choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode 120: Transforming Coaching Education: Inspiring Growth and Wellness with guest, Kathleen Jones
Discover the transformative power of coaching education with our special guest, Kathleen Jones. What if the traditional approach to learning isn't enough to inspire true personal growth? Kathleen, a seasoned coach trainer and mentor, shares her journey from conventional content delivery to a more engaging and interactive teaching method that mirrors the coaching process itself. Her story highlights the impact of embedding health and wellness elements into coaching programs, showcasing how passion and enthusiasm can significantly enhance student engagement and learning. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in creating a dynamic learning environment that benefits both educators and students.
As we navigate the realm of personal transformation in coaching education, we reflect on the intricate journey of change, the importance of setting personal goals, and understanding the challenges of transformation. Kathleen delves into the difference between transactional and transformational learning, articulating how the latter fosters profound self-awareness and growth. The episode sheds light on the expanding field of health and wellness coaching, emphasizing empathy, listening, and meeting clients where they are. Kathleen offers a compelling perspective on how health and wellness coaching fills the motivational gap often left by traditional healthcare systems, making this a must-listen for anyone passionate about coaching and personal development.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here.
Free Gifts from Kathleen:
The Art, Science, and Practice of Visioning – Webinar
Creating Goals that Come Alive – Workbook
Learn more about Kathleen 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, gary Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest articles. Have a chat with the brilliant authors like Kathleen behind them 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, above all, what we love to do make a real difference in our clients' lives. 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 coach trainer and mentor, Kathleen Jones, who is the author of an article in our latest issue Coaching Education and Flux the Ongoing Evolution of a Dynamic Field. Her article is entitled Inside Out Learning evolution of a dynamic field. Her article is entitled Inside Out Learning Activating and Anchoring Training in Coach's Own Personal Experience. A little bit about Kathleen she holds an MA and an MBC-HWC, is a coach trainer, mentor and founder of Embody Change Coaching. She's also a co-author, by the way. We'll talk more about that. She served as core faculty within a family medicine training program for more than two decades working alongside physicians to provide wellness coaching to patients. Co-author of the book For the Love of Transformation, Kathleen invites clients and students to go deep within themselves, calling forth their own inner wisdom and strengths to create inspired and lasting change. Thank you so much for joining me today, Kathleen, and you can add International Publication choice Magazine to your list of credentials.
Kathleen Jones:Yay, well, hello and thank you so much.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, no, thank you for being here and thank you for writing for us. We truly appreciate it and for giving us a totally different perspective for us to take a look at. But before we get into it, so what called you to write this article at this time?
Kathleen Jones:You know, I think probably the connection with your Magazine because I've been getting the magazine for four or five years, a while, maybe even longer, and I just always find so much value with the articles. They're inspiring, they're informative and, I think, even more well, that's important. But also important is that community that you mentioned a moment ago, that I feel like I'm part of this community. Sometimes the work that we do, if we work remotely or independently, it can be a little isolating, and so it's just something so meaningful about being part of that. So thank you for the work.
Garry Schleifer:oh well yeah. I appreciate it, thank you very, very much.
Garry Schleifer:Hey, limited time, Kathleen? No, not really, we go with the flow. The first thing I want to ask you about because this flies in a little bit of area for me that I want to talk about activating and anchoring training and coaches own personal experience. So what do you mean by that? Tell us what that.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah, yeah, if, if I could go back in time for just a moment and tell a little bit of a story. This was a kind of a realization in the last few days actually. You mentioned that part of my experience is teaching family doctors. I was fresh out of grad school. I landed a job as faculty within a family medicine training program. So I was teaching the resident docs and the faculty docs about wellness and health promotion and behavior change. And I remember my very first lecture. I did a lecture each month for a large group and then some small groups and some one-on-one, but this first lecture I still remember. I don't think I slept at all the night before not at all, because I was going over and over and over my slides.
Kathleen Jones:I felt so out of my league and I mentioned this because I've come 180 degrees in a completely different place because at that time it was so much of the focus was on the content, like I just wanted to nail the content and at the same time most of my attention was on myself, very, very self-conscious, felt so out of my league. And then now when I teach, I'm realizing how different it is because the content is still central. But what I'm really interested in, where most of my attention usually all of my attention is on the students. So it's much like coaching in that sense. You know where our focus is on the client and yeah, the content matters, but it's much more fluid, because I'm really interested in what they're getting out of it, where they're at, what's coming up for them, what are their thoughts. So there's a lot more dialogue, a lot more questions, just more fun. So I just wanted to share that shift.
