Nov. 10, 2025

Stop Fixing, Start Coaching

Send us a text The fastest way to stall a coaching session is to jump in with solutions. We’ve all felt that urge to fix, to protect, to offer the perfect list of steps—but the moment we do, we quietly take the steering wheel away from the client. Today we walk through the shift that turns decent conversations into transformative sessions: replacing answers with awareness and letting curiosity lead. We start by naming why fixing is so tempting: it feels productive, it soothes our anxiety, an...

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Send us a text

The fastest way to stall a coaching session is to jump in with solutions. We’ve all felt that urge to fix, to protect, to offer the perfect list of steps—but the moment we do, we quietly take the steering wheel away from the client. Today we walk through the shift that turns decent conversations into transformative sessions: replacing answers with awareness and letting curiosity lead.

We start by naming why fixing is so tempting: it feels productive, it soothes our anxiety, and it mirrors how school and work rewarded us for telling people what to do. Then we flip the script. Clients hold the best context—their strengths, values, constraints, and motivations—so our job is to draw out their thinking rather than overwrite it. You’ll hear how ownership skyrockets when clients build their own plan, why follow-through improves when actions are self-chosen, and what “inspired action” sounds like when you reunite clarity with autonomy.

To keep yourself out of fixer mode, we share a simple metric and a powerful prompt. If you’re talking 90% of the time, you’re mentoring, not coaching. Try this instead: ask, “What advice would you give someone you deeply care about who’s facing this same situation?” Then follow with, “Which piece of that advice would help you most right now?” These questions bypass self-criticism and invite practical wisdom to surface fast. We also dig into the skill of trusting the process—using silence, reflective listening, and safe practice reps—to build sessions that create lasting change.

By the end, you’ll have a clear, repeatable way to help clients uncover their own answers, create plans they genuinely own, and take action that sticks. If you’re ready to talk less, listen smarter, and elevate your impact through curiosity, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share this with a coach who needs it, and leave a review telling us your favorite question to spark client insight.

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Chapters

00:00 - Why Fixing Feels So Tempting

00:24 - The Cost Of Giving Answers

01:06 - Clients Hold Their Best Solutions

01:48 - Awareness Beats Answers

02:09 - Ownership And Inspired Action

02:33 - Talk-Time Check: Coaching vs Mentoring

02:56 - A Powerful Question To Unlock Insight

03:21 - Trust The Process And Practice

04:16 - Curiosity Leads To Clarity

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:04.000
We see new coaches want to jump in with ideas and solutions.

00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:06.480
Why is fixing so tempting?

00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:08.320
And what happens when they stop?

00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:11.199
It just feels so powerful to give somebody an answer.

00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:16.320
But when we do that, what we accidentally do is take away ownership from our client.

00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:24.559
That's why in today's breakthrough, we need to talk about the moment that the coach stops trying to be a fixer is when the real coaching actually begins.

00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:37.039
I want you to think about the last time that you were venting or sharing a challenge with someone, maybe even your significant other, and they jumped in starting to try and fix it and give you a list of steps, and you realize that that isn't exactly what you needed in that moment.

00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:43.439
How do you think it would have felt if they got curious instead and let you verbalize and process what you were going through?

00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:48.719
That feeling is what we get to give our clients as long as we stay out of fixer mode.

00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:51.439
Now, fixing can come from a lot of different sources.

00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:57.359
One of those that we hear a lot is if I'm not telling them what to do, then I'm not actually really helping them.

00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:01.679
It might actually feel true to you, but I want you to think about the underlying belief here.

00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:06.159
And that belief is that your client doesn't have the answers and it needs to always come from you.

00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:09.840
And let me tell you, as a coach, most often that is not the case.

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.799
Your clients have the most amazing answers, ones that are designed based off of their strengths.

00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:18.400
And if you allow them to tap into it, beautiful things can happen.

00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:27.599
That doesn't mean that you never share, but I always ask questions to bring out that brilliance in them before I start giving people a list of steps or actions that they could take.

00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:36.079
When you step into this, I like to think of it as me being a true coach, meaning I'm creating awareness in my client, not dependence.

00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:39.120
They don't need to have a conversation with me before they take action.

00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:47.680
They're able to find their own answers, not just because I've proven it by asking them questions, because I'm not the one who constantly is giving them all the answers.

00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:53.519
That's why today's quote is transformation doesn't come from answers, it comes from awareness.

00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.480
What makes that shift so hard for coaches?

00:01:56.719 --> 00:02:08.800
Their own belief system, how they've grown up, what they learned in school, by having managers at work, everything that they've gone through that has really taught them that telling people and giving them answers is the best way to help people.

00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:12.240
So what changes in a session once they stop fixing?

00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:18.319
The client takes ownership, they create their own plan, and they actually buy into the actions that they're gonna take.

00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:19.759
The energy is next level.

00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:22.800
And you'll find out in the next session just how powerful it is.

00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:29.360
Because the next conversation you have, you're probably gonna see not only did they take action, they took inspired action and are getting the results that they want.

00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:33.120
How can a coach know if they're slipping back into fixing?

00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:34.879
I'm gonna give you a little hack here.

00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:37.439
So we have this program called read.ai.

00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:44.400
And what it does is it kind of like monitors our Zoom calls to let us know how often we're talking versus how often our clients are talking.

00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:50.080
If you check and you're talking 90% of the time, that is not a coaching session, that's a mentoring session.

00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:56.560
And there's times and spaces for that, but a lot of times your clients are coming to you to coach them, not for you to give them advice.

00:02:56.719 --> 00:03:00.639
Now, I want to share a situation that actually came up this past week inside of our certification.

00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:09.439
When coaches first get started, they tend to want to jump in, make their client feel more comfortable, and start trying to give answers and ideas on what they can do differently.

00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:16.240
But instead, I challenge this coach to ask a really powerful question of their client and allow their client to actually come up with the answers.

00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:23.439
The question was, what advice would you give to someone that you deeply cared about who is going through this same situation themselves?

00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:29.280
Now, when you get asked a question like that as a client, you start to tap into your own brilliance, your own answers.

00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.680
And I gotta tell you, more often than not, they have so many answers that it overflows.

00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:39.759
Then as a coach, all you have to ask is, what piece of that advice do you think would help you out the most right now?

00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:44.879
And just like on our session, you can see the transformation happen in real time.

00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:46.879
They had the answers in there the whole time.

00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:48.719
They just didn't know how to uncover it.

00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:50.800
And a powerful question is what will do that?

00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:56.479
Now I know we've been talking about our certification, but this is where coaches get to learn how to trust the process.

00:03:56.639 --> 00:04:00.800
This is where we allow curiosity to lead the session, not your solutions.

00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:09.520
A huge part of this is actually being in a safe environment where you feel comfortable to practice it so you can get feedback and reps in before you start doing this in the real world.

00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:13.199
What we found is simply watching a video or getting the training is not enough.

00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:15.919
Taking action on it is what will help you learn it.

00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:20.079
Now, the last breakthrough we talked about had to do with how powerful silence is.

00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:22.800
If you didn't see that one yet, definitely go back and check it out.

00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:29.439
Today, we talked about once a coach learns to trust instead of fix, something powerful opens up.

00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:30.480
Curiosity.

00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:33.759
And curiosity is exactly what leads to clarity.

00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:39.439
And in breakthrough lesson number four, we're gonna talk about how clarity actually doesn't happen by accident.

00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:41.519
It happens when you do this.

00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:43.920
More on that in breakthrough number four.