Wendy McCallum (02:00)
Hello there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. I'm to give you some real talk today, which is going to be, you know, in alignment with everything I've been talking about the last few episodes, where I'm just going to show up authentic and be honest with you. This is like feels like the 11th time I've tried to record this podcast, but I think it's actually the fourth. Excuse me, partly because I have a tickle in my throat and I keep doing that.
⁓ But also because for whatever reason I'm getting in my own way on this and it's taking way longer than I want it to take to record it. So I'm going to attempt to record this in less than 30 minutes and I'm really excited about today's episode for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is something that I think is going to be relevant to every coach out there, which is really what I'm trying to do this month in these topics that are focused more on the practice of coaching as opposed to the business of coaching.
And also because it is something that I feel like I have really good learning experience around. So I have something really valuable to share with you. So we're going to be talking in a few minutes about what to do when your coaching sessions feel like they're stalling or you're getting stuck with a client. But in particular, when that client really feels like a coachable client, like they're really engaged and they're standing in agency and personal responsibility and they're enthusiastic about the coaching, but you just seem to be going around in circles. So stay tuned for the details on
the two sort of reasons why I think that happens and how I deal with that as a seasoned coach now with over 15 years ⁓ and thousands of hours of coaching private clients. This comes up all the time. So I'm hoping this is gonna be a real game changer for you as a coach. Before we get started, a couple of things I just wanted to mention. First of all, talking about this whole theme of staying real this year, I talked about this a couple episodes ago about how this is my theme word for the year.
in my business and also just generally in my life, which is to stay as real and genuine, authentic, true and honest as possible, which has always been my brand, but which I feel like I veered away from a little bit in the last few years as a result of just the blowing up of AI, polishing and over editing of content that we're seeing out there on social media and in other places, just generally this like push towards everything being perfect.
And that just started not feeling good to me last year. And it's one of the reasons why this podcast is something I love so much, because I show up here, you get what you get. I will be honest with you like I just was, about how this feels like my 11th take on this thing, and how things don't always go super smoothly in the business of coaching. But I did feel like I'd strayed away a little bit from it. And I really wanted to like get back to that this year. So that's what I'm trying to do.
So I wanted to share something that happened with me this week, because I am a real believer in the fact that the universe sends you signals when you most need them sometimes. And I really was in need of a signal this week that I was on the right track with this whole like getting back to being real thing. I had made a commitment to ditching many chat, which is the automation that sends those immediate responses to ⁓ comments or on posts and Instagram, where you get a message instantly from.
the person saying, here's how you can download that episode of my podcast or thanks for reaching out. Here's the link to go grab my free thing or whatever. I decided this year I'm not doing that anymore because I hate that so much and it's so obvious when that's what's in play. It's just starting to really drive me crazy and it feels so impersonal. So instead I'm just gonna respond in person to any keywords that if I say on my post, like comment podcast and I'll send you the episode, you're gonna get me. Now it might take me four hours to get there.
but I will get there and it will be a personal message for me. So that's one of the things I've committed to. I've also committed to doing this segment on my Instagram platform. If you're not following me there yet, you can go follow me at Wendy McCallum Coach. The segment I had in my head was something called Real Talk, R-E-E-L. And the idea was that I would show up and I would do a little real, but it would also be real.
R E A L in that I would be doing it in the morning before I had a shower, brush my hair, put any makeup on and was still wearing my tidy pajamas and drinking my coffee. And I did my first segment of that yesterday and was feeling a little vulnerable about it, to be honest, because again, in a world of like incredibly edited, polished content, this thing is going to stand out as the opposite of all of that. But what happened with it was really reassuring. And again, I think the universe sending me a little sign, you're on the right track.
stay in your lane, follow your intuition, all this stuff. Which is that the response was overwhelmingly positive from people. I just sent it out to my existing following on Instagram. The video was too long to be shared by Instagram anywhere else and I knew that. So a lot of people watched it and a lot of people said, yeah, me too. Hey, I needed to hear this. This is awesome. Which just gave me more motivation to keep going in the direction that I'm going, which is awesome.
