Episode #95 ~ Embracing Identity: The Intersection of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender in Professional Coaching with guest, Matthew Bennett
May 13, 2024
Garry Schleifer
Unlock the hidden facets of your professional potential by engaging with the sensitive but significant subjects of sex, sexuality, and gender. Our latest episode features a riveting conversation with ICF-certified coach Matthew Bennett, who brings his article in choice Magazine to life, guiding us through the complex implications these themes have in the coaching industry. Matthew, an advocate for marginalized communities, provides nuanced perspectives on incorporating such explicit content into coaching, pushing the envelope on what it means to achieve profound coaching outcomes.
Prepare to redefine authenticity in the workplace as we dissect the integration of personal identities and experiences in professional settings. Matthew and I emphasize the creation of a secure environment for clients, allowing them to divulge their full selves, which is pivotal for impactful coaching. By focusing on clear communication through active listening and asking the right questions, we ensure no client's needs are misunderstood. Dive into this episode and access Matthew's resources, including an e-book and a course on non-conventional professional integration, propelling you towards mastering life's complex dimensions.
Matthew has provided a sample of his online course for our listeners which you can find here. Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
Unlock the hidden facets of your professional potential by engaging with the sensitive but significant subjects of sex, sexuality, and gender. Our latest episode features a riveting conversation with ICF-certified coach Matthew Bennett, who brings his article in choice Magazine to life, guiding us through the complex implications these themes have in the coaching industry. Matthew, an advocate for marginalized communities, provides nuanced perspectives on incorporating such explicit content into coaching, pushing the envelope on what it means to achieve profound coaching outcomes.
Prepare to redefine authenticity in the workplace as we dissect the integration of personal identities and experiences in professional settings. Matthew and I emphasize the creation of a secure environment for clients, allowing them to divulge their full selves, which is pivotal for impactful coaching. By focusing on clear communication through active listening and asking the right questions, we ensure no client's needs are misunderstood. Dive into this episode and access Matthew's resources, including an e-book and a course on non-conventional professional integration, propelling you towards mastering life's complex dimensions.
Matthew has provided a sample of his online course for our listeners which you can find here. Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
Garry Schleifer:
Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode we go, hey go figure, beyond the page of the articles published in choice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching, exploring the content, interviewing the talented minds, like Matthew, behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. choice is more than a magazine. For over 21 years, we've built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their businesses and, of course, make a difference in their clients' lives, which is what all of us coaches want to do.
Garry Schleifer:
In today's episode, I'm speaking with ICF-certified coach Matthew Bennett, who's the author of an article in our latest issue "Unspeakables Uncomfortable Topics we Avoid that Impact Coaching Outcomes. The article is entitled Sex, sexuality and Gender. A little bit about Matthew he has over 550 hours of experience coaching people from all walks of life. He has over 550 hours of experience coaching people from all walks of life. His background is in international education, assessment, business development, sales and leadership.
Garry Schleifer:
Matthew started coaching to empower those whom society leaves on the sidelines, members of the LGBT, I guess it's Q plus now, and kinky communities and sex workers. He truly believes that people who live more integrated lives can become more successful and fulfilled. Matthew has trained and presented in over 13 countries across Europe and Asia, managed multi-million pound projects and led teams of people in a range of organizations. His book Mastering Life has been downloaded hundreds of times and his webinar series Mastering Life Shorts continues to draw on people who want to learn more about integrating life and work. He now divides his time between online coaching, training and running his incredibly successful OnlyFans and JustForFans pages. This success has only happened by treating online content creation as a startup business, applying good practices in brand development, planning, development, sales and marketing. Matthew, thank you so much for joining me today.
Matthew Bennett:
Thanks so much for having me here, Garry.
Garry Schleifer:
Wow, okay, I've known you for years and I read this and I'm like, oh my goodness. So there's no surprise why you are our champion for marketing for the Gay Coaches Alliance, which is how we first met. So thank you for all that and wow, welcome. And thank you for writing for choice.
