Episode #47 ~ Mentor Coaches ~ The case for having one with guest, Laura Berman Fortgang

In this interview, we talk with Laura Berman Fortgang about her article entitled, "Mentor Coaches ~ The case for having one."

In the beginning, a mentor coach was someone who could help build your practice and your coaching skillset by modeling it in your coaching relationship with them and by receiving direct growth and goal-oriented guidance as prescribed by the milestones you wanted to reach.  Today, we have some many choices that go beyond one-on-one coaching, which vary in price point, content, instruction and goals.  How do you choose a mentor coach?

In this podcast, we will discuss why you need a mentor coach, what the coaching trends are for 2023, and what coaches need to know around AI?

Laura is an award-winning coach known internationally as a pioneer in the personal coaching field. She is also a best-selling author, sought-after speaker, TV personality, corporate spokesperson, interfaith minister and performer. Her TedX talk currently boasts over 1.8 million view. 

Laura's five books are published in 13 languages. She has addressed audiences around the world on topics such as Reinventions, Career Satisfaction and Small Business as well as bringing coaching to diverse clients ranging from homemakers to celebrities and Fortune 100 companies.

Join us as we discuss why everyone needs a mentor coach in their business.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-LauraBermanFortgang

Learn more about Laura here.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Laura about her article published in our March 2023 issue.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to Beyond the Page. I'm Garry Schleifer, the publisher of choice, The Magazine of Professional Coaching. I've been publishing now for over 20 years. Can you believe it? Wow. And of course, it's more than just a magazine, as you can tell by the podcast and the other things we do. It's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses. And of course, what we all want to do, impact our clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years dedicated to improving the lives of coaches and their clients. In today's episode, I'm thrilled to be speaking with my dear friend Laura Berman Fortgang, who's the author of an article in our latest issue entitled Mentor Coaches- The Case for having one. Laura is an award-winning coach known internationally as a pioneer in the personal coaching field. Laura's also a bestselling author, sought after speaker, TV personality on Oprah and All National Morning Shows. She's a corporate spokesperson, interfaith minister, and the part I love, love, love about her is she's also a performer. Her TEDx talk currently boasts over 1.8 million views. Really? Wow. Laura's five books are published in 13 Languages. She has addressed audiences around the world on topics such as reinvention, career satisfaction, and small business, as well as bringing coaching to diverse clients, ranging from homemakers to celebrities and Fortune 100 companies. I'd love to know more, but of course we are under confidentiality. She's known for her unique career clarity Now What Methodology and her a-list coach business mentoring program. Welcome, Laura. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2 2:07

Thank you. What a mouthful full of bio, but you did very well.

Speaker 1 2:10

Full of bio, right? And it didn't even include what you do and did for us. So you were on the editorial board from day one and saw us through many ups and downs in the 20 years. You've contributed this article and one of my favorite images of you is standing in front of a coach audience going"Every profession has a magazine and this is yours. Go get choice Magazine." So I love that. I love that. And of course, the performances were fun too. What was her name?

Speaker 2 2:46

Life Coach Lerlean.

Speaker 1 2:47

Lerlean. In that Leopard Pantsuit. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 2:55

For those of you who don't know, for a four year period, I had a character who was a life coach, wore leopard pants, had a very big Dolly Partner wig, but in with dark hair. And her dream was to coach all the people in the People magazine because they didn't seem very happy with their lives, and they had everything and it was a good fun time.

Speaker 1 3:16

Notice that there was a little accent there, folks. She went into character.

Speaker 2 3:19

It comes right in. It comes right in. The minute we say Lerlean, it just comes right in.

Speaker 1 3:25

It's like Lerlean was made to have a southern twang.

Speaker 2 3:29

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 3:30

Made to be said with a southern twang. Oh my goodness. So, well, love the article by the way. It really gave me a different perspective on mentor coaching. Okay. So I'll tell you more.

Speaker 2 3:44

Tell me more about that.

Speaker 1 3:45

Yeah. Well, so, well, first I want to ask you why you decided to write it.

Speaker 2 3:50

Oh, because I value the relationships that I had with my early mentor coaches so much and I've been very public facing with my coaching. I tended to coach less coaches and more the public so I wasn't a mentor coach for a long time, and I've recently turned back to mentor coaching through my A-list Business Mentoring Program. And so it's really fresh for me, like how much mentor coaching has changed, I feel, from watching the trajectory over 32 years of my career in coaching and what I think a mentor coach should be versus what it's come to be defined as.

