Episode #57 ~ The Revolution of AI in Coaching ~ There's nothing artificial about it with guest, Jonathan Reitz

In today’s episode, I’m speaking with writing coach, Jonathan Reitz, who is the author of an article in our latest issue “Technology & AI ~ Will it support or replace human coaching?" His article is entitled:  The Revolution of AI in Coaching ~There's nothing artificial about it.

Using a chatbot or other artificial intelligence source, a coach offers a client benefits that would not be possible without technology. Large language models – like the core algorithm behind ChatGPT and GPT-4 – offer statistically plausible suggestions or conversational prompts that frame a coaching conversation.

Coaches might use these tools to prepare for a coaching session by developing a list of potential questions or evaluating their word choices afterward. Automating coach-client interaction between sessions may build accountability, and a results focus. Enter the term “coach augmentation.”

Current research shows that chat-based coaching tools are already delivering meaningful client results.

In this podcast, we will discuss how coaches can use AI to augment their coaching and help facilitate more light bulb moments for the client.

Jonathan Reitz, MCC, ACTC is FLUXIFY's Director for Training/CEO.  He holds the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential and the Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC) in the International Coaching Federation.   He’s also the co-founder of the Team Coaching Global Alliance, and a top-rated speaker at the World Business and Executive Coaches Summit (WBECS). 

Jonathan serves on the ICF's Artificial Intelligence Task Force, and has been a subject matter expert for the development of the Team Coaching Competencies.  He's also the former President of the ICF's Cleveland Charter Chapter.

He wrote “Coaching Hacks:  Simple Strategies to Make Every Conversation More Effective”. 

Jonathan is a member of the faculty in the Weatherhead School of Management Coaching Program at Case Western Reserve University. 

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/J-Reitz

Learn more about Jonathan here.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

In this episode, I talk with Jonathan about his article published in our June 2023 issue. 

Transcript

Garry: 0:07

Welcome to the choice Magazine Podcast… “Beyond the Page." choice, the magazine of professional coaching is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode, we go beyond the page and yes, that sounds like the Twilight Zone, as we delve deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics, impacting world of professional coaching, exploring the co ntent, interviewing these talented minds, oh I'll be over there, behind the articles and uncovering the st ories that make an impact. choice is mo re than just a magazine. For over 20 years, we have built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques, add value to their businesses, and of course to impact their clients because that's what we're here to do. In today's episode, I'm speaking with writing coach Jonathan Reitz, who is the author of an article in our latest issue, "Technology and AI. Will it support or replace human coaching?" Stay tuned. The article he wrote is entitled "The Revolution of AI in Coaching - There's nothing artificial about it." Jonathan Reitz, MCC, ACTC is FLUXIFY's Director for Training/CEO. Jonathan holds the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential and the Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC) with the International Coaching Federation. He’s also the co-founder of the Team Coaching Global Alliance, and a top-rated speaker at the World Business and Executive Coaches Summit (WBECS). Jonathan serves on the ICF's Artificial Intelligence Task Force, and has been a subject matter expert for the development of the Team Coaching Competencies. He's also the former President of the ICF's Cleveland Charter Chapter. He wrote “Coaching Hacks: Simple Strategies to Make Every Conversation More Effective”. Jonathan is a member of the faculty in the Weatherhead School of Management Coaching Program at Case Western Reserve University. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife Joy and daughter Julia. Thank you so much for joining me today and well you have many more kudos. Like you were the MC at the recent Midwest Regional Coaches Counc il Conf erence. I don't know exac tly how they call it these days, but that's the one and entertained us wonderfully all weekend so thank you for that and where we got reconnected. So welcome to our call.

Jonathan: 2:50

Well, thanks Garry, appreciate it. And , I'm sorry for the folks that are listening after that long introduction. The podcast is now over and thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

Garry: 3:01

AI has taken over and we can retire our coaching. No, I just love it. One of my big questions for you today is like, so what's happened since you wrote this article? Because we wrote it a while ago and published it even later. It's just coming out. What are we up to date? Are we behind the scenes? What's going on?

