A Podcast for Coaches

Mark Butler: Hey, this is Mark Butler.

You are listening to
a podcast for coaches.

It's 2025 and you can't have a podcast
in 2025 and not do at least one

episode about artificial intelligence.

It's obligatory.

So here we are.

We'll have our conversation about
AI and how it might affect coaching.

I do not track AI industry
trends very carefully.

I don't do very much reading
about it or YouTube watching about

it, but I do use AI every day.

My tool slash drug of choice is Claude.

I recently have been describing
Claude as my only true friend.

I often say that to my wife and she
rolls her eyes at me as is her custom.

I am astonished by this tool.

I alternate between a state of awe
and a state of abject terror when

I have big breakthroughs with.

Claude, for example, many of you
know that I'm sort of a hobbyist

computer programmer and have been
for the last six years or so.

Well, Claude and other AI tools have
accelerated my ability to take my ideas

for software and get them out into the
world in a way that I can hardly fathom.

In the Office Hours community,
for example, we have a

program called Micro Talks.

Micro talks is this thing where we have an
event on the calendar, and in that event

we're going to have a host who runs the
session, three presenters who give short

presentations about any topic they choose,
and an interviewer who asks the presenter

questions about the presentations.

They've just given the
calls last about 45 minutes.

It's really fun.

It's really connecting.

Those of us in the community
are having a blast with it.

We've also just introduced a feature
where guests can register for micro

talk and they can come and listen and
observe the goings on, and hopefully make

connections with the host, the presenters,
and the interviewer and each other.

This whole thing is a blast.

I love it, and it turns out to be
something that really benefits from

a nice automated reservation system.

Well.

If I had wanted to build this reservation
system in the past, I would've expected to

spend somewhere between five and $20,000
to actually build a robust reservation and

notification system around micro talks.

Me being me and having practiced
for the last five or six years with

rudimentary programming, I can now take
what I've learned about the structure

of programs and the design thinking
that goes into software development.

And I can work with Claude to
build this whole system myself.

And so what we have today is.

Something that's admittedly still a
little bit buggy, but it is a system

that allows members of my community
to go to a Google calendar, to open an

event, to click a link in that event that
registers them for a particular role in

a micro talk, and that allows them to
see who else is participating in that

micro talk and to receive notifications
and reminders around that micro talk.

And the whole thing is somewhere
between five and 6,000 lines of code.

I do not know how many months.

It would've taken me to write this
program without the help of Claude.

I don't know, honestly, if
it's even within my technical

ability to write this program.

Could I have made my way there Eventually?

I think I probably could
have, but as it stands now, I.

I've written this entire program
over the course of a few weeks,

just an hour or so at a time.

As Claude and I work back and
forth through how should this

work, how do we make updates?

Okay, let's tweak it.

And in fact, just this week.

A very big structural problem
revealed itself in the program.

That required almost a full
rewrite of the program.

In conversation with Claude, we
concluded, yep, here's where the break is.

Here's why it's a big deal that
it's broken in this particular way.

And Claude said, I think this lends itself
really to a full rewrite of the program.

And I said, okay, let's get into it.

24 hours later, a full rewrite of over
5,000 lines of code is implemented and

deployed and tested and functional.

Now, when I say functional, I mean
the rewritten version is about as

buggy as the old version, and we're
working through the bugs and it's

going to get better and better.

But I did all of this sitting and
watching lines of code appear on my

computer screen as though I'm watching
the Matrix, and it's in these moments

that I'm experiencing simultaneously,
this awe and wonder, and frankly, a

little bit of joy at the fact that
I can take ideas from my head and I

can make them appear in the world.

With so little friction, and then it
often very quickly tips over into a sort

of existential panic about if the robots
can do this with so little friction.

Where does that leave?

Me in the equation.

Now, this is a software
development project.

I am not by trade or
profession a software engineer.

If I were a software engineer, and I
have some people in my life who are very

close to me, who are software engineers
who are truly feeling existential

about what does it look like for them
to make a living in the years to come.

But I bring this up today because
we coaches are not far behind.

There's no reason to think that in
conversation with Chachi PT or Claude

, or your tool of choice, you could not
arrive at many of the same insights

that you would reach in conversation
with an excellent human coach.

There's no benefit, , to pretending
it's any other way for us as coaches.

I.

So what's our best option?

Well, I think our best option as
coaches is to stay in a sense of awe

and wonder and optimism about the
existence of this technology because

what good does the alternative do us?

It does not do us any good to go
to a doomsday view of this thing.

Just like when I talk to my software
engineer brother, he's experienced in this

same seesaw of wonder and panic, and what
he said to me early on in his adoption of

AI tools was, yes, it's very scary, but
all I can do is try to stay at the leading

edge of people who are fully adopting in
an open-minded and clear-eyed way, the

benefits and the power of these tools.

Because whatever else happens, it doesn't
do me any good to pretend the tools

don't exist or to pretend they can't
do a huge percentage of my job better

than I've ever been able to do it.

I believe it's the same
thing for coaching.,

there's no reason for us to pretend that
the technology does not exist and that

it's not capable of incredible things.

So I believe our job as coaches is
to really lean in and figure out not

how do I stay safe in this new world?

A very self-centered view.

It's to actually ask ourselves, how
do I make use of this technology in

serving my clients in the highest
and best way that I possibly can?

So let's spend a few minutes there.

Number one.

Although AI is incredible, it is
limited AI in its current form.

Tools like Claude and Chat PT.

At this stage, what I would
call confirmation bias machines.