Speaker 1 4:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:33

Just like coaching itself, it's gotten watered down to like one-on-one teaching. You could even say you have a mentor coach who's never been trained as a coach. And that just blows my mind.

Speaker 1 4:46

Well, the coach brand is actually a handbag. So, you know.

Speaker 2 4:53

Yes. It was a handbag first, right? Then it was shoes.

Speaker 1 4:58

When I read the article, you wrote it in a way, and listeners, you have to read it, you wrote it in a way that wasn't asingular conversation. And by that, I mean, all the other articles I was reading was clearly about coaching, supervision and mentor coaching, and the distinction between the two, which is great, that's all great. But then under mentor coaching, you went from a very pure mentor coaching on the core competencies and the technical skill to be coaching at the level that you want to be or, or aiming to be. So ACC, PCC or MCC. What I found really interesting is you expanded it to being, what is it that you need help with in your coaching sphere, period. And about are you making a ton of money? Are you getting enough clients? So you literally took, oh, I'm getting it now. It's like you took the two words apart and said, here's a mentor helping you with your coaching. Coaching delivery, coaching business, coaching da da da. Which I found a bit more inclusive and eye-opening because I kept thinking, they're only going to coach me on this and I was like, well, they don't have to.

Speaker 2 6:27

No, no. I mean, before there were competencies, my mentor coach was like, okay, here's this person who does this thing that I want to do. I was a client first though. That's the other thing. I was a client first before I even thought about becoming a coach. Then I started being like, I think I want to do what you do and Coach University was just starting and I started with Coach University, and then my mentor coach was like, not only had they been my life coach, then they were teaching me how t o coach helping me start my business and supervising me all in one package. That was even before there was any definitions of anything. So I still feel like the mentor coach process, it's like you, why do you wanna have a mentor coach? I think it will accelerate your capacity, your skill level. It will accelerate the development of your practice and it'll accelerate your development, your transformation. I think it's essential and I personally have had mentor coaches, other people who are my peers or mentor c oach, a coach like me. Then there's other times t hat I go, well, I really need a health coach right now. I really need to work on my health, o r I need to work on some other specialty. But I always come back to someone who is doing something I want to be doing who is trained as a coach to be my mentor coach.

Speaker 1 7:52

Yeah. Key words trained as a coach.

Speaker 2 7:55

Oh, I mean, I've always been on the get train train, Now more than ever. Now more than ever. And people ask me all the time, does the MCC really matter? Does the credentialing really matter? And I have to say, over the years, I kept up my credential more out of solidarity for building a strong profession but I have now entered corporate settings where the head of HR greeted me and said, I don't let anyone who's not an MCC work with my people. You helped create the ICF, thank goodness. So it's actually changed for the better in that regard, at least corporately speaking. I still think that the public is not as educated as the corporate setting is around coaching.

Speaker 1 8:43

Yeah. Well you've been like you said, how many? 32 years.

Speaker 2 8:48

32 years. I always get afraid. I was saying over 25 for so long and I decided to count. I was like whoa. It's 32.

Speaker 1 8:58

So you started when you were five,.

Speaker 2 9:00

Yes. Yes. I started when I was five. When I was five, I was a natural born coach. In fact, I gave birth to Thomas Leonard. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 9:12

No, it's funny. Well, truly you're a longtime veteran of the coaching world, and you've already mentioned some things that have changed like how everything was one and now it's starting to divide into clear sections. Well, first of all, tell us what was your involvement in the beginning of the coaching profession?

Speaker 2 9:31

Sure. Like I said, I was one of the first 16 students on Coach University. We were handed a 15 pound packet of paper that came in the mail. I think I did 13 of the 36 modules and the student body was growing so quickly that I had to become a teacher. I had to become a trainer. And then our trainer team had had no training. So I became the first Director of Training for Coach University and created a training for the trainers, Train the Trainer. But I instantly went off into the world and I was like, this technology is amazing. I started speaking at gyms inside of companies. It was the only place I could get in without any credentials. The right manager saw me at a free lunch talk and said, I need you for my team and that was my first corporate check. So I built this corporate career out of nothing. But then back to the development of the field, the same 16 people started the ICF around Thomas Leonard.

