WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.539 --> 00:00:01.449 Hey, it's Mark Butler. 00:00:01.449 --> 00:00:04.700 And you are listening to a podcast for coaches. 00:00:05.889 --> 00:00:11.169 I just threw away a 23 minute rough draft of this episode because it took 00:00:11.169 --> 00:00:15.169 me those 23 minutes to realize there is one story that I want to tell you. 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:19.989 And I think I make the best use of your time by just telling you this story. 00:00:20.799 --> 00:00:21.879 And I trust you. 00:00:21.949 --> 00:00:22.659 You're smart. 00:00:23.889 --> 00:00:26.579 I trust you to take this one story and make it meaningful and 00:00:26.579 --> 00:00:30.990 useful in your life because it has changed my life actually forever. 00:00:31.249 --> 00:00:32.020 Here's the story. 00:00:33.149 --> 00:00:37.770 Maybe 18 months ago, a coach friend of mine sent me a text. 00:00:38.629 --> 00:00:40.619 She texted a couple of her coach friends actually. 00:00:41.430 --> 00:00:44.819 And she said, I've got a teenager who's struggling. 00:00:45.969 --> 00:00:46.729 And of course, 00:00:48.214 --> 00:00:51.984 When you get a message from someone that you care about and 00:00:51.984 --> 00:00:57.704 hear that someone they care about so deeply is having a hard time. 00:00:58.544 --> 00:00:59.864 You want to do what you can. 00:01:01.684 --> 00:01:02.764 I have teenagers. 00:01:04.334 --> 00:01:09.994 Many of you have teenagers or have had teenagers or have littles 00:01:10.004 --> 00:01:11.824 who will someday be teenagers. 00:01:13.714 --> 00:01:16.994 Or you love teenagers that are nieces, nephews, friends, students. 00:01:18.219 --> 00:01:26.479 And when you see one of these perfect, messy people who are between 00:01:26.479 --> 00:01:32.079 childhood and adulthood, and you see how hard it is to be them, frankly, 00:01:32.129 --> 00:01:36.359 in 2024, and you just want to help. 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:44.599 And of course we know coaching can be a powerful resource for 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:46.069 people at all stages of life. 00:01:49.509 --> 00:01:51.989 But the idea that we could give that kind of support. 00:01:53.294 --> 00:01:54.934 Two kids who are in that stage. 00:01:55.904 --> 00:01:56.734 That's amazing. 00:01:59.064 --> 00:02:01.874 So my friend sends a couple of us this text and says, I've 00:02:01.874 --> 00:02:03.684 got a teen who's struggling. 00:02:04.524 --> 00:02:06.954 Do you know anybody who could help? 00:02:08.274 --> 00:02:11.874 Do you know any coaches or therapists that you think are especially well 00:02:11.874 --> 00:02:14.524 suited to give my kids some support? 00:02:17.804 --> 00:02:19.914 Now here's an important point in this story. 00:02:22.084 --> 00:02:24.084 It did not occur to me in that moment. 00:02:24.504 --> 00:02:27.784 To offer, to help directly, to be the coach. 00:02:28.724 --> 00:02:35.574 I consider myself a very confident coach and a very competent coach, but it did not 00:02:35.574 --> 00:02:38.534 cross my mind to say, Oh, I could do it. 00:02:39.004 --> 00:02:39.744 Let me talk to him. 00:02:40.804 --> 00:02:41.614 Well, why not? 00:02:42.384 --> 00:02:42.734 Yes. 00:02:42.814 --> 00:02:47.724 I think I could have been of some service, but I don't spend time in 00:02:47.724 --> 00:02:51.644 coaching conversations with people in that specific circumstance. 00:02:51.774 --> 00:02:52.534 Teenagers. 00:02:54.439 --> 00:02:58.459 I don't have the language of those interactions on the tip of my tongue. 00:03:01.589 --> 00:03:04.749 So even though we as coaches might have the idea, Oh, 00:03:04.749 --> 00:03:06.349 these tools can help anybody. 00:03:06.369 --> 00:03:07.389 I can help anybody. 00:03:07.399 --> 00:03:11.259 And there's some truth to it in that moment when you know that 00:03:11.269 --> 00:03:14.689 someone you care about is worried about someone they care about. 