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Reflect First, Act Later
61 Plays2 months ago
In this episode of PRIME SPACE, we explore the powerful space between insight and action—a space where true transformation begins. Amy Rupert Donovan joins host Elias Scultori for a rich conversation on the importance of helping clients reflect on and solidify the key learnings from a coaching session.
Together, they unpack how this moment of reflection can deepen awareness, reveal new insights, and empower clients to take meaningful, aligned action. They emphasize the importance of examining both the external environment and the internal shifts occurring within the client, and how this fosters sustainable growth and confidence over time.
This episode invites coaches to slow down before action planning and fully partner with clients in the discovery of their own wisdom. This vital step empowers the client to design meaningful and powerful actions based on the new awareness generated during the session.
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Transcript
Welcome to Prime Space
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to PRIME SPACE, a PRIME Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori So hello, my
Introduction to Amy Rupert Donovan
00:00:14
Speaker
friends. Today, i brought my friend, Amy Ruppert Donovan, to chat with me here. Hello, Amy. Hello.
00:00:24
Speaker
Hello, Elias and everyone out there. It's great to be back. It's always good to have you here with with us in this podcast. Amy, what are we going to address in this conversation here today?
Leveraging Coaching Insights
00:00:40
Speaker
We're going to talk about really leveraging and the learning portion of the coaching sessions.
00:00:52
Speaker
and meaning about what the client learns about themselves. Yes, thank you for that. This is one beautiful aspect of the coaching framework that I so appreciate and it's something that I remember when I was in coach training and I learned this whole aspect of supporting the client into action and into a movement the word that I use in the PRIME the PRIME MODEL and in the PRIME plus MODEL this movement
00:01:23
Speaker
I think that this is so powerful. you know I remember even my my trainer saying, like if there is no action, there is no coaching. This idea that, yes, we can have a ah reflective and insightful conversation, but if we don't bring the client into the application of that or those insights, of that reflection, it it vanishes. right dear Most likely, it's going to get lost.
00:01:51
Speaker
So I so appreciate and I've always had this appreciation for this moment of the coaching conversation where the coach has the skills to support the client into translating these insights into something that is tangible for them that is going to happen after the session.
00:02:11
Speaker
I don't know. I'm I'm passionate about that, Amy. Yeah. and And as we both are, Elias, because this is where the magic happens. Right. Everything else they can do without us. This part.
00:02:24
Speaker
and and And yet it's still them doing the work. But this part facilitating this part of the process, I think, is is where the magic happens in coaching. No, I couldn't agree more. Yes, we yeah as I said before, we can have an insightful conversation, but what is the application of that insight?
00:02:43
Speaker
and ah And I think that this is perhaps one ah unique aspect of the coaching framework. ah that is of tremendous value.
00:02:53
Speaker
And,
Client Resourcefulness and Long-term Change
00:02:54
Speaker
you know, to bridge on this topic that we are talking about here today, though we start this movement, we start this period of supporting the client into designing in this movement by supporting the client into encapsulating in and putting in in a nutshell their insights, their learning, their takeaways, what happened in this conversation that was insightful to you that you want to remember moving forward? that's
00:03:35
Speaker
That's what we call in the prime model, we call it recapping. In the ICF PCC markers, we're talking about checking the learning ah that the client has. Yeah. And I ah i often call it just a reflection after discovery, right? And in that we're reflecting back on, hey, what just happened here?
00:03:55
Speaker
um what Because we're both busy, we're going back and forth, the coach and the client, partnering in this constantly evolving discovery. And if you don't pull it together, at some point, you just move on to the next thing.
00:04:12
Speaker
so what So what is the purpose? I guess that the that's the question that you're raising over there. What is the purpose for a coach to support the client? Hey, what are the insights that you got from this coaching conversation? What are the learning that you got? What is the takeaway from all of this conversation that we had? What what is the purpose of doing that, Amy?
00:04:34
Speaker
Well, the purpose is that's how the client grows and evolves into their higher potential is through new awareness, discovering new things about themselves, about the relationship to others, about the relationship to their situation.
00:04:49
Speaker
Whatever it is, there's growth that needs to be reflected on. Without it, we just resort back to our original way of thinking where we were at square one.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah,
Empowering Clients with Insights
00:05:02
Speaker
I love that because, because ah you know, oftentimes we we go we have this beautiful conversation with the client and the insights are coming up and then the client moves on and and then there is another idea to explore and then there is another point to explore. so This moment when we you know we notice that we are going towards the end of the coaching conversation here, let's let's ah ground, let's anchor the learning here of everything that happened here in in during this session. i don't know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever the length of the session is.