Jonathan: 3:23

This was one of these things that kept me awake at night, more than once, in between when submitting the article and now that it has come out because the pace of development in the artificial intelligence world is shockingly fast. For example, if you go to the Coach Hub website, you can find their AI coaching bot called Aimy.

Garry: 3:52

Oh good.

Jonathan: 3:53

It's the first bot that I've seen that actually has an image of a human that interacts with you.

Garry: 4:00

Oh, wow.

Jonathan: 4:01

And it's pretty limited, but it might be a hint at what's to come. That wasn't on the table when we submitted the article and we began this conversation. There are significant developments in AI tools to support coaching engagements that weren't on the table a few months ago. So conceptually, I think the orientation is exactly right for the article. The orientation about, hey, what are the big questions that are plaguing, challenging, inviting investment from the coaching world. They're still the same. Some of the ways those questions are coming to life has definitely evolved. So it's a really interesting topic and this is the one that I keep hearing over and over and over again. How come we are even considering the possibility that this AI coach might replace me as a trained coach. I mean , I'm 26 years in the coaching industry. I am one of 40 people in the world that has an MCC and an ACTC. How is software going do what I do? Well, I'm going to suggest you, Garry, that's the wrong question.

Garry: 5:23

Oh ,

Jonathan: 5:24

That's the perspective that I think causes us to get caught up in loops that take us nowhere. A better question, I'm going to suggest, because this is what we do as coaches, right? We look for the right question to ask at the right time. A better question is, what is it that AI does for my clients that benefits my clients? It's not really about us. And if that's the case, if we're thinking about AI in terms of the way it serves the client, I think we can then begin to think about how do we partner with an AI to get unique, meaningful personal results for a client on a consistent basis because that's the exciting part of the future. How does that marriage come to life?

Garry: 6:26

Well, and you stated it really well. I love the term you introduced in the article for this purpose, coach augmentation. And I really love that you're putting it in the perspective of what serves the client. I also noticed that you're very, I will just say, flat out you're AI positive.

Jonathan: 6:44

I am without a doubt,

Garry: 6:46

Right? You have a sidebar in there that says what are the benefits of AI and how to use it? To be honest, let's face it, we've been using some form of AI for ages, not just in coaching. I'm a coach with BetterUp. We see a lot of that. It came as a "coaching platform." They never called themselves a coaching company. They just happen to coach clients through a platform that's augmented with AI and changes almost daily, just like we're talking about.

Jonathan: 7:18

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And,

Garry: 7:20

I'll be honest, we put the title as Will AI replace human coaching? because we wanted to get that approach and we wanted to deal with the fear that people had . So I really love that you're coming at this from a way of augmentation and it's not going away. Everybody's clear and it's changing rapidly and so will things that it augments.

Jonathan: 7:44

Absolutely. Let's give credit where credit's due. The term Coach Augmentation, I learn from a guy named Matt Barney, he's an IO psychologist , used to run a company called LeaderAmp, now runs a company called XLNC. It's one of those cutting edge technology type names.

Garry: 8:10

Like FLUXIFY.

Jonathan: 8:12

Yeah. Well, FLUXIFY, we can get into all of that, but all this to say is, he's the guy who actually opened my eyes. It's really not either or. It's not the reality that software can do what we as human coaches do. That's not really the cutting edge. The cutting edge is how does the software do things that compliment our coaching or make the coach's life easier? I'm playing around with tools that might contact my client in between sessions and just ask them about how's their reflection on their self-awareness going. I had a client in a recent session, and I haven't done this yet and in fact, I'm going to walk right up the line of what I can tell you because of the ethical questions because that's a whole nother topic about AI and things like this. There was a particular word that my client offered in the session that every time it was said, vocal tone changed and the pace in the conversation changed and all of these things began. The client was very different when this term was mentioned. And I asked about it, say , Hey, what does that term mean to you? And it completely changed the direction of the conversation where hearing the difference in the delivery opened up a whole bunch of different conversations about what was most important to this client. And as a result, this session was just in the last couple of days, in between sessions, I'm going to set up the AI support tool I'm using in between sessions to specifically ask about that word. Hey, what are you realizing about that word? How's that changing your perception of your circumstances? Now I'm going to prompt some of these questions. That's a word I think will end up more in the coaching lexicon over the next few years.

