Episode 188: Guiding Clients to Their Truth with guest, Sanaz Kalantari

The moment someone says “I have no choice,” a coach has a doorway into what’s really happening beneath the words. We talk with leadership and executive coach Sanaz Kalantari about how agency gets lost in modern work, why the speed of change can push us into survival mode, and what it actually takes to design empowered conversations that bring choice back online.

Sanaz draws on deep experience from global technology organizations, including helping lead a large scale coaching initiative at Microsoft focused on empowering employees to drive and design their careers. From there, we zoom in on the coaching room: the “have to” trap, the subtle ways clients give away autonomy, and how overwhelm can look like indecision when it’s really a nervous system response. We explore three common patterns that shrink agency: getting flooded by the present, getting stuck in shame and self judgment about the past, and investing energy in “gravity problems” outside the circle of control.

We also get concrete about what helps. You’ll hear coaching questions that surface hidden assumptions, the circle of influence as a fast grounding tool, and somatic inquiry techniques that help clients name where restriction lives in the body so they can pause, breathe, and regain clarity. Along the way, Sinaz explains why feeling trapped can become “psychological malnutrition” and how restoring autonomy connects to motivation, self leadership, and sustainable change.

If you care about coaching skills, executive presence, change management, and real world tools for reducing overwhelm, this conversation is built to be used. Subscribe, share this with a fellow coach or leader, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Sanaz here.

Free Gift: A reflective coaching guide to help individuals disrupt default thinking, reconnect with what matters, and consciously choose how they want to respond in moments of uncertainty and change.

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Transcript

Welcome To Beyond The Page

Garry Schleifer 0:10

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of Choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we're bringing 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 article, have a chat with this brilliant author behind it, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you have a chance, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques, and what we love to do, make a real difference in our clients' lives. This is your go-to resource for all things coaching. But for now, let's dive in.

Meet Sanaz And Her Article

Garry Schleifer 0:50

In today's episode, I'm speaking with leadership and executive coach, Sanaz Kalantari, who is the author of an article in our latest issue, The Power of Choice. One of my favorite sayings, by the way. This article is entitled Reclaiming Agency: Designing Empowered Conversation for Choice in an Unpredictable World. A little bit about Snaz. She holds an ACC and an ELI-MP. She's a Leadership and Executive Coach who helps clients cultivate awareness, agency, which she writes about in her article, and intentional self-leadership. With more than 25 years in global technology companies, working at the intersection of business impact, capability building, and leadership development, she brings a deep understanding of how people grow, adapt, and lead. Her most recognized work includes leading the design and delivery of a global coaching initiative at Microsoft. Congratulations. A program dedicated to democratizing coaching that was honored with a 2025 ICF Impact Award and a Guinness World Record. Wow. She is the founder of Mastering Mindset and serves as a director on the board of ICF Australasia. Sanaz, welcome.

Sanaz Kalantari 2:05

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Garry Schleifer 2:07

Great

Microsoft Coaching Program For Agency

Garry Schleifer 2:08

to have you. And okay, so let's just go back to this bio, which I wanted to know. Was the program at Microsoft what you got the award for, or those two different things?

Sanaz Kalantari 2:20

Well, Microsoft received the award. I had the honor of being one of the co- leads on on the program when I was at Microsoft previously. It was an Impact Award by ICF through that bringing democratizing coaching. And it was a coaching that was offered through external partners as well as a Coaching Center for Excellence of Internal ICF certified and trained coaches. And the focus was really to help employees across many, many parts of the world in Microsoft Sales organization to feel empowered about their career choices. So the idea was how can we help people through the complexities of the organization, using coaching as a learning vehicle and technology so people feel like they can drive and design their own career rather than kind of be at the mercy of what is happening in the organization. So it was a highly successful, it was in partnership with Ezra as well as a lot of our coaches internally, and yeah, I was part of the team. I was one of the main leaders of leading the program across the organization, and yes, amazing.

Garry Schleifer 3:43

And I waved because I've been coaching Microsoft employees for as long as I've been with Ezra, and I had just started today. Yeah, I know, and one of our writers and colleagues yeah, we did not plan this. One of our uh fellow writers and podcast guests, Jonathan Passmore, is a Vice President of Ezra.

Sanaz Kalantari 4:05

I know Jonathan.

Garry Schleifer 4:07

Seems so some small. Too funny, right around the world from the UK to Australia and back to Canada.

Sanaz Kalantari 4:15

Yes, I love it. I do there's definitely some public articles on the program. So if anyone's interested, there's definitely a great amount of insights that we gained through our partnership with Ezra and our internal coaches back then.

