12 Tools & Techniques Every Coach & Leader Must Know | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 8

Make Your Impact

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Make Your Impact 〰️

The Better Than Rich 12 Tools Of Coaching

Step One: Deep Rapport

Rapport is not bonding over a shared love for a sports team, we want to create a space where we can connect on a deeper level with our clients. People we coach should feel like we are part of the same tribe, cut from the same cloth, or one and the same.

People like people who are like themselves, or like someone they want to be.

A good way to do this is to mimic, match, and mirror the people you are trying to connect to. This helps them decide that you are a friend instead of a foe when they first interact with you.

Step Two: Framing

The purpose of framing is to guide the conversation between ourselves and the client while still giving them space to ask questions and bring up any topics that they would also like to hit on.

Here’s an example of framing: “Hey super excited to connect with you today, this is what I want to get accomplished today, do you want to add anything? If we cover these things will this conversation be a win?”

“My goal is to understand more about you and what’s working and what isn’t. To do this I'm going to ask you a series of questions, so the more open and honest you are the better. By the end of the conversation, we should have a pretty good idea of if this is a good match or not, and if not no problem, but if so I’ll go ahead and give you some more information on how I work with my clients”

No matter how we approach our framing for the conversations we are having, it should be done within the first 60 seconds of the conversation. This helps keep us and our client on task and creates a flow for the conversation, also a list to refer back to if the conversation does get off-topic.

Step Three: Softening
Softening is figuring out how to deliver messages in a way that will be received well. This is where we will use weaker words like potentially, maybe, feeling.

For example: “I feel like you might have a potential weak point here.”

This helps ensure that the client doesn’t feel attacked by direct conversation on a potentially sensitive topic for the individual. The use of softening allows for more open-mindedness and less resentment.

Step Four: Couching

Couching is similar to framing except we are handling the objections before they come up. Couching is a side statement that we make before making our real argument. This helps show how open-minded we are and an advanced thought process focused on problem-solving.

We want to know our client’s concern or argument ahead of time, which means we need to put ourselves in their shoes so we can see all potential arguments or objections and handle them before they come up.

Steps Five & Six: Challengs & Support

This step is where we need to be able to be stern and call people out. We need to be able to push people to their best in a way that doesn't overwhelm or create resentment. Challenges are where we explain to someone they could be better and aren’t reaching their capacity.

We need to be able to decide if our clients need to be challenged or supported during our conversations. A great way to decide is to gauge their language. Are they using self-destructive language, questioning themselves, or having low energy? Or are they using excuses, attempting to only focus on wins, or using blame? It’s important that we attentively listen to their language by using questions to dig and find out if they need to be challenged or supported.

Support is the other side of challenging. We all need a reminder sometimes that we are doing well. Support is encouragement. We should be reminding our clients that they are great, just how they are and why, and that they still have work to do. This keeps people in rapport with us and continues the evolution of the relationship and conversation.

Sometimes people need to be reminded that nothing is as bad as it seems and nothing is as good as it seems. This helps keep us in a “sober mindset”.

Step Seven: Questioning

Questioning is a key coaching skill. When we approach a conversation while coaching the first thing we want to use are our assumptions. Instead, we need to be asking thought-provoking questions. This allows them to either validate our assumption or give us a clearer understanding by explaining their truth.

Questioning takes patience, empathy, and understanding. To improve our ability to ask questions we have to be attentive listeners so we can then ask ourselves the question, “What questions came up while listening to so and so?”

Generally, the questions that we have when listening to our clients are holes they need to acknowledge and fill for a better understanding on both sides. If the question seems interesting ask it, and if follow-up questions show up then be sure to ask those too. Solve one at a time and continue. Don’t be nervous to ask a question, as long as we use the above steps, we can ask any question we want without offending our client.

The goal is to get to the base level of someone’s belief system with questions. Once we’ve reached the core of their beliefs we can begin working outward to their beliefs about themselves, others, and the world around them.

Step Eight: Teaching

It is important to decipher when a person needs to be taught and when they need to be asked questions. Too often as a coach, we want to jump right into teaching which is easiest for leaders because we teach from our own experiences and truthfulness.

This is why we need to continue to grow, seek knowledge, and truth. When we are teaching there needs to be some sort of credibility, from your own life or someone who has put those teachable actions in place.

That is to ensure we can teach to others without coming off as hypocritical, we need to be constantly learning and staying in the know about new advancements in whatever our audience is interested in.