Garry Schleifer:So your background is a lot about health and wellness and you coach and train in that realm now. What would you say to those organizations that are training that do not have a health and wellness curriculum? What advice would you have for them?
Kathleen Jones:So a coaching program that has a different focus.
Garry Schleifer:Well, that's purely about coaching. So you have a focus that includes health and wellness. What would you say to those ones that don't? Like what's one thing they should be incorporating in their training yeah.
Kathleen Jones:Gosh, there's so many things. I might say a couple things. Um, one of them is enthusiasm for the topic, which I imagine hopefully most everyone in education has some love of what they're teaching. You know, for me it's really about those principles of behavior change, those concepts that we bring in that I find, I just find so fascinating, and so I think the enthusiasm comes through and that is infectious. Students pick up on that. If I'm, if it's something that I really care about and I can convey that in a way that students they get lit up as well. And then, you know, as I said a moment ago, making it much more about them, making it, as the title of that article suggests, it's not just the, it's just not the cognitive learning, you know it is what I'm really interested in, again, is generating those insights where they have those aha moments, and what I've noticed is most of the time those aha moments come from their own lived experience.
Kathleen Jones:You know, maybe I invite them and actually assigned for them to be on their own path and I'll get to your question in a moment. So to other educators, you know, what I might recommend is, I think inside out learning is so powerful. I imagine most educators in coaching use that. It's one of the cool things about our profession is that we do have our own personal lives that we can bring to these concepts, and our students have that as well. So I think again, the more we can anchor the teaching or the learning really in their own experience. I just encourage that. So maybe the enthusiasm and then the bringing it home for them.
Garry Schleifer:So this issue is all about coaching education and the era of change, right, and you're the first person that said that core principle that I think would be so important. And I would go beyond enthusiasm to say a passion for coaching, like I do this because I have a passion for coaching and a penchant for learning. Right, like you're telling me stuff that I want to know and I'm kind of anticipating that our listeners want to know about it as well, right, so that's why I do the publication and I do this. I learn so much stuff too, so it's brilliant. And then I'm trying to recall whether or not I was asked to bring personal experience into my coach training experience, and it's not like we didn't use our lives, but I don't think it was specifically meant because from my recollection, it was always about the client's agenda asking powerful questions listening, listening, listening.
Garry Schleifer:So I don't remember that there was that much of so in your life, bring that forward, right, because we have the big A agenda and little a agenda. So and those of you listening know exactly what school I went to, but most of them do that, but it would be interesting to have had that as another source to draw upon inside the coach training, and my apologies to my coaching school if I missed that part. I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes. But, uh, no great reminders. Thank you very much. I'm really glad that you, uh, you brought that up. Um, so so from your article, what, what would you really, really, really want people to remember and use?
Kathleen Jones:You know I well, again, probably lots of things come to mind, one that I'll start with. As I said a moment ago, I invite them to walk the path, you know, I invite them to set their own goal or goals and to move forward and to recognize, like, how hard it is. You know, changes changes, not , um, but some of it is the and I just mentioned this briefly in the article, it's the felt experience. I'll use motivation, cause I mentioned that in the article.
Kathleen Jones:Motivation has this energetic quality we can feel. You can feel when you're motivated towards something, or motivated maybe away from something, or when you're not. You know, you can just feel when the motivation's there or when it's not. And so some of what I bring into the classroom that's fun, I think most students seem to respond really well is just learning to tune in to that felt experience. The other example I give in the article is resistance also has this felt energetic quality that if we tune in, if someone's pushing us, we can feel within ourselves it's like, ah, you know, it just has a certain qualitative sense to it and I think when we become very attuned to that within ourselves, we're much more able to sense it in our clients.
Kathleen Jones:So that might be. Yeah, yeah, I would share that, you know, as a point to maybe those of you listening, you know, we can bring these concepts not only to mind in a cognitive way, but really embody a lot of these concepts.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah well, and you speak a lot about that too. I'm reading it.
