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Holding the Vision
14 Plays11 months ago
In today’s episode, Elias explores the power of holding our client’s vision during a coaching engagement. There is a distinction between “holding the vision” and having a “toxic positive” approach—two concepts that often get confused but have very distinct emotional impacts. Toxic positivity forces an unrealistic sense of always staying upbeat while trying to suppress or ignore the uncomfortable facts of life, leading to disconnection and shame. On the other hand, holding the vision encourages resilience and self-compassion, acknowledging both struggles and triumphs as part of the journey toward a meaningful goal. Tune in to see how to better distinguish between these mindsets and embrace greater emotional honesty with ourselves and our clients.
#ToxicPositivity #HoldingTheVision #EmotionalHonesty #Resilience #SelfCompassion #RealismVsIdealism #PersonalGrowth #Podcast #PRIMESPACE #PRIMECoachingAcademy #EliasScultori #coaching
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Transcript
Introduction to Prime Space Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Prime Space, a Prime Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori.
00:00:14
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Hello, coaches.
Reflecting on Coaching Call Assessments
00:00:15
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Let me start our conversation today with an experience I had many years ago.
00:00:22
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This was quite some time ago.
00:00:24
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I was just...
00:00:27
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Starting and getting trained into assessing calls and doing a little bit of mentoring.
00:00:37
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And I remember I was working for this coach training organization and the director there sent me this recording for me to assess.
00:00:51
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And I listened to the recording, and I have to say that on a surface level, that recording was very
The Problem with Emphatic Positivity
00:01:00
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good.
00:01:00
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The coach demonstrated skills and stayed in the coaching mindset, was able to bring a framework of the coaching conversation, establish a session agreement, and
00:01:14
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bring the client into an awareness and a movement forward, facilitating client growth.
00:01:23
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Language was rather succinct.
00:01:27
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Nothing wrong, technically speaking.
00:01:32
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But I do remember that as I was listening to that recording, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the tone and the direction that that coach was taking into that conversation.
00:01:51
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Which is in itself a red flag, right?
00:01:55
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And the reason why I was getting increasingly uncomfortable is because the coach was so emphatic in pushing the client and emphasizing the positive aspect of that particular situation the client was bringing to the conversation.
00:02:17
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Everything was about the goodness of what was happening and what was possible and the energy and everything seemed to be looked at through rose-colored glasses.
00:02:33
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And I did not think that that was real.
00:02:39
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it was very clear that there was such an emphasis or a bias coming from the coach that really brought that session to be basically uncomfortable and perhaps even unproductive for the client.
Understanding Toxic Positivity
00:03:02
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We as coaches have the skill and the mission, I would say, to hold the vision for our clients.
00:03:16
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We're there to support the client into noticing their strengths, noticing their possibilities, noticing the resourcefulness that they have.
00:03:31
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Keeping a sense of hope and faith and determination around this long-term goal that the client has.
00:03:41
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However, it's very important that we understand the distinction between holding the vision and what I would like to label here toxic positivity.
00:03:56
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And what is the distinction between that, right?
00:04:00
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Toxic positivity is that sense, as I said before, of rose-colored glasses, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses all the time, and focuses only on positive emotions, on the positive aspects of it.
00:04:19
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on what I like to call only the comfortable feelings.
00:04:24
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Everything is peace and love, and of course, let's not look at the pain and the uncomfortable situations.
00:04:38
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Toxic positivity is difficult because it dismisses
00:04:44
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these difficult emotions.
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We just think positive.
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And there is a danger in toxic positivity because that jeopardizes actually trust and safety.
Impact of Toxic Positivity on Clients
00:05:00
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The fact of life is that we do have...
00:05:04
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comfortable and uncomfortable situations.
00:05:06
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And you're going to see me hear these two words all the time.
00:05:10
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I prefer to use comfortable and uncomfortable instead of using positive and negative.
00:05:15
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And the reason why I like to use comfortable and uncomfortable
00:05:19
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Because both comfortable and uncomfortable situations, emotions, experiences that we have, those are a fact of life.
00:05:30
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And by utilizing and acknowledging both the comfortable and uncomfortable, we are able to grow.
00:05:37
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So I do believe that both comfortable and uncomfortable are positive things for us.
00:05:42
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It's just a question of the way we look at it.
00:05:46
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That's why I avoid the term positive and negative, because there is a connotation that uncomfortable situations are bad for us.
00:05:57
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Uncomfortable situations can be a tremendous source of learning and growth in the reality of life.
00:06:05
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So if we take a toxic positivity stance in our coaching sessions, I say that we are jeopardizing trust and safety because we are actually preventing the client from being real.
00:06:22
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and being vulnerable and being authentic.