Step Nine: Analogies

When people need help understanding the message we are trying to get across, it might be time to use an analogy. Some people may have a hard time understanding our more direct approach so we have to be able to help them see things from different perspectives.

If they don’t understand “Maybe we need to start increasing this aspect to get this result” what they may understand better is, “ In this aspect of your life you’re a car, and I feel it’s time to pick up speed and start pacing more steadily to this goal”.

Being able to explain the same topic in multiple ways is a key coaching tool.

Step Ten: Stories

Stories can be personal, from history, or just someone who applied a skill. The purpose of telling a story is to give the client something to connect to. We want our clients to truly be able to connect with our story and then tie the story into what we want them to learn and apply. Stories also stick and can be a continued reminder of the message we relayed.

Step Eleven: Check-Ins

This step's purpose is to ensure that the client is understanding our message during the conversation. We don’t want to get to the end and our client is confused and has a tone of questions. To avoid this we do check-ins, which is when we turn the conversation back over to the client and ask them what they think.

Step Twelve: Meta-Weaving

Once we master each of these steps individually we are capable of being dynamic in a conversation. We accomplish this by intertwining all the tools together to challenge and support, question and teach, and share stories as well as analogies all in one conversation.

For example, “I feel like you need to step up, we both know your capacity is greater than this, but that being said you are doing phenomenal in these two areas and I appreciate all your hard work there. I’d love to see what you can accomplish when you put the same amount of attention and effort into area one as well. What do you think?”

These tools individually are great but used together they are phenomenal. This way we can hit multiple points while keeping our clients engaged, in deep rapport, and continuously learning.

Andrew Biggs 0:00
Good morning everyone and welcome to the better than rich Show. I'm your host Andrew Biggs and I'm here with my special co host, Mike Abramowitz. Mike, how are we doing this Tuesday? Sorry, Wednesday morning. How are you?

Mike Abramowitz 0:12
Feeling great man feeling great Wednesday morning. So it was good when you get a morning workout in before the sun comes up.

Andrew Biggs 0:19
Absolutely, absolutely. I have like a little bit of sunlight like hitting me at a strange place and I'm trying to move around. See if I can fix that. Hopefully it'll it'll work out for us. But uh, yeah, man, how did you stay up and watch the election results or what agenda doing?

Mike Abramowitz 0:33
You know, it's I I watched till about I fell asleep at uh, maybe around 945. Okay, yeah. Right. That's That's how that's how invigorating it was. I was, I was watching it was it was like watching a sports game. And then it was the same. It was almost like, for me, it was like watching like a sport like soccer. Because it's like a lot of action and nothing at the going on at the same time or hockey. It's like a lot of action with nothing going on at the same time. So it doesn't hold my attention to well, but yeah, that's Yeah, I had a good night's sleep.

Andrew Biggs 1:10
That was good. That's good. That's good. I definitely think that that is a good way of looking at it, it definitely felt a lot more like you were watching a sport and there was like a back and forth battle going on, you know, and it's like, oh, man, this one's going overtime, like basically we are, we're in overtime right now. And, you know, we'll we'll see what happens, it's gonna be interesting to see how things shake out. But, you know, it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be an interesting one. So we are going to give you guys a little bit of a respite from the from the election talk, that is probably going to dominate the news today and probably going to dominate your office space around the watercooler or whatever today. And today, we're going to dive in on some specific content from better than rich, kind of our part two series that we'd promised you all around the tools of a great coach. So I got my notes pulled up here, Mike, I'm ready to dive in. And we're gonna give you 12 different tools. Again, this might be a cursory glance at these 12 different tools, we can really go deep into these and spend more time and understanding each one of them another time. But I think that this is something that everyone needs to know what's up Jeremy, by the way, by the way, Jeremy, I owe you I owe you a Facebook message. I know that so I'll get back to you on that one. Awesome. So the number one tool that I want to teach you guys today To start off, excuse me, is deep rapport. Deep rapport is the number one tool of a great coach. And basically what deep rapport means. And in some ways, this is almost like a meta tool that you can use in in any relationship. But deep rapport really means that you're really synced up with this person, and you really understand them. And there's like a complete trust in the relationship. And when you have this high degree of deep rapport, it's not about you know, Oh, you like golf, and I like golf, we're in rapport, we're similar. It's not about oh, you know, you like the dolphins and I like the dolphins, we're in rapport were similar. It's not about talking about the weather, it's not about talking about your kids, it's about being synced up energetically, where you can really like kind of feel, and you're almost doing this dance with somebody in conversation. You know, you're kind of there's this, this sort of inter attunement, right, and you're entrained to each other. So like, when I move, they move, and when you move, I move, and we're kind of doing this weaving and this dancing. And this deep report really just means that there's a lot of trust, in really is the number one thing I'm always trying to tune myself to. And if I feel like I'm not in deep rapport with my client, or with anybody, I'm trying to lead or influence in any sort of way. My number one goal, besides any other agenda item on the on the list simply becomes to get in report, because you can't influence somebody if you're not in deep report. So that's my thoughts. Mike, what do you think about the report?

