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choice Magazine
Episode 111: Unlocking True Client Readiness: Techniques and Insights with guest, Julie Vandermuelen
Unlock the secrets to effective coaching by tuning into our latest episode, where we promise you'll learn how to recognize and cultivate true client readiness. Featuring the wisdom of Julie Vander Meulen, an esteemed personal development and career coach, this episode delves into the nuanced process of discerning a client's readiness for change beyond mere words. Julie shares invaluable techniques for interpreting both verbal and non-verbal cues, emphasizing the power of deep listening and reflective feedback. She also directs attention to the importance of coaches understanding their own readiness, ensuring that they are fully equipped to guide clients through transformative experiences.
As we journey through the complexities of assessing client readiness and coachability, you'll gain insights into bridging the gap between stated goals and actual behaviors. Julie and I discuss real-world strategies like pattern interrupts and reflective listening to align client actions with their ambitions. Listen as we share personal anecdotes that highlight the necessity of adjusting expectations and directly addressing clients' real needs. Plus, Julie offers practical advice for coaches to foster self-awareness and continuous learning, urging all to critically evaluate and thoughtfully apply coaching principles in their practice. Don't miss this episode—it's packed with actionable insights to elevate your coaching game.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here.
Learn more about Julie Vander Meulen here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features that you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest articles. Have a chat with the brilliant authors behind them, like our friend Julie today, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. Join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques and make a real difference in our clients' lives, which is what we all want to do. And make a real difference in our clients' lives, which is what we all want to do. This is your go-to resource for all things coaching. So let's dive in.
Garry Schleifer:In today's episode, I'm speaking with personal development, career coach and author, Julie Vander Muelen, who is the author of an article in our latest issue. Oh, I don't know if you can see it, but I've got it here if you're looking. A Livelihood from Coaching -easible or fanciful. This article is entitled re you ready? Recognizing, cultivating and navigating a client's readiness for coaching? A little bit about Julie she's an MA, the founder of own your ife, and is a trailblazer in personal development, career coaching and digital branding, but just for ambitious women. I'm sure she'll do it for an ambitious guy like me. With a blend of entrepreneurial flair and heartfelt authenticity, she empowers women to harness their narratives, ensuring they shine in the digital age. Julie, thank you so much for joining me again and for writing for us again and for our audience.
Julie Vander Meulen:Hi Garry, it's my pleasure, I'm so happy to be back.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, well, you know I always reread the article. It's about the fifth time I read it and every time I read articles I get something else in it. But what really stood out for me is, well the whole article is about the readiness and you talk about the readiness of the client, but what's the percentage of readiness that the coach has to have?
Julie Vander Meulen:It's so interesting that you asked me this question because, as I was preparing for this today, I was thinking I really need to talk about the readiness of the coach as well, because I don't think that I talked about it so much in the article. I think it's both, Garry. I think that sometimes, if I go towards t he coach's readiness, sometimes what we interpret as a client's unreadiness, so I don't know what the proper term would be.
Julie Vander Meulen:It's about us as coaches, that there's some resistance in the person that we coach and we get scared or we don't know how to deal with it, and so sometimes it's about us not being ready as well and not knowing how to cope with that. Yeah, I think it's both.
Garry Schleifer:Well, and you know, and then I'm going to use this as a stepping off point to add to that. Stepping off, add, what are we doing? I don't know, but we'll just say it Recognizing a client's readiness extends far beyond their digital and declaration of wanting change. It's about discerning the depth of their commitment. So even in that, there's two words that suggest that the coach has to be able to recognize and able to discern. So what else comes to mind when you think of coach readiness?
Julie Vander Meulen:I think in what I said there, in the discerning and so on, I think a coach needs to be able to both listen to their client deeply and also, at the same time, not take everything that they say at face value, something like that.
Julie Vander Meulen:That we can both deeply trust that the person in front of us knows what they're doing and that they're the person who knows what's going on with them, and at the same time, we can also be aware of our own patterns and everyone's patterns, that sometimes we are blind to some things, and I think that's part of the readiness. That we need to be in that, I don't know, magic spot in between of I fully trust you and I really believe in what you're saying. I'm really listening to you and at the same time, I've also done this a couple of times and I've noticed that sometimes we think we know something, but you know there might be something behind it.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you because the word it was on my lips too was listening. So, and you know, I mean it's just being your coach self, like doing all the things you would do in a coaching session. I've spoken to so many people and I'm sure you feel the same way, that any conversation when you have a prospect or a client is a coaching conversation. It's not about you, it's about them. What do they want? And to your other point about listening, but also and you said this in the article, reflecting back, not just what I hear but what I sense, and you also say what you don't hear. Right, and again, that's coaching, right, kind of reading the room, reading what's going on, non-verbal cues as well, if you get to see them, that sort of stuff.
