The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy: Leveraging Talents and Abilities Through Coaching

Dr. Dwayne discusses the difference between coaching and therapy. Coaching is focused on raising awareness and making conscious choices, while therapy is focused on seeking answers from an expert. Coaching helps individuals leverage their talents and abilities to overcome roadblocks and achieve higher levels of performance. The coaching relationship is co-creative and provides support and guidance for personal growth and transformation. Dr. Dwayne emphasizes the importance of self-reflection, reevaluating beliefs, and making powerful choices to create the life one desires.

Keywords

coaching, therapy, awareness, conscious choices, talents, abilities, roadblocks, performance, co-creative, support, guidance, personal growth, transformation, self-reflection, beliefs, powerful choices

Takeaways

Coaching is focused on raising awareness and making conscious choices.
Therapy is focused on seeking answers from an expert.
Coaching helps individuals leverage their talents and abilities to overcome roadblocks and achieve higher levels of performance.
The coaching relationship is co-creative and provides support and guidance for personal growth and transformation.
Self-reflection, reevaluating beliefs, and making powerful choices are key to creating the life one desires.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Setting Intentions
01:40 The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy
04:31 The Power of Raising Awareness
05:00 Unlocking Your Potential Through Coaching
07:51 The Importance of Being Seen
09:47 Different Modalities of Coaching
11:15 Coaching as a Co-Creative Process
14:52 Reevaluating Beliefs and Making Powerful Choices
15:51 The Transformative Power of Being Seen
17:16 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Coaching vs Therapy: Clarifying the Key Differences

[00:00:00] 

[00:00:00] we're here tonight for coaching. This is my first live if you want coaching, 

[00:00:05] this time is for you.

[00:00:09] I'm a success coach. I'm also a doctor, but I ain't your doctor. But I'm certainly happy to answer any coaching questions, to Even coach someone if they want to join the live and, work through a problem together.

[00:00:24] Tonight's the Blue Supermoon. Won't be another one for a decade or so. It's probably a fantastic time to,

[00:00:35] 

[00:00:35] get real clear about some intentions. any day's a good day to do that. But on a singular night like tonight, I think that'd be an especially good day to do that. 

[00:00:45] So, while we're waiting for a question, or for a brave soul to come on and work through an issue together, What is cooching? Well, let's talk about what it's not. Okay, and I just had this conversation today with a prospective client. 

[00:01:07] It was real clear in that conversation that she needed a little education, And that's real common. a lot of times people are under the perception that coaching is the same as therapy, It's completely understandable that people think that. 

[00:01:28] There's a lot of coaches out there who probably act like therapists. so it's understandable, that sometimes people will confuse therapy and coaching.

[00:01:37] therapy is typically focused on a problem. And typically when people are seeking therapy, they're coming to someone that they regard as an expert. Someone who's putting themselves out as an expert.

[00:01:52] In that interaction, usually the person seeking therapy is, looking for answers with the assumption, that it's the therapist who has the answers. And it's 100 percent the opposite when it comes to coaching, or at least the coaching as I've been trained.

[00:02:14] pretty soon I'll be an IPEC certified coach. That's the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. And I'm a physician, So it's super, super important that when I'm having these conversations with people that they understand that, hey, I'm not here to be your doctor.

[00:02:31] I'm not here to be your therapist. I'm in this role as your coach. Now does that mean that, I'm not an expert? No, of course it doesn't mean that, 

[00:02:40] I've taken care of people for 20 years and the fact that I've done that with cancer patients in particular and women cancer patients exclusively does mean that I'm an expert of sorts in helping people in times of crisis. But in my role as a coach, my job is to take all of that people expertise and to leverage it in the client's effort to find the answers that only the client has, alright?

[00:03:12] That's the big difference. When there's a therapist, there's a coach. You're coming to the therapist, because you're looking for answers that the therapist has, all right? But when you're coming to a coach, you're coming to the coach so that the coach can help you to raise your awareness and then so that you can get better at making conscious choices in light of that awareness.

