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Differently
Coaching Differently with John Larson
What happens when a computer programmer realized he was living below his potential?
Meet John, creator of Coach Accountable. His platform emerged from his own coaching experiences on both sides of the relationship and has fundamentally shifted the coaching dynamic from inspiring conversations to deep, informed life-changing partnerships.
Whether you're a coach or someone benefiting from or interested in coaching, this conversation brings to light the powerful difference between information and integration.
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Thank you for listening!
Hey, John, thank you for joining me, kind of on a whim to join me on the podcast. I'm really excited to continue a conversation that you and I started a couple weeks ago. And just a little backstory John is the creator of Coach Accountable and I looked back I've been using Coach Accountable since 2019 and it's been an amazing journey, and so I'm really excited to talk to the creator of that and introduce you to John. So welcome John.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Carla. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I want to dive kind of right into. I recall something and I think it may have been one of your blogs, I can't really remember, but I feel like it was something about your story of how you like a catalyst to even getting into this world of creating Coach Accountable. So would you kind of take us back to what started all of this for you and how long ago was that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So it was 2004 when I got my first taste of coaching that is not just some guy with a whistle telling you to do more pushups. I thought coaching equals sports and I'm not much of a sports guy, right? So when I did a transformational program with Limerick Education and got acquainted, like oh my God, there's this whole world of people who are standing for and guiding people to be their best version right, it's distinct from therapy like hey, I'm unwell, I could use some help. It's a I'm well and I'm interested in being even more awesome. And there's this whole world of coaches who are like, yeah, cool, come with me this way, let's do this. And so I immediately fell in love. I got so much out of that program and I'm like this is amazing. Right, this is the coolest thing I've ever experienced in terms of living my own life powerfully, because I was kind of living small. I had a master's degree in computer science and I took a tech support job for $30,000 and I crushed it salary Right, and I was good, but like I might've been not kind of living up to my potential. So I get acquainted with coaching in 2004. Love it, and it's one of the things of coaching that I got out of it was like, oh, live up to your potential. Maybe I am kind of aiming low and maybe someday there will be for me to be an entrepreneur. Right, take that leap. Because my daddy was an entrepreneur, my brothers are entrepreneurs. I thought someday maybe I'll be an entrepreneur. And, of course, in many good transformational programs you get acquainted with the notion someday never comes right. And so I was like, oh, yeah, I got to actually create it. Do it, take that leap, take that step, be living more intentionally into my authentic, true potential. The world that we all here in this world are kind of acquainted with is powerful. This was all new to me. So I eventually, after two years, quit my day job and take the entrepreneurial path. And me and a couple of friends are just sort of like quitting our day jobs and we don't know what the hell we're doing.
Speaker 2:And I did my time, shall we say, in the entrepreneurial foothills of not really knowing the heck we're doing, flying by the skin of our teeth, knocking out the rent, barely doing like web development and design jobs for hire, and after doing that for a little while maybe a year or two it's like huh, wouldn't it be neat if we could transcend just doing contract work for hire and make a product, something that you know allows us to sort of have a business that scales beyond us being, you know, professionals for hire, something that allows us to have a business that scales beyond us being professionals for hire. Could we do that? And at the obvious intersection of that drive and desire and the kind of web work we were doing and our foundation of, yeah, coaching and transformational coaching and mojo and living your potential and possibility lied there's no good app for coaches. Coaching is so cool, but there's no good app. Maybe we could make the good app for it. And so it's like 2008 and we're like let's take a stab at making a coaching app. And so, in the margins of doing jobs for hire and contracted things, we're working on this thing and it looks really cool. And in summer of 2009, we're ready to show it off to the world and we're like this really cool. And in summer of 2009, we're ready to show it off to the world and we're like this is cool, ta-da. And again, if there are any entrepreneurs in the room, you might know like maybe it's not terribly surprising that my next thing is like crickets. Nobody knows, nobody cares.
Speaker 2:In fact, we use it ourselves in the very program done by Landmark, the self-expression leadership program, as coaches. We volunteered to be coaches in that program, having done it ourselves, and we're like, hey, we made this thing, maybe we can try it. And so we try it with real people and we realize kind of heartbrokenly our baby is ugly. Coach accountable 1.0 is actually not that great to use. It looks cool, it had a certain sizzle right, but it wasn't actually good. So we kind of shelved it and let it just sort of be for a while and like, okay, maybe we're not quite good enough yet to transcend doing contract work. We kind of retreat back to that position, so we let it stay dormant for a little while.