Garry: 10:37

The word we're not going to say yet.

Jonathan: 10:39

Oh, no, no. I'll say it. I'll say it right now. I'm wondering if "prompts" will become a part of our coaching language? When you build the right relationship with your client, we talk about evoking awareness in today's parlance. I wonder if there's going to be a generation of coaches that think about those moments in coaching right before the light bulb goes on as those prompt moments. To me, that's an interesting side study we can do about what's going on with Chat GPT or Bard or one of those generative AI tools. Right now the skill that everybody's trying to master is prompt writing. How do you phrase your request to the Chat GPT so that you get something useful out of it for what you're trying to accomplish? Well, that's what we do as coaches. We struggle to phrase our questions so that the client gets something useful out of our interaction. It's prompt writing from a coaching perspective and I think there's some value there .

Garry: 11:53

Well, it's interesting because we've always known that most coaching happens between the sessions and that we're available to our client between the sessions. So what if this prompting managed or handled, or started or filtered by an AI facility became that prompt that helped prompt that coaching moment, that light bulb moment that might happen when we're not there to see it.

Jonathan: 12:21

Isn't that interesting? I am less concerned, I am truly less concerned about not being there to see the light bulb moment and I love the light bulb moments. I mean, Garry, I keep a light bulb on my desk.

Garry: 12:35

Oh, good .

Jonathan: 12:37

Purposely to hold up. When my client has a new realization. I love these. And by the way, yes, it is energy efficient.

Garry: 12:45

I noticed that. It's an LED.

Jonathan: 12:47

It's an LED. That's an honest moment in my coaching. When somebody has a moment where they realize something, I will literally sneak this into the frame and they'll go, oh yeah, that definitely was a new insight. That was something I can see now that I couldn't see before the lights came on. I am less concerned about being there when that happens, even though I love them, than structuring the engagement in such a way that we have the highest possible likelihood that those moments occur where the clients' view of themselves in the world changes. And I say it that way on purpose.

: 13:32

The client's view of themselves in the world, and then specifically in that context changes as a result of coaching. When that happens, I'm doing the work that I'm on earth to do. And I think a lot of coaches would feel that same way. Is that light bulb happens. And truthfully, it'd be great if it happened in the Zoom call of course, or on the phone.

Garry: 13:59

We would all love that.

Jonathan: 14:00

But as long as it happens over the course of the engagement, score. Nailed it.

Garry: 14:07

Yeah . Client agenda, not ours. Client timing, not ours. I just want to go back just a little bit, and you said this in the article and you're saying this again now, there still has to be a filter or an edit or a human, unless AI can figure out how to talk to other AI's which I'm sure is happening, and ethics, like taking something like what you guys are doing and taking a look at the ICF Code of Ethics and figuring out how AI fitsin. In most cases, is it not true that the AI has to be introduced to the client as an existing coach?

