Please be kind to yourself.

I realize the episode title is a corny bumper sticker. But people, including coaches, are not being nice to themselves. It's getting in the way of the growth and progress that brought us to coaching in the first place.

Announcement: On May 1 I'm holding my first "Office Hours with Mark". Office Hours creates space and time for my fellow coaches to connect with me and get support. Go to https://mrkbtlr.com/office-hours to opt in for details. 

What is A Podcast for Coaches?

A Podcast for Coaches shines a light on one of the most elegant, underrated business models in the world: one-on-one coaching. Mark Butler hosts the show, and he's been a coach and advisor to every kind of online business you can think of, having helped businesses earning everything from $0 to $25,000,000+. Although Mark believes every online business model has merit, he worries one-on-one coaching is viewed as a stepping-stone business for people who aren't ready or able to scale. But it's not true, and A Podcast for Coaches sets out to show people--through clear teaching and rich, current stories of successful coaches who love their business--that one-on-one coaching is one of the most gratifying and lowest "hassle-per-dollar" businesses in the world.

Hey, this is Mark Butler.

And you are listening to a podcast for
coaches coming to you seated today.

Normally when I record these
things, I angle the microphone up.

I bend the microphone arm
up so I can stand and I can.

Wave my arms around and
I can pace a little bit.

And I imagine it would make for a funny
video, but today I have to be seated.

I don't have to be seated, but I
have this foot injury and I have

one of those boots on my foot
right now that makes me walk funny.

And I probably have to have
surgery and I'm annoyed by it.

And I'm a little bit
sulky and pouty about it.

And that's actually
relevant to today's call.

But if the episode sounds very different.

It might be because I'm
seated instead of standing.

And if it doesn't sound very
different than maybe I'll sit forever

because, because, Hey, if we can
be seated and get the same result,

let's just sit down and relax.

Okay.

A few episodes ago, I talked
about ethics and coaching

through the eyes of the coach.

I talked about how I want to approach
my clients, and our interactions

and our work together in a way that.

Builds trust and rapport builds connection
respects the agency of the client and

Just keeps the coaching relationship on
good footing so that it's Got the best

possible chance of being productive and
positive for the client Today's episode

is The other side of that conversation
where I want clients, including myself

as a client, I want all of us to take
a kind and an ethical approach to

ourselves as we engage with coaching.

In a little over half my coaching
calls this week, which was a busy

week, a busy coaching week in a little
over half of those coaching calls.

I really felt strongly that
one of the things the client

needed to shift was just.

To be nicer to themselves,

experiencing coaching or therapy
as a client is not easy stuff.

We end up in those rooms, physical
or virtual,, because something's

going on in her life and maybe
has been for a long time.

That isn't feeling good and that we
want to change and so coaching is this

environment in which we do self confront
and Hopefully that's done with the help

of a of a caring compassionate strong
practitioner Who's there to be with us

and to guide us through that process?

But because of the nature of the
work because of the nature of self

confrontation if we have a habit
or a tendency towards self criticism

that has an angry edge to it,
it's very likely that that's going

to appear in coaching or therapy

because it's habitual.

And it's completely understandable,
especially when you're dealing

with people who hold themselves
to a high standard in their lives.

They're achievers.

They get things done.

They are helpers.

They help other people.

They start businesses.

They do great in their jobs.

They care a lot about their families
and they support the people around them

and they do all of these good things and
that feels good to them and they like

to hold themselves to a high standard
and when they feel like they are falling

short of a high standard, they might
have a loud inner critic and sometimes

that loud inner critic is really a jerk.

But it's not them.

It's the inner critic.

There's a distinction between who
I am and And that occasional or

maybe frequent, really mean voice
that starts to spout off in my head.

And having worked with a bunch of
clients over the years, that voice

can be the voice of an unkind spouse.

It can be the voice of an unkind
parent can be the voice of somebody

that we interacted a lot as a child.

And then the voice kind of gets
twisted and it gets ingrained and then

it gets amplified and it very often
starts to yell into a megaphone in

the moments where we feel uncertain
or we feel we've fallen short.

