Why Curiosity Helps People More Than Any Advice You Could Give

Why Advice Creates Resistance

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is going on, my people? What's everybody? Super pumped to kind of like take last week's lesson talking about kids and expanding that to how it works when it comes to clients that you have. Being able to get curious to the point where you actually can help find out what's holding somebody back, right? Um, last week we talked about how we use coaching and asking questions to help empower our kids to not only get them to take action, but to get them to take ownership and buy in and actually want to do it as opposed to us trying to force them, convince them, or outsmart them to get them to do something, right? But today we're gonna take a little bit different of an approach. And the reason why is because I see so many different scenarios, like the one I'm gonna share with you today, where I normally see people go down the path of giving advice or direction, or what they accidentally do is they think they're coaching and they're asking a question, but they're guiding somebody in a direction because they're like, oh, I see these two connection points. I see what the person is saying and what's actually holding them back. And I want to connect the dots for them. And when you do that, you accidentally connect things that were never supposed to be connected. Just because they're connected in your brain doesn't benefit your client. So I sat down with a father and husband who is really struggling with his marriage. And the first thing he told me was that his wife needs to change. He was like, I've been doing this, I've been growing, I've been putting in this action and energy, and she is not doing anything. Nothing is changing. And I'm showing up differently. I've been doing this for a number of months, and like nothing is budging. And I know I'm taking ownership of my part, but she's not taking ownership of her part. I gotta tell you, like being in rooms where there's a lot of husbands who want to be better. They want to be better for their wives, for their teams, for their business, for their kids, especially. Being in that room and hearing somebody say that, one of the big pushbacks is well, you say you're taking ownership, but you're not taking ownership. You're not taking ownership of your part of the equation and kind of blessing and releasing how she's showing up, knowing that as long as you change what you can change, she will change too. And that is very solid advice if you actually know what's going on. But when somebody shares, like this gentleman, when he shares that beginning stage of it, my brain does this thing that it never used to do. Before I actually was doing coaching, my brain wouldn't know to pick up on this and to go down the path of coaching. I would go into mentoring mode, right? But now, because I've done it so much, I have the identity of a coach. It's just naturally in me. By the way, it's not because I'm somebody special, it's because I've been working on coaching and leveling myself up for 13 years. Like there's never been a time where I haven't been a part of something, a program, have a mentor and things like that that helps me get better at coaching. But what it is is instilled this identity in me. And I don't jump in and I don't like give direction then. I ask a few more questions. And what came out of this extra three or four questions changed the game forever for

A Marriage Problem With A Twist

SPEAKER_00 2:58

him. So welcome to Modern Leadership Coaching. I'm Mark.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

And I'm Teresa.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And this is where we talk about what it actually takes to lead people well. So I know I kind of mentioned this last week. We talked about handing people answers, right? Giving them answers because they're like, ah, my son, my daughter, my wife, they're bringing this to me obviously because they want me to help solve it. So let me give them the steps. And a lot of times, not only do they not buy into that, it creates disconnection. You don't realize it, but when you look at psychology of like, I'm coming to you with the answers, it's kind of like, well, you're not smart enough to actually find the answers yourself. There might be something wrong with you. And there's all this thing that like the person doesn't realize that your brain could go down. But we all know that, like, just like how we teach the growth model, everybody else has the growth model working inside of them too. They have their own psychology in terms of what they're making things mean. And sometimes we don't slow down enough to actually see that. And so I wanted to expand on that by talking about like how we do this for clients. And it was the perfect scenario because this guy, totally honest and vulnerable and transparent, by the way, we were on a group call. We were just on a one-on-one. We were on a group call and he wanted to get into like a conversation to get some coaching from me. And he was willing to do that, like in a group atmosphere, which to me just tells me something about who he is. He's like, I'm willing to like put it all out here and figure out what's going on. And one of the things that he said, and I I love when guys say this, I love what anybody says this, by the way. They're like, I'm willing to get some hard coaching. Let me know what I don't see. And I love that. And I get that both from men and from women. But when they say that, I'm like, this person is serious. And by the way, um, uh, I typically coach just the way that I coach. I don't usually like become uh like hard or not hard. I do feel like it's revealing though, sometimes. And sometimes the revealing is a little bit difficult. But also like if you have something that you're stuck in, you probably want to know why you're stuck, right? So, all right, so I've been talking for 10 minutes after I just said before the show, I'm like, everybody has been messaging me say they want more Teresa. And then I just talked for 10 minutes, and you're just like, hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me more. Give me more. Wait, what are we talking about? Yeah, I just get to say, exactly, exactly. So I want to pass it to you. So, first off, what do you what do you think of this topic? What's coming up for you before we get in?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Well, I'm really curious now. Oh, that's because it left us on a cliffhanger. Yeah. And now, you know, we want to know like what happened in that conversation? What uh did you eventually find?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Okay.

