Unpacking Relationship Misalignment: Understanding Expectations and Roles

Embarking on the journey of becoming a life coach is an exhilarating adventure filled with the promise of helping others achieve their goals and aspirations. However, as you delve deeper into the intricacies of coaching, you'll soon realize that relationships play a pivotal role in your clients' journeys to personal growth and fulfillment.

In this article, we'll explore the concept of relationship misalignment and offer practical strategies to help you navigate this terrain effectively. Whether you're working with clients, managing personal relationships, or navigating partnerships in your coaching business, understanding expectations and roles is key to fostering healthy and fulfilling connections.

Unpacking Expectations and Beliefs:

As a new coach, one of your most valuable tools is your ability to listen actively and ask probing questions. By encouraging your clients to articulate their beliefs and expectations, you create a space for deep introspection and self-discovery. Remember, it's not about imposing your own beliefs onto your clients but rather guiding them toward their own truths.

Strategy: Foster Open Dialogue

Initiate conversations that encourage your clients to explore their beliefs and expectations openly. By asking thought-provoking questions and actively listening to their responses, you can uncover underlying beliefs that may be hindering their progress.

Anecdote:

Imagine a client, Sarah, who is struggling to find fulfillment in her career. Through a series of coaching sessions, you encourage Sarah to reflect on her definition of success and fulfillment. As she unpacks her beliefs about work and happiness, she realizes that her current career path is not aligned with her true passions. This newfound awareness empowers Sarah to pursue a more fulfilling career path with confidence and clarity.

Defining Roles:

In both personal and professional relationships, clarity on roles and responsibilities is essential for fostering mutual understanding and respect. As a coach, it's important to establish clear boundaries and expectations from the outset to ensure a productive and harmonious relationship with your clients.

Strategy: Set Clear Agreements

At the beginning of your coaching relationship, take the time to outline your role as a coach and clarify the client's responsibilities. Establishing clear agreements regarding session schedules, communication channels, and expectations creates a foundation of trust and accountability.

Anecdote:

Consider a scenario where a client, Alex, expects his coach to provide all the answers and solve his problems. By setting clear boundaries and defining his role as a facilitator of growth and self-discovery, the coach empowers Alex to take ownership of his journey. Together, they work collaboratively towards his goals, with the coach providing guidance and support along the way.

Bringing Hidden Beliefs to Light:

As coaches, our role is not only to guide our clients toward their goals but also to help them uncover and challenge their hidden beliefs. By shining a light on these underlying beliefs, we can facilitate transformative change and empower our clients to live authentically.

Strategy: Facilitate Self-Reflection

Incorporate reflective techniques such as journaling or visualization exercises into your coaching sessions to help clients explore their innermost thoughts and beliefs. Encourage them to examine the origins of these beliefs and consider how they may be influencing their actions and decisions.

Anecdote:

Imagine a client, Mark, who struggles with self-doubt and limiting beliefs that stem from childhood experiences. Through guided visualization exercises, Mark begins to uncover the root cause of his insecurities and recognize the impact they have on his relationships. With the support of his coach, Mark learns to challenge these beliefs and cultivate a mindset of self-confidence and empowerment.

Recognizing Misalignment:

Conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but it's how we navigate these conflicts that determine the strength and longevity of the relationship. As coaches, it's important to develop effective conflict resolution skills to address misalignment and foster understanding and collaboration.

Strategy: Practice Empathetic Listening

When conflicts arise, approach them with an open mind and a willingness to understand the other person's perspective. Practice empathetic listening and validate their feelings, even if you don't agree with their viewpoint. By demonstrating empathy and understanding, you can de-escalate conflicts and find common ground.