00:03:15.799 --> 00:03:19.879 You just want them to receive the highest and best service that they can. 00:03:20.769 --> 00:03:21.579 And in that moment. 00:03:22.554 --> 00:03:26.954 I don't need the validation or the money that could come from 00:03:26.954 --> 00:03:28.064 saying, Oh no, no, I can help. 00:03:28.994 --> 00:03:33.534 I can help anybody with these tools or with my way of being and that's 00:03:33.534 --> 00:03:36.494 important to this entire conversation. 00:03:37.284 --> 00:03:38.624 So my friend says, do you know anybody? 00:03:38.634 --> 00:03:42.584 And the truth is in that moment, when it comes to specifically a person 00:03:42.584 --> 00:03:44.844 who works with teens, and I will. 00:03:44.865 --> 00:03:48.324 I didn't throw out an apology to any of my friends whose names should have popped 00:03:48.324 --> 00:03:49.844 into my head at the time, but didn't. 00:03:50.644 --> 00:03:53.684 But I believe there was inspiration in the fact that a name popped into 00:03:53.684 --> 00:03:58.114 my head, and it was a friend of mine who I knew to be well connected 00:03:58.114 --> 00:04:00.244 in the world of struggling teens. 00:04:02.684 --> 00:04:04.214 So I sent her a text. 00:04:04.914 --> 00:04:08.764 I've got a friend who's got a teenager who's having a hard time. 00:04:09.624 --> 00:04:10.864 Do you know anyone? 00:04:12.169 --> 00:04:15.449 Now, my friend has coached teens, 00:04:16.559 --> 00:04:21.059 but she, with her self awareness and with her desire to give people the highest 00:04:21.059 --> 00:04:26.239 and best service possible, she knows that it is not her strong preference or her 00:04:26.249 --> 00:04:29.709 best competence or genius to coach teens. 00:04:29.739 --> 00:04:32.199 So she didn't volunteer herself either. 00:04:33.229 --> 00:04:34.859 She gave me five names. 00:04:36.979 --> 00:04:40.569 And after giving me five names, she said, by the way, the last one. 00:04:40.974 --> 00:04:41.854 is my favorite. 00:04:42.684 --> 00:04:44.434 He is amazing. 00:04:45.734 --> 00:04:47.664 I said, thank you so much. 00:04:48.654 --> 00:04:52.674 I went to my friend and said, I got these five names from someone that I 00:04:52.674 --> 00:04:55.824 trust and her favorite is the last one. 00:04:56.944 --> 00:04:57.954 My friend thanked me. 00:04:58.224 --> 00:05:01.954 After a year or so we reconnect and I said, by the way, how's your kid? 00:05:03.764 --> 00:05:05.964 And I was so relieved and thrilled and grateful to hear. 00:05:07.179 --> 00:05:11.799 The kids thriving relative to the last time we had talked so much better. 00:05:11.799 --> 00:05:15.539 She tells me, and I said, Oh, well, did you end up ever finding 00:05:15.539 --> 00:05:18.159 a good practitioner, somebody to, to give some support? 00:05:19.269 --> 00:05:21.019 And she said, yeah, it was the one that you recommended. 00:05:21.249 --> 00:05:22.719 It was the, it was the favorite one. 00:05:24.849 --> 00:05:25.149 Okay. 00:05:25.149 --> 00:05:29.549 Well, you know, at that point then I just have this surge of amazing emotion. 00:05:31.119 --> 00:05:33.649 And I tell her how thrilled I am to hear that. 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:38.209 And then I go and text the referrer, the original referrer, and say, Hey, 00:05:38.209 --> 00:05:44.029 I just want you to know that your referrals panned out to the benefit 00:05:44.059 --> 00:05:47.059 of this kid that was struggling. 00:05:47.060 --> 00:05:52.129 This kid that neither she nor I will probably ever know personally. 00:05:52.569 --> 00:05:56.439 But now we've both been able to be part of a chain of support that 00:05:56.439 --> 00:05:57.909 helped get this kid some relief. 00:05:58.989 --> 00:06:02.179 And of course she thanked me for letting her know for closing the loop for her. 00:06:02.509 --> 00:06:05.519 She wasn't surprised because she knew she'd given good referrals. 