And the place we go is I'm going to say
a bunch of horrible things to myself.

Let me give you an
example from my own life.

It relates to this dumb plastic
boot that's on my left foot.

In early February ish, that's about,
I don't know, three months ago, I was

not happy with how I'm doing food.

I was eating too much.

I was eating the things that were
not contributing to feeling good to

having my clothes fit the way I want
my clothes to fit and et cetera.

And so, I've got the tools
and I've got some experience

and I've got some knowledge.

I know how to change those things.

And so I started to change those things.

And for the next six or seven
weeks, I really got things moving

in a new direction and my clothes
started to fit differently.

And yes, the number on the scale
did change and I felt better.

And then this injury to my foot,
which is longterm, I've been dealing

with some version of it for a.

About 25 years, it got a lot worse.

It got worse in a way that some
doctors recommended to me that I

stop stressing it in any way until
we decide whether, okay, let's have

surgery or let's not have surgery.

Let's figure out what we're going to do.

But in the meantime, put this
boot on and wear it all the time.

You don't have to sleep in
it, but you need to be wearing

it the rest of the time.

Well, my thing is walking.

I go for walks.

I very often go for
walks with Kate, my wife.

I very often go for walks by myself.

I'm a walker.

Walking gives me this
amazing internal regulation.

I come home from a 15 or 20 or
45 minute walk, feeling amazing.

Whatever was bugging me has mostly worked
itself out in those 15 to 45 minutes.

There's a lot of nice internal
chemical stuff going on.

And then I got to put this boot on and
the walking goes away for the moment,

but I don't know how long it could be.

Six weeks could be nine or 12 months.

Not totally sure yet.

So now I don't get my walks
and I don't get the internal

regulation that they give me.

I promise there's a point to all this
and without the internal regulation

that I'm getting from walks, I
look for that regulation elsewhere.

And what is , my habit?

My habit is to go to the
fridge or worse, the pantry.

So having been on this nice streak for
six, seven, eight weeks, feeling good.

Now I'm going to the fridge in
the pantry and I'm not walking.

So now there's a double,
it's a compounding negative.

Not only am I not getting the
goodness of the walks, but I'm eating

an excess that doesn't feel good.

And now everything that was feeling good.

In the previous six or
eight weeks is reversing.

So here's my question to you.

I've got tools.

I'm a coach.

I've had a lot of therapy.

I've had a lot of coaching.

I've read a lot of books.

I've done a lot of trainings,

knowing everything that I know, seeing
everything that I've seen, experiencing

everything that I've experienced.

What is my next move?

You're probably a coach.

You've probably got a long
list of things for me.

But let's start with what
we know my next move is not,

it is not to go to self hatred.

It is not to say, Oh, this again,
why can't I get this figured out?

I'm I know better.

I've got the experience.

I've got the knowledge.

I've got tools.

I've got the software
that makes this easy.

I've had a lot of coaching on this.

I know the pattern.

I can see the pattern.

The pattern is so obvious to me.

I shouldn't be dealing with this anymore.

I shouldn't be like this anymore.

I should have moved past this.

Other people have figured this out.

Why can't I figure it out?

This is easy for everyone else.

This is hilarious.

Many of you are laboring under the
idea that the thing with which you

struggle Everyone else has resolved.

It is the most absurd thing that
human beings say to themselves.

Well, everybody else
has, has it figured out.

She hasn't figured out.

He hasn't figured out.

Tragically in coaching, there's
this thing where we will say to

ourselves, my coach hasn't figured
out if my coach can figure it out.

Why can't I, figure it out.

I have access to this brilliant coach.

I've got them right there in front of me.

But I still can't figure it out.

How much would any of
that help me right now?

How much would any of that help me
as I finish recording this podcast?

And I guarantee you, I will have an almost
immediate urge to limp myself out of

my office, up the stairs to the pantry.

How much would any of that internal
shouting, how much would it help?

You might say, Oh no, it might help.