Navigating relationship misalignment is an ongoing journey that requires patience, empathy, and open communication. As you embark on your coaching career, remember that relationships are at the heart of your work, whether with clients, colleagues, or loved ones. By understanding expectations, defining roles, uncovering hidden beliefs, and addressing misalignment with compassion and integrity, you can cultivate meaningful connections that foster growth and transformation. Embrace the challenges as opportunities for learning and remember that every relationship is a unique and valuable opportunity to make a positive impact in someone's life.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] You're listening to the coach's journey podcast, exposing the struggles and celebrating the successes in the life of coaches who are action takers and creating authentic impact in today's world. Whether you're just starting out, expanding your reach or exploding your impact, you're in the right place right now. Stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Now, here are your hosts of the coach's journey podcast. What's up coaches nation. This is Dr. Sherry with another episode of the coaches journey podcast. And if you're watching this live happy Valentine's day. This is a day that we celebrate relationships or think about relationships. It's not always a great day for everyone. And we get that, but in, in honor of Valentine's day, we are actually going to talk and deep dive Relationships and coaching and so especially if you're not, if you don't identify yourself as a [00:01:00] relationship coach, that's not what you're setting out to do. You will definitely not want to miss us because we're going to talk about some simple ideas and a framework that you can use to help any client move forward. If they're presenting some relationship challenges amidst all the other things that you're trying to work with them on. So stick around, you're going to get a few tidbits that can be a game changer in how you're working with your clients. Before we jump into that. My amazing co host here, Faisal Adzan, we're going to just chat a little bit about an event coming up that you also won't want to miss because it's going to help you grow your business, scale your business, which is an important piece of our ability to have an impact in the world is gotta have clients. So coming up, we have a special event. Faisal, can you share a little bit more about that? For sure. And, and got to have clients is very important because including me, I'll start with myself and then meeting a lot of coaches [00:02:00] over the past year, few years in their mind, they're amazing coaches. But when you ask them, how many people you've worked with, how many people have you served? Not that many. So in their mind, they're amazing coaches, but if you don't have clients, you don't have anything to show for it. And what we're trying and basically the sales masterclass is going to help you kind of bridge that gap as to how can you. start to get more clients. How can you get your next five clients through the process of sales? What does your sales process look like? What does your customer journey look like? When I started out, I had no idea what the hell sales was, or there's a process or there's a customer journey. All I knew that I wanted to coach people and I was taught to just get people on a discovery call or a strategy call, which is still good as a starting point, but I didn't know what it took to get the client to go from connecting with them to closing which means that to starting that coaching journey with them long term, and that requires you to. [00:03:00] to understand the process around that and understand how the client psychology works, what it takes to follow up, what it takes to build that trust relationship, and what it takes to make that offer at the end of it in that proposal and close a client. And we'll talk about the whole journey around it. So we're not talking about the actual sales call. We're talking about the customer journey in this workshop. And the reason why it's important to you is that if you don't understand this more than likely, you're struggling to get Clients. And if you actually want to get a few clients in the next couple of months, then you want to be on that masterclass, which is on March 4th at 12 p. m. Eastern. Yes. I, when I started coaching, I was, I had the field of dreams mentality. And if you haven't seen that movie, Field of Dreams, the whole philosophy is build it and it will come and they will come. And so I'm like, had my website built and I didn't get any clients from it. I'm like, what's going on? So I think that it's, it's so easy to have these beliefs [00:04:00] that if we just put our stuff out into the world, Everyone, the right people will be attracted to it like a magnet and in my experience, that is not how it works, that there is a lot of hard work that has to go in on my part for people to then see the stuff and be attracted to it. So it's unless unless you have some magical abilities that I'm unaware of, there's a lot of hard work that goes into it. And so we want to demystify that so that your efforts actually do pay off. Yes, for sure. And then what doesn't help is that a lot of coaches follow these big influencers and brands that actually have done a lot of that work for the past 20 plus years. And they're seeing the effects of it in the form of brand that does attract hundreds of thousands of people. And they kind of compare themselves to them. It's like, well, it should work the same way. It won't because they're what they're not teaching you or they are not aware of teaching you at this time is because they went through a different [00:05:00] journey in the beginning stages of it and they've either forgotten or there's just, it's not a point of focus for them. So you're not hearing a lot about that struggle that they went through about that time when they needed to do prospect and when they needed to reach out to people when they were the ones who were looking for clients versus the clients were. Pouring out for them, and there's a journey in there, and it doesn't have to be in the way that most coaches think. It can be very much aligned with the mindset of service. It can be very much aligned with the mindset of how can