Episode 104: Uncovering the Magic of Coaching: Transformative Insights with guest, Marcia Reynolds
Jul 24, 2024
Garry Schleifer
Unlock the transformative power of coaching in our latest episode featuring Marcia Reynolds, an MCC Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. Marcia shares the magic behind coaching and how to articulate its unique benefits to prospective clients. We discuss her article "Describing Magic: How to Showcase the Value of Coaching to Prospective Clients," and delve into her motivations for writing it. Learn how Marcia has contributed to the development of coaching competencies, and the foundational ICF definition of coaching. Discover the key insights that can help coaches understand and communicate the true essence of their work more effectively.
But that's not all—prepare to be fascinated by the concept of middle brain activation through coaching. Marcia explains how coaching triggers brain activity, fostering creativity and generating innovative solutions, supported by a compelling study from Spain. Hear how coaching stands apart from mentoring and therapy by offering an external perspective that enhances both personal and professional growth. Finally, get the latest on Marcia’s new coaching class, "Deep Dive Live Intensive," and find out how you can connect with her. Don't miss this chance to enrich your understanding of coaching’s transformative power and learn how to create impactful experiences for your clients.
Unlock the transformative power of coaching in our latest episode featuring Marcia Reynolds, an MCC Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. Marcia shares the magic behind coaching and how to articulate its unique benefits to prospective clients. We discuss her article "Describing Magic: How to Showcase the Value of Coaching to Prospective Clients," and delve into her motivations for writing it. Learn how Marcia has contributed to the development of coaching competencies, and the foundational ICF definition of coaching. Discover the key insights that can help coaches understand and communicate the true essence of their work more effectively.
But that's not all—prepare to be fascinated by the concept of middle brain activation through coaching. Marcia explains how coaching triggers brain activity, fostering creativity and generating innovative solutions, supported by a compelling study from Spain. Hear how coaching stands apart from mentoring and therapy by offering an external perspective that enhances both personal and professional growth. Finally, get the latest on Marcia’s new coaching class, "Deep Dive Live Intensive," and find out how you can connect with her. Don't miss this chance to enrich your understanding of coaching’s transformative power and learn how to create impactful experiences for your clients.
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. In each episode we go, hey, go figure, beyond the page 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 and interviewing the talented mind, see if I get it right, she's over there, I think, 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, techniques to add value to the business and, of course, to make a difference with their clients. We always say that, right?, and it's never changed.
Garry Schleifer:
In today's episode, I'm speaking with MCC Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, Marcia Reynolds, who's the author of an article in our latest issue "A Livelihood from Coaching Feasible or Fanciful. Her article is entitled Describing Magic how to Showcase the Value of Coaching to Perspective Clients. A little bit about Marcia. She's a world-renowned expert on how to showcase the value of coaching to prospective clients. A little bit about Marsha. She's a world-renowned expert on how to evoke transformation through conversations. She is on the faculty for coaching schools in the US, china, eastern Europe and the Philippines. That's one I've never heard you say. She's spoken at conferences and taught workshops in 43 countries on leadership topics and coaching skills, and taught workshops in 43 countries on leadership topics and coaching skills. Global Gurus has recognized her as one of the top five coaches in the world for six years. Congratulations, I did not know that either. Her books include international bestsellers.
Garry Schleifer:
Coach the Person, not the Problem ( Have it); Wander Woman, Outsmart Your Brain (got it); This is Comfort Zone (read it); and her latest, right over her shoulder there you can see it, Breakthrough Coaching ~ creating light bulb moments in your coaching conversations. And the one thing I would also say is she had a lot to do with the beginning of coaching and competencies. She's on the assessor group. You were the past President of ICF as well, if I'm not mistaken. Number five. She was number five and we're also honored to have you, Marcia, on the Editorial Board for choice Magazine from the beginning, 21 years ago. So thank you.
Marica Reynolds:
Love the magazine.
Garry Schleifer:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So do I, so do I. So you wrote this wonderful article. How did you decide to write it at this time? What called you to do it?
Marica Reynolds:
Well, the reason even why I write books is because, cause I always say I'm not going to write another book.
Garry Schleifer:
My books later yeah.
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, but then it's like I listen to coaches and you know I work with teach them and I hear things that are missing and I'm like, ah, I have to write the book.
