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A weekly interview podcast hosted by Melissa Hague features Courageous Coaches who explore the grit and bones of what it takes to be truly courageous. Whether you're a coach, consultant, or a leader, join us each week to explore what it really takes to be transformational in your coaching practice, your business, and your life.
Melissa Hague (00:02.19)
So welcome everybody to the Courageous Coach podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm here with Claire Pedrick. Thank you so much for being here, Claire. I am excited and ever so slightly nervous about this conversation. Well, it's curious to me, right, the nerves, because maybe there's always a little bit of nerves when you hit the record button, but
Claire Pedrick (00:24.076)
dear.
Melissa Hague (00:32.3)
It's a different kind of nerves today. It's nervous excitement because I invited Claire because she is one of the people who has had the most impact on my courageous coaching journey without doubt. And what's really interesting is that impact has come both through our relationship and our in-person work when we've actually met each other.
but it's come in many, many ways, Claire, that you won't be aware of. So you've touched my coaching journey and my courage building journey. So if the nerves, I think, come from that sense of the importance you hold for me, and therefore I think how important this conversation is going to be for me, let alone our listeners. So there's the nerves. I'm take a nice deep breath.
before I move into what I know is going to be a really rich conversation, Claire. So I really appreciate you being here. Thank you.
Claire Pedrick (01:38.243)
I feel really emotional actually.
Melissa Hague (01:40.246)
Yeah, and do you know what? I think some of that nervous excitement is where it is an emotion. is a, because there's a connection, maybe an unsaid connection for me, a heart led connection for me to you as a human being. And yeah, so yeah, there'll be some emotion in this conversation for me, definitely, definitely. So,
Claire Pedrick (02:03.585)
Me too.
Melissa Hague (02:06.942)
One other thing that I wanted to say, because I know that, you know, many of the people who listened to this podcast are new to coaching or, you know, fairly new in their coaching journey. And I wanted to share something that happened for me. And really Claire, where I first met your work or came into contact with your work is I came out of my first coaching qualification as many coaches do.
with all of my tools and all of my techniques and ready and raring to go. I knew the process. I knew how to contract. This is brilliant. I'm ready to go. And then someone introduced me and I don't even remember who it is so I can't thank them, but someone introduced me to your book, Simplifying Coaching. And I was like, hang on a minute. I just spent all of this time and effort and money and invest,
Claire Pedrick (02:56.579)
you
Melissa Hague (03:03.946)
I got all my tools, this toolbox is quite heavy actually. And suddenly there was this voice saying, actually, if you want your clients to go further and do more, you need to do less. I was like, okay. And so without knowing it, this was before I'd done the work with Brene and I kind of understood what courage was.
That was actually my first introduction to courage and vulnerability in coaching without even having that language to describe it. So yeah, very important. So anyone who has listened to this, hasn't read Simplifying Coaching and is currently lugging around a really heavy toolbox full of all of these important and wondrous tools, it's time to read the book, Simplifying Coaching. So that's enough from me.
Claire, let me take a breath and ask you to tell us, tell us a little bit about you.
Claire Pedrick (04:06.125)
Well, the first thing I want to say is that you told me in the pre-chat that normally you have ordinary everyday coaches and sometimes, and now this series you're bringing in people who've inspired you as well. I am an ordinary everyday coach and I am.
Melissa Hague (04:12.386)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (04:28.983)
I'm an ordinary everyday human.
And I think that's really important. And it's really important part of my identity. And yes, people know who I am because of my books. And I thank you so much for what you said. And I'm still an ordinary everyday person, which is when we have met twice in person. We've just had ordinary everyday conversations, which have been beautiful and done some really extraordinary work, mostly on your part.
Melissa Hague (04:52.022)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (05:04.205)
So I am an ordinary human being and I get exhausted and I'm not organised and I... Well, I don't mind my secret being revealed. People go, you work so hard and you achieve so much. Yeah, probably. And then at the end of the day, I can't function.
And I'm not ashamed of that now. That's quite new. My therapist. Shout out to my therapist.
Yeah, there's a cost to being me, like there's a cost to all of us for being who we are. And I think it's easy to look at the outside of somebody without seeing the inside. And so yeah, I'm an ordinary human. And today, I thought you were going to ask me about courage. And I've just gone for a little walk around the block to clear my head from my very dysfunctional admin. And
I was watching the paragliders coming off the Molven Hills where I live and there are six of them. And apparently it's a really difficult place to paraglide. So you can't learn to paraglide here because they say it's dangerous. You have to go somewhere else and learn and then you can come here. I don't know if it's to do with the wind or to do with the forest, but anyway, you can't. And I look at them and I go, you're so courageous.