I serve people, support people, and you can make your sales process around that. We'll talk about that in detail. It'll be a two hour master class. It'll be interactive. You're going to hear other perspectives from other coaches as well. Who have tried different things, but it's going to answer your questions around. How were you going to find your clients? How are you going to prospect? How are you going to follow up with them? How are you going to make those proposals? What journey you're going to take them through? It's going to answer a lot of the questions around that. And if you're interested in that just [00:06:00] type hashtag sales below, and we'll be sure to give you the registration link that for that masterclass. And if you're listening to this on a podcast feel free to send us an email support at coachingmasterycommunity. com. And just let us know, Hey, I want that masterclass and we'll make sure that you get the recording because we do record them. So if it's after the fact, that's okay. You didn't entirely miss out. You can still gain value from that. So we're excited to have you there. All right, let's shift into relationships. What I have seen and I've even experienced this myself, what I've been, what I've seen in other coaches who aren't relationship coaches, and that's really what we're focusing on today is they're working with a client that came to them for, let's say they want to become a better leader or they Want to increase your productivity or maybe, maybe they're challenged in their health and they want to focus on increasing [00:07:00] their, their health and maybe weight loss and, and there's some mindset components around that. And then all of a sudden they're like sharing with you, Oh my gosh, they're having these really significant challenges with their spouse and they're actually considering divorce. Like a lot of coaches like will freak out at this moment because. There's this script that's going through their mind or this, this belief that I'm like, I'm not a relationship coach. Holy crap. I don't know what to do with this. And they start to panic the whole point of today. Please stick around. The whole point of this is so that you don't panic. You do have some skill sets that actually can help. And so we're just going to package a simple four part framework that you can use in, in almost every situation. And and, and so that way you have tools to use in that moment when you start freaking out inside, because you're like relationship coach. So that is the point of this. That is the purpose of this. And we're excited to be able to give this to you. All right, so [00:08:00] Faisal, you want to kind of unpack that first step of the framework, kind of the first level of things to do when you realize that relationships, whether it's a significant other, whether it's a relationship with coworkers, whether it's parent child relationships, like we are using relationships as like a loose and very big overall encompassing term, but can you kind of unpack that first? Step of the framework. Yes, for sure. First of all, this is Valentine's Day that we're recording. That's why we, it actually fell perfectly into what we wanted to talk about anyway. Or what we wanted to talk about. So you see the heart. Shape balloon behind Sherry. She's gotten the gift from her amazing husband. So we kind of use that as an opportunity. So like Sherry stressed on, it's not just about the romantic relationship with your spouse, your girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever it [00:09:00] might be, or so we're, we're looking at it from two lenses. This is for you and for your clients, because I think it will make a difference on, on both sides. As you think through these points, No, but and as a starting point before we even go into the first point, just our philosophy and CMC is that you are client zero yourself. To the extent that you've dealt with your own relationship challenges that you've grown within your relationships, whether that relationship is with your parents, with your siblings, with your husband, which, which, with your children, these are like the most triggering relationships that you'll find. because of course we are emotionally connected with them. A lot of us are, is, is invested in them. We have a history with them, so it affects us in different ways. And, and, and, and we also have fears around them a lot because there are core relationships. And also that might have your business partners, your friends and other people in them too. So think of your most important [00:10:00] relationships for yourself, because you're client zero, but you're not. How do you handle them? And I know that I'm working through them even right now. And I don't pretend even with my clients that I have it all figured out. In fact, as soon as my client thinks that I have it all figured out, I, I kind of, in my experience, I feel obligated to share an area where I have screwed up completely. recently. So they kind of get that image out of their head that I like. Oh, I'm their guru to teach them about it versus explore this with them. So all these things actually apply to you as well. So look at it from both lenses as we're exploring this. is that how are you handling your relationship? Because in my experience, the more you're tackling your own relationships that tend to be emotionally challenging and draining at time. Also, you, we, even though they're emotionally challenging and draining, we also feel a huge sense of fulfillment and connection because of those. So they're paradoxical in nature. How are you handling these? How are you working through them to the extent that you're doing well and not [00:11:00] well? Or the way you're attacking them, or you actually dealing with them affects how you show up in your coaching sessions. There's no way you can separate that. I don't see because the coaching process is a process where you go with the client rather than you sitting on your high chair and kind of observing them more like from a therapy point of view, or, or certain types of therapy where you're kind of psychoanalyzing them rather than, you know, Going with them on that journey. Now, what, what are your thoughts about that piece? Cause I know you've been on both sides of that. Yes. Yes. I was trained by psychologists that