A Podcast for Coaches

Hey, this is Mark Butler and you are
listening to a podcast for coaches.

You will have to forgive the
melodramatic episode title.

It came from an essay that my own coach
Liz shared with me Monday morning during

our coaching call The essay is called an
invitation to the pain of learning Written

by a man named Mortimer Adler who was
apparently a philosopher or educational

philosopher in the Prominence maybe in the
30s and 40s and beyond until he died in

2000 or something I hadn't heard of Mr.

Adler before, but Liz told me about him.

I read this essay.

I loved it.

And now I may need to go
read a couple of his books.

I don't think they are easy reading, but
that is relevant to today's conversation.

So Mortimer Adler writes this essay called
An Invitation to the Pain of Learning.

And his thesis in the essay is
that real learning is difficult.

It's painful, and it requires
a lot of the learner.

That knowledge is not something that we
gain just by having more information,

but that true education involves
the transformation of the person, of

their character, of their thinking.

A couple of quotes here from the essay
that I think are especially relevant

to us in the personal development
space, the life coaching space, where

he warns us against an educational
approach that is too focused on ease.

Now, we as coaches, as online trainers, we
might not think of ourselves as coaches.

Educators, but of course, that's what
we're trying to do, especially in training

programs, courses, group coaching,
mastermind certifications, whatever.

What we're attempting to
do is transfer knowledge.

I think under the assumption that the
knowledge will transform the learner

and that the learner will then take
the knowledge and and use it to

help other people transform as well.

It's all very well intended.

And I think it does happen.

But Mortimer Adler in this essay warns us.

Against what all of us have seen in the
ads and on the sales pages and in the

sales emails This is him talking about the
adult education space and interestingly,

this is him talking I believe in
1941 So these are not new ideas.

We're talking about 80 plus years ago He
says we try to make adult education as

exciting as a football game As relaxing
as a motion picture and as easy on the

mind as a quiz program Otherwise, we
will not be able to draw the big crowds.

And the important thing is to
draw large numbers of people

into this educational game.

Even if after we get them,
we leave them untransformed.

So you're sensing his sarcasm there.

He's recognizing, even back in 1940, this
guy doesn't have any idea about funnels.

He does not have any idea about
social media or email sequences.

Or sales pages in the way that we
understand them today, we're living in

the world that he's describing that is
multiplied by a factor of a thousand.

So he sarcastically says,

if we don't make it easy, if we don't make
it relaxing, if we don't make it exciting,

then we won't draw the big crowds and
drawing the big crowds is the point.

Drawing the big crowds
cannot be the point.

If our goal is to actually aid
in transformation, I think Mr.

Adler here is right to convict
us of drawing big crowds and

leaving them untransformed.

10 years ago when I fell into the personal
development space and life coaching space,

one of the first conferences or
seminars, it was really a sales seminar.

It wasn't so much a conference.

One of the first sales seminars I ever
went to the coach who was running it

in hopes of filling her mastermind.

I didn't know that at the time, but now
I know that's exactly what was happening.

She referred to it as infotainment.

Now do I think that's evil?

No, I don't think it's evil,
but I do think it's honest

in a somewhat terrifying way.

She was acknowledging
that the primary function.

Of her work was to entertain, but
to entertain in a way that made the

participant feel smarter, feel better,
whether or not they actually transformed.

Now, did some of those people transform?

I imagine they did, but in the
way that we structure our world,

our personal development world,
our, our life coaching world,

there's no requirement for
transformation, there's just a

requirement of participation.

Through signing up and paying the fee

and that incentive structure, the
structure where the person doing

the teaching knows whether they
know consciously or whether it just

drives , their activity subconsciously.

They know that the job is to
make the thing appealing enough

that someone will pay for it.

That's it.

That's the job.

Whether it actually does benefit their
life is a totally subjective thing, and

we could debate it all day and all night.

And I don't feel qualified to do that.