Julie Vander Meulen:I'd say also, I think it's part of it, it's also voicing what you see. I think that sometimes the mistake we can do is analyze our client and not mirror what is going on and then it becomes a whole thing because you have your own agenda. If I notice something, if I'm coaching you right now and you're telling me that you're super ready and I don't know what, and you're constantly checking your phone, you're looking at me like this from behind, you know all these different things and you're constantly repeating the same types of words and you're not diving deeper.
Julie Vander Meulen:Then it's my responsibility or my job in this co-creation that we have to also say that, to say, hey, Garry, I noticed today you seem a little bit different than other times. How do you feel? I had the impression your body language was a bit different. And then up to you to see what comes up for you. I don't know about you and your coaching practice, but I find that either the person will be a bit shocked and think like, oh, I didn't notice that I was doing that, and they feel whatever is coming up or they don't feel it, but it activates something and they're like no, I'm here, I'm here.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, I think my best example is one of my clients that we get to a point now where we're having a coaching conversation and they'll say something, and right away they'll look at me and go yeah, yeah, I know I've got to go into that one, right? Like we're already at that point where it's I don't have to say anything, I just have to give, I just go mm-hmm and it's like all right, okay, yeah, yeah, and then we get into it, but that's right. And in a way, is a sense of mirroring as well.
Garry Schleifer:Are there any other situations that you've seen where there's a disparity between a client's stated goals and their actions, and how would you handle that?
Julie Vander Meulen:I think that the example that I just took is one.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, one of the main ones I would think of. Yeah.
Julie Vander Meulen:Yeah, there was one time where it was a new client, so it was a meet and greet, and this woman by message, so I had never seen her before. She was super excited. So I came in. That's also a lesson. It was also a lesson for me. So I came in, you know, having expectations, without realizing that she would be super open, super ready, super everything, and it took me about five minutes to realize that there's a gap between my expectation and what's happening, but also what she's saying and what she's doing. So there were some of those nonverbal cues, but there was also the main thing for me is it helped me realize that the repetition thing that I was mentioning before that when someone is stuck in a loop and also, they get a bit defensive. So this woman at some point told me so she was constantly saying the same things to all sorts of questions that I was asking.
Julie Vander Meulen:They were very different questions and she was always replying in the same way which was a bit odd, but I was feeling confused, you know, because I had those expectations to begin with. I couldn't be exactly in the moment, and then at some point I thought, okay, let me just say that, just say like hey, are you getting what you came in for? Because I have the sensation that maybe this isn't useful for you. And she told me two things. The first thing was like yeah, this is interesting, but uh, where are my solutions?
Julie Vander Meulen:I was like oh. So she came in with her own expectations, which were I'm gonna come here and I'm excited to get, like you know, like fixed solutions, and that also gave me then the opportunity to say well. So that was one thing, to understand what do they really want?
Julie Vander Meulen:Like you said in the beginning. Fast, even when you're confused, to go to the point, interrupt the whole pattern and be like okay, what is it that you want? Like, why are we here exactly? And not stay stuck in our head. After that, that allowed me to say you know, this is what you're saying, that you want solutions and you want to be present, and so on, but what I'm seeing is I have the sensation that you don't want to be here, and that really took her back and she was like no, I want to be here. I was like are you sure? Because when I see you, I don't know you, but when I see you, you seem a bit like you know, like I don't feel like we are really connecting right now and so I don't want to be wasting your time.
Julie Vander Meulen:So if you want to stop, we can stop, there's no problem. And that like really shifted her. She became like super smiling, she became the person that I had seen in the email. I think pattern interrupt is a big thing for me.
Garry Schleifer:And it goes to mirroring and reflecting back what the client saying there. Because how many times I've said to to a client? I reflect back something, and they go, I said that? Wow, I didn't even realize it. So one of our jobs. I have to stop and ask this one question. So is client readiness something before they hire you or after, like after the contract is started?
Julie Vander Meulen:I would say it's all the way it's like it's everywhere.
Julie Vander Meulen:But it's different, I think. For how I work, that pre-meeting read session that I have before I take on a client is really my way in the background of assessing that. Are they ready, do they feel ready, do they want to embark on this or not? And do I feel ready to do that, to take that journey with them? So it's a big thing in that first session, but I think it stays afterwards as well.