00:06:06.559 --> 00:06:10.409 She was confident to say, here are some great people, but this one's my favorite. 00:06:11.509 --> 00:06:14.189 And it felt amazing to her, of course, to have that loop closed as well. 00:06:15.159 --> 00:06:20.389 This whole story, this experience captures the essence of how a coaching 00:06:20.389 --> 00:06:24.069 practice can grow and can thrive. 00:06:24.999 --> 00:06:28.819 I may never meet the practitioner whose name was passed through all of 00:06:28.819 --> 00:06:34.179 our hands to this young person, but I have no doubt that that person's 00:06:34.179 --> 00:06:36.519 practice is full or close to it. 00:06:36.819 --> 00:06:39.539 And it wouldn't surprise me if there were a waiting list because in this 00:06:39.539 --> 00:06:46.730 one experience, this practitioner's name was introduced and infused 00:06:46.730 --> 00:06:49.030 with trust across multiple people. 00:06:49.580 --> 00:06:52.600 And then the people at the end of that chain who actually received the direct 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:54.943 relief, they will be referring people. 00:06:55.853 --> 00:07:00.304 And then if I'm ever in that situation again, I will be able to say, I don't 00:07:00.314 --> 00:07:04.494 know this practitioner directly, but a person I trust recommended 00:07:04.494 --> 00:07:08.584 him and another person that I trust had an amazing experience with him. 00:07:09.224 --> 00:07:13.304 Therefore, I'm confident to say, you should probably reach out to him. 00:07:14.634 --> 00:07:18.274 By the way, don't bother using my name because he has no idea who I am. 00:07:18.864 --> 00:07:23.834 I'm just some nameless faceless person out there who's in his relationship web 00:07:24.744 --> 00:07:27.634 that he doesn't even know trusts him. 00:07:28.614 --> 00:07:31.734 This is how the world works. 00:07:33.184 --> 00:07:34.774 Is it the only way the world works? 00:07:34.824 --> 00:07:35.244 No. 00:07:36.124 --> 00:07:39.494 We can take a more transactional approach to growing our practices. 00:07:39.554 --> 00:07:40.824 We can do advertising. 00:07:41.184 --> 00:07:43.854 We can even do referrals in a more transactional way. 00:07:43.854 --> 00:07:47.024 We can do reciprocal referral arrangements. 00:07:47.024 --> 00:07:49.244 We can do paid referral arrangements. 00:07:50.694 --> 00:07:55.704 None of those may be my choice or my preference, but I'm 00:07:55.704 --> 00:07:57.134 also not saying they're wrong. 00:07:57.544 --> 00:08:03.224 What I'm saying is there's beauty and magic and reliability in the 00:08:03.224 --> 00:08:09.599 fact if we imagine our relationships as a web of people, the trust that 00:08:09.619 --> 00:08:16.599 exists between individual nodes on that web ends up benefiting everyone 00:08:16.609 --> 00:08:23.239 in the web because person a trusts person B and person C trust person B. 00:08:25.289 --> 00:08:27.939 And now we're all benefiting from the trust in the system. 00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:29.739 And that is so. 00:08:29.739 --> 00:08:30.209 Cool. 00:08:31.259 --> 00:08:32.319 And it's reliable. 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.849 I talked about reciprocity in the episode on launch based selling. 00:08:36.079 --> 00:08:38.139 I want to talk about reciprocity again today. 00:08:38.649 --> 00:08:46.519 We can treat reciprocity as a reliable, trustworthy principle. 00:08:47.609 --> 00:08:51.989 We don't have to treat it as a transactional tactic. 00:08:53.714 --> 00:08:56.664 So we don't have to give in order to get. 00:08:57.584 --> 00:09:02.734 We can give trusting that giving always results in receiving. 00:09:03.664 --> 00:09:04.744 It's a universal law. 00:09:04.774 --> 00:09:06.154 It's the law of the harvest. 00:09:06.984 --> 00:09:09.204 Where we sow, we will reap. 00:09:10.434 --> 00:09:17.864 We may not be able to predict exactly when we reap, but seeds planted and 00:09:17.874 --> 00:09:20.884 nurtured have to bear their fruit. 