And the other day, in fact, when I was coming home from therapy, they were flying right over my head and I'm looking up at them. And I tried to take a photograph of them being courageous so I could write something clever about being courageous, but they were so far up in the sky, they were much further than it looked. So when I took the picture, I just got this lovely picture of blue sky. So I am an ordinary everyday coach and I have written books and continue to write books because...
Claire Pedrick (07:01.001)
It really annoys me when I read books that disempower me.
Melissa Hague (07:07.47)
Okay.
Melissa Hague (07:11.136)
Now that's interesting. so with maybe you don't need to share. Well, you might want to share the books that disempower you. But what what's that disempowerment about Claire?
Claire Pedrick (07:22.435)
I don't understand the words.
I can't read the text because it's too small.
Melissa Hague (07:36.044)
Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (07:38.443)
It makes me feel stupid and it pushes into my third class degree.
I have something really funny. Somebody recommended me book called The Elephant in the Room and I got given a gift the other day for doing a webinar in India and they gave me Amazon vouchers so I ordered The Elephant in the Room. It was £35. So I expected this really big thick book with really tiny writing and I got it and it's got really big writing and lots of line spacing. It's very skinny and very expensive but I
But I'm already feeling, I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm already feeling empowered because I can actually read it. Because there's little enough on the page that when I know that if I start at the beginning of the page, I'll get to the, I'll actually get to the bottom and not get lost in the complexity that it is. So I've read so many books where, in fact, I've, there is a famous book in the coaching space, which I won't name.
And one of the authors of this famous book was my supervisor. And I said to him, I have to tell you, I can't read your book because I don't understand it. And he went, you're not meant to read it. You're meant to dip into it. And I said, well, I can't dip into it either because I can't work out the bits I need to dip into.
So yeah, I just want to inspire people that they can do this. So yesterday I did a webinar with some coaching apprentices and they're just starting out on their journey. I said, I'm just going to tell you some things and they sound a bit ridiculous.
Claire Pedrick (09:34.519)
but they're much more important than some of the things that you're learning on your course. So number one, don't start the work until you both know what you're doing.
Claire Pedrick (09:49.667)
And they're going, they're all writing that down. And I'm going.
That's lovely, but it's also awful. Because, because nobody in their coach, in their coach training, nobody has said to them, you need to agree what you're doing before you start doing it.
Claire Pedrick (10:12.203)
I did a little demo with somebody who had a really transformational moment and she had the transformational moment because she said, I've been thinking about this for a long time.
And I said, in that chair? And she went, yeah. And I said, well, can I invite you to get out of the chair? And as she got out of the chair, she had the insight. And they're all going, that's amazing. And I said, in the kind of afterwards thing, I said, the reason she was describing how stuck she was with a work-related thing. So the likelihood is she's been sat in that chair worrying about it. So.
There's no point in us talking about it in the chair that she's worrying about it in. They're going, oh, that's amazing. And I want to go, yes, because if you just look through, if you look at conversations through the lens of what, what, what can we do together that's going to make it the easiest for you and the easiest for me and the most likely to do something.
rather than the most worthy or the best or the most the one that will make you think I'm the most intelligent and I said to them when you hear me coaching you will not be impressed by my questions and so in the in the wash up they went we weren't impressed by your questions but they were really good and I went yeah so and
Melissa Hague (11:45.878)
Yeah. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (11:48.235)
It's a great question.
Melissa Hague (11:50.858)
It's this performative performance. We're performing, right? This need to perform. And this classic, like, who said this had to be hard? Right? This kind of actually, it needs to be easy. And I love the fact that you said, yes, easy for the client, but easy for us too. Who, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, I guess for me that really encompasses all of the things that you talk around about this, keeping it simple, simplifying it, right? Doing less in order to do more.
And there's also something around this piece you were saying about the, you know, these, these coaching apprentices, people who are on coaching programs. This isn't the stuff that we're taught on coaching programs, many of us, right. And so for me, it was a journey that happened after that, right, that initial coaching program, that initial coach training, if you like. And
It reminds me, because I'm going to come back then to a question that I went back, as I was saying to Claire before the session, I warned her, I'd flicked back through my copy of another of Claire's books, which is The Human Behind the Coach, which is the book that let me know that we were absolutely kindred spirits. I was like, okay, this is, yeah, I'm all over this. Because the humanity...
behind coaching and our humanity as coaches is where my heart is, right?
Claire Pedrick (13:32.119)
Can I just say, I remember you came on my podcast for episode one of one of the seasons and we talked about it and you said you'd bought my book and I said, but I want to give you a copy. So I made you give your copy away.
Melissa Hague (13:36.696)
Nice.