Garry Schleifer 4:31

Yes, yeah, and still, I'm sure Jonathan's no slouch when it comes to writing and studies. So you need to focus on it. That's funny. Well,

Why Write About Reclaiming Agency

Garry Schleifer 4:40

Sanaz, what inspired you to write the article at this time? What what called to you?

Sanaz Kalantari 4:46

Oh, I have been a huge fan of choice Magazine. I actually found the first choice Magazine issue that I have here from 2010, believe it.

Garry Schleifer 4:56

Oh, the coaches, oh my goodness, I love that one. Thank you.

Sanaz Kalantari 5:00

I think it's been on my bucket list to to write for choice. And the prompt this time was really , I think it was quite inspiring for me. I feel like I've spent it's at the heart of what we do as coaches to design empowering conversations or help people feel empowered. I feel like that's the essence of what we do in coaching. So I think it was definitely a great invitation. And throughout a lot of my work in the professional world with tech organizations and leaders and and professionals, I feel like this is really the time that things are changing so fast. People do feel like the speed of change, or where they are requires them to feel much more empowered. So I think the the idea of designing empowering uh questions and using coaching as a technique was really inspiring for me. And I really wanted to bring my thoughts together, play around with a few concepts, which you see in the article, and give some examples of how that how what works for me as a coach and what I've seen be quite influence that power of change that people go through and feel a little bit more authors of their uh their their story rather than you know feeling continuously feeling like life is happening to them. But how can we change that into life is happening by you? So that idea was really interesting for me. So yes, so that's that's what inspired me to write this.

Garry Schleifer 6:35

Oh well, thank you, and thank you for writing for choice, and don't forget to write again. But I'm gonna work on a particular aspect of the conversation about coaching, and that is being empowering. Why

Why Choice Feels Hard Now

Garry Schleifer 6:49

do people feel less empowered today, even though we have more options than ever before?

Sanaz Kalantari 6:55

It's a conundrum, isn't it? And we continuously come up to this where we feel like even when we talk about change, change is supposed to be helping us get somewhere better. So, you know, a lot of people are saying, Oh, the speed of change. But most people, you know, we see at work, or as soon as you say, How are you? it's usually a sigh, or they feel like, oh, once I finish this, then you know I feel a little less busy, or it's so busy I can't, I don't have time to do this, or I can't, or you continuously hear this language that reveals the inner state of what people are actually experiencing. So yes, we have many choices on the surface by the looks of things, and we continuously put more options. I think that's an innate nature that we create more options. However, when we're observing even ourselves or a lot of people as they're going through changes, they feel like they don't have a choice or they are paralyzed by choices, or this idea of yeah, they don't know which option is the best. We see that in careers a lot of the time when we see people are thinking about their career. The feeling that they bring to the sessions or to the conversations is that I don't know what to do, or I don't know where to go. And then when you explore that, you realize that they have plenty of options and choices. But yeah, it's a conundrum and it feels like it's a psychological survival instinct that has kicked in or kicks in most of the time when when we are either overwhelmed or we haven't slowed down, and it's our nervous system that is having a reaction. I often say it's almost like the nervous system is having a workout all of a sudden we're at the gym and it's like going into all sorts of directions.

Garry Schleifer 8:59

Well, you said that really quite well in and it really resonated that there's so many choices, but perhaps too many choices, right? I'll point our listeners to the article in case they haven't listened to it. What you just spoke about I have no choice is under the key learning point sidebar, the have to trap. So when you're working with clients, you're finding out whether they're in this place that Sanaz is talking about. Listen for language like I must or I have no choice. This indicates a loss of autonomy and a shift into survival mode. I thought that's really set well said, and I invite people to read the article, obviously. Sanaz

Three Ways We Lose Agency

Garry Schleifer 9:41

what are some of the other ways that people give away their agency without realizing it?

Sanaz Kalantari 9:48

Look, I think what is happening is we're either anxious about what's happening in the present moment, so we give our agency on, okay, we're not slowing down or we don't evaluate our options. A lot of the times we give our agency by judging our past, so the feeling of shame and guilt sometimes robs our agency. And I wrote about that in the article as well. So as we explore what is really happening, the idea that I made a mistake in the past and now I'm so afraid, or I, you know, I have judged that. And instead of using that as data to look at, well, what did I learn, or taking the time to reflect or reframe that whole experience in a way that we can ground it in a value that was served, I think that can really bring take away people's agency where they feel like they don't have a choice because they believe that what they've done was not okay. And so I feel like that grounding in the past in the shame can actually rob us our of our agency as well. And then the other one is not maybe not taking the time to evaluate what's in our control and what's not in our control and putting our attention somewhere else. I think I talked about it in the sphere of influence in the article as well, which is the the work from Stephen R. Covey, as well, the Seven Habits of Effective People. And I think that's a great tool to continuously ground ourselves into where is our circle of control? Where is, you know, we might be putting our attention into things that are I call gravity problems as well, where then we don't feel like we have any agency. It's like we're looking in the wrong place for agency. We're looking in the wrong place for autonomy, you know, the circle of concern where the weather is not working, or you know, the things that are happening that are completely outside, like, you know, we are in in an ocean and the waves are happening. Well, we can't change the wave, so we feel like we don't have agency on the wave. So I think understanding or taking our time to understand what what are the things that we have influence over? are the things that we can actually control? can really kind of shift that energy. I think energy is a huge one to really use as a diagnostic tool as well, to think about okay, if I am losing my agency or feel like I don't have agency, what does that energy feel like? And where am I putting my energy in? So I would say, yes, it's either we're overwhelmed with the present moment. If I was to summarize that, where we feel like lack of agency, we're either evaluating our past experiences or judging them, or we're not necessarily looking at it the right circle, part of the circle. The circle control or influence, yes.