Speaker 1 10:41

Oh, I did not know that.

Speaker 2 10:43

Yes. And then there was a California contingent called the Professional Coaches Association and then they merged. I was one of the first people sitting around going, we better police ourselves because this is an unlicensed field. So we started trying to create ethics and standards and definitions of coaching. And then Madeline Homan Blanchard.

Speaker 1 11:06

Maddie. Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:07

We were like, this is going to be big in corporate and neither of us had huge corporate work at this point. We started the corporate coaching committee within the International Coach Federation. In the beginning, everyone who was the president of the ICF became the president by like, oh, okay, so it's not going to be Thomas. Okay, it'll be you. The first four were nobody voted and it was just handpicked. I turned it down. I was the youngest of the group and I just felt way too intimidated to be leading like the other people but I was on the board for several years of ICF. Your magazine from the beginning was so professionally done. When I was first approached to be on the board of the magazine. I was like, o h, how good could it be? And then I saw the spreadsheets or whatever you'd call the samples.

Speaker 1 12:02

Run sheet.

Speaker 2 12:03

And I was like, oh my God, this is legit and I definitely had to have my name on that and be involved.

Speaker 1 12:10

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 12:12

I'll never be likely to repeat being at the ground floor of something like that again. What a gift to my life. What a gift.

Speaker 1 12:22

And a gift to us, so thank you. And just a gift to our profession. Thank you for being there, for just doing what needed to be done. No ethics. Let's go do that. I could just picture it too, a bunch of coaches, because that's just what they do.

Speaker 2 12:37

Yeah, no, we were at a meeting of the minds in Jamaica. Sandy Viles, who had been the president by then of Coach U, took us to Jamaica. We had a meeting of the minds and it was like, well, this person has to step down due to other duties. Who's going to be president of the ICF? It was like you do it, you do it.

Speaker 1 13:01

Pick a straw. Any straw.

Speaker 2 13:05

Yeah. Now nobody knows who I am at the ICF. You have to let your child grow up,

Speaker 1 13:11

Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what are some of the biggest changes you've seen and trends you're seeing?

Speaker 2 13:22

Well, we're in an interesting time for coaching, I think. I really spent a lot of time at the end of last year and into this year talking to coaching companies, to recruiters, to companies that hire coaches, just watching my own practice and other people's practices. I think the great resignation, as a result of the pandemic, threw a lot of people calling themselves coaches into the world. I think we're at a tipping point of the commoditization of coaching. I'm hearing of people working for a lot less money than I've heard before. Like BetterUp is a public company for people to get a coach and coaches are working for$80 an hour. It depends on your rate, but it's everywhere. So I think there's a range now. There had always been a range. Corporate coaching's always been more expensive than one on one coaching. The good and the bad. There used to not be anywhere for coaches to work, you had to be self-employed. Now there's places for coaches to work. So that is the upside. Chief has coaches and that's a networking group. BetterUp is a coaching company. There's so many coaching companies.

Speaker 1 14:43

Landis, I think is a combination of a couple old ones.

Speaker 2 14:48

Yeah. I've never heard of them. There are pluses and minuses, right? I see more proliferation than ever, which has led to commoditization. But on the plus side, employee engagement is one of the biggest missings since the pandemic and coaches are all about engagement and know how to coach towards that. Team coaching is huge right now. Even the ICF is giving a credential for that or a certification.

Speaker 1 15:16

Certification credential, something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:19

Yeah. DEI is a huge specialty point if somebody wants to focus on that. The pluses and minuses have always been, the bigger the profession gets, the more competition there is, but at the same time, there's more room for specialization. And I think that that's good too. So those are some of the things I'm seeing, always pluses and minuses, and we'll see. I mean, AI is a concern. Some people are like, can it really replace a coach? I know of companies that sell a very mid-priced thing into corporations where anyone can have a coach because it's really a computer talking to you. I think we're always going to say as coaches that there's that human element and the intuition element that we don't think that AI can duplicate yet, but it's an interesting time. Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 1 16:13

Oh, big time. Well, to your point about AI and commoditization.

Speaker 2 16:20

That's a hard word.

Speaker 1 16:20

It is. It's like methodology. Our next issue in June is going to be about AI and coaching.

Speaker 2 16:29

Oh, good.