So that's the one thing that happened. And again, you can go watch that video on my page on Instagram, which is at Wendy McCallum Coach. And I'm gonna be continuing to put out regular segments in my coffee without makeup on about topics that are really meaningful to me. They're gonna be super short. There's gonna be zero sales in all of it, because that feels like the fakest of all the fake to me. It's not about that. It's about creating a moment of meaningful connection for you and some really valuable information in a
day on social media that is otherwise probably going to feel pretty freaking fake because that's how social media feels to me. So that was good feedback. But then I also received two emails back to back, which I wanted to share little bits of with you. are there's nothing better than getting like an unsolicited email from someone saying something positive. And
I don't have anyone to share this stuff with as a small business owner and you probably don't either, which is probably one of the reasons why you like listening to this podcast and why maybe you're a member of my BBB because you're looking for that community. Well, here is what happened. Again, two little nudges from the universe. One, I got an email from ⁓ somebody who's just come into my coaching world who haven't had a chance to like do a debrief with yet. And she just sort of spontaneously sent me this note that said, random. That was the first.
The first word. I'm not sure if I've told you yet how I found you. I looked up a coach advertising on Instagram to see if her program was worth doing and I ended up on Reddit where people said it was a scam. Then somebody said that if people were looking for someone who was the real deal, it was you. They mentioned your podcast and I became a listener. Anyway, I thought you might find it interesting when thinking about all the ways clients find you. So that little note came into my inbox and I thought...
Well, that is great because somebody is actually referring to me as the real deal out there. I don't know who that is. Thank you to whoever that is. But that means that the way that I see myself and I perceive myself as showing up and the goals that I have around who I am and being genuine and authentic and that really being my brand is translating. And people are are feeling that and seeing that, which is awesome. So that was really great. And then ⁓ I received
another email from somebody who had signed up for an open house that's coming up. And in response to a conversation starting email that I send everybody who signs up for an open house, she sent me little note to tell me a little bit about herself. And it said, Hi, Wendy, I found the Coaching Edge podcast three days ago and binge just about every one of the episodes, all of the information about building a coaching business and everything I'm doing right now is brand new to me. And I'm so excited to learn it.
I'm very grateful to you for sharing these valuable lessons as freebies no less. Your delivery is honest, encouraging and smart. I imagine you'd say, I like your vibe. And I thought, amazing. My vibe is translating and attracting people. And I say this all the time, attracts like. And that was the whole point of this getting real things. Like one, it's gonna feel better to you, cause it does for me to show up as me authentically feels better. Two, I know that I both coach and
market from a better place when I'm there. And, you know, I knew that that would actually attract the right people into my world and my programming and probably repel the right people for whom that is not what they're looking for. So all of that to say, sometimes the universe sends you signs. Thank you to those of you who take a second to send me a note and say, I really liked that episode or that thing you said really changed the way I thought about it or, you know, thanks for being real.
I really appreciate those messages. Okay, let's get on to the topic of the day, which is what to do when your coaching sessions feel really stuck or your coaching engagement with a client feels like it's not going anywhere, but you know this client is really coachable. So it's not about the client not being where they need to be in order to be coached. It's something else that's not happening.
This is so common, this happens all the time. And I wanna be really clear, when this happens, you're not dealing with a disengaged client. You're not dealing with a client who's not standing in agency or personal responsibility. You're not dealing with a client who's not doing the work or not engaged. That's not what we're talking about. You have a client who's thoughtful, who's reflective, who's engaged, who wants to move forward, but you just keep circling around and around and around the same topic or topics.
That can feel frustrating, can chip away at your confidence as a coach. It can make you wonder whether you're doing something wrong and whether you're actually the right coach for this person. So this is an important thing for me to talk about and to normalize because it happens in so many coaching engagements. It still happens to me, a coach of 15 years, thousands of hours of coaching experience, still happens sometimes. In fact, it happens often.
and I don't want you to take it as a failure in your coaching. It is a sign. Stop, pause. There's something else here that needs to be talked about, needs to be uncovered. how do I know when this is happening? How do I notice when we're circling around and around? Well, this comes back to the basic premise of good coaching, which is really great listening.