[00:03:41] the coach is there to help you to figure out how to do that. that's a key difference. when an athlete, has a coach, when a team has a coach, I just started watching. Ted Lasso. Man, that guyhe embodies, 

[00:03:58] the ideal for, what I want to do for people as a coach. 

[00:04:03] You have all of these really talented individuals. And what does the coach help them do? The coach helps them to take that talent, to take that ability, and then to leverage that into something that they could not do before. And it's not that they couldn't do it, it's just that something was in their way. Keeping them from moving forward, right? Keeping them from stepping into that level of performance, stepping into that level of experience, if you will, that they weren't able to achieve before. And that's what a coach does, all right? The coach doesn't have the answers. What the coach has is the skills, the techniques, the frameworks, and ultimately the questions, all right?

[00:04:53] The questions that help you, the client, to get better at understanding where you are and making choices in light of your ability to understand where you are. And that sounds simple, and it is really simple. But that doesn't mean that it's easy. Right? And very often the things that are the simplest are also the things that are, the most difficult to comprehend, the most difficult to transfer from one person to the other.

[00:05:27] Oh, but certainly the things that are the most, beneficial, sustainable, And the things that deliver the highest return on investment, okay? 

[00:05:36] so people know that, Hey, we're coming here to, get down to business. This isn't a time to vent. All right. This isn't a time to get off your chest, all the things that, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, you've been dealing with, there's a time and a place for that.

[00:05:52] There's a time and a place for releasing that energy, if it's truly getting in your way. But that's really more about, what people use a longer term coaching engagement, to achieve. but for people who are, interested in coming, on the show, we'll focus on a specific problem.

[00:06:12] And it's, really powerful, what people can do. When they are in this introspective space, and they have expert guidance on moving the things out of the way that are stopping them. So, if you, would love more information, I'd love to hear from you, you can also message me, 

[00:06:32] or you can come on and, ask a question, or, join in the live, and we'll do a coaching, demo. But yeah, talking about the key differences between therapy and coaching, alright?

[00:06:45] And that metaphor of a sports coach, I think is a very, very powerful one. And it's especially powerful because no matter how talented an athlete is, They all have 

[00:06:57] coaches, alright? So just think about that. someone who is at that level of performance and achievement does not do it without having people who help them to break through the very human, performance, roadblocks that everyone experiences and that is what it is ultimately about.

[00:07:22] Alright? And so, Do you have to have a one on one engagement in order to have effective, benefit, from coaching? I certainly think that regardless of how talented the person is, the more one on one time they can get, the more they will get out of it. but having said that, you know, there's some coaches, like Tony Robbins, who I'm sure he has private clients. But most of his coaching is done in arenas, alright? And so, there certainly is that type of, Ability for people to get benefit from coaching and, You know, there's so many variations on that theme, right? So, whether you engage with coaching, in this kind of forum, engage with coaching on a one on one, Whether you engage with coaching, as a part of a live event, or, you know, something that's more structured.

[00:08:19] some people take self, pace, you know, type coaching. And so a lot of the training that I got over the last nine months, you know, in my coaching certification, a lot of that was self paced. and it was still very valuable Self, actualization worked for me. Self discovery worked for me. And, the times in which I was connected live, you know, to another person were especially powerful.

[00:08:49] Oh my god, those were especially powerful. And so, there is a place and a role for all of these things, all of these different modalities of experiencing coaching, being coached, whether that's in person, over Zoom or some other digital interface.

[00:09:07] Sometimes it's just telephone. But it's that in the moment connection that allows you to read another person's energy, that allows you to pick up on the various intonations in their voice, that allows you to ask them questions that are in response to your intuition, alright? There's a lot of that kind of, Resource, deployed, 

[00:09:35] both as the coach and as the coachee. just like a, athlete at the highest level, YES focuses on technique and YES has frameworks to structure their performance and their pursuit of perfection. At some level what that athlete is doing is being more than doing. And that is one thing that coaching really helps people to do.

[00:10:06] unlock for themselves. There's no way that I could be at this point in my life, alright? Sitting behind a mic in my home studio. Having come from where I came from, had I not learned the value of being relative to doing, this is a priceless, priceless, lesson, folks.