Garry Schleifer 13:02

Well, and thank you for for bringing that in, Stephen Covey. That's a great everybody knows that book too, I think. And to add to your point, what you were talking about, like where you feel it, how you feel it, one of the other ways, the key learning points you said, somatic inquiry, where a client feels trapped, ask where they feel that restriction in their body. Naming a sensation helps regulate the nervous system. So it's a grounding moment, right? Is to stop and do that. And you gave a great example too with that client, the graphic designer, and how they were stuck and had to figure out where it was in their body and became something entirely different. So that was actually that was also excellent. Thank you.

Sanaz Kalantari 13:47

Thank you. And you know that it is a great way for us. I learned that through years ago when I was going through a school of philosophy where we learned how to ground ourselves and you know, when that feelings of overwhelm comes and you know, our thoughts are racing, to really kind of think about where we're putting our feet, you know, on the ground or focus on our breath. I think most of us have have heard how important it is to focus on the breath. I'm finding that in the corporate in the big organizations, we hardly do that. My son actually went to a school here in Australia where they they pause. So one of the things, one of the habits that they have is they pause. So this was in primary school. So before they start the school, they pause and they have a mantra and they feel their breathing in their body, and then when they finish lessons, they also pause. We don't do that enough in our ad hoc. So you race through. Yes, and then it all it only takes a couple of things, you know, a big big moments in life to also happen to us. You know, we have to make a move, and that graphic designer was one of my clients where had to go through a massive move, and then all of a sudden you also have health floor flare-ups, you've got something going on with a friend, you've got work, you've got all of these happening. So the body is having a huge reaction, we tend to ignore that, where we don't pause to to evaluate what is happening in the in the body. So I think one of the things I'm also finding um in the craziness of change that we we typically go to, to be able to pinpoint that feeling in the body or where it is, gives that space to to people to to really kind of pause and and name that. And a lot of the times what we're trying to do in coaching is create some space, some space to reconnect with the body, breathe, pause. Maybe it's a good time to do that. Pause and evaluate what is happening. So we do allow the mind or that energy to be shifted to a place where choices open up, reality of the options are for us to look into, whether it's our perception of the situation that needs to change, or we might actually have some choices and autonomy to change aspects of the situation. So that was the somatic inquiry that I feel like is is absolutely necessary, especially at that times where so many things are happening and our body is having also a reaction to it, which is a great signal for for us, just like the language of have to and must to. So the audit of language is one thing, but the audit of the body is is also super important. Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 16:54

Yeah.

Coaching Tools To Restore Choice

Garry Schleifer 16:55

Well, when you see these reactions, how do can coaches help their clients move from those reactions to conscious choice?

Sanaz Kalantari 17:05

Absolutely. So I think that these are some of the tools that I wanted to to bring in that and you know, we all have these great toolkits . This not the end all and be all. I think we all have like plenty of books on our shelves and many, many, many of these frameworks and ways to to bring awareness to to our client. And I think the most important one is how do we bring awareness? So I think as we listen, as coaches, we listen to the language, we want to capture that moment. We want to capture that moment where we hear someone feel someone is expressing that something feels non-negotiable to them. So I have to or I must or I don't feel like I have a choice. We want to capture that moment and bring awareness to that moment. And obviously we want to do it in a way that is helpful for them to go through. What are they assuming? What is it that they feel like is on non-negotiable? So I think as we know, awareness is the biggest moment that we can start moving clients from reaction to some sort of response that they choose. So questions that I think we all very good at asking open-ended questions, but what are you actually reacting to? Or what is it that feels non-negotiable? What is it that feels like protecting right now? So bringing that awareness and then helping them reconnect with that maybe circle of influence of what is in their control right now, what is in outside their control, and creating that space. I think coaches again are we owe it to our clients and people who are we are in the conversation with to create that space to help them understand what's in their control and what's not in their control. And then the other one, the last one is to be able to help them restore choice. I think in this article we talk a lot about how do we design that empowering conversation from the beginning of helping with awareness, helping them understand the the impact of what is happening, and then helping them shift and restore to choices that they have. Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 19:30