This might be the thing you take away from this episode and work on going forward, but it is so critically important as a coach that you get better and better at listening and you work on constantly improving and honing your listening skills. This is something I'm always trying to get better at. There are different ways to set yourself up for being a better listener. One includes like removing all distractions, turning off all your notifications so that you're not getting things coming across your screen and dinging while you're on a coaching call. That's like the primary thing to do.
Clearing your desk is good. Clearing your mind between coaching calls by doing some breathing or getting up and walking around or, you know, doing a little meditation or listening to an upbeat song, whatever that might be, that's really helpful. Turning off your phone and putting it somewhere else while you're coaching is also really helpful thing to do. So there are things you can do physically to set yourself up for better listening, but really what we're talking about with the better listening is like listening with everything. So...
I find that if I'm on a Zoom call, it's better to have the settings set on the speaker view so that my client is big and I'm just a little button up in the top as opposed to the split screen that you can do, which to me is just so distracting to be able to see myself out of the corner of my eye talking. I don't love that. So that's another thing I do. But when I'm talking about this deeper listening that helps you to identify when you're going around in circles and not making progress, I'm talking about
really listening for patterns. And in order to listen and see those patterns, you have to be watching body language, you have to be paying attention to the words people are using, you have to be paying attention to the topics that keep coming up in sessions. I'm looking for patterns, not for problems. Just because there's a pattern doesn't mean there's a problem. Usually if there's a pattern, that means there's something important to uncover there, as I said earlier.
I'm looking for repeated phrases. So when clients are using the same phrase over and over, I'm looking for repeated explanations for why something is happening. I'm looking for repeated emotional reactions. So the same kind of emotional response to a particular topic or question, for example. And sometimes I'll also notice a pattern where a client seems to be kind of detouring at the same point.
in a conversation, they'll move into something else or deflect, right? And I'm also always looking for repeated beliefs that are being stated as facts by the client. So what I call limiting beliefs that my client holds and believes are as true as the sky is blue. I'm listening for those coming up over and over again. And we're gonna talk about that in a second.
All of those things are really important and those are the things that I am listening for, noticing and frankly usually noting somewhere. So in my client files, which I keep on an electronic notepad, there's actually a separate document in every client file and that is where I note repetition of patterns and of beliefs. And I will note things down that keep happening or that the client keeps saying there for a couple of reasons. First of all, as we're gonna talk about in a second,
Those are often the things that are keeping us stuck in coaching, but it's also a really great little tool to have, resource to have, when your client comes to a session and you ask them how their last week went and how they're doing and they say, great, I don't even know if I need coaching today. I don't know what we're gonna talk about. I will often go to that list and say, well, you know, I've noticed a pattern around this and I'm wondering if this might be something that would be interesting to talk about today or helpful to talk about today. So I love it for that. Anyway, I'm looking for those patterns and I am making note of those patterns.
What I want to really highlight for you here is that if your progress stalls in a coaching engagement or a coaching session, if it feels like you're getting stuck, it's not random that it's stalling. The place of stalling is usually a clue that there's something really meaningful happening. So it's the opposite of random in that you really have to pay attention to it. I don't want you to really start looking for this. And again, the way to look for it and identify the patterns is to
be a really good listener. Okay, so what does this look like in a coaching session? Well, it looks like no matter where you start a session, you end up coming back to the same thing. Example, maybe I'm coaching a client around burnout who's burnt out and they're looking to, know, create some more, simplify their life, create some more boundaries, engage in more meaningful self-care.
And we were talking about things like sleep and that kind of thing. But every single session, we end up coming back to our relationship. Every single session, we talk about how the source of biggest stress for her is her relationship and her marriage. That is an example of a flag for me as a coach. And what I realize from that is not, ⁓ you're messing up here. You're not asking the right questions. Instead, I'll say, OK, we keep going around in circles and coming back to this thing because it's important.