were very much had the philosophy of your life is private, personal. Like you are not, don't bring your own stuff into therapy. Well, I, well, I agree with some of the, the precepts there of making sure the therapy doesn't, isn't about me. And I don't complicate things because of my own stuff. I have found that being a real person in, in, when I'm working with a client is so [00:12:00] critically important. I have experienced and felt the difference of people viewing me as like, she's got it all together. She's got it perfect. And. What that does is it ends up increasing in my experience, it increases the self judgment that my client has on themselves and they're treating themselves harder because they're like, why can't I be like her, you know, and, and so now they're using me as a. As a measuring stick, which is not fair for me or them. It's not helpful for them. And also what it does is it in it impedes their willingness to be vulnerable with me because. If you have, if you can think about a time when you have shared something really vulnerable with somebody else. And, but yeah, you have this perspective that, well, they don't, they don't understand me because they've never been here. That's hard. And so I do 100 percent believe in the value of being open within reason with [00:13:00] intentionality about our own lives and our own mix ups and screw ups and failures. Because I think that does facilitate a much richer and more healthy coach client relationship. So I love that you brought that up. No, I completely agree with everything that you said. And just to add to that when, when I think vulnerability comes into the picture, when they start to see you as like that pedestal that, Oh, like I can't, why can't I be like this? And judging themselves in the process. When that kind of goes away, what comes in is actually, you can actually start to share the wins you've had in your relationships. As soon as this trial, you can start. I'm working through this, but these are the results that I've seen. These are the results. Other people that I've helped with have seen now they're inspired by the process rather than judging themselves by the outcome that they don't have yet, which means that now they see the possibility. So they will But in more effort rather than not so that that that's a key point to remember as [00:14:00] a coach. And every time I see this, when I'm listening to my own sessions or another coaches session, if they are kind of if they appear, some coaches don't know how to correct this. So they will hear from their clients that that, oh, you have it figured out and all that stuff. They will correct. Sometimes they will correct us. It's like, Oh, no, I don't have it. But they don't put context to it. They don't allow because they don't want to open up themselves that they have their stuff figured out. And you don't have to open up a lot. You just have to share that you're going through your own journey in this area. And that doesn't mean that I have it all figured out. But what ends up happening is that they either kind of gloss over it or they share it a little bit. No, I don't have it, but they don't give them the experience that no, we're all on that journey. Let's figure it out together. And what you have figured out in your life will be so different than your client, to be honest, there will be similarities, but there's no way you can give you give like this mold of your life to your clients. Say if you do it like this, your life will be great because that [00:15:00] will break down completely. So, so, so let's jump into that first point. One of the first things, at least for me, whenever whenever I have clients and, and just for context my clients, they're usually coming to me because they're looking to, they're going through a transition. Usually this transition is professional in nature which means that these guys are entrepreneurs who want to be those who want to be entrepreneurs or those who want to be. Investors full time or more off. They want to replace their job or income from income from their job in the next few years. And they're trying to figure out how they can having been in the corporate world and the world of. jobs for the past 20 plus a time, many times, 15 plus 20 plus years. How are they going to mentally and psychologically make that transition, but also like in their day to day life. Now they have one other focus where they're spending [00:16:00] 10, 15, 20 hours on top of their job with their family. They're usually, these guys have families more often than not, I'd say 90 percent of my clients have kids and family. As some don't. How are they going to make this transition psychologically? But also, like, how are they going to balance all of this stuff? How are they going to work through this and not sacrifice the family that they've built the success they've had so far? And they've had success. They're fairly successful. And how are they going to go into this new path? Without sacrificing a bunch of stuff on top of which they have a bunch of fears and they're in this path. They don't know how to deal with. So when it comes to that, usually they're coming in coming to me for kind of some kind of way to be more effective. So they can show up for their family. They can do their job and be in business. But what I often find and here's my I'm one of the key areas. I do want even in the beginning, I want to explore is what's happening in their relationships. Because what I [00:17:00] often have found in my experience is that they're there. The struggle is usually and the way that they're conducting their relationships more so than what they think, which is their lack of focus, their distractions, all the things that they are a problem, but they're not the core problems. Usually the core problems are around. They're not able to communicate the thing that they're trying to do with. With their wife or with their husband, and they're kind of busy half the time with this thing. And the wife or husband doesn't understand why we're fairly successful. Why are you doing this thing? And they don't know. And even though they're doing it for the family, they don't know how to connect, communicate, build a common vision forward. And on top of that, they don't have a model for communicating better. None of the, none of the, To be