Speaker 2:A couple of years go by. It's 2012 now. I have parted ways with my partners and and still, my buddies they live in town gave them the ownership interest in the design and web development agency that we did and they gave me, shall we say, full ownership of the corpse of Coach Accountable. And out of the woodwork come no fewer than four parties in 2004 or 12 to say like, hey, man, what's going on with this thing? Are you doing anything with it. Do you want to sell it? Because coachinganimalcom is still up on the interwebs. We took off the sign up page because it's not really going anywhere, but there seems to be some interest in it. So here we are. Here I am, like, sole owner of it, and four years have passed. Right, like I'm four years less naive, a little more seasoned, experienced Smartphone revolutions now happened. Apps are cool, data in the cloud is less of an esoteric concept and it got me thinking all right, maybe the time is right to do Coach Accountable again and try to dust it off and do a version 2.0.
Speaker 2:And this time, carla, I got smart. I actually used it as I built it, I recruited some friends to be like guinea pigs. Right time, carla, I got smart. I actually used it as I built it. I recruited some friends to be like guinea pigs. Right, like, hey, I'm trying to do this thing. Can I coach you and put you through the system and do some things? And in doing that, I was able to file off the rough edges and actually make it good this time. I don't mind saying that was a step up from version one, and I launched it while my wife and I were on a year-long world tour. We were traveling abroad and going slow, living place to place. So we were about a month into that world tour where we sold all our stuff at home and dropped off Ozzy the Kitty at my in-laws and from my kitchen table in Cusco, peru. Coach Cannibal 2.0. Let's give it another try.
Speaker 1:Love it, I love it. Oh my gosh, there's so much here. Okay, so I did Landmark also, and this is the point that I thought you and I connected on or that I had read something. I think you had posted something about Landmark. So I'm like, oh my, oh my gosh, landmark changed my life too, um, in a huge way, in a really huge way. I don't think I would be doing the work I do today if it weren't for that program. I wouldn't have the marriage I have today, if it weren't for that program.
Speaker 1:I mean that we yeah, I went through the whole curriculum. My husband did a lot of volunteering, so for people who, if you're listening and you're like what the the heck is? This Landmark education is a curriculum for living your life, which is so awesome. It gives you tools for living life and that's what I became so passionate about is having tools makes all the difference. Like I was prior to that, just kind of living at the mercy of my circumstances and thinking this is as good as it gets and I have no power. And what it taught me is that we actually have so much power to shape and influence the quality of our lives, and so I love that. We connect on that.
Speaker 1:I met my husband. He was a coach in the self-expression and leadership program and that's where I met him and leadership program and that's where I met him. And so we were able to start a marriage like with you know, kind of a blank canvas, and really create and we still use the tools. I mean we've been married 25 years and using the tools, so amazing. So I love that. And then you had a coaching experience that led you to really launching like, wow, what if you know? What if we could take this to a whole nother level. Amazing, and I love the first. You know, the baby, the baby version, that didn't quite. I think we can all relate to that, so much I. It brought up so many memories for me and it also reminded me that sometimes we think we have something and it doesn't quite go as expected and it can be so disappointing, but often that, like like you said, you let it sit and then look what has happened since then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so do you want to?
Speaker 1:give people a snapshot of, like what that tool is today and what that looks like for you. Like as a because it I I guess that this is kind of you've blended this into your life, um, and created a lifestyle business. I'm guessing that I don't know that, so correct me if I'm wrong, almost a term of art.
Speaker 2:It's almost a term of derision in Silicon Valley circles. Right, for the folks who don't, who aren't. No Lifestyle business is what investors say like oh cool, you're not serious. You don't want to take a bajillion dollars of funding and grow big or go home and get the unicorn IPO valuation and make your whole life being about the someday payday unicorn moonshot. Yeah, I have no time for you. So that's lifestyle business. But the positive side of lifestyle business, which, carla, I do think I resemble yeah, man, I can do this full time and I don't have to be a slave to it. It's low stress, I can just kind of be the master of my own destiny and I'm plenty prosperous. Doing it Like this may be a dead end if I want a yacht or something stupid like that, but I don't want a yacht, I don't care, I'm good. So, like a job in a business that you can probably grow organically, rather than having your pay masters, your investors, breathing down your neck so they get theirs.