It might break the pattern.

Yeah.

For a minute, for a minute.

The anger, the self criticism,
turning these things toward

ourselves, it doesn't help.

It makes things worse.

And especially in a situation
like mine, where I'm trying to

self regulate, I'm trying to self
medicate in a way with calories.

If I amp up the anger, the
internal anger, the internal self

criticism, if I take that internal
critic and hand it , a megaphone,

it's likely that I'll want to
tamp those negative feelings

down with even more calories.

This is the pattern.

What's the pattern for me?

I can't speak for you.

So what's the alternative?

The alternative is to not weaponize my
knowledge and experience against myself.

The alternative is to say,
Oh yeah, I'm discouraged.

I want to go for a walk.

I want to go for a hike.

I feel discouraged.

As

soon as you name it, you
create the opportunity.

To let it move through.

Sometimes people are discouraged.

It's part of the human experience,
which I know is a very coachy

thing to say, et cetera.

It just happens to be true and useful.

Now if I want my physical experience
to change, and if I want the emotional

experience that accompanies that physical
experience to change, the bottom line

is I am going to come to a moment where
I open that pantry and then I close it

and say, ah, you know, maybe not right
now, maybe later, but not right now.

Maybe I'm going to do
something else right now.

Maybe there's some other way
for me to move through space.

That isn't my normal three mile walk,
but maybe it's something else that.

Regulates me in a way that
I'll end up being happier

with than consuming calories.

Well, now I'm working with
myself instead of against myself.

The inner critic might speak up.

I mean, my inner critic does speak up.

My inner critic will say, man,
you're still this, this again.

The question is, do I give it the
megaphone or do I just say, yeah, actually

this again, that's kind of interesting.

Isn't it?

Maybe I'll try something else today or
maybe I'll try something else tomorrow.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Now I've gotten on the same
side of the table as myself.

Now I'm working with myself instead
of against myself and whatever

increase in negative emotion would
have come from yelling at myself.

I diffuse that and I'm closer to
an emotional state that's going to

produce a set of behaviors or even
a single behavior in a moment that

moves me off in a new direction.

Okay.

A direction I ended up being happier with.

So part of our job as human beings,
but especially as practitioners

is to tune ourselves to what the
inner critic sounds like and what

set of emotions tend to accompany
our attention to the inner critic.

If we're able to slow down a little
bit to see those patterns and see

how those things emerge, Then we're
in a position to not only change the

behaviors that the inner critic is
yelling about in the first place,

but to be ready for the inner critic.

The next time he arrives,

now we're in better shape.

Now we're in a better position to
handle these things going forward.

I love having a coach.

I don't have a coach at the moment that I
work with on this stuff around, you know,

self soothing through calorie consumption.

but I love having a coach that
I can sit with and say, I'm

feeling really frustrated.

Uh, with Liz, with my, with
the coach I do work with.

I'm able to say, Liz, I'm, I'm
really frustrated about whatever,

about the way I'm dividing my time.

Why can't I focus?

I just don't seem to be able to focus.

Well, that's a lie.

By the way.

I'm capable of amazing focus, but the
inner critic brings these lies to me.

They've been practiced now
for 30 years, 35 years.

I love to process those things with Liz.

Liz doesn't argue with me and
she doesn't disagree with me.

You know what?

Actually, let's talk about that for
a second, because this is a thing I

think coaches do sometimes, and , I'm
probably not qualified to blanket,

call it terrible, but I don't like it.

So let's say that I go to Liz, my
coach, and I say, Liz, I should

have figured this out by now,

Something about working
or content creation.

Who knows what I'm, who knows what
I'm whining about in the moment.

I'm so frustrated.

I should have, I should have
figured this out by now.

And if Liz says, no, you shouldn't, you
shouldn't have figured it out by now.

This drives me crazy.

Liz would never, by the
way, Liz doesn't do that.

This drives me crazy.

If a person says, well, I shouldn't
be mad, you should be mad.

Ugh.

Don't do that.

Don't be in a rush to
disagree with your client.