Melissa Hague (13:45.998)
Yeah.
You did. And the copy I have in front of me today is your copy with your note written in the front of it, which I treasure. So yeah, this is my copy now. This is the one I've kept. But you ask a really important question that links to this thing about how we learn to be coaches. Or actually, no, how we learn to coach. We don't actually learn the being of coaching, right? We learn how to coach.
And you ask a really important question, I think, which is, and I'm reading directly from the book, is our industry raising a generation of coaches who are afraid to take one step out of line? Now, I remember reading that question and taking a very deep breath and also being slightly...
annoyed. And so this whole thing, because it's not about, you know, is coaching training any good is one coach trainer better than the other coach trainer, you know, it's this, are we raising a generation who are afraid to take one step out of line? Right. And so this fear, and then of course, when I think about fear, that leads me to courage. So the courage
to not only maybe take one step out of line, but to step into our courage. That's what the question brings for me. So I really wanna ask you now, the book's been out for a while, so where are you in your thinking around, are we raising a generation of coaches who are fearful of stepping out of line?
Claire Pedrick (15:37.879)
I'd forgotten that that line was in there. It came from me listening to a killer's song.
Melissa Hague (15:42.444)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (15:45.539)
Which at that time I was listening to a lot because it was played at a friend of mine's funeral and it was on an earworm. And I was writing the book, we were writing the book and I just thought there's something in here. I think we are raising a generation of coaches that are afraid to step out of line. And it makes me very angry because people are paying a lot of money.
Claire Pedrick (16:13.379)
and that's what they're learning. That may not be what they're being taught, but it is what they're learning.
Melissa Hague (16:21.71)
That's really interesting. go on. Yes.
Claire Pedrick (16:28.735)
we don't know what people are being taught but it is what people are perceiving and
know, whatever your coaching tribe, know, the coaching tribes all have quite different vibes to them. They also are backed up with large quantities of documentation about what they think coaching is.
Claire Pedrick (16:55.969)
Which is all a bit clever.
and
Claire Pedrick (17:03.491)
I don't think we have to be clever to be great coaches. So in the improv stuff that you and I have done together, know, one of Stuart and Andy Kane's principles in improv is put down your clever. And I think we need to put down your clever in coaching. But can I tell you, that is so hard. So I'm preparing a keynote talk that I'm delivering in two weeks time. The whole plan is that it's emergent. I am freaking out that I am.
heard.
I know I have prepared, I've prepared for 35 years, but the pressure to feel I should have a PowerPoint and I should do this and I should have references because they're quite clever people.
Melissa Hague (17:49.133)
Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (17:51.027)
I know, in my soul, I know that's not what I'm going to do. But when I do something simple, I always go through a pre-bit where I try and do something that looks a bit clever. You'd think by now I'd have learnt to not do that because it's a complete waste of time and very, very stressful. But I do. And in fact, I was in Spain a few months ago, working on the new book. And
Melissa Hague (18:05.166)
Hmm.
Claire Pedrick (18:18.829)
spent a whole week writing clever stuff and it all went in the bin because, but I know in writing, I know that's what happens. I have to get that out and then I get to what's underneath it. But this thing that goes, you have to be clever. And it just makes me so sad because if I feel that I have to be clever in the room and if I feel that I have to be not step out of line,
What am I doing to you if I'm coaching, if we're in a coaching partnership? Because I'm trying to be rule bound.
Claire Pedrick (19:01.515)
And so you're going to follow me and you're going to obey my rules? Because the rules are so stuck inside me that that's what I have to do. And that's sad.
Melissa Hague (19:14.134)
Yes, because the the and I guess this brings us back actually to this this whole thing about humanity and being human and ultimately coaching is two people in connection with each other. How can you connect to someone who's, you know, rigidly main, you know, staying in within within the lines again, right, those rules that actually when we start to look at them and examine them aren't really who we are, they aren't
you know, part of our understanding of how we want to show up in the world, the way that we've been told to, which there's, there's almost an incongruence in that. And we can't pretend that the client won't notice because they will. They will. Totally. Yes. Yes. They may not cognitively know it, right? They may do, but they will feel it.
Claire Pedrick (20:01.827)
Yeah, and they'll, they'll feel it.
Melissa Hague (20:12.652)
And that's because they're a human in connection with another human. Yeah, absolutely.
Claire Pedrick (20:20.132)
Can I build? I'm really not averse to books. I'm not averse to books because I write them. But I think that it saddens me when coaches think they need a book before they start with their own wisdom.
Melissa Hague (20:21.004)
Mmm, please.