Matthew Bennett:
Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure and I've really enjoyed the experience.
Garry Schleifer:
Awesome, it was easy, right? Tell everybody it was easy.
Matthew Bennett:
It was really easy, just got on my computer, put some words together and then choice sort of coached me through the rest. It was wonderful.
Garry Schleifer:
Thank you. To those of you listening who are wondering, we do have an editor, so don't worry so much about it. Just put your wisdom into words and then away you go. Well, I kind of, from your bio,
Matthew Bennett:
I think one of the things that has really struck me since I first started coach training was where coaches aren't supposed to go in conversation. You know we talk a lot in ICF based training about the difference between therapy and coaching, for example, and sometimes some of the conversations that I have with my clients are right there in that gray area and also because of the things that I do in life. I mean you mentioned some of my more explicit stuff. That stuff has basically got me banned from many organisations who would be very scared to work with me, which sort of makes me very aware of the fact that a lot of coaches and their clients would be afraid of talking about certain issues, certain parts of their life, as explicitly as they possibly need to, and so therefore, when it was unspeakables I was like, yes, this sounds like my bag.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. Well, you know what, and it really is. I mean, you're, what we call your brand name, is English Leather Master, and here you are very much speaking, open and, and I'll admit, reading it for me, especially the part about the person that revealed that they like to be spanked, was uncomfortable for me to read. I'm like, oh my gosh, what are people going to think? And then I thought, well, yeah, so what are they going to think.
Garry Schleifer:
Go back to your point about therapy and I love how you say it, by the way, the difference between therapy and coaching, so, and it is a gray area. And I think we all know now that just because there's some conversation about the past doesn't mean it's an issue. If it's an issue, it might be a different modality, but go ahead.
Matthew Bennett:
No, no, absolutely. I mean, I've had clients who have had overbearing parents and trauma in their childhood and things like that and PTSD, and none of that is to do with sex or sexuality. We need to know about that because every now and then, you know, for one of my CEO clients I was like your mum's talking again, isn't she? And it was his Asian mum who was nitpicking in the back of his head telling him the way he should be. That's just acknowledging that the past exists, but that's not therapy. It's not trying to fix the past, it's not trying to go back there. So that's what it's all about, I suppose. It's just going okay The the analogy I often give about coaching is almost like having a woman's handbag purse, turning it upside down, seeing all this stuff and going, okay, how come I've got three lip glosses and four mirrors, but I don't have a hairbrush. If you have to hide what you're shaking out, then we have a problem.
Garry Schleifer:
Wow, that's a great analogy. I love that. First of all, so much can be revealed in a woman's handbag for sure. I've never been thoroughly through one. Honestly, my mom wouldn't let me touch it for love, nor money, but no, no. But when you watch women pull all this stuff out, it's like an endless bag isn't that what life is like. It's just this endless pursuit of what's in that handbag of your life.
Garry Schleifer:
like that. Well, so that brings us to some of the topics that you're talking about. That first story you told in the article blew me away. I know you coded it with meditation and yoga, but, and that kind of I was like, what's he talking about? Oh, I get it now, it's a pseudonym kind of thing, right, and that the coach backed away from the coaching engagement and saying it was, what was it unethical or against their ethics?
Matthew Bennett:
Yeah, and I know this happens. I know this happens for lots of people in lots of different ways. I mean, it happens to me in my professional life right now when someone stupidly didn't do the due diligence of looking at my website and wondering what on earth I was into and after a very long conversation with this company and I was like you do know what I do, don't you? It's on my email on the footer. I got the email back saying, Thank you very much, but we've done our due diligence.
Matthew Bennett:
But I've had other examples of people who are not as explicit in their lives but they're married to another man if they're male or they're a trans person or something like this, and their coach clashes with them because of their belief or their identity, and that's very problematic. And there's a great book called Straight Jacket about gay identities and growing up as gay, and this is only about being gay, but it's a great way of thinking about these things. Basically every single gay man has until probably in the last 10, 15 years, gone through life believing as a child that they were inherently wrong.
