Aug. 5, 2025
Mastering the Three Core Coaching Skills
Send us a text Ever wondered what separates good coaches from truly transformational ones? The answer lies in three foundational skills that can revolutionize your coaching practice while dramatically boosting your confidence. Throughout this episode, we unpack the first critical skill: presence. This goes far beyond physically showing up—it's about being mentally and emotionally available without judgment or agenda. We explore why so many coaches struggle with true presence, often because w...
Ever wondered what separates good coaches from truly transformational ones? The answer lies in three foundational skills that can revolutionize your coaching practice while dramatically boosting your confidence.
Throughout this episode, we unpack the first critical skill: presence. This goes far beyond physically showing up—it's about being mentally and emotionally available without judgment or agenda. We explore why so many coaches struggle with true presence, often because we've been conditioned to believe leadership means providing all the answers. When you master presence, you'll stop missing crucial client information and create space for authentic transformation.
The second skill—clarity—transforms how you guide clients through their challenges. Rather than mapping their entire journey, effective coaches help clients see just their next clear step. Like navigating through fog, clarity isn't about illuminating the entire path but focusing on what's immediately ahead. Through deep listening and powerful questioning, you'll help clients discover their own answers rather than imposing your solutions.
Perhaps most crucial is the third skill: integration. This is where many coaching relationships fall short. Clients experience powerful breakthroughs during sessions but struggle to translate them into changed behaviors or new habits. We share practical approaches for helping clients integrate insights into their busy lives through concrete actions, bridging the gap between ephemeral "aha" moments and lasting transformation.
We also tackle a critical insight: learning to diagnose your client's true challenge rather than the problem they think they have. Clients often request what feels comfortable rather than what they truly need. The art of coaching lies in seeing beyond the presenting issue to the root cause, then tailoring your approach accordingly.
Ready to transform your coaching practice? Master these three foundational skills and watch as your clients achieve faster breakthroughs, clearer direction, and most importantly—lasting results that change their lives forever.
Want a personalized strategy session for free? Book a free call with Marc or Teresa: https://www.modernleadership.us/apply
Whether you're going through a challenge, or working on a powerful goal, join Marc or Teresa for a 20-minute strategy session and leave the call with a plan to make it happen!
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Essential Coaching Skills
00:53 - Skill One: The Power of Presence
03:42 - Skill Two: Creating Client Clarity
05:34 - Skill Three: Integration for Lasting Change
08:38 - Finding Your Client's True Problem
Transcript
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What is going on?
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My people, good morning Today.
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We have a really powerful session for you today.
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So if you're somebody who's a coach, you want to have more confidence.
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You want to be able to know and have that complete clarity that you can help anybody who brings anything to you.
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What we found is the three skills that we're going to dive into today.
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It's kind of like these are the foundations of everything.
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When you bring these three skills to the forefront, not only do you help people transform quicker and actually get the results that they came for, but you will feel incredibly confident because you know you can help somebody through anything.
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And I'm gonna be honest, these things that we're gonna talk about today if I didn't have them into today's session, oh, it would have gone way different.
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And at the end, everybody was like I've never felt more connected, more clarity on what the next steps are and why we're doing this, and the energy and the excitement was off the charts.
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And that's what you can do when you lean into these three things.
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Okay, so we're actually going to dive right into skill number one, and that is presence.
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So let me ask you a question about this.
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Okay, what does being fully present mean to you?
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Okay, I really want you to think about, maybe, a time when you have been fully present with somebody and what the not only results came out of it, but how you felt when you were fully present.
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Now, when we say present, people are like well being in a place, both physically and mentally and emotionally, all in that moment, right.
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But when we describe it, when it comes to coaching, it is being and giving your full-time attention and focus on your client, the person that you are there to coach, without bringing in any of your judgments, your thoughts and the plan that you think is going to work best for your client.
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Now, the reason why we say this is because when we bring our own stuff into our client sessions, we sometimes implant limiting beliefs, we sometimes give people our plan instead of helping them find their plan, and they leave the session actually feeling overwhelmed instead of what we want to really do is connect with them, give them clarity which you'll find out a little bit later but be fully present.
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So, going back to what I originally said, have you ever had that moment where you're present, both physically and mentally, like with your kids or with a client, with a friend, and you're not thinking about what you're going to talk about next.
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You're not thinking about the next question that you're going to answer.
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You are there, present, you're focused and you're paying attention, because you don't want to miss things in a session, and we've seen that happen a lot.
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People will miss things because they're thinking about the next thing for them to say or for them to do.
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As a coach, we need to be present physically, mentally, and make sure that all of these thoughts that we have about our client, all the thoughts about what they should or shouldn't do, never make it into the session.
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Easier said than done, right.
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I think I find that coaches have trouble doing this.
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So my next question is why do you think that coaches struggle with this so much?
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Yeah, we were kind of talking about this before we actually went live and that is like there's this thought that if they give the answers, that's what leadership is.
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It's me talking in the front, pointing direction, sharing like all of the directions that I think they should go, and from an early age we kind of like have been structured that way right, Like the teachers.
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You know, teachers are up at the front, they're giving direction, they're telling you what to do, and it's really not, there's not a lot of like thinking on your own, but it kind of like plants these thoughts of like I really want to, if I really want to help these persons, then I have to tell them what to do, Right, and so they kind of get stuck in that.
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And it's like I really want to make an impact here.