Garry Schleifer:You don't know if you use the word somatic but having that somatic, it's where do you feel in your body, and things like that, and I don't use that enough, but I think that that's a very important part of c oaching to work with that with the clients. It's funny, you said something earlier and I couldn't resist looking up this quote that we put in another article. People don't resist change. They resist being changed. So that uncomfortableness you're talking about and all that sort of stuff is like that's because they're being aware of "Oh, I might have to change something here. Like, in order to have something different happen, I might need to change.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, I totally agree with that quote.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, no, and you know it's interesting because you're having me reflect on some of the things that I'm working on right now and I have something called the living list. Some people call it a bucket list. I don't like the negativity of bucket list, so I have a living list.
Garry Schleifer:It's about some things that I need to look at in my life in order to have things that I want, the experiences that I want to have and the things that I want to do. So, yeah, very much so. So I'm really thankful for that. Yeah, you also were talking about the difference between transactional transformational learning, so tell us more about your thoughts on that.
Kathleen Jones:It's so parallel to coaching. You know we can get from point a to point b. In the training programs that I work in, it's often the coaching students want to pass the national exam, the board exam. They want to become certified as health and wellness coaches. You know, that's the end point. What I really want for them, of course, I want them to, you know, to pass and become certified.
Kathleen Jones:I also see, and I'd say, most of the time, what I really notice is that students are transformed, and I bet you that's true of most coaching programs, is that it's training programs. It's not simply like you're a different person when you finish. It's just so, not only again, not only inhabiting the knowledge or acquiring knowledge, but inhabiting the knowledge in a very personal way. So for me, transformation, what I see in students is they become more self-aware, much more self-aware. They, for example, might notice that what they tend to move toward when they're stressed, the self soothing, you know, maybe it's food, maybe it's alcohol, whatever it might be.
Kathleen Jones:So they become more self-aware in all kinds of ways. They become more self-directed, more trusting their own instincts of what they want for themselves. They, you know, depending on the situation, they might be more able to call forth self-discipline or self-compassion, depending on what's needed. So they grow in these ways. It's probably my favorite thing about teaching is seeing and hearing students talk about this too. It surprises them, I think, because they often start out with that transactional idea they're going to become certified. I don't think they always um realize the extent to which they'll they'll be changed in the process.
Garry Schleifer:Well, I've been speaking with other authors and rereading the articles in the issue and one of the things that is suggested that is offered more in coach training is how to reenter. It's so transformative that you're going to sound like a freaking weirdo out in the world if you don't get some training on how to. You know, because I remember when I was done the first weekend I'm like, oh my gosh, I want to coach everybody. I'm always asking questions and people were like they got to know what coaching was real fast because they would say, okay, stop coaching, right, stop coaching, stop being a coach. But re-entry, because it's hugely transformative. I haven't seen anybody who hasn't. This coach training isn't something in my experience that you leave even remotely thinking of it as a transaction. You're right, you go in transactionally, going well, I'm going to complete a course and get this and move on. Add this to my blah blah blah.
Garry Schleifer:But because of people like you and I who are passionate about this you leaved transformed and the world isn't always ready for the new you.
Kathleen Jones:Great point. You are so right on because, I'll use visioning as an example. I remember being in this focus group once- with just people from all walks of life, and one of the questions we asked them were their thoughts on visioning, and I remember this one guy saying that if he walked into a coaching conversation and they asked him about his vision, he would walk out. And so we need to be, as you said, like just bring it down to earth, maybe sometimes withhold what we're so excited about because a person isn't in the right place to hear it, or, yeah, the timing's off, or our enthusiasms over the top.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah and you know what's funny I'm just realizing something else as well is that this is like a catch-22 which came first the chicken or the egg.
Garry Schleifer:You say, activating, anchoring training coach's own personal experience, and then they go into coaching and they come out and they've got yet another experience to add back into their world of experience. Because now everything wild, wide-eyed. At least I was, and I think most of my colleagues and people I went into training with, they came out that way and I've been a part of faculty at one of the local coach training facilities and saw it firsthand as a coach educator.
