How to Make an Impact When You Are Coach Number Four?

He told me I was coach number four before we had even started, and in the same sentence, he handed me the whole plan: “I know what you are going to say we have to work on: listen more, be more empathetic, just like my partner says."

How to Make an Impact When You Are Told You Are Coach Number Four?

He shared that, in a way that I interpreted as him not being proud, he had already had 3 coaches before. I didn’t get the feeling he wasn’t grateful that the companies had spent and invested in him, but more like, okay, what are you going to try to do as number 4?

In my conversation with Liz Farah on MindKind: The Podcast, recorded at half past eleven at night in Madrid while her day in Australia was just beginning, we talked about this and more.

The full episode is on Spotify:

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/24ZBxy0zU7b

I said to him, "No, we don’t have to work on your listening or your empathy. How about going one step back and discovering what is driving you? How much do you listen to your head, your heart and your gut?"

"My gut, always. My head, the same. My heart, less."

So I asked him the question I ask many executives who respond in this way: if you have two legs, is it really smart to jump through life on one?

I can tell you some of them look at me with a stare of: "Are you serious? Is this a real question? Is the company really paying you to ask these questions?”

And then they answer: "Of course not, Chris, you walk on two."

And that is the moment they can no longer say no to biology, and I ask: “Super, so how smart is it to use two of your 3 Brains?”

Most of the time, this question lands like Thor’s hammer, and their real transformation can start.

Three coaches before me, and his listening still came and went, because he had learned the tricks, and the part of him that stems from empathy and caring and that wants to listen to the last drop had been quiet for years.

So the “only thing” we have to do is find a part of his life where he did that and make that part accessible again now.

I asked him when he had last really listened to his heart, and after some silence, he blushed and told me how he met his partner: love at first sight, evenings and nights of just talking.

He made the connection himself, and in a later coaching session he reported back that his team loved the change, and his partner WhatsApped me that she recognised her old love again.

“How do we become pleasers, the ones who take care of everybody?”

We also dove into: the person, the colleague, who stays late so nobody is let down; the coach who always fits in one more client.

The person who learned very early to look after everybody else.

Many of us were raised as the sweet girl or the sweet boy: take care of your little brother, share your food, children should be quiet, family first.

Their Heart gets trained like an athlete, and the Gut, the part of us that pushes us to have our own voice, to take care of ourselves, learns to stay silent.

Gabor Maté described these people more than twenty years ago in When the Body Says No; I see a dominant Heart and a quiet Gut in almost every one of them.

So here, too, somebody is walking on two of their 3 Brains, only a different two.

Critical voices: what are they, and how do you get rid of them?

And from there we discussed: The voice that wants you to belong, the critical voice.

When I ask people where it comes from, and we go a little deeper, nine out of ten times it turns out to be a memory: a parent, an older sister, a grandparent, giving some educational advice.

Those voices helped us to belong, and belonging kept us safe in the family. The moment the Heart knows it no longer needs that voice in order to belong, it can fade, and when clients ask me how I did that, the honest answer is that they did it themselves.

Last but not least, we discussed domestic violence, because it happens far too often in Australia.

I encourage you to listen to the podcast; the full episode is on Spotify: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/24ZBxy0zU7b

And I am curious: which one do you recognise in your environment or maybe in yourself?

If you have done the 3 Brains test with us before, it can be interesting to do it again; it’s been updated, just like the personal feedback report. If you do the 12 Protector test, you can also become aware of which limiting beliefs still sometimes overtake your decisions.

https://www.3brainsintelligence.com/3-brains-test/

And if you know somebody who is on coach number three, or who is always the last one to look after themselves, this conversation might be a quiet gift to send their way.

Thank you, Liz, for staying curious with me until well past midnight in Madrid.