The Hidden Manual In Relationships

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So um, so like I said before, like he was very open to hearing some of the things that he was coming up with. And I think um, because he had been in an environment of coaching before, like he thought I was just gonna quote unquote like rip into him in that moment. And I chose not to. I chose to ask like the two or three extra questions that were like under the surface to really figure out like what was actually driving his behavior, like how he was showing up, but also what he was expecting from his wife. So one of the things that we teach, we we have have this process called the manual, right? It was actually taught to me um when I was a coach, and we kind of like have expanded a little bit to really get clear on relationships in particular, right? And and the the thing that we teach is is there is a hidden manual that we have for the people in our lives that kind of like is a way of saying if they follow this manual that we have that's hidden that they don't know, then that means they love me, that I can feel good, that I can be happy. But if they don't follow this, that means there's something wrong with them, with me. Um, they don't love me and all this kind of stuff, right? Um, I know we joke around this about this a lot, but like, you know, I wrote about it in my book. I bring it up in all of our trainings about the whole idea of the dishwasher, right? When you get home and you've had a quote unquote hard day at work and you look at the dishwasher and you see if that light says that it's done, or if like somebody has emptied it, or if it's still sitting there with dirty dishes. And the craziest thing is before I got into this work, I would make that mean something about me, my potential, the kids, all this kind of stuff. And it was like, it has nothing to do with that at all. There were so many other things that were going on. And uh the dishwasher was not the center of my world, right? But it's funny because like my brain would just that or the trash bins. The trash bins too. But you are you crushed the trash bins. Every when I when I would come, and what Teresa means is like when I would come, uh when I was working in LEPD still full time and I would come home on Mondays. Um, I I would not consciously think about this. But as I was pulling around the corner, I'm like, are the trash bins in? Are they still out? And when they were in, I was like, This woman loves me. She took time out of her crazy day trying to juggle all these kids and all the kind of stuff that we have going on and work in our coaching business and all this kind of stuff. And she decided that she was still gonna come outside and get the trash. It felt amazing. And when the trash cans were outside, I'm like, what do these kids not know how to put the trash cans inside? Like, how many times have I told? And it was just like this this story that I would create.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

What about when it was like really windy and you had to like go find our trash bins?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Oh, that was super fun. That was super fun, especially because they don't have the numbers on that. And we live in like a little condo town home community.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

And no, when we were living in the other house when the cold is echoed, when they were like, you know, super windy and they would just go everywhere, and then we were like, uh, I don't know if this is our bin.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Mine was ours, was always the cleanest. And they may have changed a couple times. And I'm like, which one of these is the cleanest? And that was the one that would be rolled to the side of our yard. Um, but yes, yes. So there was like all of these stories that I would tell myself that I didn't realize I was, which by the way, a lot of times when we say this out loud, I was actually talking about my one of my one-on-one clients around this. A lot of times when we say it out loud, we're like, that is just dumb. Like, what? Why would I this is just comical? And and I reminded him, like, then we should probably say it out loud more often. Because it's like in the moment, it feels so real. It's like, what in the world, right? What is going on here? And just like how this this guy is that I was talking uh to was he was like, he was fully bought into his wife, was like trying to do this to sabotage and and all of this kind of stuff. And she was, and and when so getting to your question is um, I understand that there's a manual that's underneath the surface. And I want to get clear on like what his expectations are, but also what he's making things mean. And when I asked him some additional questions, here's kind of like what came up for him is is he had a way that his wife, he white, he expected his wife to kind of like mimic how he was showing up. But what he didn't realize is that what he wanted is his wife, he wanted his wife to be exactly like him. Meaning he was giving praise, so he wanted praise. He was doing this, he wanted that from her. And and it was kind of like this thing of like he didn't, he didn't want his wife to be herself anymore. Now he didn't say that verbally, but when I communicated that to him, he was like, I didn't realize this. I'm literally trying to make her a carbon copy of me. And I want her to do the exact same things as me. And I'm like, okay, so let's actually talk about this. What would it be like if she was a carbon copy of you? And he was like, that would be terrible. This stuff would never get done. We would always be working 24-7. And he kind of like painted a picture of like what it would be like if he actually um duplicated himself and they were not like um uh, I wouldn't say opposites because they they say opposites attract, but just like different strengths, different weaknesses.