What I do feel qualified to say is that
if the structure of the program and the

culture that the coach creates around
him or herself, is such that there's

a lot of hype and shine and glamor
around the getting started moment.

And then if there's a shifting of
responsibility, maybe even that sounds

like blame if and when the client
experiences disappointment in the way

the experience was actually delivered.

Now we're in weird and risky territory.

And we've talked about this on the show
before, but as you consider whether

to participate in a thing, a coaching
program, whether it's group, whether

it's a mastermind, whether it's a
membership, all of which can be fantastic.

If you notice that the.

persuasive elements of it are
extremely shiny and bright

and persuasive and appealing.

And if you notice that they give you
the impression that you'll be able to

achieve an extremely unusual result
with relatively low effort and with

no pain, at best they're pandering.

Do you know what pandering means?

Here's why I know what pandering means.

It's because I was once
accused of it and I was guilty.

And from that moment, I
knew what pandering meant.

I talked about my membership
site a couple of episodes ago.

When a person joined our membership,
they went through our core resources,

sort of the doctrine of the program.

Here's what you're going to do, and
here's what it's going to get you.

And I have such a vivid memory of
a person who went through the core

resources, the core methodology,
and then sent me a skating email.

And I would say it was 80 percent
warranted, which is to say, I don't think

I was quite as guilty as his email made
me out to be, but I was definitely guilty.

And what was I guilty of?

I was guilty of trying to persuade
that new member of my membership who

was probably in a trial period in my
program where I was hoping to persuade

them to stay a member for a long time.

He had looked at the tone and the
content , of that introductory material.

And he said, you are attempting
to make an extremely difficult

result appear extremely easy.

Telling the person what they want
to hear in the face of what you know

to be true, that's called pandering.

And he was right.

And the proof that he was right
was that that program didn't last

a lot longer after that moment.

One of the reasons that that membership
site failed, and I think I talked about

this, but one of the reasons it failed
was that it did not invite people to

a painful, but durable and reliable
approach to generating an income.

It invited them to sneak
through a loophole.

And it gave them the impression that it
wasn't sneaking and it wasn't a loophole.

I mean, we had good intentions and we
helped a lot of people, but 45 year old

me looks back at 30 year old me and says,
I understand what you were doing and I

think I understand why you were doing it,
but you were playing a short term game.

Um, when you could have had a longterm
view and you were guilty of telling

people what they wanted to hear
instead of telling them what would

have benefited them in the longterm.

Now part of the issue is I
didn't really know what would

benefit them in the longterm.

In hindsight, I realized I had a
very get rich quick mindset about

the thing we were teaching people.

I didn't have enough experience yet
to understand that we were encouraging

people to sneak through a loophole.

So there was some naivete, there
was some innocence in what we were

doing, but it was still pandering
and it was still short sighted.

And instead of inviting people to
productive pain, I was inviting them

to, sneaking through a loophole.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I don't think it benefits people and I
still think the industry is guilty of it

So after mr.

Adler says We have this desire to draw
big crowds and we care about the large

numbers, even if the education we
give them leaves them untransformed.

He says, what lies behind
my remark is a distinction

between two views of education.

In one view, education is something
externally added to a person , as

his clothing and other accoutrements.

We cajole him into standing there
willingly while we fit him, and

doing this we must be guided by his
likes and dislikes, by his own notion

of what enhances his appearance.

In the other view, education is
an interior transformation of

a person's mind and character.

He is plastic material to be improved,
not according to his inclinations,

but according to what is good for him.

But because he is a living thing and not
dead clay, the transformation can only

be affected through his own activity.

So where does that leave us as coaches?

Where does that leave us, as teachers?

My conversation with Liz, with my
coach this week happened, to catch me

kind of in the middle of creating a
website and persuasive material, sales

copy, et cetera, around the world.

The office hours program
that I'm creating.

I've talked about this for a while.

Am I going to do a membership?

Am I not?

Well, it looks like I am, and I
feel a lot of enthusiasm for it.