honest, this is in my experience. Every person that I've talked to, with the exception of one or two clients over the past nine years, and they surprised me, and I wanted to learn more from them nobody has a really good model for being in a relationship, especially in an intimate relationship and knowing how [00:18:00] to communicate well and, and, you know, understand how to resolve conflicts as they come up. They've had a mixed bag of model from their parents, family and also and they're kind of doing their best to work through it, including me. So I've had to learn. But now think about it. Hundreds of people that I've worked with only one or two people who had a really good model around communication and relationship because they were like their parents showed it, their family showed it. Now this is not against anything against family or parents. We all kind of learned from each other. But as a starting point, I want to understand what their model for relationship is. How are they managing that part of their life? How are they perceiving it? How are they looking at it? How does that affect their performance and their work in their business and this transition that they're going through? And about 80 to 90 percent of the time, the core seems problem seems to be connected to that. Yeah, so to kind of talk about that in another way, we all have different glasses [00:19:00] that we put that we're wearing, you know, kind of proverbial glasses that we're wearing. And so if I'm wearing glasses that are tinted red and my spouse is wearing glasses that are tinted green, we're going to be looking at the same thing and we're going to be arguing because I'm like, no. It's red. And he's like, no, it's green. It's because we, we are coming from this from it with, with differing perspectives, with differing views and beliefs about what we're seeing or what should be. So in every relationship, even when some of some of the more significant ways in which we interact with the world might be similar. They're going to be Expectations desires, needs, viewpoints, worldviews, mindsets, whatever. There's lots of different words that the two people in this relationship, whatever type of relationship it is, they're going to be different. And so some, a lot of times what I've seen is the arguments, the conflicts [00:20:00] actually can start. Because I have my red glasses on, but I'm seeing everything is red and I don't actually understand and believe, but I don't even recognize that somebody else sees things differently and that they have a different. Expectation of what should happen. So I'm arguing, I'm like, well, you didn't do this thing. Like you're stupid. Like what the heck? But that never even crossed their mind that they would even consider doing that thing because it doesn't fit their framework. So unpacking, like, what are the beliefs around how the relationships should go? And I know I'm using the word should, because we all have expectations. We got to unpack that first and understand, like, what is the starting place of the expectations? And the beliefs that we have around. The relationship itself. That's kind of the foundational thing to do. So it's a lot of questions. We ask a ton of questions around around it. So not only can we [00:21:00] understand it, which I think is helpful, but the most important thing is that the, the people in the, the relationship, or at least the 1, you're working with, because you can still do relationship work. If you only have 1 person help them understand Where are they coming from? What are their expectations of how the relationship should be or the other? What, what are, how do they want the relationship to look? Just kind of asking questions to unpack all of that. That's that is like the first place to start. That is step one. And just to add to that, and what it also encompasses is their their like their role in their relationship. And what's what's been surprising for me on the business side and personal side, people have put very little thought as to their role. Now, we all know, like, if there's a husband and wife in a relationship, like you, that's husband, that's wife. But in the in the world, like, it used to be that if you go Past a couple of decades, the roles were more clear because especially let's look at it from a Christian point of view. If it's your [00:22:00] conservative Christian, you lived a few decades ago. You know what the man's role is, what the woman's role, but in the modern world, that's shifting more men and women are both working. They both have aspirations, ambitions and all sorts of things. So it creates a shift. So it's surprising how much how little people have thought about that role. And also, it's not just that in business role. So in partnerships in business that they have, they haven't thought enough about their role within the partnership and somebody else's or even their employees at times. So it and goes back to the expectation of sharing time. How can you expect something if you don't know what you're doing? The person's role is and within that role, what the responsibilities are. And so understanding how they look at the other person, understanding what they see their role in their own role, all they clear about that. And when you start to ask questions, explore that you see a lot of lack of clarity there. And that is the coaching process. You don't need to know much about relationship coaching. You just help them clarify the process. And by the way, if you're, if you don't have a lot of experience in intimate relationships, you're not in [00:23:00] a, you're a younger coach and you might be doubting like, well, how can I help somebody navigate this? If I've never been in or you're an older coach, but you have never been in a relationship know that you've been in some kind of relationship and you can, you can, you can leverage that as a starting point and your ability to deal with that will actually help you. But also. Cool. You can just ask questions about their own world. Be curious as to what, because your job is not to project what you have versus pull out what they need to clarify themselves. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So as our, as our, our, our, I see our main function as a, as a coach to help Bring kind of the, the hidden things to light so that our clients can then choose what they want to do with that. So that's, that's all we're doing. I'm step one, ask a lot of questions, help build out the picture of what they believe, especially when they're not entirely sure. On the surface, what they believe they're still functioning based on beliefs. They still have [00:24:00] these embedded, whether they cognitively recognize them or not. They're still, they're still in there. So we're working on helping them kind of rise to the surface. So once there is clarity on what are the expectations, the roles, the mindsets around how these relationships work from their perspective, step two is then help them help your client or clients understand. Where things are misaligned, because when my husband and I are in sync about how we parent our kids. There's no arguments. There is just conversations that are constructive and we get to, you know, we, we make decisions very quickly because we don't have to hassle or hash out you know, disagreements and, and differing perspectives. So, if there's no misalignment, there's probably not going to be conflict. So, in my perspective, the point, the fact that there is conflict means there's misalignment. It means that there's difference of [00:25:00] opinions. Now, I think an important thing here to set to to make sure that we are keeping in our mind as coaches misalignment doesn't mean 1 person's right. 1 person's wrong because that's easy to fall into misalignment just means that there's 2 things that are. Kind of not quite seeing each other exactly the same. So that that's, that's the job for number 2 is the 2nd piece of the framework is helping them understand and see and verbalize and recognize where that misalignment is happening. So, can I give a quick example of that? Because it's actually happening right now in my life. So we're actually, we're, we're planning that we have already planned the trip. So we're going to Florida for the next couple of months, starting next week. And so it's funny how our. Perspectives are so different. I'm, I'm excited about moving from one place to another. I tend to do a lot of the external thing. We have a motor home I will be setting up. She's dealing more with the kids and organizing all their [00:26:00] details. So for me, it's exciting to move from one place to another, even though it's work involved. But for her, it's a hassle a lot of times. So we were talking about, okay, where to live. So if we, as soon as I would mention, like, we're staying only for two days here and then it was like, why, why are we moving here so fast? I'm like, well, because it will be fun. It'll be adventures. We get to see it. And he's like, do you not consider the fact that I have to. work through this with the kid. And I don't, that's not the first picture that comes to me. The first thing that comes to me is, well, I, I'm going to pack up the RV and I'm going to do all this stuff. I can do that within a couple hours, but I'm not looking, really looking at what she's, cause I don't know her experience around it. She has to describe it to me. And then she, when she describes it, she's like, Like, okay, that makes sense. Okay. Now, let's maybe we can find a middle ground there. We can see more places, but we can but if I don't understand, and we've had a couple arguments around is like, why, why, why don't you want to see more places? And the point of this is an adventure. But I also see her point of view as, as to, okay, [00:27:00] let's do it in a way where we don't go insane with the two kids that we have. And also now, another simple point is her fears around wild animals. I don't have the same fears that she has. So alligators are big and in Florida, she's been having dreams, like nightmares about alligators. So she literally got up that day. So I'm not aware of this. She gets up. She's like, she gets up. She starts talking. I wasn't there. She remembered. I mean, I was beside her sleeping. So apparently she points like, I see an alligator tail. Do you see that? And apparently I get up and I start laughing and I go back to sleep. I don't remember any of this, but it shows the difference in the way that we look at these things for her. It's an actual tangible fear. And we got into a couple of arguments because I wasn't recognizing that it was an actual tangible fear. I was like, so what, we're going to find a way to figure this out. I was like, I don't want my kids to be eaten by them. So like these little differences makes a big difference in your communication pattern and [00:28:00] alignment misalignment. But just one thing to add, a lot of alignment and misalignment also comes from your bigger vision for life and values. And those are deep, deeper things. And usually it's not because people are similar or different. I think people are different by the nature of them being individuals. You will have differences. I'm very different from my wife, but our core values align, our vision aligns. But the reason why they align is because we've actually worked on it. Then outside of just having kids, which is a natural kind of purpose for human beings is to move that forward. What, especially in the modern world where there's complexity is all what is their common vision together? Did they even have it? Most people don't have the thought about their common values and the fact that they're together. There is some alignment there, but where they misalign. Is it the way they want to bring up their Children is the way that they believe about their faith. Is it the way that they believe about how to be out in the world? This is the way that they think about risk. Those things are to be explored, which are deeper [00:29:00] things outside of the little things that happen. I love that. And I was even thinking about, so there's a client that I meet with that's interesting because I get to do relationship coaching with him as a, I will say an added bonus in my working with him. And he's not in a relationship, but part of his challenge is he's like, I'm single. And I really want to be in a relationship and I've had all of these past girlfriends and am I being too picky and I will tell you I'm running him through this framework because I want him to. Have the perspective that he either is being too picky or isn't. Now, I have my beliefs, but I'm really trying