00:05:40
Speaker
during this these past three minutes, what is what is the nugget of wisdom that you're carrying with you? And that gives the client the opportunity to to go back, think about this moment of coaching and saying, this was very impactful to me. This was very impactful to me. these This point, I never thought about this point. So the client is able to put in in sometimes even a ah bullet list of things that were very impactful for them that they want to remember from this discussion. It gives the client like a tangible and concise way of holding the learning tangibly in their mind. This is this is what i I got from this conversation.
00:06:27
Speaker
Well, and there's also a broader thing here too, Ilias, which I think is unique to coaching in that We, one of the things we do as coaches, and I say this all the time, is coach ourselves out of a job if we're doing it right.
00:06:43
Speaker
And what we're doing in that process of having them recap and reflect on their learning and their new awareness and their growth is teaching them about their own resourcefulness and wisdom.
00:06:57
Speaker
That's a long-term transformational slash sustainable change. when people begin to recognize that over and over again, I wasn't sitting there giving them the answers. Nobody was chiming in from the sidelines.
00:07:11
Speaker
They did that. And the more that they keep recognizing that, the more they are reassured and self-confident moving forward and doing their own explorations.
00:07:23
Speaker
So in other
Situational vs Personal Learning
00:07:24
Speaker
words, it empowers the client. ah yeah Yes, this is this happened. I did this exploration. i went through and investigated the situation here and i I generated some insights for myself that I really want to remember.
00:07:40
Speaker
ah that's That's fabulous, right? Like this this idea of empowering the client. And one thing that i I want to say that it's not unusual that when we support the client, when we invite the client to reflect on the learning, that just by doing that, the client generates even more learning.
00:07:59
Speaker
Absolutely. All the time, right? I love that that moment when the client starts like thinking of, oh, you know the I said this or this is the line. And there is this too. So the client the client creates, it generates even more awareness for themselves just because we ask that question.
00:08:18
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Yeah. And it is one of the things that's unique to coaching that we do that, that we help people discover their own resourcefulness. and wisdom and And, you know, if you think about mentoring and consulting, teaching, all these other things, that's other people imparting their idea, their wisdom, their information, their experience.
00:08:42
Speaker
This is the client recognizing their own. That's a big difference right there. One thing that it's beautiful also, and I appreciate this came primarily or was at least highlighted when the ICF created the PCC markers that ah we as a community identify that there are two areas of learning that are important for us to address with the client.
00:09:08
Speaker
is the learning in general, the learning about the situation, the learning about this topic that was discussed, but also there is the learning about themselves, something new that they discover about who they are that are important here. So
Exploring Client's Relationship with Situations
00:09:25
Speaker
here's a question for you, am Amy. what you know the for For us to have ah the proper condition to address these two levels of learning what What needs to happen in the coaching conversation for us to be able to address these two points?
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah. um ah first First and foremost, a strong focus and well-discussed focus for the coaching session um That tees it up so that we can go into a discovery phase that's very open and and and it's not the client explaining their situation, explaining themselves, explaining what you do and getting it focused.
00:10:13
Speaker
But in the discovery, it really is just a sandbox to play in, right? That you're just there trying new ideas and and we're not there. The client is, and we're facilitating that process.
00:10:25
Speaker
We're giving them the time to think, right? The time to dip into their own well of wisdom and to start pulling things out and looking at them and thinking it through and assembling it in a way that is most aligned with who they are.
00:10:42
Speaker
That's what we're facilitating. If that isn't done properly, where the the coach really remains as a partner in that process, um that it's going to be real hard to get to a ah point after that phase of the of the coaching session and have them reflect on anything that's of any substance.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, I love what you're saying here to me is like how everything in the coaching conversation is interconnected and it always starts with focus. It always starts with the session agreement, because if we don't have a good session agreement, we we may not get to a place where the client is ready to move or in and generate action. We may get scattered into so many different things that the ah the the session didn't have any any substance.
00:11:32
Speaker
ah So for us to have a wonderful movement, a wonderful action planning, it starts with the session agreement. yeah
From Solutions to Self-Awareness
00:11:42
Speaker
Love that.
00:11:43
Speaker
What else? What else do we need in order to have these two levels of of learning situation and personal?
00:11:53
Speaker
but Well, really good questions. um And the better the questions but which, and usually my definition of what makes a question great, it's usually the shortest ones, right?
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah. So when somebody says something, you know, well what about this? or what and And the coach aspect, well, what about it? Right? Those really simple ones, those are the ones, the kind of questions that make the client dig deep within themselves, dig deeper than they would normally do on their own.
00:12:26
Speaker
I love what you're saying there, the depth of exploration. And this is one point that I really would like to highlight here because, um you know, if the the invitation that the ICF is giving us of about asking the client or inviting the client to verbalize the learning about the situation and the learning about themselves indicate that the session had depth of exploration about who the client is.