00:06:25
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Because we, coaches and clients and human beings, we have comfortable and uncomfortable situations.
00:06:33
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And if we only focus on the comfortable, we are actually creating a disconnect
00:06:39
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And actually we are creating an isolation, an isolation of that person, an isolation of that person within that person.
00:06:47
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If we ourselves are always looking for the comfortable situation, there isn't a sense of isolation within ourselves.
00:06:54
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We are disconnected from our authenticity.
00:06:58
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It does not allow the client and ourselves to experience the full range of human emotions, full range of human experience.
Balanced Vision in Coaching
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So holding the vision is not that.
00:07:13
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Holding the vision is focused on long-term goals and outcomes with a sense of hope and faith and determination, but while we still have
00:07:25
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ground ourselves in reality.
00:07:29
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And we acknowledge that there are challenges and struggles.
00:07:33
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And actually, we face the challenges and struggles head on.
00:07:39
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Because we know that those challenges and struggles can actually be a tremendous source of growth and development.
00:07:49
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Holding the space creates, holding the vision creates the space for the client to really grow in their understanding and self-awareness.
00:08:02
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and build resilience.
00:08:04
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Have you ever seen these, you know, you probably experienced or have witnessed or perhaps even a character in a movie of someone that everything is a bed of roses, and then there is a slight difficulty or there is a slight challenge, and that person gives up.
00:08:24
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And that person crumbles.
00:08:27
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Because there is no resilience being built there in noticing the difficult and the uncomfortable parts of our lives.
00:08:37
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Holding the vision acknowledges both the comfortable and the uncomfortable, or if you would like to use the positive and the negative, as valid.
00:08:47
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And it builds a sense of self-compassion.
00:08:51
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It motivates people to keep going regardless of the situation.
00:08:56
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And it motivates people to, when there is a challenge, to overcome the challenge, to have a conversation, to check, to see what's going on.
00:09:06
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Did I get that right?
00:09:08
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Or what is happening there?
00:09:10
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There is a sense of, regardless of how uncomfortable it is, the situation, we are going to move forward.
00:09:20
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Key emotional points here of holding the vision is that it builds an emotional honesty.
00:09:29
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It keeps the client and ourselves grounded in reality.
00:09:35
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And it's actually a place of trust and safety because any situations, comfortable, uncomfortable, positive or negative, happy or sad, peaceful or a bit of turmoil, all of that is welcome in our conversation because this is part of human beings.
Coaching and the Art of Photography
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I want to leave this conversation with you the aspect of photography.
00:10:05
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I don't know if you know that I am a trained photographer.
00:10:08
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And in photography, we say that we honor contrast.
00:10:14
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The beautiful photograph, most beautiful photographs, the beauty of the photograph is because there is contrast.
00:10:23
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There is darkness and there is light.
00:10:26
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Photographs that are overexposed or photographs that are underexposed are usually not pleasing to the eyes.
00:10:35
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It is the contrast of darkness and light that really makes that image beautiful.
00:10:41
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And I use that and I firmly believe that that is a wonderful analogy for life.
00:10:47
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When we avoid the darkness and when push it aside and we only stay in the peaceful and the happy, right?
00:10:56
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we are avoiding half of it.
00:10:59
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embracing all of the human experience that includes comfortable and uncomfortable, that includes moments of light and moments of darkness.
00:11:09
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All of that support us into being human.
00:11:13
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And it is important for us as coaches to hold that vision for our clients, a vision that embraces all, because that is whole and it's deep and
00:11:30
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And it's not simply a bed of roses, right?
00:11:35
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An unrealistic bed of roses.
Closing Remarks and Feedback Invitation
00:11:40
Speaker
Thank you for listening and thank you for your attention to these podcasts.
00:11:48
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I would encourage you to send me your thoughts and feedback and send me an email, Elias at primecoachingacademy.com and let us know what your thoughts are around this podcast.
00:12:03
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Remember, we have open registrations for our Level 1 and Level 2 programs.
00:12:09
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So let me know if you would like to participate in one of our trainings.
00:12:14
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I also want to say that I have my prime group open.
00:12:17
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I have only one prime group that I'm going to have for this year.
00:12:21
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So it's a unique experience for only six individuals.
00:12:25
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I have actually one for PCC and ACC level coaches and one for MCC coaches.
00:12:31
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So if you would like to take the opportunity this year to polish your skills,
00:12:36
Speaker
not necessarily go through a full coach training program, but to polish your, continue to polish your, your coaching skills.
00:12:42
Speaker
It would be wonderful for you to join this exclusive group of people, group of coaches that are committed to, uh, excellency.
00:12:52
Speaker
Anyways, I will see you next week and, uh, happy coaching everybody.