Claire Pedrick (20:35.139)
because we've got plenty of wisdom already and we might then go for a book or a course to add to it. But we had somebody on a program the other day, it was in person. And I said, it was beautiful day and they were going to do some coaching pairs. And I said, what I suggest is you go out and you walk. It's a beautiful day, get outside. And one of the delegates, lovely, lovely person turned to me and he went,
is walking coaching a thing? And I went, yeah, it's amazing. And he said, what books do you recommend? And I went.
none and he went what and I said do you know how to walk and he went yeah yeah and I said do you know how to coach and he went yeah I said you know how to do walking coaching
Claire Pedrick (21:29.845)
All you need to know is agree who's going to lead because otherwise the first time you come to a junction, you're going to have a faff thing going on about which way we're going to go and you're going to defer and it's all going to be a bit odd. So just agree who's choosing the direction. Now, of course, there's more to learn about walking coaching, but actually he needs to find out for himself because he knows how to walk and he knows how to coach. Somebody yesterday was telling me...
I need to go on a Lego serious play course because I want to use Lego in my coaching. And I said, do you know how to, do you know how to coach? Yes. Do you know how to play with Lego? Yes. I said, what would it be like if to start with maybe later you will, you might go on a program, but to start with, how about you just have Lego in your, in your space, if you're doing in person, they went, that's a really good idea. What else do I need to think about? said, well,
The only other thing that I would think about was would I be willing for them to take it away afterwards or not?
Melissa Hague (22:34.862)
How attached am I to the Lego?
Claire Pedrick (22:37.475)
Am I going to let them play with my favourite pieces and then say that they want to take it? but, but, but with with those three things, knowing how to play Lego, knowing how to coach and just having decided on one basic simple thing. All your amazing listeners could do really fabulous work. One day, maybe you might want to do more, but let's just embrace our inner wisdom because it is not true.
that coaches only learnt to have conversations on the day they finished coach training.
Melissa Hague (23:15.878)
It's It's so true. it's as a collector of qualifications and courses and books. I'm sat here now looking at, you know, I've got bookshelves on the other side of my office that the shelves are bowing. My husband came in the other day and went, yeah, I think we need to do something about your bookshelves because the shelves are bowing. It's like, oh, okay. So yeah, I am a collector of all of those things.
And, and it is actually a really hard thing for me to not do right, I have to very consciously not do it. To kind of go right, let's see, let me find a course on that. What's the next qualification that I need to move to the next level in my practice or my business or whatever it might be. But I not really, I guess what I hadn't grasped or hadn't really used the language before was around this idea of inner wisdom.
And I think that's about trusting yourself, right? And therefore I wonder about, you know, this lack of trust almost that we have in ourselves.
Claire Pedrick (24:24.579)
And when we don't trust ourselves, they don't trust us. And then they don't trust themselves. The disgraced singer Gary Glitter.
Melissa Hague (24:34.84)
Yeah.
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (24:39.639)
sang a song I love you love you love me too love I love you love me love I trust you trust it starts with us and if I don't trust myself because I don't think I've internalised all the content from the books on your Boeing bookcase
Melissa Hague (24:47.84)
Yes, very.
Melissa Hague (25:00.15)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (25:02.241)
because I think, there's one more thing that I would need to know for me to be good enough. They're not going to trust us and they're not gonna trust the process and they're not gonna trust themselves. This is quite new. You know when you know something, but you don't know you know it.
Melissa Hague (25:15.574)
Yes, absolutely, because it's in there.
Claire Pedrick (25:17.507)
Gary Glitter, yeah, I haven't written about this yet because it's one of those I'm about to because I think, you know, I've sung that song in conversation enough times that it's kind of working its way down and I'm beginning to get it a bit. But it's like iterative and it really matters.
because you can have all the coaching tools in the world. You can know absolutely how to do this thing. But if I don't trust, you won't trust.
Melissa Hague (25:57.009)
Mm. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (25:59.051)
I'm trying to make the words fit, but that's another piece of work to be done.
Melissa Hague (26:00.781)
Yes.
Yeah, I think I know I do a lot of work around trust in my kind of leadership work, which is invariably always we talk about, you know, trust in teams or trust with others. And even in, you know, in the work I do with coaches, there's an element of, you know, how do you build trust with your client? But there's a whole question that comes before that, which is how do you build trust with yourself? You need to do that first, Ryan. Absolutely.
Claire Pedrick (26:28.995)
Yes!
Melissa Hague (26:34.678)
And so, okay, so the thing that's really kind of leaping at me now, biting at my little, biting at my heels, is that knowing all of that and feeling all of that that we've just talked about myself as a coach, I think the question it brings me to is...
