A Podcast for Coaches

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

I.

This week I've had two different
experiences where clients have struggled

to trust their own assessment of
situations and behaviors and feelings

because they were looking first
through a pathological diagnostic lens.

and what I mean by that is that
they had studied these definitions.

they had types for themselves,
they had labels for themselves.

And so their primary question wasn't what
can I learn from my thoughts and feelings

and behaviors in this specific set of
circumstances, but something closer to.

Well, is this an example of the pathology
or of the label that I've applied

to myself or that someone else has
applied to me and am I consistent or

am I not consistent in my way of being?

So it was a way of disconnecting from
their experience and trying to make

sense of themselves through the label
rather than through their lived reality.

It's this way of.

Essentially othering themselves through
the potential diagnosis or the type

that they've assigned themselves, and
it creates distance from their own

experiences instead of leaning into
those experiences and learning from them.

What struck me most was how they were.

Externalizing their own
authority through these labels.

So instead of asking what feels
true to me, what aligns with

my experience, my values, I.

My desires, they were asking,
am I fitting my definition?

So I have this definition of myself?

Am I fitting the definition?

And it seemed to be true that their desire
to fit their definition was part of an

attempt to feel internally consistent.

The label had become more the
authority and they felt compelled

to consult that authority before
trusting their own experience.

I totally understand the comfort of labels
I have experienced the comfort of labels.

If a person who has struggled to
make sense of themselves and their

behavior, and then they find that a
practitioner or a book, or a podcast

or a YouTube video has given a name to
a way of being that they believe maps

pretty well onto their own experience,
it can feel incredibly validating.

I experienced this a few years back
when I did start to learn things

about A DHD and I observed that
there was probably a an A DHD thread

that ran through my way of being.

And I had a couple of different coaches
who helped me feel like I wasn't crazy

and that I wasn't alone, and that there
was hope for me in situations where I

had felt like there wasn't that much
hope, that I was sort of stuck in a way

of being that was essentially doomed.

So I understand the allure.

And the benefit, the real benefit,
of looking to these categories,

looking to these labels as a way of
self-validating and saying, okay,

I'm not alone and I'm not crazy.

And as coaches, having these labels ready
and having these what are essentially

diagnoses reduces the uncertainty that we
might feel in our coaching interactions.

If a client is coming to us with a whole.

Sort of mess of thoughts, feelings
and behaviors, ways of being.

And if we feel that we have
to guide them in what to do,

it's very comforting to say,
first, let's categorize you first.

Let's label and validate you,
and then let's work through

the lens of that category or
through the lens of that label.

These things have a name,
they're called heuristics.

Humans love heuristics because
they reduce uncertainty.

They make it easier for us to shortcut,
to insight, and to action, and they

can be very helpful and very powerful,

especially because as coaches we put
so much pressure on ourselves to be

helpful to help our clients get results.

And if we want to get our clients to
some different place, and especially

if we wanna do it as quickly as
possible because we're trying to

prove our value or prove our benefit
in some way, then having a heuristic,

having a label, having a category, and
running the whole coaching experience.

Through that category can
be extremely comforting.

And I wanna be clear.

I'm not saying it's a
bad thing necessarily.

I think there can be incredible benefit
in this approach unless the label and

the category become the whole person.

yeah, it's fine to have hobbies, but.

People who make their hobbies, their whole
personality are kind of annoying people.

They're kind of odd.

They're kind of weird.

you are multifaceted, you
are complex, you're nuanced.

When you take one thing, especially
a diagnosis or a label, and you

make it your entire personality,
you reduce yourself too much.

And if we, as coaches attempt
to do that with our clients,

we've reduced them too much so.

My concern is that our eagerness to label
our enthusiasm about categorization.

Might serve us as the coach more than
it serves the client, because it might

make us as the coach, feel like we're
imparting knowledge and we're being very

supportive and we're cutting through
a lot of noise, and we're helping

our client move more intentionally
and more quickly to a new place.

But I'm afraid it sometimes can serve
the coach more than it serves the client,

because the client isn't as simple
as our category seeks to make them.

Instead, what I want to do is I want to
always emphasize the client's agency.

I wanna look at the client's experience
through the lens of their thoughts,

feelings, and behaviors, because
that gives them, a more open space in

which to consider cause and effect,
where they look at thoughts and

feelings and actions as causes In case
it's not clear, I don't hyperfocus

on the pure causality of thoughts.

I believe that actions have causal
effects feelings, have causal effects

and thoughts have causal effects.

All of these have causal effects.

The reason I like to focus on them is
that I perceive more agency for the client

in emphasizing their thoughts and their
feelings and their actions than I do in

emphasizing their type or their category.