Julie Vander Meulen:It's just different in the sense that once I'm in a coaching journey with someone, I have this trust that is established and so I kind of know that this person is ready in general, like they are willing to do this work. So my focus goes less on are they ready? Do they want to be out? I know they want to be in. So that kind of tells me that they're resisting this specific thing. Maybe it's this topic, maybe it's this tool, maybe it's my approach, and so that puts me in a like it's easier for me to then understand. Okay, there's something about what I'm doing, my own readiness, that I can change. I don't know if that makes sense it does.
Garry Schleifer:It makes a lot of sense and it brings up another thing that I read and I'm glad you brought it up. It's not just a readiness, that seeing the readiness, but it's the willingness, like they're ready for it, but the willingness to do the work and what it really means to get into into coaching.
Julie Vander Meulen:I think in that, if I may, Garry, I think there's also a mix of, like, self-awareness is also very useful in readiness and understanding. Is this person in front of me as a coach, when I'm saying is this person in front of me self-aware or not? And and oftentimes we were talking before about the gap between what people say and what people do. Oftentimes I find that this is the thing is that they are not aware that they are behaving in a specific way like you said. That people are not aware that they are behaving in a specific way like you said, that people don't notice what they're saying. And openness. I would say, too, that openness is a big thing. Are they open to change? Open to me, uh, giving them feedback, open to, like, discovering new things about themselves? I think, openness is also something.
Garry Schleifer:It reminds me of a word that I use that they're coachable. You know coachability, right, and like you say, there's all kinds of factors, you know, non-verbal and reflective and all that sort of thing, like are they coachable? And some people I've, I'm assigned some people too, so once in while and I'll have them sit there and they're like, they're basically okay, what are you going to teach me today? And I tell them almost every time, but I'm also through supervision and found other ways to get answers to how to deal with that kind of situation going forward. Supervision's great, by the way.
Julie Vander Meulen:Do you think then, Garry, like in your vision of coaching, do you feel that some people are not coachable, like, is that what you would?
Garry Schleifer:Well, so I'm under a mandate to coach people under a certain realm, under career as clear satisfaction not to get out of but to stay within the organization. And I get a whole bunch of people from this particular company and some of them come and they just they, I don't know what they've been told, but they haven't been told what coaching is.
Garry Schleifer:They seem to be coming prepared to be trained. They're gonna learn communications skills, or they're gonna learn this or you're gonna learn that, and that's not what I'm here for. So I have to, you know, I have to go take a few steps back and get the. I mean, don't get me wrong, I eventually get there with them, but it's interesting what they've been told about what coaching is, or some of them are assigned to coach or this program and they have no idea why. I have one person is like I have no idea how I got in here. I'm glad I'm here, but I have no idea how we got it.
Garry Schleifer:So you know, interesting. So sometimes they're to your point your example about being excited but not ready. They don't really. They're excited that they were given this gift, but they're not ready because they don't really know what the gift is. It's like they got the box but they haven't opened it.
Julie Vander Meulen:So then it makes me think, like in what you're saying, it's like saying that they could be coachable if they wanted to. It's possible. It's just right now, like right this moment, they are not.
Garry Schleifer:I've never lost any one of those clients and to some other coach in the in the group kind of thing. I just stick with it and you know, address the situation and remind them and then again and again, again, and it's all coaching questions, even that right and you're stressed through that.
Julie Vander Meulen:I mean I would assume, if you're in that position, that if I come and I don't have the right expectations, and then you work with me and you show me the way, I would feel like I can trust you, like you.
Garry Schleifer:So there's a good point. If you come in and you don't think you're ready to work with this client, or the client has the readiness to work with you, how much work will you do to develop readiness?
Julie Vander Meulen:To to me the coach's readiness is all about that. It's like about asking the question of am I ready? Not necessarily the capacity is true. It's possible that there's a specific type of situation that I'm not able to handle and have a specific niche that I work with specific, so it's usually something that I'm used to. So that hasn't happened to me so far in this environment. It could, but that's a possibility. To to not be ready because I don't have the capacity right now to handle the situation. But I'm thinking more in terms of am I ready to take on this type of client? Am I ready or willing to do all this work? To be pushing so much instead of having a pull type of experience.
Garry Schleifer:that. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. That just reminds me of the push-pull when somebody was teaching me about relationships. It was one of my human potential transformation classes and they said, so, relationships are like this. And I said, oh, 50-50. And they said, no, you have to lean in 100%. And they have to lean in 100%, it's not 50-50. Because 50-50 is kind of over here somewhere, right, like it's not touching and not leaning in. And so, for those of you listening, I'm holding my hands together and and one side is one person, one side's the other in the relationship. No, that's really cool. Um, you've mentioned a few, but are there any other common misconceptions about coaching readiness that you've encountered?