I know that in order to do that in a coaching relationship, you know, to let go of the prep and the what book do I need to read? What tools do I need to have in my kit? And you know, all of that is really vulnerable, right? Really vulnerable. And with that vulnerability comes, you know, can come with lots of different emotions for different people, right? But when I feel vulnerable, it can trigger shame.
and all of those questions around, I enough? You know, it can trigger fear and anxiety and all of that, right? And so you kind of think to yourself, and I say this all the time, right? When I'm talking to people about being vulnerable, you know, I know you're sat there thinking, why, why, why would you want me to be vulnerable? Because, my goodness, there's all this stuff that comes with it that is really uncomfortable. So I guess the work then becomes about how do we sit with that?
vulnerability? How do we what do we do with that vulnerability in the moment with the client when we feel it? And so what's your sense of this vulnerability?
Claire Pedrick (28:08.801)
You can challenge me at the end of this when I haven't answered your question. I then might be able to find a little way into a little bit of it. If I won't be vulnerable, so if I am trying to be fully in control, then the other person will try and be fully in control. And then we really can't generate some, some beautiful learning.
I didn't know that. It's a good job you're recording this. Please send me the clip. So I know what I just said. Yeah, so while I'm trying to be in control, then you're going to also try and be in control. And there's a mantra thing that says, well, I don't know if it's a mantra, thing that says that you can't coach someone further than you've been yourself.
that there is something about expanding the space to be able to do some really good processing, wondering, feeling, thinking. And I think that while I'm feeling vulnerable, the space is very, very small. And then we wonder why very small things happen. But we haven't been able, and I say this compassionately, we haven't been able to expand the space enough.
So we don't want to have no boundary to the space, but we want some boundary to the space and we want it to be a little bit bigger than it is. And I think there's something for me about normalizing it. I always have a little bit of, before a coaching session. And if I don't, that's a signal to me that I'm just being a bit too cocky.
So if I'm doing a... so I'm slightly freaking out about this keynote in a couple of weeks and I'm pleased about that and I know that by the time I get to it I will just be slightly... and I'll be able to go okay hello how lovely to see you but I don't want to get rid of that because as soon as I get rid of that I am being a little bit... Blase? I'm not... there's something in the risk that actually I think...
Melissa Hague (30:00.494)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (30:19.341)
brings value to the space between us.
Melissa Hague (30:22.702)
Hmm.
Claire Pedrick (30:27.073)
otherwise how does it feel for you? she knows exactly what she's doing. Well I don't. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. we... like I know it's freaked you out a bit, Melissa, but we haven't prepared this at all. We're just kind of working it as we go.
Melissa Hague (30:44.238)
Yeah, definitely. I am. Yeah, I'm the preparer like you, right? Let's prepare. Let's have it all. I'll have all my questions. I know what I want to ask Claire. And then I stopped myself said, stop it, stop it. It's just a conversation between two people. So yeah, that that preparation. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think what you're what you're tapping into there is, for me, the questions become about what is just enough prep? Right?
Claire Pedrick (30:56.578)
Yeah.
Melissa Hague (31:13.614)
that I can settle the panic maybe or settle myself a little, but I haven't done so much that as you say, I've either become blasé, cocky or kind of like some sort of robot. I'm no longer a human, right? I'm just in my robot mode. So, you know, how much prep is just enough? So important.
Claire Pedrick (31:39.713)
And as you're speaking, Melissa, if something, I did this in a podcast the other day. said, I think, I think the thing I really want to share with you is over there. Just a sec.
Melissa Hague (31:51.779)
Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (31:53.249)
brought it back and he went that's amazing but but I think it's okay if we find out that we haven't got what we need because we can go let me just I wonder if that would be useful let's just get that and bring it in and see what happens so
It's just about lightening up and
Melissa Hague (32:15.118)
Mmm.
Claire Pedrick (32:18.389)
If we're expecting, I mean, I'm going to therapy. And if my therapist was a bit uptight, I'd find that really hard, because I'm telling her deeper stuff than I've ever taken to coaching.
Melissa Hague (32:33.326)
Mmm.
Claire Pedrick (32:37.055)
And if I thought she was anxious or scared about being vulnerable with me, I would really close up.
Melissa Hague (32:45.07)
Yes, because there's that permission almost, isn't it? that whole kind of, you know, I always think in in, the coaching relationship, probably in any human relationship, to be fair, but we all kind of give a little take a little give a little take a little bit and that's the nature of the relationship, right. And the minute you get that sense that, you know, from a client perspective, I'm the one doing all the giving.
you know, or it just does, there's an inequality in the relationship in some way, right?