Wow, brilliant. Great framework. And I have to say that though I touched on some of those things, and I think it's as a result of reading your article so many times, because every article gets read at least four times before it gets published, right? And then once more before I join the call. And I think it's been in my head because when you talk about circle of control or the amount what you can control, I just finished a conversation with one of my clients because he's in extreme overwhelm, and he's just overwhelmed, his values are not being honored. And I it was about taking a deep breath. We literally took a deep breath, and I asked him questions like, What are you still in control over? What do you have control? Where do you have control? And so, you know, I guess I'm channeling you and your wisdom today. So thank you for that.

Sanaz Kalantari 20:25

I'm so happy to hear that. And you know, we deal with this all the time. I think at the moment, almost every conversation I have, whether it's at work or with a client, yeah, it seems to be scratching this particular topic in some way or the other, which is why I think as we started this conversation, I was drawn into writing about this topic because it is really at the heart of everything that we do as coaches, whether it's a career or we have an executive, you know, wanting to expand their career, or someone is feeling like they are at a crossroad. It's that feeling, it's usually at that energy and that feeling that they either feel like they have the potential to move out of, that's why they are coming and seeking help, but they feel like they're stuck somewhere. So it's that feeling of stuckness. And I think I totally relate the feeling of stuckness with feeling disempowered, not feeling like you have agency or you have autonomy. And so our job becomes how can we help this intelligent and wise person to get out of that stuckness and feel like they are empowered and move through their own path.

Garry Schleifer 21:43

Or their own. And just loved what you said in the article. The feeling of being trapped is not just uncomfortable, it's psychological malnutrition. I thought that was brilliant. Well said. Thank you, Sanaz.

Sanaz Kalantari 21:58

Yeah, and that was very interesting. Because I was doing some study on the science of the what happens in the brain. And so it happens that yes, when we are feeling trapped, when we are in that survival, and I'm not a neuroscientist, so I won't go through the details of how the brain works. But my understanding of the neuroscience is that it actually does take a lot of energy to help us to go through that survival. So it is a little bit of a malnutrition, if you really think about it, when you're not getting the right nutrition, which is empowerment, and it is based on self-determination theory, we that is an actual basic need that we so it's almost like the the psych all the psychological energy and the brain energy goes into helping us restore that. So it is psychologically malnutrition when we feel like we're disempowered. So I thought that was actually uh very well.

Garry Schleifer 22:55

Thank you for the background on that. Yeah, no kidding. Oh, Sanaz, thank you so much.

Resources To Apply The Framework

Garry Schleifer 23:01

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

Sanaz Kalantari 23:06

Look, I would love for people to to read it and and obviously play around with the ideas and some of the frameworks. And these are quite simple frameworks, however, I think our clients can really benefit from that. I do have a guide as well, which is just kind of breaks it up into five different sections of how coaches could use some open-ended questions that they could notice the language. When you notice the language, you know what questions can you ask that we help bring awareness? When you shift from reaction, you want to help someone shift from reaction to awareness, what are some of the questions you can ask them? the circle of control, how can you ask empowering questions to help someone move through that, as well as restoring choice and this idea of moving from obligation to ownership? So we listen for language and signals and energy that helps someone move through that. So I would love the the audience to read the article, use the guide, and hopefully they that would be super helpful. I would also ask if we're working in organization, a lot of the times we're dealing with change and change management, and there's tons of change management frameworks that we're all following. I think what's missing is this piece a lot of the times that we tend to maybe um underestimate. You know, we talk a lot about what's in it for me. We need to let people know what's in it for me so they have the intrinsic motivation so they can move through the change themselves. But how do we know if they are stuck somewhere? And how do we how do we help them unlock that? So what's in it for them is much more intrinsic and and then motivation can can kind of serve us, yeah. Yeah, so thank you.

Garry Schleifer 25:01

And so what's the best way to reach anaz?

Sanaz Kalantari 25:05

I am on LinkedIn. I am on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way to reach me. I'm also on Instagram. I have sent my Instagram page, so LinkedIn, Instagram, or my website, masteringmindset.com. AU because I'm in Sydney, Australia. Yes.

Garry Schleifer 25:26

That's great. Well, again, thank you so much for writing for us and for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode.

Sanaz Kalantari 25:33

Thank you so much. I'm very grateful to be here.

Garry Schleifer 25:36

That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, most likely the one that got you here in the first place. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching this video, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right corner of my screen. If you are driving or listening only mode, get off that treadmill, go to choice- online.com and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.