Matthew Bennett:
Qs Brené Brown says, that the shame is when you believe that you are wrong. So a lot of people have got shame amongst about their identities and if we do anything at all, as coaches, to add to that shame even if it's by avoiding a conversation, then you're making your client work really hard. You're making them self- censor, and that's never going to be a good thing. And then if you've also, on top of that, got the fear of the coach or whoever is helping that person sacking you as a client or talking to your employer or someone else in a tripartite agreement about your identity and what you're into, then the amount of stress and how can they possibly be present and fully able to be their full selves within your conversations?
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, no kidding. Well, even the ICF, the core competencies, one of the core competencies suggests that we find out as much, or invite the client to bring as much of themselves into the conversation as possible. And you know the easy ones may sound weird now, but the easy ones now are the obvious DEI and B ones. So when I'm working with a woman, I say, okay, I'm obviously a white man, because we do things by zoom. I'm a white man of privilege and you're a woman. I don't want you to ever feel that you can't talk about us guys to me in our coaching conversations. Right. And then, you know, delve deeper into what else. I keep asking all the time what else do I need to know in order to fully work with you at 100 percent?
Matthew Bennett:
I love that. I love that. One of the things that's really interesting as a white gay man is I didn't really. I mean, how many of us didn't realize our privilege?
Matthew Bennett:
But I most noticed my privilege when I went and started working in Asia and that's the first time I realised that when I walk into a room, people make an assumption about me that I didn't know. In that case it was actually in my favour and literally was my job, was white man in suit, preferably with beard, and I was saying exactly the same as my Asian colleagues. I hated it, by the way, and I probably got sacked because I stated how much I hated it publicly. I was put on a stage to say exactly the same thing as my Asian colleagues, but people believed me because I was a white man. That worked in my favor, but it was a bit oh.
Matthew Bennett:
But it also made me recognize that as a gay man, I can hide that part of my identity. So I can walk in a room and as long as I keep my wrists straight and don't wear my rainbow flags and all of those things, then I can hide and let out as much as I want. So a person of colour or a woman clearly can't do that, and I'm certainly not saying that they have it any less hard. But it's a different set of problems that people who have got something internal about their identity or their sexuality or their interests. They can hold that back. And then there's always that stress about okay, how much of this can I bring forwards and show to people? And that's, I think, the crux of what I'm trying to help people understand is that sometimes people are hiding stuff about themselves that they may not feel comfortable or they don't know that they're safe in sharing.
Garry Schleifer:
And I think that's on the coach to continue to stress the confidential nature of the conversations. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me you know I've never told anybody this. Boom, right, because I built a really strong foundation of confidentiality right from the get-go and I keep reminding them. Like when I work with executive clients, I said I don't know who your boss is, I don't report to them because it isn't that way. And I'll say we can talk about you staying in the company, we can talk about you not staying in the company, it doesn't matter to me. And sometimes you just get this sense of relief. It doesn't mean they wanted to leave, but having the possibility of talking about did you even just check what's going on on the other side of the fence, would just make them so much more at ease.
Garry Schleifer:
I'm going to quote something that you said in the article that really stood out for me. A lot of it did. I could have highlighted the whole bloody thing. We don't become new people when we walk into and out of the office. We bring with us the emotions, the stress, the energy and so much more than we had just before walking through the door. Coaches who don't acknowledge the people side of their clients and only stick to the workplace challenges are unlikely to be as effective as those who go on beyond the surface level of their clients' lives opening the floor and the door for deep discussions that really make a difference to our client's success." Brilliant. And I think what we're just saying right now it's like if we can be our authentic selves and not hide who we are. I mean, like you said, there's some obvious things who we are, but hiding gay isn't in service of anyone and it doesn't show that we are open.