Speaker 2:No interest whatsoever. So yeah, that's how that is To unpack how Coach Cabell is and what it is. I mean, I think my cue here is to put on my salesman hat and give the pitch for it. Let me do a different angle.
Speaker 2:No, don't do that Because coach to coach right, game recognizes game. My journey of making this platform is so informed by my own. Yeah, a little bit by being a coach. Absolutely, I can talk and stand shoulder to shoulder with coaches about like here's what I see can help to make you show up more powerfully and have your clients get better. But if I'm honest, the juice of it is, I think the real juice of it is look, man, I've been on the receiving end of coaching side. I know very well what it's like to have an awesome coaching conversation where you feel clear, headed and inspired and motivated. It's like a brain massage, right, the good coaches are super reliable for that. And then life comes up, right, you forget. So here's the sort of apocryphal tale. That's not even apocryphal, it totally happened week after week.
Speaker 2:I was in the self-expression leader program and I don't know for the folks at home. You do a community project, you go to classroom, you make an action plan, carve in copy, rip off a copy, give it to your coach and I would take my copy. I don't know what you call it, but I'd take my copy, fold it up in my notebook and probably forget about it. So when I got on my weekly coaching call. Like two, three days later, coach is like so, john, it was good, good, I'm glad you're well, how are you doing in your action plan? And I'd be like, oh, what did I say I was doing again, and he'd write it to me what an action plan. Right, like quite an action plan. It wasn't there for me, it wasn't present for me, and so the impetus, the first feature I built of Coach Campbell back in the 1.0 days and it's still core to the 2.0 days and beyond action items, make it so that you put it in existence and some time the reminders will actually fly at you and you're poking your face like a little text message, like, hey, don't forget to do this. A little email this is due in one day and a nice way for both coach and client to see, yeah, what's done and what's not, so that you can skip the weather report and skip any sort of, like you know, excuse making and feeling a little dodgy and like, feel a little bad because the average bear. I found I thought this was a personal character failing on my part, but then I was coach and I'm like, oh no, no, this is not unique to me.
Speaker 2:I coined the phrase that describes what I would consider a large slice of the pie, if not a majority. A motivated mirror mortal, someone who shows up to coaching like, yeah, coaching, this is cool. I believe in this. I'm up to something. I want to grow, I want to expand. Hey, coach, help me, I want to do it.
Speaker 2:So they're motivated right, it's earnest, they're showing up to the program. You know what it's like to work with those people, carla. They're great, like their heart is in it. But then the mere mortal part kicks in, because we all know, in all aspects of life there are the metaphorical A students of it, people who are countable. They're going to write it down, they're going to put it in existence, they're going to follow through because, hey, they said they would, and why would I not? My wife is an A student in life. She's awesome, she's amazing. Right, I am an A student in some areas, but coaching, no, I was like rubbish at that.
Speaker 2:So the idea of Coach Accountable is help those motivated mere mortals, people who are genuinely enrolled in what you have to offer and really do want to bring their earnest intention to help manage the soft skills of actually bringing it to their life. When coach isn't there, some simple existence tools to keep it alive and keep it going so that they can actually do the work and fit it in and be supported in that, even when coach isn't there, and that, I find, makes all the difference. Now I'm talking both as coach and client. Dude, it's so much better if the coaching process is not two steps forward and one step back, but instead three steps forward. We make a plan, it gets executed, boom, let's continue. Ooh, that's satisfying for everyone involved.
Speaker 1:That's so good. It's a game changer for me and it's funny because I came at it from a little different angle. I think I have told you this, I'm not sure, but I did Landmark and then I felt a real calling to start writing, and writing had a huge impact in my life, helped me sort through so many things, understand myself better, be able to manage my own thinking and so that I could start taking aligned actions and be accountable and have integrity, which is something I learned about in Landmark. Right, I thought I had all the integrity in the world and realized I really didn't. But like, writing really helped me and so I found coaching through writing. I started creating a business called sanity journals to teach people how to use writing as a tool to navigate their life, and I ended up finding a coaching company that coached with a journal and I ended up going through that program and the coaching was great.