Mike Abramowitz 4:02
Yeah, I want to make sure that when I'm in rapport with someone that that, you know, there's, there's the old saying that people like people that are either like themselves, or like someone they want to be. So almost I know, you've taught me it's like, helping them feel like we're part of the same tribe. And remember, you taught me that, it's like, help them feel like we're a part of the same tribe. We want to we're in this together. And if I can create the space to be able to connect in a deep level like that, I mean, that's that's, that's the number one part of my opinion of being a coach.

Andrew Biggs 4:40
Totally. some clues on that, you know, to be to help people see we're in the same tribe, mimic match and mirror. I was talking to someone the other day, they're doing a roadshow for their company in Chicago, and they're from Florida, and they're up in Chicago, like Oak Brook area, and he jumps on the call and just says, Yeah, man. Like, I can't connect with Chicago people, I'm just like, Okay, well, you know, first off, I'm kind of from the Chicagoland area, so I can help you out with that. But like, why not, you know, it's like, they talk too fast, like, they're always busy, these sorts of things. It's like, Okay, so then you need to communicate in a way that they'd like to be communicated with, right? Be more direct be, you know, Hey, I know you're in a rush, I kind of point out some of the different things that might might be going through their minds, and ended up having one of his best shows ever. So it's just like, mimic match and mirror. The way people like to be communicated with sometimes this is simple stuff, like rate of speech. You know, are they using simple or complex sentences? Are they speaking from their nose, their mouth or their chest? You know, what's their posture like, obviously, mimic match and mirror their body language. So these are some different things that can help you kind of, you know, lower that critical rational filter that we all kind of inherently have that says, Is this person, a friend or a foe? And that's how we're always kind of entering an interaction, especially with a stranger. So you know, in a sales context, it's really important, but even you know, resetting a relationship and making sure that you're showing everybody that you're a friend, initially, when you're starting a conversation is very important. So that is deep rapport. Mike, do you want to share a number two?

Mike Abramowitz 6:15
Sure. Number two is framing. So number one is deep rapport. Number two is framing and framing is creating, you know, think about a frame, like you're creating a box around the conversation. And not only do you want to create a box around the conversation, you want to make sure that there's an agreement that we're going to stay within that box to start the conversation. So the frame might sound something like, Hey, I'm really excited to connect with you today. What a couple of things that I wanted to get accomplished and want to get accomplished this, that and the other thing. Are you okay with that? Is there anything else that you want to make sure we hit on during our conversation? Cool, we'll put that in the box, too. So we'll get through all of this today. Is that cool? Would that be a win if we could get all that accomplished today? Great. So now we have what we're going to get accomplished. And we put everything in that box. And now we have a frame around where we're going to go. So that way, if the conversation starts derailing on to something else, we know what's in the box. And if that's outside of the box, we don't necessarily have to go down that path in this conversation that could be tabled for another conversation.