Matthew Bennett:
Yeah, yeah, there's also another layer to this, actually, and that's the fact that we miss patterns. So I've had conversations with people in session one. I'm very open about your time is your time. You can talk about whatever you want in your time with me. I am not one of these coaches who has a pattern with clients, but session one we'll do this, session two. So people come to me and they'll be like today I want to talk about relationships, tomorrow I want to talk about, and the next time they'll come along and they'll be talking about their leadership and quite a lot exactly the same thing is happening in different areas of someone's life. So their relationship with their partner is exactly the same as their relationship with their co-workers, or that they've got the same problems. And if we completely focus on one thing, we're missing the big picture that they've got an issue with whatever it is.
Garry Schleifer:
Right, yeah, no, exactly, I totally get it. There's's so many similarities. You can't just take your personal life suit off when you walk in the door and put on your suit. Taking a bit of a different direction. So we're talking a lot about sex and sexuality in your article and here and you know, holding a truth. What's the best way to bring it up, though? How do you introduce it into a coaching conversation?
Matthew Bennett:
I don't think you do. I think the honest answer is I don't think you do. I think you listen for when the door is open and you make sure that the door can stay open. So I think you're absolutely right. That feeling of trust, safety, confidentiality, all of those things are really important. One of the things I quite often say to my clients is like Matthew wants to know it all, but your coach doesn't need to know. So tell your coach what he needs to know. But, Matthew, if we were sitting there with a pint, I'd be like, oh, who is he and what was he doing and what? Yeah, so by being open to that sort of stuff, so tell me as much as you need to tell me, but also listening out for those little breadcrumbs and I said it in the article about it's those words it's when someone's avoiding the name of their partner, for example, is a really, really big one.
Matthew Bennett:
The reason that right now down here, I don't know if you'll see on the recording, I've got he and him next to my name on the Zoom window. I'm pretty masculine, I'm a cis guy. You wouldn't assume I was anything other than he and him, but that is there for anyone who might think that that's an important thing to them to be able to say. So it's leaving those breadcrumbs and listening out for anything and just being really, really open and saying you know, you can tell me that if you want to. If it's useful to tell me the stuff that you need to tell me, just tell me. It stays here. But as with everything else in coaching, you leave it lightly and don't sit there going, oh no, no, I really want to know what you over the weekend and who you did it with. The details aren't important is what will forward the coaching conversation?
Garry Schleifer:
The details aren't important as is what will forward the coaching conversation? Yeah, absolutely. How true. How many times? Just to finish up that point. A long time ago the key, the code to thinking that somebody was gay was they would talk about their partner. They would never talk about a girlfriend, boyfriend. It was just a partner. And then all of a sudden, it became okay for everybody straight, gay, everybody to use partner. So it got really confusing right. So to your point about opening the door, it's like you have to listen a lot harder these days.
Matthew Bennett:
Exactly that thing happened to me. Randomly, I was in a taxi, sharing a taxi to an immigration office in Bangkok with this lady who I'd never met before, and she kept talking about her spouse. And straight people don't talk about their spouse, they talk about their husband or their wife. And so I was just like, what's your spouse's name, by the way? And that opened up the conversation and it turned out, yes, her spouse was a lady and therefore we got on much more easily by listening to that.
Garry Schleifer:
Right. Isn't that the point, though, of all of it? You just said it right there. It's so much easier to have a conversation when you've cleared the decks of those unspoken things.
Matthew Bennett:
Yes, and if there is an unspoken thing that you're not sure, I've heard you use the word spouse three or four times. Can I just check if there's something you'd like to tell me at this point? Everything will stay in this room and let them. Most people who are right at that point of being open want to say it, because they're really working hard not to say the thing. I know this from a game and you must know this as well, Garry, that when someone is open to it and asks ask you questions, then actually you're quite happy to answer because, unless it's the biology of the thing, I personally quite enjoy it when someone asks me questions that they don't quite get. My brother texted me the other day with some sort of detailed questions about gay dating and I was like you know what this came from my nephew.