And if your coach is in a rush to
disagree with you, even when they're

supposedly flipping your negative
talk in your favor, there's still

something off putting about it.

I'll speak for myself as a client,, if I
say I should have figured this out by now,

all I'm looking for my coach to say in
that moment, Is maybe nothing, maybe

just let there be a little bit of a
pause, maybe a little bit of open space.

Maybe I want my coach in
that moment to say, Oh, okay.

You think?

And then I have the opportunity to
say, well, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if I should or shouldn't
have that's probably not helpful,

but what I mean is I feel frustrated.

Oh, okay.

We can work with frustrated.

Or I feel discouraged.

Okay.

We can work with discouraged.

I'm mad at myself.

Ah, you're mad at yourself.

Okay.

What do we do with that?

I don't like shoulds or shouldn'ts.

I think shoulds and
shouldn'ts are red flags.

Even when a well meaning
coach flips them in our favor.

I think it perpetuates the habit of
shoulding and shouldn't, and I don't

think those are productive habits.

A should or a shouldn't is really
just a signal of an emotional state.

We don't have to engage with the
shoulds and the shouldn'ts directly.

We can acknowledge them as
an emotion signal and say.

I wonder what the emotion is.

I don't know what's driving your
shoulds and your shouldn'ts.

I wonder what's driving
my shoulds and shouldn'ts.

What's going on with me internally.

Let me work with that.

So whether you're engaging with your coach
or engaging with yourself, if you hear

the shoulds coming, let them float by

and say, Oh, I'm shooting myself.

What information does that have for me?

What is it telling me about my
internal state at the moment?

Okay.

I can work with that.

I can talk to my coach about that

Here's the last topic of the day.

And then we'll conclude

Every coach that I know
deploys named tools.

And in my experience, they are powerful.

They are useful.

They help clients have breakthroughs.

They've helped me have breakthroughs.

I love a good named tool, unless the
well meaning client who might be a coach

or who might have a lot of experience
with coaching takes that named tool

and accidentally with nothing but the
best intentions warps that tool into a

weapon that they use against themselves.

It can be so subtle and
it can be so sneaky.

And this is one of the reasons I
believe so strongly in working with

a kind of compassionate, a strong,
a safe practitioner, because a good

practitioner will help you see how
you might be warping and weaponizing

your own tools against yourself.

Here is an example.

It's called the manual the manual for
those of you who've never heard of it.

Describes the idea that in our
relationships, we tend to have a set

of unspoken rules and expectations
for the people that we love.

We want them to behave in a specific way.

And all of our expectations , and maybe
even demands are in this imaginary manual.

And when people don't comply
with our manuals, we punish them.

But the most insidious thing about
our manual is that it's unspoken.

We're very often expecting people to
comply with rules and expectations

that we have not made clear.

I think this is an incredible insight.

I think it is a brilliant,
brilliant tool, and I think it

can create shortcuts To progress.

It is also extremely easy to misuse and
to weaponize where I've interacted with

so many good people and many, maybe
most of my clients have been women.

So that's my bias is that I
interact mostly with women.

I've, I've worked with so many
amazing women who take this idea

of the manual and they say, well,
you know, I've got this manual.

I've got this manual for.

My, my husband, I've got this manual
for my kids and I just need to drop it.

I should just drop it.

Hold on.

What

do you see how the well intentioned
person just completely weaponized

that tool against herself?

Well, I should just drop it.

I've just got to drop it.

And then if it, if it
persists, then what she says is

I'm so mad at myself.

I know about the manual.

I've, I understand the concept, but
I'm still being a jerk to my kids or

I'm still being a jerk to my husband
or whatever, however she might say it.

If I have the opportunity, if I happen
to be there in the moment, if it's

a coaching call, I say, hold on,
this manual thing is really, really

useful to you right up until you start
smashing yourself in the face with it.

Yes, you do have a set of unspoken
rules, a set of unspoken expectations,

maybe even a set of unspoken
demands for the people in your life.