[00:10:25] And, I would love for somebody out there to, join me in experiencing that. because really what we're talking about here is a co creative process. And there really is no other way to describe that. what happens in the coaching relationship is truly co creative, it really is, the difference between what happens, when you've got One person, trying to do all the heavy lifting alone or you have a partner, that's committed to your success.

[00:11:04] You know, that difference is more than additive, right? And there's all kinds of ancient wisdom that speak, directly to that. was raised in the, rural South and my spiritual, foundation is, in the black church and that's for better or for worse. So many things that I would not give anything for, relative to my black church experience.

[00:11:31] And so many things that has taken me a lot of time, a lot of therapy. And ultimately, a lot of really valuable and powerful coaching to get over, to learn how to turn into, a strength and a resource as opposed to, wound that just wouldn't heal. So my point is that, a lot of times when I'm talking about these capital T truths, I'm not talking about the thing that somebody tells you, is the truth.

[00:12:03] I'm talking about the thing that you know is the capital T truth because you've lived it and experienced it in your body.

[00:12:15] There ain't no religion on the planet, you know, that's got a lock on that. And so whether I'm quoting Jesus, you know, saying that the, you know, that the kingdom of heaven is within or any of those kinds of things, the capital T truth that's behind all of that, you know, that is universal and that is timeless.

[00:12:38] Lady was talking to the day on the discovery call. That's exactly what she was talking about. You know, she is pulled in 15 different directions because she's a single mother. and that was real obvious on the call, right? Even though we had this call scheduled for five days. She just couldn't break free, because of her responsibilities, and that is I get that, I totally get that. But, you know, she was talking about her frustrations, with her church experience and all these other things. And these are common themes, alright? These are common themes that come up in these kinds of interactions. These kinds of settings. we all carry around a lot of judgments. Let's just start there. We all carry around a lot of judgment. We all have, stories that we have repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to the point that we recognize them as being the way things are. Because we've never either taken the opportunity or considered that it's possible that it could be some other way, alright?

[00:13:55] And the difference between people being stuck and getting to the end of their lives wishing that it had done something different And people moving into the lives that they really want for themselves. The difference is re evaluating these things that we tell ourselves. And re negotiating with ourselves. How we'll view the things that we've chosen to believe up to that point. And some of those things are things about, Us, the individual. Some of those things are things about others. Some of those things are about institutions. It doesn't matter what it is about. What matters is how we decide that we're going to attach ourselves to it.

[00:14:43] All right, that's what raising awareness is about. So, I just want to encourage you to like to share because it'll help other people see it.

[00:14:49] So if you think it's valuable, please do so. 

[00:14:51] Sowho wants to be coached? Hey, I see you. You know, that's one of the things that, is such a powerful thing for people to hear. remember the first time that I heard it and it came at a time early in my coaching training I was on a break between sessions. 

[00:15:11] in this virtual classroom, all people who were learning how to be coaches. And the facilitator, she was checking on me. And, she said I see you. there's just something about Being seen. For who you are. And, Everyone doesn't have the courage, to come on to a camera or come into a live.

[00:15:35] And that's okay. It takes time for people to get comfortable being seen. But once they do, And once they get comfortable seeing themselves being reflected back, By the person in front of them. Oh, that's a very powerful moment. Because once you can sit there in that awareness, 

[00:15:54] then you can really make some powerful choices. Because once you're no longer hiding from yourself, from the reality of the situation, Oh! Then you can make some moves, all right? Then you can make some moves and that's what it's about, all right?

[00:16:09] That is 100%, what the whole experience is about. So yeah, hopefully there's been something here that, helped in some way, 

[00:16:19] if you found valuable, please, let me know, drop me a line, I really welcome the interactions. I would not, be in this setting if I did not enjoy connecting to other people.

[00:16:31] I'm here to help people get free. I'm here to help people get out of their own way. And, I do it because I get more out of it than I give. you can't put a price tag on that.

[00:16:40] I'm looking forward to hearing from any and all. Take care.