Speaker 1 16:31

From what I've read, I don't have a fear about AI. I see it as a tool that can support coaching. You and I have made a lot of changes in our 20 to 32 years of coaching with regards to technology. So I couldn't do half the stuff I'm doing now without the technology. And if we allow AI and technology to support us as a coach, we could just be spending more time coaching.

Speaker 2 17:03

That is true.

Speaker 1 17:03

No spoiler alerts, but you'll have to read the next issue to and decide for yourself whether AI will be a replacement for person to person, human to human coaching. I personally don't think so, but I also try not to be adamant about stuff. And I watched Star Trek and all those shows and all that stuff. Gimme a flip phone. Beam me up, Scotty. It's all gonna happen. Right?

Speaker 2 17:29

Hey, when I was a kid and watched the Jetsons, I was like, wouldn't it be cool if you could see someone on your telephone? And yes, there's FaceTime, there's What'sApp? We can do that. It's, it's pretty amazing. Well, I'd like to think that machines can't replace people and that we'd have more time to coach, but I've always worked with the vision that everyone on the planet is a coach. So I'm guilty for helping this grow so big because I really know that each person you coach, you're touching a hundred lives in their life and they're transforming the way they relate in the world. So it's okay. I have always said, no one planned to be a coach. They didn't know that there was such a thing. So for those of us, if we get squeezed out, there'll be something else that we didn't know we were supposed to do. I try to live in the faith of that, but after 32 years, I've been doing this longer than marriage. I hit 30 years of marriage this year.

Speaker 1 18:24

32 years coaching and only 30 married.

Speaker 2 18:27

Yes. I can't believe I've done anything this long, other than breathing, I guess. There's always an a reinvention and to get back to the mentor coaching thing, that's part of seeking out your mentor coach too. What are you reinventing? Where are you feeling itchy as a coach and where do you want to grow? Is it something with business acumen or is it something in your skill level, wanting to go for your MCC or see where intuition comes in more. There's just so many things to keep exploring and I think that's what a mentor coach can be good for too.

Speaker 1 19:05

Yeah, very much. And to your article and your points, it's not just about the coaching to the core competencies at the level you're seeking or wishing to be at. It's about more than that. So thank you for that expansive view. Personally, I am going for my M CC before my next renewal. I'm not gonna renew PCC, I'm going to be M CC and lo and behold, International Coaching Federation created three distinctions, level one, level two, a nd level three.

Speaker 2 19:44

Of the MCC?

Speaker 1 19:45

No. Of the coach training.

Speaker 2 19:49

Right, right, right.

Speaker 1 19:50

Body of Coach Training Schools now has a clear distinction. And I was listening to a recording by one of our friends and colleagues, Janet Harvey, on kind of a open house about that and that there's now created a distinction that clearly doesn't just make you a PCC plus, it's truly training you to be coaching at an MCC level.

Speaker 2 20:14

Oh, cool. That's good to know.

Speaker 1 20:15

So that was kind of a missing. If you ever get a chance or want it, I can send you the recording. I found it very interesting.

Speaker 2 20:23

I'd love to, I'd love to listen to it. And the competencies have changed, which I don't know how I feel about it yet.

Speaker 1 20:31

Oh, well, again, I went through a training course last year towards the MCC, so unlearning and relearning and some of the things about the core competencies, and by the way, this goes along with mentor coaching so we're still on topic, I found them, although there were fewer, there were more nuances and opportunities. Is that the right way to say it? Within those core competencies and including diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging too. Not just about knowing what your client's background is and how it impacts the coaching, but what about yours? Do you know what your biases are, your origins, your impact? Since the change in the core competencies I've taken on having a part of my intro conversation be about I'm a white guy of privilege, and how will that impact our conversation? Especially when I'm talking to a woman, person of color, younger, older, well actually for anybody. It's like just introducing the fact that you may have some preconceived notions about me, as I might about you. How do we come to a level playing field?

Speaker 2 21:44

Wow. That's a very sensitive conversation. I don't mean sensitive, like touchy, like someone would explode, but sensitive and inclusive to say that.

Speaker 1 21:52

Right. Well, I also was given, oh, I don't even know how to say it. I'll just say it. I'll just blurt it like a coach. There's automatically a power dynamic between coach and client when you come in for most people, and I notice it because a lot of people at some point will say hello sir or goodbye sir. And I'm like, okay and then I have to remember there's cultural things. I'll have that conversation and say I prefer that we're on an equal playing field, and sir puts me at a higher level. We're partners in this journey together. So what can we do to work to have that be in the background of this conversation?