And so that will then twig for me, Maybe this is actually the thing that we're not talking about, but that we should be talking about, the real thing.
when a coaching session feels like it's stalling out or you're circling around, is that you're not talking about the right thing. So now we have to do the hard work of
talking about the right thing. And the first thing that happens, the first way that you deal with this as a coach is you recognize it as we've talked about, and then you have to name it. So I really wanna encourage you to practice doing this because it's such a key coaching skill. It can feel a little bit uncomfortable, but what you wanna do is you want to name it in a really nonjudgmental and neutral way. So you wanna say, hey, I noticed that in the last three sessions, we have been...
starting focused on burnout and stress and self-care, and we have always ended talking about your marriage. You're not saying it with judgment. You're not saying it with an agenda. You're just calling it out. And then I might say to my client, I'm wondering if that might be important. What about your marriage do you think might be important to the way you're feeling? Something like that. And then I ask for permission to coach around this.
So those are really the three steps. So I name it without judgment. I get the client usually to establish like the meaningfulness of it by asking them a question about, you know, what about that is important or something along those lines. And then I ask for permission to do some coaching around it. I suggest that. Now, if the session is almost over, I might say this might be a great topic for us to start with next week. How does that feel?
If we're at the beginning of a session, I might say, how would it feel if we talked about this for the next little while in this coaching session? But I get permission from them and they get to decide whether they want to go for it or not. And honestly, with something like a marriage, sometimes people aren't ready for that. And that's okay with me, but I do want to flag it for them. Often what I find happens is that the further we get along the coaching engagement and the more this keeps coming up in sessions and the more comfortable they get with me and the more trusting they get with me, the...
the more likely it is that they will be ready to talk about it. But oftentimes they're ready to talk about it right then and we will switch over to talking about the real thing. The real thing for me is like another word for the elephant in the room, right? Or if you want to think of it as like a stream, I would say it's like the logjam upstream, right? And what happens is we come into a coaching engagement and we're trying to deal with problems that are actually downstream from the upstream logjam, from the really big thing, then...
It's kind of futile work. What we really need to do is start working on the logjam upstream. We need to start loosening up some of those logs. We need to start moving them so that things can start to flow again. And so the first reason why we end up going around in circles and getting stuck in coaching engagements is because people, are talking about kind of the wrong thing. To be honest, it's not the right thing. It's not the thing you need to be talking
And again, it's not about redirecting in that session. It's about noticing and acknowledging and naming what you think might be there. And then you reflect on that together and you offer up coaching on that and your client may say yes or may say no. I would say that this is the thing that coaches are the least confident around.
This is one of the reasons why I created the CCSI, which I'm going to talk about because we've got a new iteration of this happening starting in March. And so we'll talk more about that. But the CCSI is the Confident Coaching Skills Intensive, and it's really designed to help coaches get more confident in their coaching so they can be more flexible in coaching sessions. So when the problem that they thought they were coaching around turns out not to be the thing that really their client's going to benefit from coaching on, they feel comfortable moving into that sphere. So if this is making you a little, you know,
anxious right now, me talking about this, I get it. Like this is, this is something that newer coaches in particular really struggle with and sometimes more experienced coaches struggle with it as well. But it's one of the two main reasons why coaching stalls. The second big reason why coaching sessions kind of stall or get stuck or become sort of circular is because there is a limiting belief that's happening that's kind of quietly running the show.
And so a limiting belief is a belief that your client holds. It's an important belief and it feels like a fact to them. So it feels very, very true to them. And because it feels very, very true to them and because it's an important truth to them, it is actually affecting the way they're showing up and behaving and feeling all the time. And it's making it difficult for them a lot of the time to actually make progress and take action and get out of this circular pattern. So
you know, you're looking for a statement that is stated like a fact and repeated over and over again. Again, it's a pattern. And a limiting belief might sound like, here's some examples, I am no good at this, or I'm a bad mother, or I always fail, or I'm a perfectionist, or I'm a people pleaser, or this is just the way I am, or I'm a lawyer first.
or I'm a bad listener. Any comment that's sort of like a blanket statement like that, that you can see is sort of like a black and white statement and from it, if it is true, there's not a lot of movement possible, right? You're looking for those things. When I hear those things and I notice that those things are happening, I will...
do exactly what I do when I realize, wait a second, maybe we're not talking about the right thing. Maybe there's an elephant in the room that I need to identify. And that is to pause the conversation. So I will just pause them and I will stop coaching whatever the facts of the situation are that we're coaching around. And I will start coaching the belief with their permission. So again, I run through exactly the same process. I name it, I say, ⁓ can I just interrupt you for a moment?