Speaker 1:But I fell in love with the idea of coupling coaching, which was so powerful, with a journal and taking that journaling piece that had had such a coach. My training was to use the writing to help people see their blind spots and the thought processes that are debilitating them or getting in the way or the thought processes that are helping them. But a lot of this kind of runs under the surface and we ourselves can't see it. And so the journal became this incredible reflection tool to really help people move beyond these barriers that, like all their intentions are right but they're just feel like they're spinning their wheels and it's the stuff that was causing that that the journal helped me to see, and so that's really why I came to Coach Accountable was because you had a journal that you could journal. You know your clients could journal with you, and then you had all these other pieces to it that, of course, added to the coaching relationship too. But I'm curious, what does the journal part mean to you inside of Coach Accountable?
Speaker 2:and site a coach accountable Interesting. So I'm almost a little embarrassed to say, because I was just about to say look, they must love that You're being like a spotter onto their thought process and it's great that you get them to do that sort of brain dump and get their thoughts out, which helps organize and clarify them, of course. But you add something more, don't you? By being able to read them as a second disinterested party who's not too close.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it is so powerful, john, and we're doing that. You know I'm responding to their journals in between our sessions and so when we get to that next call, I have so much like, I have so much to work with and we've already started to dig a little deep, so we just go deeper. There's no catching up, right? Yeah, it's powerful. So, just asking questions, I'll highlight a piece of their journal and just say, hey, like you know, go a little bit deeper here, say a little bit more about this, or or pull something out that is just like gold that they may not realize. Like, oh my gosh, look what you just said here.
Speaker 2:Like this is powerful. Yeah Right, Okay, cool. So that's what I figured. And in the early design of Coach Campbell that's not what I figured and I'll explain that to me. The journaling feature is so basic, right, it's very simple, Like either coach or client can write a journal entry, you know, put a little tag, a label at the top, and just write and hit save and maybe email it to your coach, or maybe coach emails it to you, vice versa, whoever's writing it, and it's just a record, Like as features go.
Speaker 2:It's so bread and butter, plain Jane. But I think you've. It's so bread and butter, plain Jane. But I think you've kind of underscored the magic of it which is, look, it encourages you to do it or it's a clearing, for it's a place to say, hey, there's a journaling section, you should use it and just in a friendly way, you can kind of assign them to or just like challenge to or invite them to at whatever cadence, because you get to say you're going to build up a repository of these entries and unless you mark them private, which is fine, you can.
Speaker 2:But if we're working together and I'm sure you enroll your coach, your clients, and I'm here to be your spotter, I'm here to offer those insights of what I see. So you make it into a ritual that is easy for them to do and automatically kind of shares with you. And to your point again, it's such a basic feature but to your point, it seeds the conversations that you have with them. It has you be like yeah, I'm in your world, I've been paying attention. Thanks for taking that time.
Speaker 2:We can now play with that, which the final thing is, it's so much better and juicier than the coach who says at the top of their session okay, what do you want to talk about? The subtext being I got nothing. I either haven't been paying attention or I have nothing to pay attention to, because we don't have that kind of practice and you know we're just going to make it up as we go. No, you come in. I bet your clients love it. You come in hot. You come in aware. You come in with a clear picture of what's going on for them and what you see.
Speaker 1:To add, yes, I mean there's always so many options, directions we can go right. So there's definitely. It just gives me so much to work with as a coach, so powerful. So how do you see others using the journaling feature? And I'm kind of curious, like, what's this platform, I mean for listeners? I don't know that it like, do you have anybody that's not a coach using it? Like, I'd love to hear, like, what's the most interesting use of this platform? Like, is it all coaches? Because I feel like it wouldn't have to be.
Speaker 2:So let me top off both of those questions with a mere statement of fact called I kind of don't know, unless people, unless I have lovely conversations like this with you, I everyone's kind of operating in self-service fashion and I get whiffs of it from like again, yeah, just chatting about this and that, or or questions like hey, can it be good for this, but otherwise it's a very self-serve app. So my awareness of what's going on, quote unquote, in this house that I've set up for people to set their own shop is very limited. So when you ask me, how do people use journaling, it's kind of like I don't know man Not exactly sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:It really is an abstract tool. That's's general purpose. It's a clearing for whatever you do with it. I know to make sure that I have the features, do the various modalities make it easy to email back and forth, share back and forth and all kinds of stuff with worksheets a little more complicated, with cool things that you can do, but what people do with it? Oh, I keep being surprised now and then when I do get certain whiffs of this and that you ask if there's anyone but coaches. Yes, I haven't paid attention in a while, but there's a lot of real estate offices using Coach Accountable for training and managing the performance of their agents.