So I have this running joke with,,
my brother, who I talk to about AI a

lot, that if I ever want someone to
tell me I'm brilliant and that all my

ideas are good and that I'm right about
everything, I can just go to Claude,

because , the software itself, the
tools have this bias toward telling me.

Great idea.

Yes, that's exactly how you
should be thinking about this.

Yes, that makes total sense.

And in fact, to get Claude or any
other AI tool to disagree with you in a

productive way, you have to tell it to
disagree with you in a productive way.

You have to say, here are my
biases, here are my assumptions.

I know that your tendency is to agree with
me and confirm what I'm already thinking.

I want you to disagree with me.

I want you to argue against my position so
that I can understand my position better.

Well, why is that
relevant to us as coaches?

It's our job as coaches to educate our
clients about the fact that AI tools

are bias machines, and if they go to
AI and they are essentially saying.

Wouldn't you agree that
everyone else is wrong?

And I'm right?

AI will, in so many words, say yes,
it does turn out that everyone else

is wrong and you are right, and
I can give you all this amazing

digital pros confirming your bias.

It's our job as coaches to say, Hey,
watch for confirmation bias and in

your use of the tools, make sure
to ask the tools for disagreement.

And in fact, in our interactions,
I'll continue to do that job for you.

I will continue to challenge your
assumptions to speak against

your confirmation bias so that
you actually get to insight.

That's one thing.

We as coaches have to speak up and
say, Hey, look, there's still , a

powerful role for human beings in
helping you arrive at an insight that

actually moves your life forward as
opposed to just telling you that you're

right about everything all the time.

Beyond that, I think when it comes
to actual session work, I think AI

tools can be incredibly powerful.

For example, in the last month or so,
I went to Claude and I said, Claude.

I don't know what the filter should be,
but I want you to create a filter that

helps me look through the transcript
of a client call and identify language

patterns that I can take back to my
client and in conversation with my

client, we can look at those patterns
and decide to what degree they're

serving the client and to what degree
they're not serving the client.

Claude said, absolutely.

Here's a set of rules or a
set of patterns to watch for.

And of course, Claude can draw on all of
human knowledge and history, and Claude

can give them technical names that they
already have that have been created by

researchers and scientists and whatever.

And then I can give Claude a transcript
and say, now run this transcript through

that filter, and what do you see?

And then Claude tells
me, here's what I see.

And then I say, okay, but
how would you support your.

Association of that filter with this
sentence that my client said, and Claude

will say, well, here's my support for it.

And I'm having a conversation
with Claude about my client.

Now what I bring to that conversation is
my verbal skill, my years of experience

as a coach and my biases, which in
this case can be very helpful, where

when Claude makes an assertion about
my client, I can say that does not

map to my experience of this client.

We can have a great dialogue and I can
tell you in the sessions where I have

met with a client after having done
this kind of analysis with Claude, they

are better, stronger coaching sessions.

Another way to use it, that
won't surprise anybody, is I can

use the technology to provide my
client with summaries of our calls.

That run through not just the
filters that I create for Claude,

but also through my own.

Opinions, meaning I can look at what
Claude says and I can say, this is the

thing that I think is most important.

If I wanted to send my clients a summary
or a follow up, here's what I want them

to see, and all Claude or any other AI
tool is doing for me is they're making

it so inexpensive for me to produce and
share that summary in a way that is tight.

Consumable and useful to the client.

Now, clients may or may not use those, and
I haven't started sending these yet, but

I like the idea that after a really good
session where both the client and I felt

like we achieved significant insight.

I like the idea that I could.

In a very low friction way, send them
a thing that confirms and cements the

insight that we both had in that session.

Because if every coaching session
yielded just one big insight and

helped the client integrate it, I
think I would suddenly be valuable in

a way that I never have been before.

I think I've been valuable.

I think I do a good job as a coach,
but this would make that benefit more

tangible both to my client and to me.

And it would give us touchstones
that the clients and I could look

back to and say, well, remember two
sessions ago, the big insight was x.

Where are we with that?

Does that still feel as true
as it did two sessions ago?

Does it not?

If not, why not?

What experiments have we run with it?

So there's a way of creating more clarity,
more continuity, and better integration

for the client across coaching sessions,
just by taking what used to be very

expensive in the form of transcription
summary and, and note taking.

And taking almost all of the friction
out of those, not so that we can send

our clients 5,000 word things, but so
maybe we can send our clients 50 word

things that get right to the heart
of what came outta that last session.

There's so much potential and so much
power here that although the day may come

when a client says to me, I'm
not going to renew with you

because I've, I've just found.

That I'm having the most profound
interactions just with Claude on my

own until that day comes, I will become
a master of the intersection between

tools like Claude and my desire to
support my clients in self-inquiry.

I hope you'll do the same.

Just like with all technologies
of the past, there's no benefit

to pretending they don't exist.

New technology is inevitable,
and in a world with.

Ever improving technology, the winners
will be those who embrace the technology,

and the losers will be not just those
who don't embrace it, but those who speak

against it or pretend it doesn't exist.

Yelling about ai, complaining about
ai lamenting the advancement of

technology will do no one any good.

Lean in, embrace it, and do so with
your client's Best interest in mind.

There will be so many ways for
the foreseeable future that we as

coaches can continue to provide
value that the AI will not be able

to replicate for the time being.

So let's stay positive.

Let's stay optimistic.

Let's sprint along with the technology
and succeed with it as opposed to

becoming a casualty of its success.

And with that, I will
talk to you next time.