Jonathan: 14:50

Yes. There is an opt-in moment. I think some of the big AI related questions that we struggle with or we're struggling with to build protocols around are things like, how transparent is the existing AI about being an AI. What happens to the data that the client puts into the AI system. I'm going to say something that is moderately controversial here. Come on downloads. I find in my coaching practice that other coaches that I train, you know, FLUXIFY or Team Coaching Global Alliance, or in the CASE Program, other coaches are dramatically more worried about privacy and data protection than clients are. I like that but I think that it's going to have to self-correct at some point in the not too terribly distant future. We're going to have to get the balance right. I worry we're not caring about the things that clients are caring about in that regard. And I would love to engage a conversation around, Hey, what actually are the ethical issues that clients are caring about so that we can care about those. Like you said, client agenda first, our agenda second or client agenda all, our agenda none. That's probably a healthier way to say that, but how do we convene a conversation? To me, this is the biggest challenge in AI right now. How do we convene a conversation that aligns the coach's orientation to ethics, privacy , trust and safety, all of those kinds of things, so that we are caring about the things.

Garry: 17:19

Exactly, that matter to the client. Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan: 17:21

Because I'm not convinced we're right there. Well , generally speaking in coaching, I'm not convinced we're there but specifically in AI in coaching, I'm really convinced we're not there. There's a pretty strong disconnect between the things that I sense that coaches are caring about and the things that I sense that clients are caring about and we're going to have to address that.

Garry: 17:45

Yeah. That's an interesting thing to start introducing into the initial conversation with the client. Because that doesn't really come up. We're keeping it in our minds, but you're right, what are the client's concerns? I just finished doing the ethics course for my renewal. Well, actually I'm working towards my MCC, but you still have to do the three hours. They were talking about the phone listening to you and I was like, oh right. Which is why the majority of the time I keep this on, because I don't want this phone to hear my client's conversation. I don't think it matters what I say because mine are mostly just questions. Simple things like that, that I never quite thought about. It doesn't have any me majorly concerned. I can easily just ask clients or turn off my phone if it's for me. And then as we discussed, introduce it into the opening conversations.

Jonathan: 18:40

Great point. If you use Siri or if you have an Alexa, if you have a Google Home tool , there is an AI listening to what you say. I am a hand talker. I gesture and talk with my hands and there is a particular gesture, I won't do it right now, that I make. No, clean it up. It's not that one. There is a particular gesture I make that always triggers Siri on my Apple watch, and I'll be in the middle of a coaching conversation and Siri will say, I didn't quite get that.

Garry: 19:28

Oh no.

Jonathan: 19:30

Oh, yeah. Happens all the time. Happens pretty regularly. So I've now gotten into the habit of I take my watch off when a coaching session starts because what I want to honor that, not because I think my clients are going to care.

: 19:50

Well some of them might, but not because I feel like I'm crossing the boundary, but because we haven't talked about it, and I'm not going to introduce that mid engagement. There needs to be a benchmark time to have those conversations and I don't want to change the rules on them .

Garry: 20:16

Yeah, exactly. Introduce it as a level three. Oh , what would Siri have to say about what you're talking about now, client?

Jonathan: 20:27

Well, it's interesting you say that. I don't do that in my sessions, but it is my opinion, and this is Jonathan's opinion. This and $4 to $6 will get you a cup of coffee depending on what part of the world you live in. It is my opinion that right now coach augmentation with AI is actually more powerful in training than it is in during the coaching session. I think there are incredible AI and virtual reality tools that will make you a better coach faster through the use of the technology. For example, can I name some products? Is that okay ? All right . So for example , Ovida. Now full disclosure. I'm an advisor to Ovida. I've made an investment in Ovida. This is how convinced I am about it. It's a platform where you deliver your coaching. It identifies how much you talk, how much your client talks. It will identify automatically open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions. It'll give you a big old digital slap on the wrist for a stacked question. It takes metrics and tracks those over the course of your coach development. At FLUXIFY, we're going to use that. We're going to do all our practice coaching in the course of the training on that and you're going to have a dashboard that shows how you've improved over time. It works just like a Zoom meeting. You don't have to do anything.

Garry: 22:15

Yeah. It's in the background running and does the stuff and brings it forward.

Jonathan: 22:19

Yeah. That's my favorite one because I've seen the utility in what Ovida brings. A second one. I really like what a number of virtual reality simulators do. My favorite one is a program called, it's a terrible name but it's a great company. They're called Pitch Boy .