00:12:57
Speaker
This distinction about the situation and the person really support us or highlight for us that for us to be coaching at a higher level, we really need to support the client into and an exploration, not only about all of the stuff that is happening around them, but how they are relating themselves to this situation, what is happening internally that is bringing me to to this moment and to seeing the situation here? Or what are the other possibilities for me to see it differently? What is preventing me from seeing this differently?
00:13:35
Speaker
So this depth of exploration of who the person is, is crucial for us, and it will show up in this moment. And that's why it's so important after all of that exploration that we not only support the client into highlighting the takeaway for the about the situation, but it's important for us to support the client in highlighting the takeaway about themselves. This is what I learned from me. That is the distinction, again, between transactional and transformational coaching.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. And in order to do that, Elias, I think coaches really, really, really need to be completely unhooked from solutioning with their clients, completely unhooked.
00:14:20
Speaker
And we just did a PRIME HOUR recently about transitioning the conversation, the coaching conversation from the what to the who. How do you do that? It was a great conversation.
00:14:32
Speaker
I won't go into it all here, but it's it's an important conversation um and and worth listening to. But I
Recapping Before Planning Actions
00:14:41
Speaker
think that the more skilled coaches get, they they're they're completely unhooked from solutioning with the client, even though the client wants and needs a solution, right?
00:14:51
Speaker
But They come for that, but they stay in the coaching because of what they learn about themselves and the new awareness they have and how that pushes out the walls of potential for them much faster um and and much farther and than they would on their own.
00:15:10
Speaker
That's what makes coaching and appealing. And by the way, that PRIME HOUR, that conversation is available on our YouTube channel. And listeners, you can go to our YouTube channel and listen from what to who. I believe it's the title of that video. So please listen to that as well.
00:15:26
Speaker
and And then, Amy, what comes the next thing for us to talk about here is. Where? Where are in this coaching conversation framework do we ask the client or that we invite the client for this ah verbal verbalization of the takeaway?
00:15:45
Speaker
This is where a lot of coaches don't, they're all over the place, I've noticed. um This should happen to anchor the whole discovery portion of the call.
00:15:59
Speaker
You anchor it. Okay. Where are we at now? What have you learned about yourself? What have you learned about yourself relative to your situation? Before we get into the conversation about actions they're going to take, what what actions they're going to take regarding the situation, because we need the the client to be able to take the new learning and awareness and apply it to the actions they're going to take.
00:16:27
Speaker
Without that, they're just going to go right back to where they were. We're back to square one again, right? So we've got to, we it as coaches, it's our job to bridge that for the client through our questions and and how we facilitate but the conversation to leverage that learning into the action.
00:16:50
Speaker
I hear all the time, coaches do this at the end of the session all together. and And here's, going to, give this another piece to this too, is um what are you taking away at the very end of the coaching conversation?
00:17:07
Speaker
And first of all, what they're taking away is not the same as what have you learned?
00:17:14
Speaker
They may take away something completely different than what they've learned. So that's why reflecting on this learning is it critical to do. I love that. And i
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:17:25
Speaker
this is something that I think it's so important for us to pay attention to as coaches. And oftentimes coaches forget about this.
00:17:34
Speaker
You know, the reason why we want to do the learning, what is the learning about the situation? What is the what are the insights that you got from this conversation? What is the learning about yourself? We want to do this prior to action is so that the action...
00:17:51
Speaker
is a result of the learning. We had this whole exploration, we had this whole um observation and exploring what the situation is. We got the insights. Okay, so now that I have this learning, now that I have this new awareness, of course this is what I'm going to do.
00:18:12
Speaker
ah Action then... becomes a natural result of the awareness. So that's why it's so important that we do this recapping prior to supporting the client into establishing what is the the actions and what ah are the the the steps that they are going to take so that the action plan is informed by the learning.
00:18:37
Speaker
And I love that because then we don't have to manufacture action. Action becomes almost like a natural result of the learning. i Okay, I got this insight. Of course I'm going to do this and this and that.
00:18:51
Speaker
Right? So this is something for all of us to keep in mind. When you are supporting the client to verbalize their learning, do this prior to action because then action is going to be much ah much easier.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of it in a nutshell. Yeah. Wonderful. Amy, thank you so much for coming and visiting us. And I'm sure that you're going to show up again during this season.
00:19:20
Speaker
And everyone, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share the podcast with other people. Follow it on Apple Podcasts your favorite podcast ah provider. And we are going to come back next time.
00:19:40
Speaker
And if you have any questions, please reach out to us. We always like to learn from you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Amy. Thanks, Elias. Bye, everyone.