Andrew Biggs 7:21
Totally, totally. So framing is starting the conversation and setting the agenda, right. And so often, we kind of get into a conversation, and we're kind of in the middle of it. And we don't even know what the point of the conversation is. Especially if you're trying to influence someone, it's really important that you're really direct about that. I can't even tell you how many times I start a sales conversation with somebody, and I just tell them within probably the first minute, I say, here's what's going to happen, you know, my goal is to understand more about you I want to understand you know where you're at in life, what your hopes your dreams are your vision for yourself, what's working, what's not, what are your biggest challenges, and, and everything that's going on in your life. To do that, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. So the more open and honest you can be the better. And by the end of the conversation, we should have a pretty good sense of whether or not to fit if not no worries. If so I'll tell you a little bit about how I work with my clients. Does that sound good? Something like that in the first 60 seconds. sets the frame they go Wow, thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the transparency. Yeah, I'm, I'm an open book, what questions you got for me, right? And, and so you need to frame all of these sorts of conversations, whether it's in a sales context, or it's just an influence leadership conversation. framing helps you stay within the box. And then once someone says yes, then if they try to go outside the box, you can say, hey, just for example, a lot of times people want to know the price. So it's like, Hey, Mike, I appreciate that you're interested and you want to learn the price. Hey, that being said, you know, we kind of agreed to an agenda. Do you mind if we just stick to the agenda, and I talk about price later, I'll have a time at the end for you to answer to ask any questions you may have. Oh, yeah, that sounds good. Sorry, I jumped the gun. So this is typically what's going to happen when you start to frame conversations better. Number three is softening, softening. softening is, in being able to this is why you need deep rapport, but being able to feel into how you need to deliver something in a way that it's going to be received. And sometimes if you're going to give a little bit of like a challenge or something that is a little of a tougher pill to swallow for people, you know, you need to deliver it kind of on this nice little pillow, right? And in this nice way that's going to be received. And so it's like softening that person to ready them to actually receive something. So a lot of times softening. I'm using kind of these, you know, typically what you would call weaker language that's like, Hey, I just want to maybe point out a potential blind spot, right? So potential blind spot instead of blind spot I think and feel that maybe you might have a blind spot here. So it's like, I think infield rather than I know, potential blind spot instead of blind spot, and maybe here, and then it's a soft, it's a softer sort of thing for someone to be able to receive that, you know, they kind of appreciate they're like, hey, you're giving me like harsh feedback, but in this kind of form that I can actually receive and not need to get my ego involved and be defensive. So that's what I see on softening. What do you think, Mike?

Mike Abramowitz 10:36
Well, I think that's completely relevant, especially with right now well, especially with, you know, the election and everything specifically, because, you know, you don't have to agree with somebody, necessarily, but you don't want to attack them. So softeners would be very helpful during this time period, where it's like, you voted for blank, you're an idiot, versus Oh, wow, you voted for blank. Cool. That's it. That's interesting. I'd be curious, you know, if you'd be open to maybe sharing, you know, some of the reasons on why you chose to do that, you know, like, using a, if they give you their reasoning, and it's like, well, you're an idiot, it's like, well, um, I would probably use some softeners around, you know, any type of direct conversation around a sensitive topic, any type of topic that might have some sort of disagreement, or potential argument around it. I softeners, I wish there was more people would use those a little bit more. In conversation, I think it would create a lot less resentment and more open mindedness.

Andrew Biggs 11:50
Totally, totally. And also just the realization that, you know, each subsequent generation seems to get more and more sensitive, you know, from an attunement perspective, and kind of from like, a trigger perspective. So if you're leading young people, you know, millennials, and Gen Z will say, making sure you use softeners, in your delivery is really important. You know, a lot of baby boomers and Gen X will come will complain that, you know, millennials, and Gen Z is too sensitive, right? They can't take criticism, they can't take feedback, the smallest little thing, you know, they need a mental health day, like all the jokes there. And well, you know, there's certainly some criticism to be to be levied at millennials and Gen Z for some of that. But the other thing is, well, that's not changing, right. So if you want to be able to influence a large portion of the working the workforce right now, millennials and Gen Z and an ever increasing percentage of the workforce, then you better learn how to communicate in a way that's going to be received. Other than rather than trying to fight what is so just another point there on softening. Do you want to take the next one, make

sure number four is couching. So we got deeper pores, number one, framing number two, softening, number three, couching number four. And couching is similar to framing except it's almost like handling the objections before they come up. So you want to like, handle any type of potential concern that they might have before the concern exists, like, pop in the concern bubble? And, you know, I'm sure you'd probably be able to come up with many examples of how you do that in coaching. Do you have any specific examples of how you do that, Andrew, when you're working with someone,