Wanting Your Spouse To Be You

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Like, here's the thing too. Um this is a perspective and a story, but I love it. And I'm gonna so I'm gonna share it here. And that is like when it comes to like a relationship, like the best thing that you can do in your marriage is be on the same team because you have different strengths, you have different weaknesses. When you see that they have a weakness where you're strong, you're supposed to be like that. You're supposed to take care of that thing. That is for you, not for them. I have a lot of uh men in this space uh and women in this space, um, but for some reason I notice that the women don't say this as much as the men. I don't know why. But when I when I teach somebody how to coach and how to have a deeper understanding of what the other person is bringing them and how to get clear on helping other people, right? One of the things that I hear all the time is like, you know what? Why do I always have to be the person that brings things up? Why do I always have to be the person who starts that conversation? Why do I have to be the one who asks the questions? And I'm like, would you like the other person who doesn't understand how the brain works to do that? Because that is going to cause more drama than anything. It is your superpower. You're saying, man, I'm the best in the world at this, but I'd like my spouse to do it. It's like that is not a team. A team is like your spouse is like being able to take over things that you would suck at or that like you don't want any part of, right? And you're doing this in synergy as a team. And I find that a lot of people, when they, when they come into this environment of wanting to be better at their relationship, it's like they're both, they they think they're on the same team, but they're not. They're playing individual games. They're playing in an individual sport and they're not playing collectively based off of each other's strengths. Like, and and when I see that and I communicate that to guys, now he's like, now I know what's going on. Now I have an understanding that I didn't have what it's which I, if I had just been said, take ownership of your part, that would have not been as deep of an understanding as like I literally am trying to get my wife to be version 2.0 of me. And that is not helpful. That is not what I want. And if I did get that, I would be so frustrated because then there would be two type A personalities, there would be two people. And it's like, I married my wife because she's my wife. Like, yes, like I I really do think like being able to see the best in others and help others grow is amazing, but in their way, not in the way that you want them to.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

And in their time frame.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

And in their time frame, right? And and yes, there is to be said something around like when you grow and you grow in a in a way that's that's um uh that other people can see that you're growing, it influences them to grow. But not in the exact way that you want them to. It's not always like, well, I did this, and so they're gonna do this, right? But um, you know, getting to the uh a little bit of the lesson behind this too, is even the whole idea about the manual, it's hidden. The other person doesn't know. What if he just asked? What if he just had a conversation and just said, This is the story that I'm telling myself? And I don't expect you to like change all this, but I noticed that I've been showing up as not the best version of me because I was expecting this. And I'm sorry that it's happening, but I just want to verbalize it out loud. I just want you to hear that, right? Like you you don't know if that's gonna influence them or not, but I I gotta believe like the person who's frustrated and angry because their wife, quote unquote, isn't changing just like them, versus the person who's just open and honest and doing whatever they can, not expecting anything in return, but knowing that they're gonna do whatever they can to grow because that's something they get to keep for the rest of their life. It's the person that they, you know, have become is is somebody that's something that like their kids, their family, the people they work with, this guy is super successful in business, like all of that stuff translates into that. So that's kind of like what um what that conversation, how we got to that level of deepness, as opposed to, like I asked myself this, what if I had not given him the extra four minutes? Yeah. What if I had said, I see it, and then I verbalized it to him, and then I moved on to the next person? You would have never been able to see that. And that's why I wanted to put together this show because it's a little different than our previous one, but it is more of like the reason, like under the reason that you can actually help people with. And this is what we love to do. Obviously, this is what we love to teach. But like when I see people jump in too soon, I'm like, oh, what could have happened if you just stayed there a little bit longer? Yeah, dove a little deeper, and not try to connect the dots your own, and instead have more information that you can work with.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, it's really interesting. And it I think it takes patience to be able to do that, to understand that the the first thing that people say is not like the full picture, it's just a clue and like the bigger picture. And sometimes coaches don't really have that patience and they just jump into that mentoring mode or giving the advice without truly understanding what's going on. And I think it's really beautiful that you gave him that space and that he was able to still get something out of this without feeling judged. Because, you know, at first when you first said that, and I I mean, I even kind of felt some kind of way, um, seeing it from the wife's perspective, because, you know, I remember when um, you know, you were going through kind of like this journey of growth and you're uh changing your your physical health. I remember that I felt like you were trying to force me to become a version of you where you're naturally more disciplined than I am. And it felt like there was a little bit of a push to for for me to do the same things that you were doing. And eventually I I did go on that path, but in my own way, like you were saying earlier, you you find your own way. And I think that's really where um the the growth happens, but the relationship also flourishes.