So the next step after
awareness is not punishment.

It's not to try to rush past our way
of being and pretend it never happened.

It's to consider the expectations and the
rules and even the demands that are in

our manuals and to decide which of them we
want to let go of completely, maybe on our

own, maybe with the help of a coach, which
of them are actually important to us.

In which case, the job is to take the
unspoken and make it spoken, which is

an incredibly high intimacy and honest
thing to do, to go To your person, to the

person you love and say, you know what,
it turns out I have this expectation

that I've never told you about.

And I know it's crazy, but when
you don't meet this unspoken

expectation, I feel really hurt.

Now you've named it, you've spoken it.

And now the person that loves you
is able to say, I had no idea.

I would love to try to do that
for you and be that for you.

Or they say, I had no idea.

And the truth is, I'm not sure
I can meet that expectation.

We got to talk about it.

In either case, we're now
moving closer to each other and

not farther from each other.

Whether this expectation that we've had,
whether it is satisfied or not satisfied,

met or unmet, by making it a spoken
thing, instead of an unspoken thing, we

move toward our partner instead of away.

So now we've taken this brilliant
tool, the manual, and we've deployed

it in service of ourselves and of
our relationship instead of deploying

it as a weapon against ourselves.

So when you're deploying a named tool.

In your own life, in the lives of your
clients, in the lives of your family,

asterisk, be very careful about trying
to deploy name tools in the lives

of other people, work on yourself.

And then if your family asks for
help, by all means, anyway, when

we're deploying these name tools,
you can get a strong signal.

About the way you might be weaponizing it.

If it comes with shoulds, if it
amps up the inner critic, instead

of quieting down the inner critic,
if it comes with an emotional state

that you know, is not productive for
you, maybe shame, maybe anger, maybe

disappointment, maybe not disappointment.

I'm not going to tell you how to feel,
but I trust you to have awareness of your

emotional state as you deploy these tools.

And then to act accordingly.

Sometimes there has to be a meta
conversation with yourself about

the tool and your use of the tool.

And maybe if you have a coach,
then you go to your coach and

say, here's what I realized.

I realized that what I was doing
is I was taking this idea of the

manual, which I really believe in.

And I was just smashing
myself in the face with it.

It was making everything worse.

Well, the answer is not to say
that the manual is a bad tool.

And the answer is not to say
that you should abandon all your

expectations of the people you love.

Because, , one of the things that
defines a close relationship is that

it's a relationship in which we are
able to name our expectations and

then have the person who loves us
collaborate in meeting those expectations.

That's what a relationship is.

It has to be collaborative because
like I said earlier, there are things

that we'll say this would mean a
lot to me and our partner can say, I

don't know if it's in me to do that.

That doesn't mean the relationship's over.

It doesn't mean they don't love
us and we don't love them, but now

we're collaborating on a solution.

The idea is not to drop
all of our expectations.

If I have no expectations of
my spouse, then why am I in a

marriage in the first place?

My point is, let's deploy
these tools with care.

And if there's any signal that we're
deploying these tools against ourselves,

instead of for ourselves, let's pause.

Let's check in.

Let's maybe talk to our coach about it.

And let's remember that above all,

it's a good idea to be nice to ourselves.

It doesn't mean we're letting
ourselves off the hook.

Oh, I didn't even talk about
letting ourselves off the hook.

Well, let my tone of voice be all you
need me to hear about this idea of quote

unquote, letting yourself off the hook.

Okay.

Being nice to yourself is the
foundation of growth and transformation.

I'm a good guy.

I'm here to tell you.

I'm a good person who sometimes
in a state of internal

dysregulation goes into the pantry.

Gets out a box of cereal and drains it.

And I'm still a good guy.

And I like myself.

I want to be nice to myself.

I want you to be nice to yourself.

I want you to be nice to your clients.

I want you to be nice
to your family members.

It doesn't mean we're not holding each
other and ourselves to a high standard.

We want to achieve new and
elevated ways of being.

The path to that.

starts with kindness.

And I'll talk to you next time.