right, so basically, it's like giving the counter argument before you present your argument. So couching is like, you know, a side statement that you kind of make before you make your argument as to how they should potentially see it. Again, this is super, you know, salient right now, in terms of how you can, you know, navigate conversations to show the actually are thinking about, you know, other ways of other ways of thinking or governing. But, you know, in a business context, you know, we talked about systemization the other day, let's say I'm having a conversation with somebody who historically isn't been great at systems, they're more of like a personality, lead type leader, and they kind of lead on their charisma. So I might say something like this before I present the concept of systems, I say, Hey, you know, obviously we can't systemize everything in our business, Mike, you know, there are some things that really need that personal touch that need, you know, charisma that you know, there's circumstantial circumstantial and Situational Leadership, where you are always going to be needed to step in, and there's no way we can create a system for that, right. Your unique personality, you're a great leader, you know, you're somebody who who can't really be duplicated 100% at the same time, would you agree that there are a lot of things that we can systemize that currently you're running around like a chicken With your head cut off trying to fix that, if we just had a program for it would make things a lot easier. What do you think of that, Mike? So I've couched the counter argument, because otherwise if I just go with that argument of systemization, they'll say, yeah, yeah, I mean, I thought about that. But honestly, there's just so many things in my business that I can't I can't create a system for Andrew. Well, I've already handled that objection, right before it's come up. And so, you know, here we've, we've influenced them to help them see like, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. And also, it's currently a crutch. So any thoughts on that?

Mike Abramowitz 15:34
Now that was, that was perfect. I'm glad that was a it was really healthy example. And for those of you listening on how to break that down, you you want to try to think what the other person's concern or argument might be ahead of time. And that takes a little bit of preparation. So you want to almost put yourself in their lens. And how you can do that. I know especially what Andrew you just said about millennials Gen Z's. And if you need to learn how to work with them anyway, you use the word mental illness and and use, you know, some, you know, the gen x's, or the boomers might use that word, and they might even use it maybe a condescending way, for Gen Z's millennials. So maybe we could swap that out that, too. So every for every audience is just understanding life circumstances. So understanding seeing it from their lens, do they have you know, from their addictions, or their jobs or relationships, or how they're seeing the world, and just putting ourselves in their shoes, so that we can potentially see what are their arguments, or counter to whatever it is that we might be coaching them through or presenting to us. And that might take a little bit of preparation on your part as a coach?

Andrew Biggs 16:44
Totally, totally. Let's go with number five. Number five is challenge. So challenge is kind of on this polarity that with the next one, number six that we're going to talk about next. But challenge is this willingness to actually call someone out. And sometimes it's a very important tool to call someone out and to tell them hey, like, this is where you're screwing up, I'm gonna call you out for where you're not showing up at your best where you can be better and help them like really, it's kind of like the coach who's like, you're better than that, like, why did you you know, jump offsides? Like, you're more disciplined than that, you know, and is willing to kind of push somebody to, to do their best, it's more of the masculine side of leadership, and saying, like, hey, you're not as good as you could be, you could be so much better, and we need you. So that's challenge. Now learning how to do that congruently is really important. That's why we need deep rapport. That's why we need some of these other tools to be able to like soften that challenge in a way that it's going to be received. But if we're not, if we're never challenging people, you know, there's some people who think that, okay, it's, you know, it's 2020, we got to be soft to everybody, we got to be kind, you got to be a tune, we have to, like, you know, accept the worst parts of themselves and tell them that they're perfect just the way they are. And that's kind of the next part we're going to talk about in Section six. But in this thing, it's, it's like in the relative sense, no, you're not as good as you could be, you could be way better, and you're not even trying step up. And so we have to be willing to have those conversations. And maybe a good idea when you're entering a conversation is is this more of a challenge question? Or is it more of a support question? And you can ask yourself are sorry, a conversation? Is this more of a challenge such a conversation? Or is this more of a support conversation? What did this What does this person need right now? Do they need to be challenged or support it? So any thoughts on on challenge and then I already let the cat out of the bag on what number six is? But what do you think? Yeah.

Mike Abramowitz 18:45
And in finding the balance between challenge and support, you want to lead with questions in order to figure out which is needed at the right time. So so it comes back to what you said about being in deep rapport. So if you if you and you created this frame, so if you have done the work on the front end of the conversation, then you can dig with a couple of questions and based upon the digging that you're going to do, you'll figure out you know, if they're using language like beating up themself, like if they're using like, self judgment, or you know, self talk of like, yeah, I messed up, or I'm not good, or like some something around guilt or shame, well, you're probably gonna want to use a little bit of support because they're already challenging themselves. They're already being tough on themselves. They don't necessarily need you to also be tough on them because they're already being tough on themselves. If they're using more like excuses or blame or pointing fingers somewhere else or outside of my control circumstances, then then that's probably where I would do more challenge but you got to hear their language in my opinion, by using questions to dig to figure out which one you need. Do you need challenge or do you need a support?