Kathleen Jones:So yeah, yeah, I hadn't thought. You know, I thought about that. My first degree was in nutrition and when I graduated with my degree and I started working with clients, I almost couldn't come back to their level. I was so used to the language of my training that I had to I had to like relearn how to talk with someone who didn't know was, you know, or whatever it is. I thought that with coaching. But same thing, like people, we need to be very aware of that, like where it is, yeah, yeah.
Garry Schleifer:draw and perhaps withhold, but I would say educate and go forward.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:One of the things that you mentioned in the article is that health and wellness and self-care relates to all coaching areas. Tell us more about that and how you could see that, because you're in a different realm. Health and wellness coaching is not the as necessarily as regular coaching. What's the difference? Like how much of it is health and wellness and how much? How much of it you know you're credited by ICF, the things you teach.
Kathleen Jones:I'm not credited through ICF but through the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching. I think that is such a good question and I'm not sure I have the answer, but I have a few thoughts. I think sometimes the big difference is the setting and probably the initial area of focus. Because the initial area of focus, if I could give a quick example, I remember coaching a man who lived in Santa Fe. All I knew about him is that he had uncontrolled diabetes, he had an amputation because of the complications, and so we started off, or at least the focus for that visit was going to be about better managing diabetes. But what I found out is that he is a well-known, loved painter of landscapes in New Mexico and passionate about his work, just passionate about that community, about the work that he does. And so the conversation shifts, you know, the conversation shifts to what he loves most and how taking really good care of himself relates to that. And so I offer that as an example just to say that You know, you know, sometimes the entry point is a specific health concern, but pretty quickly, I think we recognize, in my opinion, one of the problems with or downsides of health care is that it is often has such a narrow focus resonate for the you know the person mentioned this as well. So, for health and wellness coaches, we often find ourselves in conversations that are much broader, and then I'm certain that any coach at times is going to be in conversations where their client is very sleep deprived or struggling with weight or whatever, or they're, they're realizing that there may There's much. You know, there's these things that affect our lives in all. So I, I, I think there's much more overlap than we realize.
Garry Schleifer:and sorry, I'm going go back. No disrespect, I totally acknowledge that, that the health and coaching is absolutely amazing and, uh, whether or not doesn't matter. It's got ICF a need and a place in the world. If you can get doctors to listen and it's through, well, health and wellness someone like you who's got that amazing background of working with physicians from way back. Like you say, they don't get too much training in that you know.
Garry Schleifer:So you know, with few exceptions, some take it on and they look at their client holistically, but most of them it's transactional.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, when you have transactional medicine, you can't expect transformational results, right?
Kathleen Jones:It's so true. I realized, too, that healthcare isn't set up to motivate or to even to tap into motivation. Healthcare is it's all about more diagnosing, treating, managing, and it does a good job of that. It does a good job of that. Finding motivation and really building on that isn't, it's not what healthcare is designed for, and so I think to expect it to be very motivating is just, I think, the wrong expectation, and that's where coaching is so, so needed, because there's such a big gap there.
Garry Schleifer:And I think of someone who I just talked to yesterday had an absolutely fabulous experience with their doctor, and always does, because regardless of the schedule, they will sit until you are done having your concerns heard. And that is now, hold on, listening. My gosh, that sounds like coaching. Yeah, so the doctor has that skill, that bedside manner skill of listening, and people will just talk and they don't. The funny thing is it's like coaches. They don't actually have to say anything, they just have to listen, because people just are afraid of what's going on. They're there because they were sick or whatever.
Garry Schleifer:Sometimes they just need to be heard, given a few pieces of information that are like oh. Because what I heard from this story, basically what happened recently, was that the information I received from the hospital was totally different than what the doctor saw on the file of reports to receive. So there's this like, oh, anxiety level dropped and like within 24 hours, their energy level and wellness mentality I would call it, went down significantly. Yeah, went from like a six to an eight. So I thought that was pretty remarkable yeah.
Garry Schleifer:So thank you for all you're doing.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that point and I agree. There's so much of that just the way of being with whoever, you know, physician or other healthcare provider, where so much of it isn't about doing, it's just about listening and, yeah, being present and caring.