Marica Reynolds:
I do a little bit more research and understand why this is important and share it. I mean, that's like my top values is learning and sharing and helping people grow. And one thing that, you know, the whole concept of trying to tell people what coaching is and it's amazing to me these days how so many people don't know what coaching is wherever we go and, you know, it's one of the reasons I don't date anymore. I'm tired of explaining coaching. Oh, that's the reason okay, so right.
Marica Reynolds:
So, people often fall into well, this is what I do as a coach, instead of saying here's what you get from me when I coach you, you know. Even if they do say that, then it's very trite. Well, I take people from here to here. They know what it is they want and I help them get there. The whole standard thing, the blah, blah, blah, which still doesn't really describe what great things we do for people that they cannot do themselves. And so it's the beginning of breakthrough coaching that you know that I really wanted to define, you know, the science of coaching, what it really is, for two reasons. One, that we know what it is to tell people you know. So here's the magic of coaching. This is why you want to coach.
Marica Reynolds:
You know that I'm going to be your thinking partner to help you to see beyond the bounds of your thinking in a way you can't do for yourself. I must remember who I am in this moment, as a coach, in order to create the breakthroughs, the magical moments, the moving people into a whole new view of life in themselves.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, so you were called to write it, just like your books. That's awesome and we are the fortunate receivers of your wisdom. So thank you very much for that. And you know, and explaining coaching. So we were talking earlier in the in the green room I like to call it um and you were expressing your um, your joy, I would say, for the way ICF describes and it still stands. You want to repeat that for us?
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, yeah, I can remember, you know, being a part of the brainstorming facilitation group where we wrote the ICF definition of that. I mean, the key words in the ICF definition is number one it's a partnership which differentiates us. We're not doctor-patient, you know, there's no, the power dynamic is partner, a partnership in a spontaneous interaction that, you know, that spawns these creative insights. It's the spontaneous interaction, because I'm totally here with you, I'm taking in what it is you're giving me, I'm hearing your words, I'm noticing your shifts and I'm just offering it back to you so you can actually see your thinking and your crazy logic and all those things out here because you can't look at them from inside here.
Marica Reynolds:
They must be out here. They must be out here so that spontaneous interaction, that's the partnership and the spontaneous interaction that helps, you know, spawn these creative insights. That is so powerful and it's lasted all these years, and I'm not saying it exactly because you know.
Garry Schleifer:
No, but the key essence of it is what's important, because we don't want to remember anything by script or wrote. It's like spontaneous, partnership generates, or generative, like our friend Janet likes to say. It's all of those things and I think it might even be magic. Oh, that'll be a great title for an article.
Marica Reynolds:
Well, that is what I think keeps, I've been talking a lot to coaches about keeping the spark alive, but if we do it this way, the moment that you know the our clients like oh.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, I have one client and it's been, I've been coaching her for a couple of years and even now she'll say something and she'll stop and she'll go, I know we're not going any further till I talk about what that's about. I'm like, yeah, just smile and nod and then she carries on. I always love it because half the time I still remember when I was coached train, not coached train, was the first coaching and the moments when the client would just talk the whole session I barely got a word edgewise and at the end they go, That was the best coaching ever and I'm like, Your Welcome. It's spontaneous silence. Silence can be the spontaneous action you don't take or take.
Marica Reynolds:
Well, and I would even go one step further Garry, that safe container where they feel free to spew all their things on their mind. It may be the only place in their day they can do that, and so the safety isn't you know. Oh, this is confidential, don't worry about it. It's not the words. It truly is the energy that we put out that I am here for you, I care about you and I believe in you, and we put that out with our energy, which allows them just to talk it through, and if they're a verbal processor, that's all they really need, and it's like oh God, now I get it. Thank you.
Garry Schleifer:
And you've said hello and goodbye.
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, but that's still the whole, you know the mindset that we bring, the presence, you know, and which allows us to do the more active competencies of listening, evoking awareness. But it comes first from the energy between. It's a co-creation, you know. So it's not me talking and then you talking, and me talking and you talking. It's a co-creation, and so that it's just as if and if not more important, because that's what we're offering. When we really don't know what we're doing as a coach, offer them that, and it's still so powerful. exactly the simple phrase tell me more.