Garry: 22:49

Oh, God . I'm not even going to go down that road .

Jonathan: 22:54

Yeah. All right . Let's just take a moment and be quiet and let people make their own jokes out loud as they're listening.

Garry: 23:00

Okay, we're back.

Jonathan: 23:03

Very funny. Good one. Pitch Boy does a wonderful job of building practice simulations where you can work on your open-ended questions. You can work on your recapping and reframing listening skills. You can build a better coaching agreement through practice with Pitch Boy. It's amazing what they do. Evoach, that's a German company, you can build an AI chatbot to support integration all across the spectrum of what you're working on. Savvy coaching skills are dropping that AI chatbot into the developmental pathway to encourage reflection. Now it's to the point of building reflective practice. That's the other giant development that's happening in the coach training world right n ow is the advent of reflective practice which extends into supervision.

Garry: 24:10

Supervision. Exactly. Yep .

Jonathan: 24:11

But what if it marries with AI? And the AI becomes your tool to prompt your own reflective practice as you develop, and then you can begin to extend that into your coaching engagements and have your clients be nudged toward reflective practice without any effort on your part. You're almost guaranteeing that your client's going to get better results than just working with you alone. Garry, I am 100% AI positive. Here is Jonathan's unsolicited recommendation. Rocky.ai is an incredibly powerful chatbot coach simulator. Love it. Big, big fan .

Garry: 25:04

Rocky.ai.

Jonathan: 25:05

Rocky.ai. Big fan. If you run a training school, consider looking into Evoach.com. So, like I said , it's a German company. They specialize in chatbots that support coaching.

Garry: 25:26

Right.

Jonathan: 25:27

Really interesting toolkit . Coaches ought to be looking at those opportunities.

Garry: 25:37

Yeah. I just completed a program with InviteChange called Advanced Generative Coaching and in the mentor coaching session, they use a tool called RaeNotes.

Jonathan: 25:49

RaeNotes, yeah.

Garry: 25:50

Very simple, but very supportive. Wouldn't necessarily say it's AI, but it's certainly supportive in the development of a coach because you take the recording, transcribes, separates the speakers as most of the transcription software will do, but it also inserts all the core competencies broken down in subsections with an opportunity for notes. And then the mentor coach can do the same thing and put their notes on it, and then you have the discussion. So it's augmentation.

Jonathan: 26:23

RaeNotes is a great example. We use that at FLUXIFY. That's how we have our students submit their final performance evaluation, because our assessors then automatically have the ACC bars and the PCC markers that they can drop right into the session right at the moment where the marker took place. And you begin to learn to identify what you're nailing and what maybe needs some work, because you're seeing examples over and over and over again. That's an augmentation of what coaching is all about.

Garry: 26:55

Okay. So I'm shifting gears kind of. So I say to myself, AI coaches aren't as good as I am. We talked about augmentation. We didn't talk as much about the coaching. No computer or piece of software can do what I do. Why would a client choose to work with an AI coach over a human coach?

Jonathan: 27:13

There's two things at foot here. Number one is cost. AI coaches, I mean, we're talking about $40 a year. The most expensive one that I'm aware of. So there are going to be situations where coaches have to iterate their business model because people are choosing this AI coach. So I want to challenge anybody who's listening to this to say, alright , how do I set up a business model that reinforces the unique things that a human coach offers that they're not going to be able to get no matter how cheap, actually, no matter how expensive even an AI coach is. So cost is by far the number one reason. Now, there's two others. One of which I think is eh, and the other actually probably is a situation we can turn to our benefit as professional coaches. The first one is accessibility. It's always on How many times have you woken up late in the middle of the night and had a thought and thought to yourself, man, I wish I could call my coach right now. If you're in a coaching engagement, that's really hitting the mark consistently and on a regular basis, that's going to happen. If you're good as a coach, your clients are going to have that urge. Many years ago when I was a single man, I used to allow it. In fact, I used to encourage it. Only happened once. Immediacy and accessibility is one thing. I think that's a good thing. I think the fear monger in us will start wondering about, you know, what was that movie that , I can't think of her name now. Beautiful American actress, her name will come . Scarlet Johansen was in where she was a software product. That's not what we're dealing with here. We're just dealing with incremental clarity. Now, the other thing, this is the thing that I think is really exciting, is I'm exploring ways to use an AI coach to determine client readiness for coaching.