Some nerves too, which I talked about
in, the membership episode, but this

is starting to feel like something
I can't not do, even though I know

exactly what I'm signing up for, but it
feels important and it feels authentic.

And don't get me wrong.

I'm not a martyr.

I'm excited about it.

And I have high hopes for it,
but now I'm writing sales copy.

And as I write sales copy, even
something like a headline for the

homepage of this website, which is
something I've been doing now for

almost 20 years, writing sales copy.

I have to ask myself, to what
am I inviting this person?

Am I inviting them to sneak
through a loophole or am I inviting

them to fulfilling difficult,
even painful transformation?

The challenge we face is if all
we can do is present pain, I don't

think people want to engage with us.

The rare exception to this is
if you happen to be running

the United States Navy SEALs.

The pain is the draw., You know,
ultra marathoning is a thing where

the person who's drawn to it, find
some meditative state in the pain.

Great, fantastic for them

in an online community, like office hours,
hopes to be, uh, where there's education,

where there's support or there's some
coaching, where there's some practice.

I don't want to lead with all pain,
but I do want to invite people to

transformation, durable transformation.

I want them to experience a change
of mind and a change of character,

not based on what I think they
should do, but what they know to

be true for themselves deep inside.

I don't want to relieve them of the
difficulty that is between them and

the realization of their highest
and best thoughts about themselves,

about their loved ones, about
their health, whatever it is.

I want to create a space and make
that space appealing so that a person

who's invited into that space says,
I don't go lightly into this space.

And I don't expect to be
coddled or pandered to,

but I do expect it to be
supported as I attempt very

difficult personal transformation.

Now, we do know as coaches that very
difficult personal transformation

doesn't have to mean summiting Everest.

It doesn't have to mean running
240 miles through the deserts

of Utah in an ultra race.

It doesn't have to mean becoming
a bodybuilder who diets down to

5 percent body fat for a show.

It doesn't have to live in these extremes,

intense, difficult, personal
transformation makes itself available

in the micro moments and cracks
of our lives, where, instead of

telling ourselves and our loved one,
the same old lie we always have.

We share a loving, but difficult truth.

There's real fear in that for all of us.

Most of us, there's pain in that.

When we do that, we're likely
to cause ourselves problems.

It's likely to get worse before it gets
better, but we do it because we hope

for something better on the other side.

So it's an invitation to pain, but
we hope that it's a productive pain.

I think that's teaching at its best.

I think that's coaching at its best.

I think that's friendship at its
best and marriage at its best.

The truth is in coaching, we are
inviting people to difficulty.

I might've told this story on the
show before, but when I was about 12

years old, I think my parents asked
me what I wanted to do for a living.

And I think I said, I
wanted to be a psychologist.

I don't remember having any idea
what a psychologist was at age 12.

When I started college, I still
had that idea in mind, apparently.

And I went to my first
entry level psychology class

and I dropped the class
and I changed my major.

And apparently my mom tells me, I
forgot this, but my mom says, Oh

yeah, you went out of there and you
said, I'm not going to be a therapist.

All you do is listen to
people's problems all day.

That sounds terrible.

Well now I'm 45, I'm a life coach.

A very high percentage of what I do is
listen to people's problems and it is

rich and rewarding and difficult and
I think important but also painful.

I didn't have a very heavy coaching week
this week, maybe eight to ten sessions and

Well, I was about to say what
happened in some of those sessions,

but that's probably not right.

So what I'll say instead is, , in
a high percentage of those sessions

and in a couple of emails I received
afterwards, there was real pain expressed,

but also gratitude and progress.

That seems to be the gig.

It's the gig we sign up for as coaches.

And it's the experience we invite our
clients to when we are at our best.

What we do, when it's at its
highest and best, it is an

invitation to productive pain,

coupled with the promise of the growth.

And the happiness and the internal
alignment and regulation that

come with paying the price of
those hopefully temporary pains.

That's when we're at our best.

That's what we're offering to our clients.

Anyway,

have a good week.

We'll talk to you next time.