Garry Schleifer:
Exactly. The simple phrase "If you don't know what to say, at least say that. And I found that that helps a zillion times because they then they dig deeper. You know, it's like I think it was Marshall Goldsmith that said I ask why three times. One of those things they say you're not supposed to say in coaching? Why and I use it all the time because why properly used at the right time can really get a lot deeper in a coaching conversation. But enough about my coaching. So we've talked about coaching and know the spontaneous conversation, that sort of thing. But so why do people need a coach?
Marica Reynolds:
Going back to the whole neuroscience, biology and all of that, you know, we know that the brain's primary function is to protect you. The first thing that's triggered at any moment is fight or flight, not how smart I am or anything else. It's a biological reaction, because the brain's primary function is to protect us, but it's not necessarily from visible external threats. It's, you know, spending a lot more time on the whole concept of social needs. Social needs and values really tie into identity, and so I'm even looking more at identity coaching. But, stepping back, I'm needing to protect who I think I am and what's important to me, and my dignity even. And so if my brain starts to feel that there's a threat here to these people, the way they're treating me, and either I will get angry or I'll retreat. Fight or flight you know.
Marica Reynolds:
It doesn't make for effective interactions or success out in our life. But what happens is because the brain is protecting us, we instantly come up with rationalizations for our behavior. We are master rationalizers, you know. And so, left to my own devices, I will say well, that was a bad interaction I had with my boss. Okay, well, he's a jerk and so I'm not even going to bother talking to him.
Marica Reynolds:
And it's a millisecond that that happens. You know, and I cannot pull that apart on my own if the more emotions attached to it, the less able I am to sort through my thinking. So, but way back when in the early books around neuroscience, Michael Gazzanigan in particular, needed an external. That's what a code is you know, to just stop and say, well, well, that's interesting. I wouldn't even say, tell me more. I would say tell me more about and I repeart back back what they just said about tell me more about what life balance is to you.
Marica Reynolds:
Tell me more about this interaction with your boss. I would feed back the words because that allows them to really think what did I mean by that? What did I mean by that, you know? And so we start to bring out their thinking by being an external thought disruptor with reflection, which I find even more powerful. And then the follow-on question, which could be a close question because it's the reflection that's so powerful. So I give you here's what I hear you say Is that true? That's a close question, but oh, I guess I've been thinking about it that way for a long time, but maybe it's different now. Sometimes a closed question could give an open ended answer.
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, often, often. When you're looking for clarity up front, then you open it up when you're looking for what needs to be addressed or resolved. And so that's why we need a coach, because we need someone outside of ourselves to take our thoughts out of our head and look at them. Simply that. Simply that I don't have to solve it, I don't have to diagnose it, I don't have to give you answers, I'm just doing that. You will find your answers just when you look out here, instead of trying to sort it through up here.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, no that's great, thank you. Yeah, so you know, jokingly I said, need a coach. Nobody needs a coach. But you know what? Everybody needs a coach at some point or another. Like to have that extract, I don't want to say extraction, but to have that opportunity to reflect and have somebody else play back like, okay, so this. Do I have it right what you just said. And then they go really yeah, to your point. So yeah, that's great.
Marica Reynolds:
It's amazing. You know something I often don't share. first Master's Degree was in broadcasting, but I was studying how to use video as a feedback mechanism to improve communication skills and self-esteem, and I was working at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic with drug addicts and then prison inmates, which was fascinating.
Marica Reynolds:
Because, when people would watch themselves on video, they start to see the reality of what they were saying and who they were, and so we're doing a video replay. But even more powerfully, I ended up my first job pushing television sets around a psychiatric hospital. That's how I use my broadcasting degree. But I asked the psychiatric nurse I was working with the anorexic patients. Could we do a little bit of this? What was fascinating? And we got approval from the attending, and when the anorexic patients would see themselves in a mirror, they see themselves as fat even though they were decimated. But when we showed them a video, they saw the reality.