Andrew Biggs 19:55
I love that man. I think it's 100% accurate that you know, just reading between the lines, listen And trying to figure out does this person like where's this person at? Are they already challenging themselves, in fact, maybe they're challenging themselves too much. Or maybe they're supporting themselves too much. So, by the way, number six is support, which is basically just the other side of that. And it's kind of reminding people that they're doing great. And that it's, hey, you know, it's not as bad as it seems. I have a saying, in business, it's never as great as it seems, it's never as bad as it seems. And really, that just kind of keeps you kind of in a sober mindset. And sometimes people need to be reminded, like, hey, you're doing great, you're doing well, like, here's what I love about you, here's where you're, here's where you're awesome. And just like encouragement, is really what I would see there. So, you know, sometimes, you know, people need that they need to be reminded that they that they have strengths, if they can just persevere, that they will succeed. So what else do you think about support number six?

Unknown Speaker 20:53
Yeah, you've you've said to me many times, you know, you're great how you are, and you also have a lot of work to do. And that to me, I've said it to some of the people I work with, too. And it kind of touches on both of them. And when you give reasons behind it, you know, you could support and encourage and also challenge, but you want to kind of find the balance between the two and use it in the right context, but you're great how you are, and you've really you've and here's why. And you have a lot of work to do. And here's why. And it just keeps it keeps someone in rapport with you. But it also keeps that keeps the conversation evolving and keep keeps the relationship revolving?

Andrew Biggs 21:33
Absolutely. You want to take number seven, then?

Mike Abramowitz 21:36
Sure, number seven, questioning. So that kind of ties into what I was mentioning. So number seven is questioning. And, you know, questions are by far in my opinion, one of the most important tools that you can use in a coaching conversation. And when I say a tool, is it's really a tool to influence right? It oftentimes, when we're in conversation and coaching someone, we're going to use assumptions. And instead of using assumptions, you just want to ask thought provoking questions that allow them to either validate your initial assumption or allows them to answer and, and just give you what their truth is. And I think questioning is is something that takes a little bit of patience. It takes a little bit of understanding a little bit of empathy, and some level of creativity. But I think working with you and your you, that's one of the things that kept me working with you for so long, is your ability to ask such penetrating thought provoking questions that allow me to really dig deep with some of my below the surface responses. And that's that's one of the things that's kept me coaching with you. So what my question to you would be, is, if someone wanted to get better at asking questions in a coaching conversation, what are where would they be able to start? Now, obviously, we can have a whole episode on just question asking, and we probably should, but just on the surface level, where could someone improve? Just their their ability to ask good questions?

Andrew Biggs 23:07
One, one kind of simple rule I have is, if a question seems interesting to me, I'm going to ask it. So if it's kind of popping in my head, then I want to ask it, and that's, that's a lot of times kind of the way I frame it. It's like, hey, the question that popped up for me is this. And, and so it's, if a question seems interesting, ask it. If there's like a follow up question that that begs to be asked then ask you. So someone might say, you know, so I'll just give you an example. A lot of times, I'm talking to people about purpose. So they will say, I don't know what my purpose is in life, you know, I feel lost, I feel disillusion disconnected. I don't you know, I'm just going through the motions in life, say, Okay, well, the question for me that comes up is, does this person even believe that life has a purpose? So you know, that's gonna be the next question. It's like, Why? You don't you know, you don't know what your purpose is. But let me ask you, like, do you believe life has a purpose? And probably more than half the time, the person's like, I don't know. Like, I don't know if life has a purpose. And so, then what happens is, well, they're trying to find their purpose without even asking the first question. So let's solve that question first, and ask all the relevant questions down that question tree. And if they can we arrive at the conclusion that life has a purpose, then we can move on to what's their purpose, and so on and so forth. So it's like, we have to really go back to like the lowest level of someone's belief system. You know, I probably do this a little bit more intuitively. And And at this point, there's kind of like an unconscious competency that I need to try to articulate, like, how can I actually teach someone how to do this, but we're going like, all the way down to the person's like core belief. leads write about life itself. And then their core beliefs about themselves in relationship to life, and then their core beliefs about, you know, others, and then the core beliefs about, you know, how they should act. And we're kind of building up this scaffolding of beliefs that is going to really formulate their identity. So it's definitely an interesting question of how can someone get really good at asking questions, one of the best things I would just say is start practicing. And don't be afraid to ever ask a single question. You know, that's a big thing. Because a lot of times when I'm, like nervous to ask a question, it's the exact question that needs to be asked, and they're so grateful that you were willing to actually do it. So, Mike, any other thoughts?

