coach then proceeds to tell ask delve into well why is
it that you don't speak out at meetings? And her thinking around this was
well, because I think it's rude to speak up and talk when other people
are talking, but again, those are the people who are getting heard.
And so the coach gave her a very practical exercise. She said, Okay,
this week, I want you to interrupt as many people as possible so
that you make sure that your voice is heard in these meetings. And she
did. She did that, and it was I think for her it was
actually a very empowering and freeing exercise to go through to have somebody tell her
it's okay to do something that in your mind and the way that you frame
it feels rude, but it is okay in this environment, in this situation,
it is okay if your goal is to be seen and heard in your
organization. It's a total rewiring and kind of reframing, right that the coach
really helped your friend do around her mindset on how to participate in these meetings
with the group, because if you commet it from that perspective, you've really
got to shift your thinking. And lots of people can shift their thinking,
but do they shift their behavior. And this was such a practical tool for
her to actually begin to develop the muscle memory around how to change yes,
yes, and oftentimes even when we know that doing something different will get us
what we want, also we need that permission, and that's what a coach
oftentimes does. It gives us that permission to say it's okay to do this,
to behave in this way that feels completely unnatural to you. And I
think it really helped her in her group to feel like, Okay, I
can do this. Yeah, I think so. We see this in so
much of the work that we do, where idemics coaches work with both individuals
and teams in companies with individuals on their own. There's this question often when
you get to the end of you know whatever time of working with a coach,
of what comes next, right, And I think that takes us straight
into step four, which is this idea of Okay, so you make a
change, like your friend goes through the exercise of teaching herself how to interrupt
more and get comfortable with that. But how do you now turn that behavior
into a natural state for yourself and really begin to do it pretter naturally so
you don't have to think about it, but you just do it. And
that's an interesting piece of the coaching endeavor. Yeah, Well, I think
it's very interesting to think about the fact that, for example, and we'll
go back to the case of my friend, that you have to practice something
like speaking up in meetings and interrupting people. Right, That's what's interesting.
I think about the practice of behavior change is doing it being uncomfortable, but
feeling like it's okay to do it because somebody has told you that it is
okay to behave in this way, and then you do it. I mean,
just like with anything in life, whether it's like you're practicing a sport
or you know, learning music or whatever it is, you do it enough
and it becomes natural for you. Yeah, which brings us to our last
step. And I think that the important thing about the step is not just
thinking about it in terms of, well, Okay, I did this one,
I had this goal. It was broken down in these behavioral chained steps
for me. But now you know, I can take that model and apply
it elsewhere with other things that I want to do. Did we want to
talk a little bit about how like a coach, like, how coaching helps
you do that. I think, you know, one of the things that
coaching does is really help us build self awareness, right, And I think
that the system and the methodology that coaching uses, which you just talked about,
right, This idea of understanding and assessing where you are and what you're
trying to get to, going through the analysis and gaining some clarity from that
exercise and introspection, roadmapping and practicing a new behavior, and then consolidating that
behavioral change. That methodology is incredibly powerful and it's actually something that any of
us can apply to pretty much any problem that we come across or any goal
that we're focused on trying to achieve, and embedding that in ourselves to be
empowered to use that as a problem solving approach is super powerful. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's two sides of this. Number one is that
once you start working with a coach, it's not like a forever exercise,
right, because you learn practical skills that you can then take and are replicable
to other goals and areas of your life. Now that's not to say that
you won't ever have to, you know, call back in a coach maybe
to help you with some of the questions and the the increments, but at
least you have the process down and so it could be you know, you
start you work with a coach for three to six months, but then maybe
you meet with them once a year just to come back in and help you.
Sort of. It's a health check yeah, exactly, And the same
way you go back to the doctor to just check it and make sure that
your knee is good still, yeah, the annual checkup, right, the
annual coaching coaching checkup. And so really the last step though is sort of
making whatever behavior change, making behavior change like second nature, right, This
idea that if you've you've had the model laid out for you, you've done
it once, you understand the process, and you can actually apply it again
and again to other things in your life or other goals that you may want
to achieve in your life. Totally, that's I think it for today in
terms of covering this topic, We look forward to bringing you a lot of
additional interesting topics and research and coaching methodologies, as well as conversations with coaches,
conversations with researchers and scientists on all topics coaching, performance and wellness.
Thanks for joining us today, Thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen
and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at www dot viidmix dot
com special thanks to our producer Martin Maluski and singer songwriter Doug Allen.