If I'm emphasizing thoughts and
feelings and behaviors, I think

I'm sending the client the message.

You can change any of these
and all of these in order to

have a different experience.

If we lean too much into a category,
there's risk and it's not guaranteed,

but there's risk that the client
looks primarily at the label and

says, I am X, therefore I am.

doomed or determined to do and to be
why there's a risk in a category view

or a diagnostic view, or a label based
view of a client that they slip into.

What I would call, that's just the
way I am thinking The label becomes.

Both an explanation but also an excuse.

It absolves them of responsibility.

I've had client interactions where
you can't get through five minutes

of coaching without them referencing
the diagnosis, referencing the label.

Well, that's just my this and it's
because I'm that, and it's a way of

completely disconnecting themselves from.

Their own ability to go
a different direction.

And I think there's another risk here.

The risk is conformity
to the label itself.

The more a person identifies with
being X, the more compelled they

feel to reference the definition
when they're deciding what to do.

So if they, in their study, of
their own category, in their study,

of their label, have learned that
people who are X typically do y.

They might find themselves doing why?

Just as a way of maintaining internal
consistency, whether or not it's actually

what their true instinct or their wisdom
or their intuition, or whatever you

want to call it, steers them toward.

If the label and the category have
given them relief, then they might fear

losing that relief if they act against
their understanding of the label.

You may have heard the saying
that the map is not the territory.

That is what we're talking about here.

Diagnoses.

Categories, types, and labels are maps.

They're not the territory.

They may help the individual understand
themselves sometimes in very important

ways, but they're not the individual.

and if the individual gets it flipped
and they start to view themselves

not as territory, but as map, and
if we as coaches are part of that.

I think we're off track and I
think we need to correct ourselves.

There is balance to be struck here.

I'm not suggesting that we
abandon frameworks entirely.

Now, as coaches, we are legally
prohibited and rightly so, from

making diagnoses that are like anxiety
disorders or depression or things that

are left to clinical professionals,
licensed clinical professionals.

so of course we leave those diagnoses
to the clinical professionals.

But I'm in favor of some amount
of categorization and exploration

within categories in coaching.

I love a good personality test.

I've taken, I don't know,
a dozen personality tests.

I find them very entertaining.

I.

I do gain insight into myself
through those personality tests.

I do like to be able to reference certain
ways of being and saying, oh, that's that

part of a personality sneaking in here.

How interesting.

But I do it as a secondary
thing, not as a primary thing.

If we approach these categories, these
types, these labels and diagnoses

as a primary thing, I think we're
guilty of a pathological approach as

opposed to a developmental approach.

And what I mean by a pathological
approach is it's viewing a person

primarily as their diagnoses.

And viewing them as something to be fixed
within the context of their diagnoses,

as opposed to viewing a person as an
individual with incredible capacity

and looking at them developmentally
and saying, what can you learn?

How can you apply the thing you
learn and how do you become something

different through that applied learning?

I think we as coaches are at our
best in a developmental view of

ourselves and our fellow human beings
as opposed to a pathological view.

So what do we do?

Let's educate ourselves about
types and labels and diagnoses.

I think there's benefit
in studying these things.

I have friends and peers and colleagues
who create programs who do coaching

within the specific context of
some of these labels and diagnoses.

And I wanna say clearly, I think
they give incredible value.

They help people self discover.

Self accept and self-direct
in very positive ways.

These programs would go awry if they
didn't also encourage people to see

themselves as separate from their label.

You are not your label.

You are an individual and there's a lot
to you, and even programs that help you

develop specific parts of yourself within
specific contexts need to treat you as

an individual and to constantly remind
you that you're an individual and that

you have strength and capacity outside of
any particular label, type, or diagnosis.

We keep them as a secondary
focus or even a tertiary focus.

We keep them on the shelf and we
take them off the shelf for a minute

when it benefits the situation
and it benefits the client.

That's my opinion.

But we never give our clients
the impression that they are the

label that we've applied to them.

we never in our own heads and hearts
and in conversation with our clients,

define them as the type or the label.

Never.

We never.

Ask our clients to view themselves
primarily through that lens.

We have our clients view themselves
as a nuanced, complex individual

who has a lot in common with other
nuanced, complex individuals.

And to the degree that it's
helpful to reference the collective

experience within those types.

We do.

We reference it, we learn from
it, and maybe it helps us direct

ourselves, but we keep it apart from
the individual because we don't want

the individual to ever feel like they
need to conform or correct within

these made up transient definitions.

And with that, I'll talk to you next time.