to hold open. So I'm helping him understand, like, what is your, your value? The values that are non negotiable in relationships. What. Well, first of all, what's, what are the values that are non negotiable for you? So I went through a core value [00:30:00] exercise with him, helping him get clear on what matters to him. Like, how does he want to live his life? And then we talked about with number two. Okay. So how do you express these values? And then how would you expect other people to express these values? And then we kind of explore the past girlfriends, like what values did, does he see they violated or did they not, like, where was the conflict? So now he can reflect back and have either the, you know, affirm his choices to end those relationships, or maybe he can come to the decision that he ended them for a reason that really wasn't significant. in his worldview. So like, I'm using this framework to show you that you can even use this just with one person. And this is just kind of an interesting way that this is kind of materialized with this particular client. Yeah. I have a client like that too. It makes a big difference. So, but, and this is a good point, a point to bring up right now that it's, it's [00:31:00] very hard when you're in that process. If you've been in this world of personal development, you've gone through coaching and you've coached others. It our perception messes with our mind. We as sometimes we assume that the client has done the thinking thinking that you've done. They've gone through the process. You have a lot of people haven't and a lot of times I've gone more often. I've gone surprised and not when I ask him a question. That's very normal to me that I've thought about it for years. They haven't even considered it and that opens up a growth path for them that opens up a whole and this is the thing like people will go through breakups and relationships and whether business or personal and they don't give it second thought they go through the period of recovering from it and then they just move on but that was that was their learning experience if they can and this is what growth is you don't grow because you are getting older you grow because you look back and reflect what you've done. The hell did you learn from that? And that's what makes human beings so powerful that their memory is a [00:32:00] tool for them to learn from. Now, most people use their memory as a way to keep getting traumatized over and over and over again because they're not given a tool to Pull out the wisdom from their own experience, so they don't know what to do, but this gives you if you can explore these things, these are important things for most. If they're a human being, it will be important for them. I love that. And so what you're referring to, Faisal, is that we have patterns on how we utilize the information in our life. Which leads us to number three, the third step in this framework, which we could spend a whole week on. So we're going to have to really be brief in this, but is under helping your client or clients understand their communication patterns, then around the conflict, the mis the misalignment. So we have identified what are their values or mindsets, their perspectives or roles. And then where are these misalignments happening, the conflict happening. And now. We don't just recognize there is conflict. Now we have to actually [00:33:00] process, deal with, talk about, resolve, work through conflict. And so what does that look like? There needs to be some forms of communication to, to work through these things. And what does that look like? What are the patterns? So there's a key point to remember. Most people's pattern of communication comes from their family, like they just come from because they watch their parents. They watch their siblings. They watch the people around them communicate a certain way. It's automatic. They absorbed it and they just repeat that cycle. We all do it. If you've been aware for a little bit, you know that you act like your parents. one way or another. Even if you're aware, you cannot help yourself at times. But most people that's not even in their awareness. So they've picked up that up automatically and they haven't used their conscious mind to redo that programming, reprogram that. So they have, their pattern is automatic. They just show up because they show up. If you ask two people, why did they show up in their relationship? I don't know this. I think this is right. This is, this is a good question. That's how they will respond. They [00:34:00] don't know that. And, and, and even if they're overage, like, I don't know how else to show up because they don't have a model around that they've never watched anybody do it. Yeah. I had a session yesterday with a gal and I got excited. Because she was sharing a little bit around how she she feels like she gets sucked into other people's emotional lives, which the fancy term for that and psychology is enmeshment. And so she, I see this pattern of enmeshment with her and I asked her a question around well, and because she has. feels this way, she puts, she puts, she kind of takes on the role of being the fixer. And so I asked her about like, so were you a fixer in your house growing up? And she's, I don't think so. I got excited because I could tell you, she was, I am certain that she was. And that was a moment where she lacks Some clarity on how she actually interacted in, in her [00:35:00] family of origin. So, so I just, this, this, this stuff comes out everywhere and it's, and it's, and, and to kind of demonstrate what Faisal was saying, we are often unaware of it. And so by having, by being able to have somebody in our life that has an external perspective, they're not drawn into the. Emotional kind of the emotional drama of of the what's going on. They're able to provide a little bit more of an objective perspective, which is what we can do as coaches and what we can have other people do in our lives as coaches as well. So that we're not overlooking some of these patterns that we've established in our lives. And they're just and I love that. And a couple of pieces like practical things. I always want to know how often do couples or even business partners sit down and actually have a meeting for couples that might look like a date night or