Matthew Bennett:
I was like you know what he wants to know? If he wants to know, I'll tell him the stuff, because he's asked the question. I'm not going to give him more information. Most people would be quite up for that. So if someone comes into you and says I'm in a polyamorous relationship, for example, and you don't quite know what that means, then say can you explain that to me? Give me the three minute short version of that so I can be on the same page as you. Tell me as much as I need to know for our conversations.
Garry Schleifer:
Oh, thank you so much, because that was one of my questions was when these things come up and I can't keep track of the polyamorous and this, and that. All the time I have to look it up. But, to your point, you know how do you deal with it? Just ask them. It's like you would ask about anything else. What does that mean? Because even polyamory or leadership either word it means something different to everybody.
Matthew Bennett:
Absolutely, and you know we've all done that thing as coaches where someone's talking about something. One thing I don't tend to do is I don't tend to check someone's LinkedIn before they contact me because I have no idea what they're going to be talking about. So I wait for them to expose their story to me. So they'll be sitting there and they'll be going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and and there'll be buzzwords in there or words about companies and things, and every now and then I'll just be like until I heard this three times, I don't really need to know it because it's just them talking. It's coming out. After they've said the name of their company or the name of their co-worker and as they said, can I just stop you? You said Sam three times. Who is Sam in this story because I'm a little bit confused. What part of gray sexual do I need to understand in order to move forward with your life coaching?
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, exactly. You have right away, reminded of a client I recently started to work with and to your point, I waited. I didn't realize I did that, but I waited a few times and I said, OK, you mentioned this a few times. What's a QBR, Quarterly review? To him it was duh, but to me it was like could have been you know something else?
Matthew Bennett:
And that's a really good example, so you know. So, from that point of view, the first time someone says it probably didn't matter. By the time it was three times,
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, exactly, and it goes the same with sexuality, gender identity. W hen they do present it, what does that mean to you? What is your life like? Because what do I need to know in order for us to move forward in these coaching conversations? Really no different than anything else they bring up.
Matthew Bennett:
Yeah, absolutely.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, wow, well, I feel better about it now. I didn't think I had a problem, but you've given me some insights now today and I hope our listeners and readers get that too. That it's just sexual identity leadership, like just ask, like no need to be uncomfortable. It's not our life we're dealing with, it's their life. Be with them, ask them about it.
Matthew Bennett:
Actually, I'd go a step further. If your understanding seems to be slightly different from what they're talking about, I think it, you know, in in leadership. So you said you were a leader, but you've been talking about this. Can you explain? Can I understand? Can I step back and understand what you mean by that word? And I thought you said this about your relationship, but then you've said that, so I'm slightly working too hard in my head. Can we just work it out? So move forwards. So to clarify.
Garry Schleifer:
f we're going like this, let's go like this. I need help to get back over here and let's get back. Being in service, anything we can do to be in service. Wow, brilliant Matthew. What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation?
Matthew Bennett:
I've got a website englishleathermaster. com. It is safer work, although it doesn't sound like it. Make sure you don't google my name, because that's not safe work if you look for other things. Englishleathermaster. com and the two places I'd go to if you're going to look for more information and what I'm all about. I've got an e-book that I wrote a few years back called Mastering Life. You can download that or you could go to englishleathermaster. com/ ksiw and I've produced a course about kink skills in the workplace. I talk about how you can use concepts like consent or boundaries or personas or punishment in your safer workplace and HR won't be upset.
Garry Schleifer:
That sounds very interesting.
Garry Schleifer:
So thank you for that. Well, and you've also answered the question. The best way to reach you, I guess, is englishleathermaster. com. That's exactly it. That's perfect, perfect. And, like you said, don't google his name unless it's in private. That's it.
Matthew Bennett:
Thank you so much, Garry.
Garry Schleifer:
Oh, thank you. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, like you did to get here today. If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button, or going to that QR code right there and get a free issue. I did it right this time. Yay, I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Matthew.