00:09:21.569 --> 00:09:23.639 They can't not. 00:09:24.929 --> 00:09:26.369 It's the law of the harvest. 00:09:27.609 --> 00:09:33.209 So what you have in a relationship web, like the one I'm describing is a bunch 00:09:33.209 --> 00:09:38.209 of people or two people who are planting relationship seeds, planting little 00:09:38.219 --> 00:09:42.849 trust seeds with each other, nurturing those, and then having them bear fruit. 00:09:42.899 --> 00:09:44.339 And they have to bear fruit. 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.749 And it just happens that in the case where those people are coaches 00:09:48.759 --> 00:09:51.669 or where they're interacting with coaches, some of the fruit that they 00:09:51.669 --> 00:09:55.149 bear is formal coaching relationships. 00:09:55.729 --> 00:09:59.229 And thank goodness, because that's where people get relief and help and growth. 00:10:00.399 --> 00:10:05.729 So, today's message, today's thesis is , if I acknowledge my connection 00:10:05.729 --> 00:10:10.309 to people, to individuals, and then I acknowledge their connection to 00:10:10.309 --> 00:10:15.689 other individuals and how all of those connections end up interlinked, then it 00:10:15.689 --> 00:10:18.819 helps me see that I'm happily investing. 00:10:19.924 --> 00:10:24.874 in any of those relationships is a way of investing in all of those relationships. 00:10:26.024 --> 00:10:29.374 And as I develop my character, like we talked about in the last episode, 00:10:29.994 --> 00:10:35.604 if I can develop my character and my skill, and if I can confidently occupy 00:10:35.634 --> 00:10:43.574 my space within this network, that my only job within that network is to give. 00:10:45.439 --> 00:10:50.709 And then to trust that the goodness will come back because it has to. 00:10:51.649 --> 00:10:54.149 So when you think about referrals, I'm not mad at all. 00:10:54.149 --> 00:10:57.369 If you think about referrals on a transactional way, I'm not mad about 00:10:57.369 --> 00:11:01.839 blog posts, books, and podcasts that have titles that sound like how to get 00:11:01.889 --> 00:11:06.559 a steady stream of referrals or, you know, Whatever, how to ask for referrals. 00:11:06.859 --> 00:11:07.979 I'm not mad about it. 00:11:08.139 --> 00:11:10.719 I think there's, there's benefit there. 00:11:12.519 --> 00:11:17.669 I also want to shine a consistent light on the fact that a less transactional 00:11:17.669 --> 00:11:21.219 approach also works beautifully. 00:11:22.174 --> 00:11:29.144 And in my opinion is the better approach, the approach where you don't know when 00:11:29.144 --> 00:11:33.734 the connections will bear their fruit, but you know that they will bear their fruit. 00:11:34.764 --> 00:11:36.694 There's just an inevitability to it. 00:11:37.944 --> 00:11:42.684 So I hope that we will develop ourselves to become more 00:11:42.684 --> 00:11:45.484 valuable parts of our network. 00:11:46.764 --> 00:11:50.034 And also that we will invest in our network in whatever 00:11:50.034 --> 00:11:52.784 way we're best suited to do. 00:11:53.184 --> 00:11:56.344 And that we'll trust that as we do that consistently over a period of 00:11:56.344 --> 00:12:02.034 months and years and maybe decades, that the fruit harvested will be 00:12:02.044 --> 00:12:04.034 sweet and it will be reliable. 00:12:04.044 --> 00:12:05.074 It'll be consistent. 00:12:06.104 --> 00:12:09.254 And we'll end up with something of course, that's much more important than the money. 00:12:10.214 --> 00:12:13.654 It'll be the relationships built and maintained over those years. 00:12:14.084 --> 00:12:20.784 And it'll be the knowledge that people in pain got relief because of the way 00:12:20.834 --> 00:12:24.154 we all invested in our relationships. 00:12:27.824 --> 00:12:28.784 And I'll talk to you next time.