Marica Reynolds:
So, like the mirror, just the mirror, and I don't even like to call reflection mirroring. We're not parroting, we're not mirroring, we're bringing out the key things they said and we asked that question, so so they start thinking about it. It's a much more dynamic process than just mirroring. You know, and it was incredible how the therapists could then use that with their patients.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, amazing, amazing. And here we are doing something similar in coaching. Yeah, and so I say it's more video replay than mirroring, yeah yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, I'm gonna turn the conversation a little bit around. We were talking also earlier about other methodologies. We often talk about that difference in coaching, mentoring and therapy. But what's the key value of coaching that most benefits clients. That makes it different.
Marica Reynolds:
Coaching stimulates the middle brain. Our creative brain where we make connections. It's not just we store long-term memory there, but we pull out our stories and our perception from the middle brain. And so when we activate the middle brain, then they can make new connections really quickly and we have creative insights. That aha moment or the duh moment come from middle brain, you know, and the study that I talk about is done in just a couple years ago in Spain, where they found out a problem, um, that each person had. They only used 16 people, so it's a small sample. I'd like to see it expanded. You out there who have research arms?
Garry Schleifer:
Exactly.
Marica Reynolds:
But they, you know, like in coaching, found out something that they would like to work through. First, they gave them a room to do solitary sorting, try to think it through on their own and a little button to push every time they had an insight and they put a brain monitor on middle brain, solitary sorting, very little brain activity.
Marica Reynolds:
There was one person, I think, fell asleep, which is what I would do and then they gave him a mentor and it wasn't much different. Mentoring, when we're only telling people what to do, we're using the cognitive brain and the middle brain goes quiet. There's not a lot of brain activity. We tell people what to do, unless they get angry at you, or something and do that, you're stupid.
Marica Reynolds:
Then they may remember something, but not what you want them to remember, but very little. But then they gave him a coach trained in reflective inquiry, to use reflections as well as questions, and the middle brain, three, four times the activity Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and button pushing of creative insights, three or four times as many, you know, like bing bing, bing, bing bing of creative insights.
Marica Reynolds:
Which, to me, we want to activate the middle brain. When we tell people what to do, it doesn't. They'll either comply or they'll resist. And because you're only using the cognitive brain, if there's no emotion attached to it doesn't get into the middle brain. So I ask you tomorrow so how did that go? You know what I told you to do? Uh huh, you told me something yeah, right oh right, yeah, you told me this and it's never what I said right, of course, even get that.
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, right, because it didn't make it out. You know, it just sat in the cognitive stew and most of the time when you go to sleep the brain throws out 80% of what we read and heard during the day. Anyway, it doesn't retain it, only the things that had an emotion attached, the things where you went wow, I have to remember that, you know. Oh no, no, if I don't remember that, something bad's gonna happen. There's got to be an emotion attached, or I won't lodge into into the long-term memory.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, so oh, that's brilliant. And you know, and I'm reflecting on the previous issue on neuroscience and knowing that we're we're really have so much more to learn, so I can't wait to hear what else we learn about the impact of coaching on the brain coming forward.
Marica Reynolds:
Oh, my gosh. There's going to be so much. You know the research that people are finally doing when they recognize again. This isn't a formulaic process. It's not just you know delivering competencies, that this spontaneous interaction, you know interaction is so powerful in human development.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah.
Marica Reynolds:
I love it.
Garry Schleifer:
We're going to leave at least with the word spontaneous today. Nothing else right? The whole issue of this magazine is Feast or Fanciful for a Coaching Livelihood. How much training and experience do you think coaches need to sell their services confidently?
Marica Reynolds:
Well, you know, there's two things. There's, you know, the capability of what they can do, their competency as a coach, and then there's their bio. So it depends on who you're going after. People often ask me do I need an advanced degree and you know not to do coaching? I do believe you need to go through a credited coaching school you know to understand what coaching is and to practice it.
Marica Reynolds:
But if you're going to be working in the corporate world, you got to have a good bio. So I didn't get my doctorate or my MCC to put it on my bio.
Marica Reynolds:
I did it because I I have a thirst for learning but it certainly sells me and then I had 16 years corporate experience and looking at cultural change and all of that. So it depends on who you're going after. You don't need all that you know for career coaching, transition coaching, life coaching. You wouldn't need the big bio, you'd need more experience and understanding. Empathy is not I feel for you. It's I understand what you're going through. So, even if you're young, if you're going to coach people, I would say coach people who are like you at you know at your age, because then they'll say, well, you understand me where that old person up there doesn't.