Curiosity Before Technical Fixes

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

One of the things we were talking about in HIMA last uh week is um is like when you approach a coaching conversation like this, and it's tied to what you said about like us wanting to connect those dots for people, is when you get into a conversation like this, if you are as the coach uh or as the dad, the husband, the wife, if you're going into a conversation, adding the pressure on yourself of you have to come up with the answer and you have to connect the dots in your own brain and then communicate it to someone else, it takes the focus off of your person in front of you. Takes your focus off of your kid, takes your focus off of your client, takes your focus off of the person you're leading in work, right? Um, takes the focus off of the officer that you're trying to empower if you're a sergeant, right? And it's just a tricky way that our brain um kind of like pulls on our heartstrings because uh a lot of people associate giving advice with helping or caring problems, yes. And and if I don't say anything right now, then maybe that means that I don't care. And if I don't know enough information, then maybe I can't help this person. And and you're putting the energy in the wrong space. Like for us, when when we t talk about like um teaching people how to coach, it is removing yourself from that part of the equation. You get to bring yourself back in during one of our sessions. We teach this like towards the end. Like you get to bring yourself back in, but not before you're fully present with your client. You can actually figure out what's going on. You give them the time and the space to communicate it, just like the guy that I was I was on with. Like when he started to talk and he started to say, like, he just wants his wife to actually listen to him and to be heard. What would have happened if I stopped him and then gave him like four tips? Right. It's like he's literally telling me, I just want to be heard. I let him like kind of after a while, I let him ramble a little bit because I knew that he needed to verbalize this out loud. And then when I showed it to him, he was much more open of being able to see it and utilizing it like moving forward, right? But this is something that we have to talk to veteran coaches about all the time. Because they get kind of nervous if they get on a clarity call. They get kind of nervous if they get on a practice call for HIMA, right? Or they get kind of nervous because of the situation because they think they need to have the answers. And like that's not the truth. We know that if you get very curious and you have something like a framework to be able to use, and and you get you can actually ask them questions instead of like making um assumptions or giving them advice that you're gonna find something. You're gonna find something, you're gonna be able to help them out. Um, and yes, there's a skill to that. And I highly encourage people to learn it if you don't, if it doesn't come from you naturally, but going into a session or something thinking that you need to have the answers, it's gonna put you into self-preservation mode. And then you're going to not hear what your client says. You're gonna hear the first thing, and then you're gonna immediately shut them off, wait for them to stop talking, and then give them your advice, right? Yeah. But it comes from a place of your heart. I want to make sure people know that. Like, just because I really care about them and I really want to help them. But if you really want to help them and you really care about them, it's about you reframing what you're putting in your own head before you have that conversation so you can free yourself of that extra pressure because you just need to be fully present and be able to ask the questions and really help the person like um not only guide themselves, but come to like their own um conclusions. Yeah. And there's a time at the end, I said this. There's a time at the end where it's like, hey, could I give you a couple pieces of advice related to this thing? You said this, right? And and after you help them change their perspective and you get into the new actions, like that's what we teach is like, how do you help them solve a technical problem now? Because not ever like when you think about the two different types of challenges, like adaptive, which is like the way you think about it, and technical is like the things for you to do. Generally it's a mixture of both, right? But the thing in terms of getting out of your own way is people term it as mindset, but it's an adaptive challenge. And when you overcome that adaptive challenge, now you're open to all the technical fixes that can happen. And most of the time we do technically help clients with things, right? Um, but we do it after that we've helped process that adaptive challenge, right? Because we gave this guy some advice on things that he can do in that scenario, how he can communicate to his wife, what he can say. And it's already starting to help him. But it doesn't work if your adaptive challenges are my wife has to look like me. It doesn't matter what you say, because really deep down inside you believe that she needs to be like you. There you go. All right, so I have a question for you now, because I do want to hear you talk. It's amazing to hear you talk. All right, so um, I here's a here's like an important part that I want people to catch. And that is um, well, yes, if if I'd given the advice in the first five minutes, um, like I would have actually been solving the wrong problem for him. But why do you think that it happens so often? Why do you think that people jump into giving advice? I know I've given you my perspective, but I'm curious for you. Like, why do you think it happens? And and why do you think it even happens to people who really care?