I have heard you in the last three sessions say this thing and then I'll repeat it out, repeat the belief to them. Did you know that you have said that? Tell me about that, tell me some more about that. What's true about that for you? And then they'll tell me a little bit about it. And I'll say, I wonder how that might be impacting the way that you're showing up and feeling in this area of your life. And I'll get them to describe what that might be. And I'll say, okay, well.
Given that, because there's usually a negative consequence of the belief, I'll say, do you think this might be something worth spending a little time on? What might open up for you if that didn't feel as true to you? Or if there might be something else out there that feels truer, that serves you better? So I'll get them to buy into the value of the coaching and then I'll do the same thing. Would you be interested in talking about that? I think that might be valuable.
yes, that would be valuable. How about we spend the rest of the session on that? Or maybe that becomes the topic of our next coaching session, right? So, and then in terms of how I coach around that, I could do a whole episode on that. That is a, it is a topic that I talk about inside the CCSI. It's one of the, probably this is probably one of the coaching tools set of questions that I use the most is challenging, limiting beliefs and getting people to really reflect on limiting beliefs.
But I ask questions like what is the evidence that you have from your own lived experience that this is true? What is the evidence? What if evidence might be out there that this isn't true? Is there something else that might be as true? Is there something else that might be true out there if that was in fact true the others the other thing?
How would that affect the way you see this problem? So there are lots of different questions I can ask, but the goal is to shift them slightly away from that original black and white limiting belief. It's not to flip it 180. It's not to get them to the opposite belief. It's just to shift it enough that the door opens a little bit. So even adding the word yet to a limiting belief can be incredibly helpful. So I'm not good at that. If we can get to a place,
that we can add the word yet to that and that feels truer to them, because I can say to them, but this is, what are you doing about this problem? And they'll say, well, I'm here for coaching around it. I'm like, great, what's the goal? Well, the goal is to get better at this. Okay, so how true does it feel that you're just, you're not good at this, period? And there's no room for improvement on that. Well, actually like, I am working on this, so maybe I'll get better at it. And then I might either offer up to them the, I'm not good at this yet option, or they'll come up with it themselves.
But again, the idea is to open the door up a little bit so that there's some room for movement and that can in itself get you out of that circular pattern that you're in in coaching and get you moving forward. Okay, so this is a hard skill to develop, this like noticing the pattern thing that I'm talking about. But as I said, it is rooted in good listening. And so that's where you need to start with this. It requires that pattern recognition. And in order to recognize a pattern, you need to be listening for repeated thoughts, repeated behaviors, repeated emotional responses.
and noticing those. And then of course you need to get comfortable slowing things down, pausing the session, and then actually stating the thing, the hard thing. Now coaches often hesitate and feel nervous or anxious about naming the thing, whether that's the elephant in the room or it's the limiting belief that's keeping somebody stuck, because they don't want to be wrong. And I get that. Here's how I handle that. So practically speaking, here's my little tip for that.
I don't say, I'm hearing X.
and I think X might be this. I don't do that. I say, I have heard you say a few times this statement and I think that that's really interesting. And my intuition is telling me that this might be something that would be really helpful for us to explore more. Or my experience tells me that this might be something that's keeping you stuck. But my intuition is only about 90%. Sometimes I get it wrong. I would love to know how that lands. When I say that, how does that feel to you?