Garry Schleifer:
That's why I work at not showing my age. You want to get them all. And I find that in my own experience as well I did get the PCC because when I see something and it's like here's the program, and the end of the program is this, that's what I go for. If I'm in for, what do they say? In for a dime, in for a dollar, I don't know, penny for a pound, and, uh, I go through the thing.
Marica Reynolds:
That's a Canadian thing.
Garry Schleifer:
I think it's very much about having my own confidence that my coaching is being monitored through mentoring and peer coaching and supervision and things like that. So that's my own experience and yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Please, please, listeners, if you're just getting into coaching, go to an accredited school, whether it be in Europe. There are tons of them, and there are also tons of them that are not. They will take your money and they will not give you what it is that you would need to be a coach and to be hired by corporations or just, well, people who really doing the research, and that's the other thing I think we've taught them over the 30 years now, I guess. How to look for a qualified coach, how to vet for a qualified coach.
Marica Reynolds:
So you know and that's an interesting concept is that the person seeking the coach must know what coaching is.
Garry Schleifer:
Right.
Marica Reynolds:
Otherwise, they may be seeking a mentor because they think that's what coaching is.
Marica Reynolds:
There was a time there was a consulting company that put me forward to a client with someone else and I had a chemistry session with the client and it went very well and I didn't get the the job. And the consulting company said, well, here's the feedback. And like okay, which I hate that word and said the client said oh, the conversation was great. She asked me so many important questions that really made me think. But the other guy came in and gave me resources and tools and books and told me what to do. And I said to the consulting company I said so what did you tell him?
Marica Reynolds:
Coaching was before. You had us, you know, present and I recognize that I need to, if I'm going to go, be put out there by a consulting company or, you know, a training company or something. I need to know how they're defining coaching, because we may not be a good fit for each other, you know, and that was a big eye opener for me. It's like, oh, I was assuming they knew what coaching was if they were selling it Even these days, never assume.
Marica Reynolds:
You know, and so they said next time you need to. And I said no, there's no, next time I will never coach like that.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, I'm not changing my coaching to fit your definition of what it is.
Marica Reynolds:
Yeah, I don't need you, thankfully. Yeah, no kidding.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, I'm not kidding, no kidding. Oh, Marcia, I could talk with you forever, but unfortunately it's time to wrap up and ask the big question what would you like our audience to do as a result of this conversation and your article? Words of wisdom for us, advice.
Marica Reynolds:
We will allow you to give advice and tell us what to do. We have to learn the competencies just to have sort of a structure. They're just a guideline that I know what I'm doing when I'm with someone. But you don't have to know them perfectly because it's more important and I think it should be the competency should be safety and trust, not trust and safety. The person must feel safe to trust you.
Marica Reynolds:
So, how can I truly create that energetic bond? You know, that allows the co-creation and it's right here in between us, you know. And so really focusing on and I hesitate to even just call it presence, because people mix that up I'm fully present with you, but it has to be a full, genuine. I am here for you, I care about you and I believe in you that you're fully capable of discovering what you need. As I coach you, I must constantly be putting that out, you know, because that's the power. So really learning how to be there and just who cares what you know about the competencies, at this point you'll get better yeah but just be there for them.
Garry Schleifer:
T he big one I'm taking away from today, from our conversation, is believe in them. We like to think they're creative, resourceful and whole but I would add that I believe in them.
Marica Reynolds:
I believe in them.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah, I'm going to put that out for my thoughts from my coaching this week and see how that comes across. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Um, what's the best way for people to reach you?
Marica Reynolds:
Well, my website is outsmartyourbrain. com. You can find me through that. You certainly can find me on LinkedIn.
Garry Schleifer:
We can find you on Amazon. I know I did.
Marica Reynolds:
Lots of lots of yeah, yeah, just Google me.
Garry Schleifer:
Exactly, she's everywhere people.
Marica Reynolds:
I'm real proud of my. You know I have new coaching. com class on Deep Dive Live Intensive. I'm really proud of that because we're really working on that space between and identity coaching, so check that out too.
Garry Schleifer:
Congratulations on that too. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. Don't forget to refer us and leave some notes. If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for free. If I got it right, scanning this QR code or going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button. Now catch this one. I'll see if you notice the difference. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks Marcia.