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So what can I say or do to make this person have this breakthrough or do all this stuff?
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But that's pressure on you and you're not present with them.
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So that's why it's so hard, because we really we call ourselves heart-led coaches here on Modern Leadership and we're heart-led coaches.
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We really want to help people and sometimes what that translates into is giving them the steps.
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Skill number two is clarity.
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All right, it's clarity.
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So can you describe for them what we mean by giving your clients clarity?
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What do we mean by clarity?
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Yeah, the way that I see it is that you're kind of guiding and helping your client get crystal clear on what that next step is.
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So it's not about helping them find that entire path, it's really only about giving them clarity on what that next step is for them.
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I kind of see it as like, if you're walking down a path that's like super foggy, you can't see what's far away.
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However, you can see what your next step is, and that's what I see when I try to help my clients gain that clarity is just allowing them to really explore what that next step is for themselves.
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How do you do that?
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How do you help them find what we term as like their answers?
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but to help give them that clarity, yeah, so one of the things is listening deeply and asking the right questions.
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And you might be thinking, okay, well, how do I know what questions to ask?
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And that is actually something that we really dive into in the coach certification, because we don't even know, like, what questions to ask.
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But we've learned through that process and I think that asking the right questions is really allowing your client to find those answers for themselves, because it's not about fixing a problem.
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It's really about exploring what is going on and helping your client get to that point where they don't see the whole path.
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It's really just about what is that next step that's actually going to allow them to move forward?
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Okay, so let's move on to skill number three.
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Okay, and that is integration.
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Why is integration often like the missing link, like when you're having conversations?
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Yeah.
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So I find this with coaches who start to coach people.
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They start to have their clients have breakthroughs, but it doesn't translate into change of behavior or habits.
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And this is where, like, you're integrating, like the mindset piece of things, the clarity, right, but you're also integrating it into getting them to take a different action, to show up differently and to get the results they want.
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This whole entire process of like learning just what you need in this moment not learning at all, not doing it all, but like literally learning it and implementing it, because that's really where the power is right.
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And so I see a lot of coaches who give their clients breakthroughs, but they don't know how to integrate it into that person's regular life, into action and into results.
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It's awesome to give people those breakthrough moments.
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If you follow skill one and skill two here, you're going to give them like breakthroughs, right, you're present with them and you're able to like, really help them get clear.
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They going to give them like breakthroughs, right, you're present with them and you're able to like, really help them get clear, they're going to have breakthroughs.
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But then you have to ask yourself how do I integrate that into action?
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How do I integrate that into their busy, whirlwind life.
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You have to find a way of integrating it into your regular life, and it's different for everybody, which is why you don't just say, hey, this is exactly how you have to integrate it.
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There's a process around coaching that you learn how to have that mindset with a tactical piece too.
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I am not here just to give people breakthroughs.
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I'm here to give them breakthroughs and have them go change their life forever.
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And that doesn't happen just by a thought change and I know we want to believe that but it actually takes action and integration into your life.
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If I have a system that has changed my life forever, I'm not going to give somebody half of it.
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I refuse to If we lose sales because of it or like it doesn't bother me, because I know that when my life has been changed forever was having both of these things that I need to give this to other people.
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How do you help someone actually kind of live that breakthrough rather than just kind of have it during the session?
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When you think about, like helping people through breakthroughs and getting them to take action, you have to understand one vital piece of information, and that is you have to find out what the actual problem is that your clients are dealing with.
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Because if you jump in and all you're doing is clarity, mindset, work and they need steps and commitment and accountability, it's just going to be spinning their wheels and most times, believe it or not, people will actually self-sabotage and tell you what they want, but it's not what they need.
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They're only telling you based off of their comfort zone.
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So if they're talking all about mindset, they probably don't need mindset, my friends, but you have to have a way to get to the root and diagnose their problems.
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The same is true if somebody is coming there like I need all the steps.
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It's probably what we call an adaptive challenge.
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It's a challenge that they have to be able to think differently in order to be able to achieve what they want to achieve.
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So related to this question is like if you want to help people have breakthroughs and actually implement and integrate things into their life, you have to find out what the actual problem is.
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They're dealing with so many people.
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They either think they know what their problems are, or they project what their problems are onto their clients, and they have no idea how to ask questions, how to get to the root of what's actually holding them back, as opposed to just trying to solve a problem all one way.
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We love frameworks.
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We have a framework that we teach.
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It's called the growth model, but it is not a one size fit all thing, even though I would love to think it is.
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No, there are some things out there that don't fit into all of that.
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Right, it is a big thing that you can actually use, but if you're trying to use that with a problem of somebody like, let's say, somebody struggling with, like, finding new clients right, they're struggling with finding new clients we have a way that you can actually figure out what exactly they're struggling with.
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Are they struggling with, like, I can't reach out to people?
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Am I good enough, like am I good enough to actually ask somebody to coach?
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What if I don't know?
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What if I get it wrong?
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Or do you need to figure out, like, when do you need to post?
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What do you need to say?
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How do you create a Facebook ad Like here's the thing, maybe the one that you think right now is your answer.
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Maybe it's not Right, and so you have to be able to figure out what your clients actually need from you, and that's one big thing.
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When you go back to like, how do you help them integrate, you find out where they're struggling, actually struggling, what their challenge is right, sometimes it's both and then you can help solve those problems.
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That's really where the power is identifying that.
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