Julie Vander Meulen:I think we've already kind of talked about them. What I have in my mind is that some people, some coaches, will say that you know this idea that what the client says is like what we should work with, and if they say they're ready, then I am not such a fan of that. I find that it's. I agree to a certain extent that that is the basis, at least in my experience, I find that it has its limitations, because then there's a risk that you will be stuck in a loop with them instead of addressing the. I would say that that was one thing, um, that I see as a misconception, at least in my mind and another misconception it's why I asked you that question as well, Garry.
Julie Vander Meulen:When I asked if you think that there are people who are not coachable at all and I've heard that, and I just finished another coaching certification now, and in that program there was one of my teachers who was saying that she believed that not everyone is coachable in general, that it is not possible to coach them. But then I've also been trained in the world of Tony Robbins, where the idea behind it is that everyone is coachable. Do they want to do it? Do you have the capacity to do it? Everyone, potentially, at some point could be able to be coached and to me that's another misconception when I think that, like I would like to think, maybe it's also my vision of the world and of people. I would like to think that everyone is capable of good things and capable of change. Do they want to do it? I don't know, but I think it is possible.
Garry Schleifer:Maybe not every moment of every day.
Garry Schleifer:So, but at some point. I'm like you. I'm Mr. Positive as well. It's like I think everybody has good in them. It's just up to us to smile and get it out of them and coach them too. I haven't can't say that I've ever had anybody that wasn't coachable. Hmm, I feel the same way. Yeah, yeah. So, and I'm like you. I think everybody is coachable at some point or another, usually most of the time. And to your previous point, misconception reminds me of kind of like that tip of the iceberg answer like that and I'm like that. And I warn my coaches when I'm working with my coach, any of my coaches, I'll I'll say remember, don't just stop at the answer I give you.
Garry Schleifer:Yes.
Garry Schleifer:Force me to dig deeper Right, and I know already I just started with a new coach this year and I already know that the stuff that I talked about in the beginning was really just that little snippet at the top. I want to say tip of the iceberg but it's a bit more than that. It's it to your point. I think this the thing you circle around, you don't get out of the loop, and but I'm quick enough to know that I have that loop, so you know maybe it's self-awareness, and so I'm now into the bigger picture of what I want from my life and how to start developing plans to get there.
Garry Schleifer:So, oh my, obviously we can go on and on. Oh sorry, what were you going to say?
Julie Vander Meulen:No, I would have stopped for another 10 minutes. Sorry me too.
Garry Schleifer:I know and we don't have another 10 minutes.
Julie Vander Meulen:I know, that's why I stopped.
Garry Schleifer:Good noticing. ulie, what would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation? Obviously you want them to click on that QR code, but what do they get when they get there?
Julie Vander Meulen:That's just a link to my about me page where they can see all the things that I have, whether they want to be coached by me or if they simply want to subscribe to my newsletter. It's free. Every Sunday, I offer some self-empowerment questions and exercises that they can take, so if you're interested, they can do that. We were talking about this before we started the recording.
Julie Vander Meulen:What I love a lot is thinking critically about things. I have a researcher type of mind, and so I would say that if this article can inspire, um, the wonderful people who listen to us to just think about their coaching practice and how they are ready, or, like, question whether some of their clients aren't ready, and like where is the like, why is some situation happening, I would say that that would be interesting.
Garry Schleifer:Some awareness around readiness of yourself and the client. Well said, bro, well said, and there's some tips and tricks in there in the article, so please take a look there. Um, and for those that are listening only and not looking at your QR code, what's the best way to reach you? What's the website?
Julie Vander Meulen:So I have a website that will be www. ownyourlif. eacademy but I would say, if you just want to reach out to me and send me a message and talk to me, you can just contact me on LinkedIn. Just type my name. Could you pronounce it in English for me, because I have the Flemish Julie Vander Muelen.
Garry Schleifer:How would you pronounce it for those of us who are not in North America.
Julie Vander Meulen:Yes, so I will pronounce it in the French speaking way, but it is a Flemish name, so I say Julie Vander Muelen.
Garry Schleifer:Wow see, that's way prettier than what I said.
Julie Vander Meulen:But it's not recognizable.
Garry Schleifer:Well, to Canadians it kind of is because we have Quebec and there's an influence of French, so so, so that's great. Well, thank you very much, and thank you so much for writing for us. I hear from you that you're thinking of writing some more, so we look forward to that, to reading more of your wisdom and speaking with you on a future podcast. Thanks for being here, Julie.
Julie Vander Meulen:Thank you so much, Garry.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. For more episode, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, probably the one that got you here. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching this video, you can sign up for a free digital issue by scanning my QR code in the opposite corner, at least on my screen, or by going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button. Thanks again, Julie.
Julie Vander Meulen:See you, Garry.
Garry Schleifer:I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.