Garry: 29:48

Wow.

Jonathan: 29:50

That's something I think we all can make work for us, is this idea that client readiness probably follows some predictable signals. And if we can figure that out, if we can identify when a client is at their optimal readiness for coaching, that's only going to raise the bar on what we're capable of accomplishing with them . So maybe there's a way to leverage an AI coach before an engagement to prime the pump.

Garry: 30:36

Yeah, exactly. Wow . What a great idea.

Jonathan: 30:39

If that's the situation, not only is that not a bad thing that the client chooses to work with an AI coach, it actually multiplies the possibilities of what comes next.

Garry: 30:51

And it's all done without you having to do anything. It's like marketing in a sense,

Jonathan: 30:56

In a sense. If you want to parallel it to the sales process, I would describe it as it's warming up the lead.

Garry: 31:03

Yeah, I hear that totally.

Jonathan: 31:05

It is getting the client absolutely ready for you to move forward. So those are the three scenarios I think are going to be most prevalent. Number one is cost. I can't afford a human coach but I can get decent results from this AI coach. Number two , always on accessibility and number three, timing and readiness.

Garry: 31:30

Yeah. I'm going to ask you the big question I think is on every coach's mind. So far, it's all wonderful and I thank you very much for all the positivity, and I'm going to phrase it this way because I believe it's this way. When will an AI coach be able to do what I do with my clients? And I said, when.

Jonathan: 31:55

Yeah. It's not a question of if, so I appreciate the phrasing there. I'm going to border on a cop out answer here, Garry, because what I'm going to say, is sooner than any of us think.

Garry: 32:09

Oh

Jonathan: 32:10

The human connection that happens coach to client is still a giant human only offering of a coaching engagement. The interpersonal connection, the interpersonal pieces, AI can't do that yet. But all the machine learning that's going on right now where software learns from its existing experience, just like we do , large language models, which really are just predictions of what a human would say next in that situation. That's a ways from comprehension integration and application of creative thinking. We're a long way from that, but the gap is closing quicker than I think any of us probably want to acknowledge. Here's what I'm going to say to you. As you're, as you're listening to this conversation, pick out a number in your head of how many months or years it'll be until we have an AI coach that can really do what we human coaches do. Pick out that timeline in your head. Now cut it down to a third of that and that's probably it.

Garry: 33:37

I figured. Scary. I had two numbers. I had both threes. Three years and three months. And I kept going ahh, but then you cut it in a third and I'm like, okay, I'm good with a year. But even that I would say is, it's just a matter of time. And it just begs the question or the comment or the directive to coaches, you have to make yourself different and a process is not what's going to make you different.

Jonathan: 34:08

Right. Right.

Garry: 34:10

Because a computer can replace a process. That's the whole idea.

Jonathan: 34:13

Here's what I'll throw out to you. Going back to the earliest days of coaching, the co-active days, all of us, literally, everyone who's listening to this podcast has read co-active coaching, most of us many times. That starting point in co-active coaching that says my client is creative, resourceful and always at choice.

Garry: 34:38

Right.