Claire Pedrick (33:19.117)
Yeah, Timothy Clark talks about our first mover obligation to be vulnerable. And that means we have a first mover obligation as the coach. think we have a first mover obligation to be vulnerable. And if I'm using the script that I always use to tell you I'm vulnerable, I'm not being vulnerable.
Melissa Hague (33:29.9)
Yes.
Melissa Hague (33:38.154)
No, mean, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely. You're pretending and that's not vulnerability. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (33:44.225)
I have to show a little bit of humanity, vulnerability, weakness even, just a little bit. And we can't pre-prepare that because we've got...
Claire Pedrick (33:59.533)
But it makes such a difference because all we are is two humans turning up in the room to have a conversation. And that's why all these things we call the people we coach are so disempowering. The coachee, you are a smaller version of a coach. The client, but most people who are clients are going to an expert.
Melissa Hague (34:02.414)
Mm.
Melissa Hague (34:13.326)
Mm.
Melissa Hague (34:21.645)
Yes.
Melissa Hague (34:29.888)
Mmm.
Claire Pedrick (34:30.721)
And we're saying we're not an expert. if I'm not an expert, how can they be my client? And they're definitely not my client. They are their beautiful personage.
Melissa Hague (34:42.146)
Yes. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (34:43.363)
And I know that I'm a bit verbose about how I talk about the people I work with because they're not mine and they're the people I work with. And I know that my clients or my coaches or my customers would be a shorter version of that, but it would also be a minimizing version of that because they are the people I work with. They are the people we work with and they're people like us.
Melissa Hague (35:09.89)
Yeah. Yeah. I look, language is important. We know this and I've flip flopped, flip flapped, flip flim flammed. don't know what the right flip flopped, I think is the right term between coach and client. And, and, know, I know you use the term thinker as an option, you know, that we wish I am still struggling with what is my right word. But I tell you the thing that's really interesting to me as well, since I've started my own business,
the word client has also taken on a completely different meaning for me because the client, my clients are the ones who pay my bills. Whoa, okay. Well, that changes, immediately changes the dynamic of that, human sat in front of me, right? It's like, so that the client word has become even more, ugh.
to me, I'm not, it's creating something in me, which isn't helpful, which isn't helping me show up in the way I want to show up. Right. So language is super important for us, think. Claire, I've got another question, something, a question that I get asked all the time, because clearly I talk about courage and vulnerability as coaches, you know, and I'm banging the drum 100 % and people say to me, and it's the right question to ask. I get it. Because many of the coaches I work with are fairly newly qualified.
fairly newly, they say, hang on a minute. I get you talking about courage and vulnerability and being vulnerable with our clients, but I've been taught it's not about me, it's about them. So I can't be vulnerable, I can't show myself, I can't be more myself because hang on, it's not about me and that's a rule, back to those rules that we talked about, right?
what does because I and I think that's a misunderstanding for me that's a misunderstanding of what we mean by vulnerability and coaching, right. So I'm but I'm curious, what would your response to that question be Claire?
Claire Pedrick (37:12.419)
If I was going to go to a nudist colony
Melissa Hague (37:17.506)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Hague (37:21.13)
Okay?
Claire Pedrick (37:23.839)
I would be quite surprised if the person who was serving at the bar, for example, or opening the door, was dressed in a fleecy hat.
Melissa Hague (37:35.47)
Mm-hmm.
Claire Pedrick (37:43.043)
with a hood and long sleeves and big boots and long trousers. And I would think I was in the wrong place. Because if I was going to a nudist colony, I would expect to meet people who were naked because I had chosen to remove my clothes and therefore I would be slightly distressed if it felt like they weren't removing theirs at all.
Melissa Hague (37:48.76)
Yeah.
Melissa Hague (37:58.605)
Yeah.
Melissa Hague (38:11.412)
did worry for a moment where that metaphor was going but that is a fantastic metaphor right I love that as an art as because that would be yeah awkward uncomfortable and even just I would worry I was in the wrong place wow okay
Claire Pedrick (38:27.927)
Yeah, if I was delivering to, let's expand the metaphor.
Melissa Hague (38:33.006)
Okay, again, I'll run with it.
Claire Pedrick (38:36.299)
If I was delivering training in a nudist colony, I might put on a light see-through.
Melissa Hague (38:44.364)
Yes, like a caftan or something.
Claire Pedrick (38:46.049)
Yeah, something just to so that it was clear who was the trainer in the space. It would be see-through, but it would be, I might put something on a little bit just to, that people didn't get confused who was the leader in the room. But I think it would be terribly distressing to everybody if I was wearing a lot of clothes and they weren't wearing any.
Melissa Hague (39:05.592)
Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Hague (39:15.566)
Hmm.