SPEAKER_02 21:38

I think I think it's because they people put a lot of pressure. Coaches put a lot of pressure on themselves. Um, and and you mentioned this, where they think that they're being more helpful if they jump into mentorship mode because they assume that people are coming to them because they want the answers to their solutions. Now, technically, That person might feel that way consciously. But in reality, people just really want to be heard and they want to work through kind of like all of the thoughts that they're having in their brain with somebody else that can see something differently because they they're not so emotionally attached to that situation. So I think that coaches will jump on the first thing that they catch because I feel like we're also trained to kind of like pick up on some of these things, like phrases and words and things like that. And we're like, oh, we got it. Right. And that's that's not necessarily being a coach. It you're not a great coach because you can necessarily pick up on things. We talked about this um on the weekend in one of our calls, on one of our HIML calls, where you explained this really, really well. And I don't know if you remember the conversation, but I had mentioned something to someone where I had observed them coaching and I said, Well, you're really great at, you know, picking up these patterns of behavior. And then from there, kind of going into technically mentoring, because they thought, okay, well, this is what you're doing. Let me give you some advice on how not to do that. Right. And I think that I don't know if you remember that conversation and what came out of it, but um I think that it is something where we we feel like we do need to have something for someone at the first sign of what we think the problem is. Where, you know, many times it's really giving people space and allowing them to continue to talk because I think that sometimes people will eventually kind of they'll they'll hear themselves. I think that's a really valuable thing too, is to say things out loud because a lot of the time we're just thinking of it in our heads. But then when we say it out loud, I've had so many coaching sessions where someone is talking and I'm allowing that space. And then they're like, wait a minute, I I realize what I'm doing because they they were allowed to actually say it out loud. And then I'm like, I didn't even have to do anything. I don't have to say anything. I just had to kind of allow that space for them to speak freely and hear themselves back.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah.

Coaching Skills For Any Leader

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah. I think one thing that I I want to make sure that everybody grabs onto too is we talked a lot about coaching in this um space, but this is anytime you're leading or anytime you're having a conversation with somebody where there's a quote unquote problem or something comes up where you want to be able to help them. So in these scenarios, like I really wish that I had learned how to coach much earlier on in my life, just because I would be more effective as a leader. I don't know why, but like as I grew up, ever since I was 18, like people would always put me in charge of stuff. Like at 18, I worked at Magic Mountain and I was in charge of like a part of the games department. And then I went to um a movie theater and and I was in charge there. And then I went to the, you know, becoming a um security officer, and then I was the watch commander or the captain, right? And then at LAPD, the same thing. And it was kind of funny because people would see me, I guess, as a leader and they would promote me, but I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. And so I just want to make sure that everybody grabs onto this, is yes, it's about coaching, but it's also about any conversation that you're having where you want to help the other person, which is a lot of conversations. Sometimes we're just like, you know, connecting with people and just sharing stuff and jumping in the pool with them, like we said, and and uh empathizing with them, all those kind of things. But in the moments where you actually want to help, that's where the skill, like in terms of being able to slow down, get curious, ask some questions, figuring out what's actually going on is really, really important. And here's the main reason is when you give some advice, someone advice, it's kind of like you're telling them that you already understand their problem. And you might, you might understand it. But most of the time when we just jump in, we find out that we're actually solving the wrong problem, right? We're solving the problem that we see on the outside. We're very rarely touching a problem that is actually happening on the inside. And remember, like if you've been through a transformation yourself, you know the transformation didn't start on the outside, started on the inside. And that's why coaching is so powerful. That's why leading is so powerful. That is why parenting, I feel like, is so powerful. Is because we're developing people not on the outside, we're developing them on the inside. And that takes more curiosity, more time, but it feels so great when you do that.

Self Leadership Resources And Closing

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Now, I know we've talked a lot about like this whole idea of coaching and leading today, but really what we've been talking about is self-leadership. That's why like we not only put together the um uh put together a free resource for people, so then go to modernleadership.us forward slash lead, which helps you get more familiar with how do you effectively lead yourself. But it's one of those things where when you're able to lead yourself, I really do feel like you earn the right to lead others. And until you lead yourself, it's gonna be a struggle because if you're trying to help other people, but you're not being effective at leading yourself about staying out of the pool. In this scenario, being clear in terms of of just asking questions and getting curious, it's very hard to have that level of like belief in what it is that you're doing that other people will feel too. And so if if that free resource is something for you, modernleadership.us forward slash lead, or if there's something else that you need some help with and you you want us to do this for you, maybe get under the surface for you. We actually offer free calls to be able to do that. Just reach out to us and we'll be able to help you out. Um, if you go, if you you can even send me an email, mark at modernleadership.us, it's mark with a C. Don't spell my name with a K. And I will get back to you, all right? All right, guys. Um, thank you very much for leaning into this episode. We hope it was super helpful. Um, Teresa, we need you to talk more.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

No.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Okay. And there you have it. All right, everybody. I appreciate you so much. Keep leading for the front, and we'll see you next week.