Garry Schleifer:Right.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:Oh my gosh, caring? Doctors supposed to care? Oh, stop, you're hurting me. Kathleen, you've got some amazing free gifts you're offering our audience. Tell us a little bit
Kathleen Jones:One of them is a just about a 20 minute webinar that I put together on visioning. It's called The Art, Science and Practice of Visioning and it was a lot of fun. I'm actually really proud of it because the science is so compelling, the science of visualization, and what we know about neuroscience and you know, the activating different areas of the brain. We sense that we've already been there, you know. So it's so, so powerful.
Kathleen Jones:There's also this art of visioning which I think of as engaging the imagination and activating emotions, because without that emotional charge we're not going to go and it falls flat. So there's the science, which again, is so convincing. There's the art, which is really engaging the imagination, which is not easy. Tapping into and activating the emotion, like going for whatever has an emotional intensity for us, that hopefully some positive emotions in there, and then the practice. Sometimes I think visioning, we think of it as like something we do, like at the beginning of the year. We envision our entire every part of our lives.
Kathleen Jones:But what I talked about in that webinar is that sometimes visioning, it's imagining. I think the example I give in that is imagine that you're going to have a dinner party the next weekend. You might create a list of stuff you need to buy ingredients, but you can also think about what's the mood I want to create? Is it going to be indoors or outdoors? What's the lighting? What's the time of day? What kind of music?
Kathleen Jones:Envisioning isn't just the visual realm, it's that whole like sensing, which is so powerful. So one of the gifts is that 20 minute webinar, and then the other one is a workbook that I had put together called Creating Goals That Come Alive, which is along that same theme of this is more of a workbook for clients. Coaches could use for themselves as well. But really how to create goals that have that are compelling, that we connect with them again in an emotional sense that come alive.
Garry Schleifer:Of course that is right in the title people and both are for free.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, wow, that's so generous thank you very much. I'm gonna take a look at those myself. We're going to have those down below. But what's your website? Are they on your website?
Kathleen Jones:They are not available on there. The link will take anyone.
Garry Schleifer:Take it there. Okay, got it. Enough. Yeah, yeah.
Kathleen Jones:Yeah.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, no, that's very generous. Thank you very much. You've listed some things here, but what would you really want our audience to do as a result of this, the article in this conversation?
Kathleen Jones:You know, I think I don't know if everyone listening is in education, maybe, maybe not, but I think, walking our own path you know we talk about that as educators, as coaches. Again, I'm noticing whether it's strengths, I'll use that as an example noticing when we're calling forth self-discipline, when we're calling forth self-compassion, noticing where we get stuck, noticing those connections again, like maybe we're feeling stressed and what do we generally turn to?
Kathleen Jones:so I think being on our own path informs our coaching, it informs our teaching and there's always, at least my experience in life is, there's always more to learn. Even in our own lives, there's just always something.
Garry Schleifer:So what I'm hearing, for myself, is then be more reflective of your own life's journey.
Kathleen Jones:Yes, yes, well stated.
Garry Schleifer:I got that from the article, the title.
Garry Schleifer:Everything that you've written about is like basically your life experience has some frame, some container to use and to contribute to the coaching conversations, the coaching learning and that sort of thing, even if it's not directly, you know, but it's there, remembering that, and then you know what, and I'm also thinking it might be helpful when you try to put yourself in your client's shoes. So that that helps generate powerful questions and things like that as well.
Kathleen Jones:So yeah, that's great. Our own struggles, whatever. You asked a moment ago about the website. It is EmbodyC hangeC oaching. com, and there's other courses on there as well. I don't think the gifts are up front there, but yeah lots
Garry Schleifer:We'll get it. We'll get it to people. Is that the best way to reach you, too, is from your website?
Kathleen Jones:Yeah, or it's Kathleen@ embodychangecoaching. com. 'd love to hear those of you listening in. Yeah, I'd love to hear from you.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, bring your questions, not just for coach educators, this is for coaches too, and I love it. We're always lifelong learners, so I'm sure you're going to get some contact from some people in our audience. Oh, my goodness. Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. Delightful to meet you. Thank you for your contribution to coaching, to wellness and to the choice community.
Kathleen Jones:Yes, Garry, thank you for all that you do. It means so much.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, probably the one that got you here in the first place. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right-hand corner of our screen or by going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button. Thanks again, Kathleen. I'm Gary Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.