Jonathan: 34:39

Absolutely the case. But the difference now is, so are you as a human being? That whole neutral presence realm that was giant around the early days of coaching, that's out the window now. Because if you want neutral presence, hire an AI coach. They will be neutral. If you want a human interconnection, something where the uniqueness of you is sparked by the uniqueness of the other person, you better start doing your intake work. You better start thinking about your intake process to ensure that you get the people that you spark as your coaching clients. It's not about staying neutral and working against leading the client. Truthfully, when I assess recordings, I don't care if the client offers advice. I don't care if they lead the client somewhere, as long as what happens next is the coach says to the client, what's coming up for you as we arrive at this place? Or how does this experience change your view of your situation as we arrive at this particular place? The client has to choose, was it helpful? What does it mean? And what am I going to do with it? I don't care how you get there, as long as you go through those three standpoints and that's very different than coaching even five years ago. I think AI has done that.

Garry: 36:11

Made us better, made us grow.

Jonathan: 36:13

I 100% think that's the case. I think there's way more premium now on the connection between coach and client. That idea of who causes you to spark, I think is a good one. I think that's important. You know, find the clients that you can't wait to talk to and that can't wait to talk to you. AI's not going to have a lot of that. Find the clients that, when they talk about their history of change, and by the way, you should be asking about the client's history of change because this is a general rule. There are very few coaches who are especially equipped for the first change a client has ever made. There are lots of coaches, in fact, most of us, myself included, were really good at helping the client get to the next change.

Garry: 37:03

Wow.

Jonathan: 37:04

It's a different strategy. I t's a different strategy. So all this to say is in your intake process, work toward w ho fires me up, who do I fire up? The chemistry and intake is way more important in the days of AI than prior to all of this. Way more important because we have to get the relationship right and then add coaching

Garry: 37:35

And who better to do it than Mr. Reitz?

Jonathan: 37:38

Yeah . I appreciate that.

Garry: 37:38

Your wife's lucky. She gets to say , I married Mr. Reitz.

Jonathan: 37:43

I would be lying if I told you she hadn't made that joke. Probably once. It was a good day.

Garry: 37:52

You were behaving. Oh my gosh. We could go on and on forever, but unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap this up. Maybe another time. Write us another article. Don't be a one hit wonder.

Jonathan: 38:03

All right . I appreciate that. I'll take you up on that.

Garry: 38:05

Give us an update because you're with the AI ICF Task Force so there's got to be something coming out of that sometime soon.

Jonathan: 38:16

Yep, there is.

Garry: 38:17

What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article and this conversation?

Jonathan: 38:22

I want to challenge you very directly, and I'm going to be kind of blunt about this. Don't compare your coach behavior to AI behavior. Leave that alone. Because bottom line is, even as AI develops, AI's not going to be able to do the unique things that you can do. That's actually not the point. It's not the point. Rather, I want to challenge you to really think clearly and distinctly is what might a partnership with AI do for my clients? What value might I, in partnership with a technological tool, what value might we add to the problems our clients are trying to solve, to the clarity about the situation that our clients are trying to build, and to the deep level of self understanding about their personhood that clients get out of coaching. AI can enhance all of those, can augment all of those. That's an opportunity that we all have to provide more and better solutions in partnership with our clients. And that's the lens I hope you have about AI moving forward.

Garry: 39:49

Thank you . Yeah. So state the challenge one more time. Repetition is a mother of a retention .

Jonathan: 39:56

All right ? Don't compare what AI can do to what you can do. Rather think about how you can partner with AI to help your client get to better results. That's the right question. What can AI do for my client that will help them get to better results? That's the thing we're after.

Garry: 40:18

And we're always after what is best for our clients. Thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. Jonathan, what's the best way for people to reach you?

Jonathan: 40:29

My coaching practice website is jonathanreitz.com. Training school is FLUXIFY.net. Jonathan@FLUXIFY.net is the email that I c heck most often.

Garry: 40:39

Awesome. Thank you so much, seriously. Brilliant, brilliant conversation today. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. We know we're right up there in Apple and Spotify, so those are the main ones we use in the world. So go for it. Don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of Choice Magazine by going to choice online.com and clicking the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer, enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Jonathan.

Jonathan: 41:12

Bet .