Mike Abramowitz 25:46
Why do you think someone would have been nervous to ask a question? Do you think it's because it would be intrusive or invasive or, or presumptuous? Like what? What can be a reason why someone might be nervous to ask a question?

Andrew Biggs 25:57
Yeah, sometimes people might be afraid to ask the question, because they might think they're gonna offend somebody. You know, I asked somebody the other day, I said, Hey, like, do you do you feel like you're an elitist? Like, you know, do you feel like people sometimes come like, you know, get rubbed the wrong way by you? Like, that's kind of an offensive question, right? But it's like, because we're in deep rapport. And because there's total trust and because I use a softener, that person was able to receive the question. Mm hmm. I don't know. Maybe I do come off as an elitist sometimes. I don't know. We'll see. But it's like, the whole point is trying to figure out what is, you know, the question you need to ask, sometimes people are afraid to ask it. And that's why you need deep rapport. They don't want to be offensive, which is fine. But if you use all these other tools in conjunction, you can pretty much ask any question you want.

Mike Abramowitz 26:50
Yeah. That's great. That's a great response. So and number eight, the opposite of teaching or opposite of questioning is teaching right? I wouldn't say opposite. But it's it's important to decipher of which one you need to do because too many times the coach wants to go to teaching when they need to ask questions. And sometimes they go to questions when they really need to teach and it's, it's kind of the similar thing with supporting and challenging you have to have a little bit of intuition, which is, which is important when when leading and coaching someone but to the point is number eight is teaching and teaching. Well, that's that's I mean, that's easy for most of us that are leaders I mean, we're teaching from our own experiences or we're teaching from from what we believe is truthfulness. And I really love that what you mentioned that that episode, I don't remember what it was, but it was a YouTube video that you had me listen to about discerning truth and truthfulness and and the the paradigm around that I wouldn't be able to teach it yet, but it was really spot on. That guy's super smart, whoever that guy is. But, um, but yeah, so we're going to be teaching from our truthfulness of what we believe is is real and from our lessons and our learnings, which is important of why we continue to read and listen to podcasts and feed our mind and, and leader and lead our lives so that we have some sort of content to be able to present to people because if we're just getting our stuff from what we saw on tik tok, and, you know, celebrity figures be like, yeah, this is what I saw. So in tik tok, famous person talking about this, you should check that out as well, there's not much credibility behind that source. So I would say, if you're teaching, make sure that you're using some port, some sort of some sort of credibility that you can offer it from, whether it be from your own life experiences, or something that you've learned or read or whatnot, I think there's just, it's important to not be hip, hypocritical. Too much hypocrisy. Sometimes with teaching. It's like, well, this is what I learned somewhere. It's like, cool. Are you demonstrating it? Are you living it? And? Well, I don't know if you've ever thought around that.

Andrew Biggs 29:06
Yeah. I mean, the biggest thought I have on teaching is that means you need to learn stuff, right? If you're going to teach something, you need to learn it. And by the way, to close the loop on Mike's comment there, the video he's referring to is the war on sensemaking. It's by Daniel schmeckt. And burgers, if you want to check that out on mine, you can't. So yeah, you have to be learning, right? And like I want to constantly constantly be learning and kind of be on the cutting edge of my field. Particularly I learned a lot about psychology, and, and things of that nature as well as culture. So I'm like on the cutting edge of that information. And then a lot of times people will I'll teach something to somebody, they'll say, How do you know that? And I said, Well, I just, that's what I spend 40% of my time doing is I spend 40% of my time learning. So you know, that's how I actually have content to deliver and you know, can also come up with my own content and synthesize this information to be able to present it. What I think a lot of people do is they just kind of take other people's content and copy and paste it right, in some way, shape or form. Or they learned a lot, you know, six years ago, you know, they went to, you know, unleash the power within and then they learned a lot and they were like super into growth phase, but then they haven't learned anything since. And so it's like, we need to constantly be on the cutting edge of whatever it is that we're interested in, and that our audience is interested in. So that's teaching. By the way, I know that we got a little bit of a tight window here. So we're gonna try to do these next four really quick. But the next one is analogies number nine. So sometimes when a student's having a hard time understanding a certain concepts, you need to use an analogy. So I was having a hard time breaking through with someone, you know, a couple months ago, and I just remember this like, like, you know, like it was yesterday, because it just clicked when I used an analogy. And I was just like, hey, you're like a car that's in second gear, and you want to go faster, but you just keep pushing harder on the on the gas, instead of letting off the gas hitting the clutch and moving to third gear, and they were like, whatever, right? It's a simple analogy, but because it was, you know, an analogy, rather than being like just telling them what to do. Then it clicked, and then all of a sudden their business change. So that's why we use analogies. That's why we use metaphors. That's why we use similes. And we have to be willing to come up with analogies that really work for somebody. And you know, oftentimes our brains are much more adapted to understand analogies than they are, you know, just concepts themselves. So I know we got a bounce here. So you know, number 10, do you want to take it? Yeah, number 10.