Claire Pedrick (39:16.971)
especially if they were a little bit uncomfortable about taking their clothes off.
Melissa Hague (39:22.7)
Yeah. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (39:25.619)
it isn't about us because I'm not going to go look at my body!
Melissa Hague (39:30.871)
Yes, would you like to take some pictures? Let me pose. Yeah, I...
Claire Pedrick (39:34.667)
If anyone's seen me, you're going to know there are many reasons why I wouldn't do that. But anyway, but there is also, there is... I don't think we can ask people to be naked when we will not take off our clothes at all or even take off our coat.
Melissa Hague (39:52.364)
Yeah. Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (39:54.901)
And yes, it is not about us, but how we show up makes it about us. So if I go, if I do that and I am wearing all those clothes and they're not wearing any clothes, I have made it about me because I am saying, look, I am different from you. And now it is about me.
Melissa Hague (40:15.372)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And not only am I different, in using your metaphor, I'm being deliberately different. Right? Yeah, absolutely.
Claire Pedrick (40:26.499)
So we don't talk endlessly about ourselves. We don't go on about our stuff. We don't endlessly talk about our story. Although sometimes we might spritz a little bit in. So somebody, so I've just discovered I'm neurodivergent. I think your listeners probably worked that out by now. But anyway, so I might be working with somebody who's really struggling and has just discovered or is just in the process of wondering whether they are neurodivergent.
And I might say to them, if it's useful for you to know, I've just discovered that and that would be the end of it. So I've spoken on podcasts before about my dad died. If I'm coaching somebody who's saying my parent is in their final weeks of life and it's really hard and I'm trying to manage my work and I'm trying to deal with that and I'm trying to be a good child. I'm not going to say nothing. I'm going to go. I get how that was for me.
That's all. All I need to go is I have a human story too in that space. I'm not going to tell you what it is and I'm not going to endlessly bang on all about it. But if I just sit there, I might as well be an AI bot.
Melissa Hague (41:40.908)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and this is our shared passion, right, because we've talked about AI before as well, right. And this is why it's my interest or my it's not an interest that underplays it. My passion for humanity and coaching happened way before suddenly this AI thing kind of became something we actually ought to think about, you know, or talk about.
Claire Pedrick (41:42.765)
Sorry, I'm getting very passionate here today.
Melissa Hague (42:09.398)
But absolutely, I like that. This is what makes coaching with a human being different. I'm not saying this isn't about it being better or whatever, but just different than talking to a robot of any kind. And look, this is, again, this is this whole thing around what is empathy really? Because what you've just described is empathy. I get it. It's really tough.
I'm here, right? What do you need right now or however you do, but that's empathy. And so I find so many people, coaches included, misunderstand what empathy is, right? What it really is. And so there's a whole piece around actually what does empathy look like in coaching as well as a whole other conversation around that for sure. Okay.
I'm gonna I'm gonna be really mindful of time, Claire, because I said I would be at the beginning because our listeners will already know that I can talk to anyone forever. I could literally talk to you forever. So I have to be very mindful of time. And so what I'm I think I've got two questions left, I think. So I'm going to go with the first one. And we'll see if the second one still feels relevant, because you know, it might not be. So my question is around
for you in your work, life, for you as a human, what does courage look like for you?
Claire Pedrick (43:48.781)
Well, on one level, it's getting out of bed every day.
Claire Pedrick (43:58.307)
And that's why I'm in therapy, because actually I am learning where some of the difficulties about engaging in the world are for me. And I am understanding just quite how much courage it has taken me to do some things that other people might find really easy and have been a normal part of what is expected from you in your life. So on one level, it's that. On another level,
So that's the kind of everyday courage.
Claire Pedrick (44:34.175)
On another level, it's for me about committing every so often in my life to do something that feels a little bit big, that doesn't quite feel like it fits. So some of your listeners will know that I walked the Camino in 2022.
Claire Pedrick (45:04.855)
I've set up a network of coaches who walk. That was a sort of accidental thing, but that was the courage to put it out there. And if nobody came, then they wouldn't come. And now there are coaches all over the place doing great things about walking. So there's something about putting myself in a position enough, often enough, and not too often, that I'm trying out stuff. So I went to pottery class the other day, and
Melissa Hague (45:31.804)
okay.
Claire Pedrick (45:34.441)
really unsure of how would be and I cut my finger with a hedge trimmer that week so I actually had to learn to use a pottery wheel whilst wearing a latex glove which the teacher kindly told me was not ideal. But actually that made me the weakest student in the class because the teacher had said in advance you're not you're not going to get the
Melissa Hague (45:38.887)
no!
Claire Pedrick (46:00.693)
there's going to be too much friction with your glove. said, you're right. You've got to wear a glove because of what you've done to your hand. Silly woman.