Speaker 2 22:41

That's cool. I haven't run into that. No one's called me, sir.

Speaker 1 22:45

Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 22:49

Or Ma'am.

Speaker 1 22:51

I just want to know where you're going now with your business. With all these changes and things like that, just tell us a little bit about what you're up to and where you're going.

Speaker 2 23:03

Yeah. Well, I've been really lucky, like for 20 years to rely on my Now What Methodology that came from my third book Now What 90 Days to New Life Direction. In the last couple years, like I said, I've started to start mentoring more coaches, but in a group setting, helping them mine their methodology. What is your special sauce? What is your way of coaching as a way to stand out in a very crowded field? So the A-List Coach is my business mentoring program, and that's getting as much attention now as my Now What stuff. So I don't know if it's like going to become all of my time or going to keep doing the two, but it's been really great. Happy to be back in touch with my colleagues and my fellow coaches and moving us all forward.

Speaker 1 23:54

Yeah, thank you. And here at choice we're helping by supporting you with that program. If choice had a gold seal of approval, we'd be giving it to you.

Speaker 2 24:07

The Good Housekeeping Seal.

Speaker 1 24:09

Good Housekeeping

Speaker 2 24:09

The Good choice Seal.

Speaker 1 24:10

The Good choice seal of approval. I'll probably get in trouble for that one.

Speaker 2 24:18

So look out for the A-listcoach. com.

Speaker 1 24:21

It'll be in my weekly recap. For our listening audience, we always have a learning in our weekly recap emails, rather than bombard you with a million emails. We learned that over the past. And we highly recommend anything that this lady touches. Thank you. Anything, anything. You see her speaking? Go. She's got a retreat. Go. All right. So I think it's time for us to say goodbye. I want to ask you one final question.

Speaker 2 24:53

Okay.

Speaker 1 24:54

So you had a limited amount of words to write. We are having this conversation. What do you want our readers and listeners to take away that you want to repeat to get repetition is the mother of invention or something you forgot to say.

Speaker 2 25:09

I don't think I forgot to say anything other than if I could have filled half a page with hire a mentor coach, hire a mentor coach, hire a mentor coach, repeat it over and over again, I probably would've done that because so many people think they can skip the step, especially starting out that. You've already paid for your expensive training, you don't need any more help and you'll get wherever you want to go faster and in the article is a checklist on choosing your mentor coach. So do get that issue and choose wisely.

Speaker 1 25:39

Yeah, definitely. Always a pleasure talking with you. I could talk to you all kinds of stuff and keep going but we stayed on track.

Speaker 2 25:49

We stayed on time, we stayed on track. We're so grateful for anyone watching and listening and Thank you Garry, so much.

Speaker 1 25:55

Thank you. Well, thank you for everything that you've done for us, for the profession, for people who are your readers, your clients, and the hundreds of people they in turn will impact. So thank you. Can you imagine if you multiplied, you have got to get a scientist or a mathematician to do some sort of algorithm that would say, okay, I started with this many clients 32 years ago and they affected this many people. I wouldn't be surprised if you've reached millions.

Speaker 2 26:27

Well, if you add the books to it, definitely.

Speaker 1 26:30

Right? Well, definitely. So there you go.

Speaker 2 26:33

I never think of it that way, but you're making me like blush and get all goosebumped because that's amazing. It doesn't matter what size of practice somebody has, that's the impact you can have as a coach and we want you to have that.

Speaker 1 26:51

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We can go on and on about all the people that you can impact and how many people they impact. But I want to say thank you again for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. What's the best way for people to reach you?

Speaker 2 27:05

The best way to reach me, LauraBermanFortgang.com. If you can remember my name, you can find me. Even if you write Laura Berman, you'll get the Sex Doctor or you'll get me, so you know which one it is.

Speaker 1 27:16

Stay in your lane, people, you're going for the coach.

Speaker 2 27:18

LauraBermanFortgang.com

Speaker 1 27:22

Lovely. Thank you so much. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. Two of the ones we know we're on is Apple and Spotify, and also we publish them on our site and through our email. So thank you. And while you're kicking around on our site, don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button. I'm Gary Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery. Thanks, Laura.