Mike Abramowitz 31:33
Number 10, is stories. And I already alluded to that. But stories is sometimes a personal story, or sometimes a story from someone else, or from history just to allow them to kind of connect those dots. I remember going to a Tony Robbins event A long time ago, I don't even know which one but he told a story that really connected with me. And he told the story about Thomas Edison, as has he was inventing the light bulb and the filaments and, and he kept a journal and there was a journalist who went there, and to document him as the villages largest failure. And he said, You're the biggest failure village has one document. And while the while they're doing the report, there was a big explosion that took place as he was trying to invent the filament for the light bulb. And she says, You're insane, you're gonna burn down the town. And all he did was reach for a journal, and wrote down, and she says, What are you doing? And he says, I just figured out two things. Number one, what not to do next time. And number two, how to create an explosion. And then Tony was able to tie that story into the power of journaling. And I still remember that is like, that's why you want to document everything and lessons, and there's so many great lessons that come from that story. And, you know, you can tell stories from yourself from other people. So that's, that's number number 10 is stories.

Andrew Biggs 32:49
Awesome. Number 11. Is check ins. So check ins are really simple. But it's it's basically kicking it back to the person for them to summarize what they're learning to see how it's landing, and to make sure it's being understood. So a lot of times, I'm just checking in, Hey, Mike, like, how's this landing for you? Where are we at on this? So I don't want to go on a big soliloquy, and then get to the end and learn that they weren't they, I lost them 10 minutes ago. So check ins is really simple, kicking it back to them saying, how's this landing for you? What are your thoughts? What do you think? You know, sometimes, I used to say, does this, does that make sense? And then I realized it was kind of like, can be received the wrong way. So watch that I still sometimes let that come out. But it's like, instead of saying, does that make sense? Because the only like, a lot of times people don't want to admit it doesn't so they're just like Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So instead of doing that, it's I want to say, hey, how's this landing for you? You know, what are your thoughts on this? And it's just a check in to help them kind of summarize back what they're learning any thoughts on that and then you can kick it to number 12

Mike Abramowitz 33:50
I was hoping you could take number 12 because number 12 is almost like your coin situation. That you kind of like creat almost created it for me.

Andrew Biggs 33:59
Yeah, yeah, number 12 is meta weaving. So what this really means is being dynamic in a conversation. And it's, it's when you really master all of these tools together, you can kind of string them together. And it's kind of like, you know, jazz and profit improvisation, you know, like one guy gets inspired by another and they go on a little riff and then they change keys and then they change, you know, rhythms and patterns and sequences. It's very much like that. So metal weaving is this capacity to in the same conversation, challenge and support question and tell stories, use analogies and check ins, you know, teach something, but also soften something couch, something, frame something, use all of these tools together. So don't be like, Mike like you need to step up. Like you're, you know, the way you're showing up right now is not your best and you know it and also like I really appreciate what you have done, you're doing great in this area, this area in this area. And like I want to appreciate you for that. And also at the same time, we both know that you can do better So it's like I just used challenge and support, married them together, softened it a little bit. And then, you know, hopefully Mike's gonna receive that really well, or whoever's on the other end of that. So Thanks, David. I'm glad this is landing great and you're getting something out of this. This is great. So I'm going to run through these real quick, just so we have them in sequence here. Number one, deep rapport number two, framing number three, softening, number four couching. Number five, challenge number six, support. Number seven, questioning number eight teaching. Number nine is analogies number 10 is stories. Number 11 is check ins and number 12. is metal weaving all these together. So this has been fun. Mike, any closing thoughts before we let everyone go for the day?

Mike Abramowitz 35:42
Hey, leaders, leaders lead make sure that you are learning consistently and be willing to influence tomorrow's leaders through your leadership. If you're willing to take a listen to this then you are a leader in my opinion.

Andrew Biggs 35:55
Absolutely. And if you are a leader, remember to leave today. Better than you found it. Have a great day. Thanks, everyone.