Melissa Hague (46:06.24)
Yes.
Claire Pedrick (46:11.683)
And actually being, I mean, he was a little bit more polite than that, but he basically told me I would be the weakest student in the class. That was a really good experience because I didn't produce anything as good as everyone else. And I'm actually quite pleased that I could.
because if I could have, I'd have really, really tried to, you know, trying to win and all that stuff. So I just think that it's about being uncomfortable sometimes is a really important part for me of my development.
Melissa Hague (46:43.266)
Yeah, yeah. Finding things that you're not good at and then try and then working really hard not to be perfect at them.
Claire Pedrick (46:47.064)
Yeah.
Claire Pedrick (46:51.255)
Yeah, paddle boarding and falling in.
Melissa Hague (46:53.198)
Yeah, I absolutely recognize those things that that's, I have to share the how I ended up doing, you know, meeting you in person and doing the, I call them the improv courses, right? They're not, it's coaching with presence and going deeper with that. But they're based around improv. I was terrified. It's like this, I'm not going to be any good at this. This is like, I only do stuff I'm good at. So, you know, it was a real test. I really support that, that kind of find stuff that you're not good at.
Claire Pedrick (47:23.267)
Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Hague (47:23.34)
and have a go. because it's that is, you know, that's vulnerable, and it's courageous, and you're practicing all of that stuff. And yeah, I'm curious, did you create anything, any kind of pottery, a vase?
Claire Pedrick (47:36.353)
I did, I did in the end, he said a really interesting thing to everybody, not just to me with my latex glove. He said, you've got to let go of the pot before it, you've got to stop the wheel before you think the pot's perfect. Cause if you keep it on the wheel and make it perfect, it will collapse.
Melissa Hague (47:55.15)
what a lovely metaphor.
Claire Pedrick (47:57.333)
I have a lovely stubby candlestick holder because I couldn't make the sides go up very well. So it's sort of flat, but I'm super proud of it because it's good enough and I did it myself and I... yeah.
Melissa Hague (48:11.208)
Yeah, see that? Yeah, I love that. I love that. We need more of that in our life. I need more of that in my life. Find things I'm not good at and give it a go. Lovely. Lovely.
Claire Pedrick (48:21.101)
Yeah. And then if you get good at it, find something else.
Melissa Hague (48:24.448)
Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Claire, I'm really conscious right there. Because I'm what I want to say is look to any of our listeners, if you love books, and you haven't read Claire's books, get them. They are phenomenal and will continue to be I'm raring and ready for the next one. Right. And, you know, look at the the the the programs that Claire runs 3d on 3d coaching, the improv one coaching with
Get on it. It's unreal. It is unreal. I want to say all of that, right? Because those are the things that have been transformational for me and have supported my courage building journey. And I hope that us having a conversation as well is giving people access to some of that stuff too, which is, I really value that. And that we can do, they can do all of that. They can access loads of loads of your work, but I'm wondering.
What's the one thing that you would love for all coaches to know about courage?
Claire Pedrick (49:40.161)
It matters.
Courage matters. Because if I can't be courageous, I can't expect the person who's with me to be courageous either. And it's really uncomfortable because it takes us totally into the space of not being in control. But also we're in the space of not being out of control. And there's this beautiful thing between being in control and not being out of control. And it's that space where we need to be able to be
learning and you know for good and educational reasons on your coach training you will have learned to stay on this on the being in control side of the line and I want to say step over and when you freak out and you don't know what you need to do you're in the right place.
Melissa Hague (50:37.518)
Claire, love that. Thank you. I'm reminded Brene says, courage is contagious, right? Our clients, our clients, our thinkers, catch it from us. And what that also means, of course, is we have to go first. So yeah, really important. Claire, thank you so much for being here today, for agreeing to do the podcast with me, but mainly.
Thank you for indulging me in our conversation. I've loved it. And I've learned so much as I always do. Yeah, so just thank you. Thank you for you for being you for doing the work you do. Yeah, I don't know where I'd be without you and your work. So thank you very much. Thank you.
Claire Pedrick (51:27.561)
Thank you for having me and I've learnt loads today.
Melissa Hague (51:33.016)
the beauty of conversation.
Claire Pedrick (51:35.171)
As I do in every conversation, and actually that's another checker in a for me. Because if we're not continually learning, why should the people that and I don't mean by reading books, I mean by by letting emergent things come out and noticing stuff. Why should the people that we're working with be learning.
Melissa Hague (51:58.22)
Yeah, absolutely. Claire, thank you. Take good care of yourself.
Claire Pedrick (52:04.685)
Thank you.