I leave some space for me being wrong, because of course I'm wrong sometimes. Everybody's wrong sometimes. I do have good intuition and I do have loads and loads of experience coaching, but I'm not always right. And so I'll say, you know what, my gut's saying or my spidey senses or something like that, but you know, I might be wrong. What do you think? How does it make you feel when I say this? Right? So you don't need to like state it as though it's the fact. You just need to acknowledge that you're thinking or you're curious about whether this might be at play here.
when you're naming it and that can feel a lot safer. The other thing I think we worry about sometimes is upsetting the client, which is a legitimate concern when you're raising like the big thing in the room or like a really powerful limiting belief that feels very, very true to them. Either one of those things can feel a little bit scary for a client and so it can sometimes evoke like an emotional response. You might see some tears for example, or you might see the client like visibly anxious or look like they're shutting down.
that can happen, but that is okay. You can make space for that as a coach. And one of the other really key skills of a good coach is learning how to do exactly that, hold space for big emotions and help people feel them and process them. And again, that is something that there's a whole unit module on inside the CCSI on that, because I think that's a really important skill. You can handle that. You need to make space for it. And just like, again, not something I can...
cover in this episode, but I think a little tip on that would be when you notice that emotion happening to acknowledge it and to say no need to like apologize for that. What that tells me is that we've really, we've really hit on something important here. This, this topic we're talking about really is meaningful and important and worth spending some time on. Your emotion just tells me that this thing really matters. So thank you for feeling comfortable enough to share it here. So,
There are ways to manage some of those fears that we have about like stopping the session and calling out the thing, but we need to get better at it. So I really want to encourage you to work on a couple of things. First of all, the act of listening, like getting really good at listening, paying attention to body language, when people's tone changes, people become emotional or when people's body language shifts, those can all be signs that something is happening here.
that is important that you're not talking about. And also getting comfortable, you know, naming it. So getting better at naming the thing, which I'm just throwing out as a challenge for you this week. Start listening for those repeated patterns and just try it. Try it in a really safe way. Say, hey, I've noticed that you've said this thing a few times. What do you think that's about? And do you think that that might be worth talking about? Or have you noticed that? Or am I like, am I, you know?
Well, you wouldn't say that about something you've noticed, but if it's like the elephant in the room, you might say, I'm thinking like we've come back around to this topic. Like I'm thinking maybe my intuition is telling me this might be important. Like am I way off base here? Do it in a safe way that feels safe, but try it this week. Just challenge yourself to do that. Now, before we go, I just wanted to take a second to talk about the CCSI, because I've mentioned it a couple of times in this podcast episode. The Confident Coaching Skills Intensive.
is starting in mid-March. I think it's March 11 it starts, it runs for 10 weeks. There are only 12 spots in this program, I only run it once a year. It is a really a very, very value-based program. It's very, it's fun. It's very comprehensive. It is designed to help you build your confidence as a coach. That's what it's about. It's not about the business of coaching.
We do talk about some client management stuff. We talk about how to set yourself up for the most valuable, for your client to have the most valuable coaching experience with you. We talk about things to talk about in the first call. We talk about how to establish value in every session with your client and how to get great feedback and testimonials from clients. But mostly we talk about some of the most common big life coaching things that come up that you're not prepared for oftentimes. So these elephants in the room that come up and how to coach people through that.
I don't just give you all of my powerful questions and coaching exercises and things that I use around those topics. I also teach by example. So it's part module where I give you all the tools, I talk about all of the things you need to know about that area of coaching, and I give you resources and cheat sheets and all the rest of it. But I also have a 90 minute session every week where we talk about that topic. There's an opportunity for you to ask questions, to talk about how it's playing out in your coaching practice.
And then I will teach by example, I will do a coaching, a live coaching exercise and show you how I do it. And then you also get a chance to practice coach and get really kind, positive feedback from me. My goal with this program is to build you up, not to in any way tear you down. I know you're already a good coach. My goal is to help make you an excellent, confident coach. And so if you're...
Looking for more support in that area if you feel like look I got this certification or this training But then I didn't get anything after that and I don't feel like I'm a good coach This is the program for you go and check it out. The link is in the show notes I would love to meet you there. You do not need to have worked with me in a business context We will have probably members of the group who have or are currently working with me inside the BBB But we will also have people join us from outside of that. So Whatever your situation is if you're looking to get more confident
you're looking to feel like you're adding more value to client sessions and you're looking to be able to create new fun programming outside of whatever the narrow scope is that you feel comfortable and confident in right now, this program is for you.
Thank you for listening today. Let's keep it real in 2026 and I'll see you on the next episode of The Coaching Edge.