a date day where they They connect with each other. They get past the day to day routines of how was your day, basically, [00:36:00] and they have that time alone, especially if they have kids. There's no distractions there, but even if they don't, how often they've been, and you'd be surprised, and especially in North America, they might have not done that for months. Yeah, a couple of months and that actually we have data around the couples who tend to be happier. They tend to have those kind of things in place at least once a week. And I just, just know what's happening in that area because they might not, they might just think that this is normal and it is normal in a world where you're kind of focused on in your own head and you're just doing your own things. You're moving your own ambitious forward. And pretty soon they end up as roommates because there is no communication. There is no connection. There is no alignment. So usually just exploring that the fact that they're not connecting with each other, they're not reviewing their life or if their business partners or other kind of they don't have consistent interactions. There will be a break in communication. They don't know each other. I love that. Okay. So we've talked about the three, which I'm going to recap [00:37:00] here in a minute. And the fourth one, we've kind of been doing this whole time. So number one is you're helping your clients understand what is their perspectives or beliefs, their mindsets, their views around the roles, values, expectations in the relationship. Secondly, is then you help them understand where is the misalignment in those things? Where is the conflict coming from? Number three is then you're helping them figure out how to better communicate their feelings, their experiences as a result of those misalignments, but also just the basic, like, how can I better communicate what my values are in this relationship? And then the last one is you're simply facilitating growth in those three areas. So helping them get more clear on their, their beliefs or their expectations, and maybe it's shifting them a little bit. And also accepting like this is a huge one that I think I've seen that we sometimes have this expectation that we all [00:38:00] should have the same of all the things they may never be the same. But what if that's okay? And actually, what if that's. Part of the value of the relationship is that there are such big differences. So it's really just helping facilitate growth in the first three things. And you don't have to fix it for them. You're just facilitating them to create a better process. So then when you're not with them anymore, when you're not their coach, they have something that they can continue to use and grow from. Yes, and I love that. And also, I always I will always, especially couples who have kids and they have a community, their leaders and their family. They're not just learning this for themselves. This is a way to pass this on. And a lot of if somebody is into gourd growth, in some senses, they're into legacy, whether that's financial legacy, value, legacy, teaching, giving people the skills that they need. They might be the one in their family is that my let my say to change that pattern. And so when they go through this [00:39:00] process and give them this view, because people tend to do more for others than themselves, that once you grow out of it, you're breaking a huge pattern in your family and building on that, that whatever the positive things that you're given by your family, by your parents and carry get forward and breaking the pattern of the negative things and giving your kids, your family, your those around you, the tools to move forward just by you growing in this area. That makes a huge difference. And one last thing. Remember that now Relationship like when you're talking about people, there are usually emotions that come in for this will. These will be uncomfortable conversations for most people. It will not be comfortable. And you might even be comfortable as uncomfortable as a coach. And that's okay. And to the extent that you can. Navigate this with them because this will open up your own stuff. You're going to start to pay attention to your own relationship. Like, holy shit, what am I doing in my relation as you're going through this? But this helps you grow as a coach. So remember that. And, and, and, and, but this is one of those areas. If [00:40:00] you can help people in this area, you're And for them to understand relationships, this will help change the quality of their life. Personally, in their business, it helps them become better influencers, better leaders. They communicate better. That changes every part of their life. So this is a core area. This is not just a small thing to work through. So I would say I recommend that you study this area, work through it for yourself and be open to working through this. Yeah, I love that. We hope this is valuable for you. These are the things that we think about as we work with folks with clients in relationships, whether both parties are present or not. And I, I don't think you can go wrong with them. There's certainly a lot of other more nuanced things you can do, but we're just wanting to provide a simple framework that you can use reliably to kind of help uncover and move people through relationship challenges into kind of a healthier place. And again, as we talked about the beginning of today, if you would like [00:41:00] to be part of our sales masterclass, so you can have more opportunities to have these uncomfortable conversations around relationships, join our masterclass or ask us for the replay. We'd be happy to send it to you because we want you to have a thriving business that brings you joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life. Sure. And we're excited to hear from you and your thoughts. Please share what you've learned and coaching people through their relationship challenges and what you've learned even you going through your challenges. So we can all learn from each other, post that below, whether you're Facebook or YouTube. And if you're not on those platforms, definitely join our group. You will gain a lot out of it until our next conversation. Hope you have an incredible day. You're listening to the coaches journey podcast.