Speaker 1:Not terribly coaching For teams, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Not terribly coaching, but I've learned, I've become acquainted with the word human being who's kind of like here, helping to guide or shepherd or contribute to another human being looking to be better. Oh, there's a lot of modalities that run out of that and the purists will say that's not coaching, it doesn't belong here. Okay, that's cool, you know, coach Cannibal is the title and again that anything that rhymes with one person looking to help the expansion of the potential of another, come on in, there are tools that will suit for you. That's where all the non-coaches kind of come.
Speaker 1:I always I mean, I always see so many opportunities that I mean, if you're engaging with your clients and you want to do that in an intimate, personal, connected kind of way, I mean it's such an incredible tool for that. So if you're listening and that sounds interesting, you should take a peek at what he's doing. And I have to toot your horn for a moment, because I've been with your app or tool for a long time now and the customer service is so good. I just I I can't really say enough about that, but like you are always there, it's not like I don't have access to you, you are. You make yourself very accessible to us as users. Um, your, my questions are always answered quickly. I mean, it's just been amazing. So thank you, john, because that makes my life so much better.
Speaker 2:That's cool. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I mean to show up like I built the whole thing, so it's really fun to interact with actual people who are using the. You know, and benefiting from this thing, that I've spent all this heads down time coding and building and debugging and perfecting and polishing, so it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1:It's good time. I mean the impact that this tool like you don't even, you'll never know. The impact in the ripple impact of the all the people that are using this tool and helping others Like I don't know. That's cool, that's so great.
Speaker 2:I confess it, it's a pretty sweet gig because when I do get whiffs of what people are doing, like when I get on calls, this or otherwise, you know, and more impromptu like it's like really, oh, that's cool. It's just like I get those little glimpses into what I've created. So, yeah, it's fun. Honestly, philosophically, though, like there's nothing altruistic about it, I don't know. I really just want to elevate coaching, because my taste of coaching from the get-go was Landmark and if I were to place it on the gamut for anyone unacquainted, landmark I'd say has a very Yang energy called. Hey, that's great. When are you going to do that by when Someday never comes? Honor your word. What happened there when you didn't follow through with the thing you said?
Speaker 1:you would do A little ruthless. Yeah Right, it can have that vibe right To the uninitiated yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing, my whiff again, my ingress, point to the whole coaching world. I'm not formally trained. It's participating in these programs, in both coach and client. So my vantage point of the rest of the industry is, you know, you kind of see some of the big towering edifices like the ICF and its you know definitions of competence and a couple others, and I find that so much of the coaching world outside of where, I, shall we say, came of age as a big fan of coaching and sort of practitioner in softer ways, is much more Yang or, excuse me, much more Yin, and Yin's great and Yin has a thing, has a place and balance, of course, but there's such a well. I think you can see it from the ICF's word we are not here to be bosses of anyone. We're not here to babysit them. We're here to lead an inquiry. We're not here to be bosses of anyone. We're not here to babysit them. We're here to lead an inquiry. We're not even here to give advice. The questions and knowledge will come from within.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, but what gets waylaid by that philosophy and desire to be pure coaching, as defined in that way, is any sort of accountability, is any sort of well? How are you going to apply this to your life? I'm not saying it's fully not there. People could point to various parts of the thing but there's a degree of emphasis that is far less from what I thought as I naively gave my first touch of coaching. So when I go out into the world I'm like, wait, what do you mean? You don't track anything and whatever happens happens and it's not our place to hold the line and sort of lovingly and with their buy-in and consent, demand that they rise up and honor their word. What do you mean? That's not appropriate. What be? I've created Coach Accountable to be a place where no, it's great to create things that will call for the actual applying of those feel-good insights so that they live as more than just. That was a lovely conversation and then my life didn't change. I yearn for the kind of well, really fast results, honestly, that I took for granted. It's like, oh, that's how effective and fast coaching can be. Cool, when are you going to get that sorted? Why don't you call them right now and get that cleaned up and or create something that you've been saying I want to do for six years? That kind of vibe. I know it's not for everyone. But boy, it just excites me as what is truly possible for coaching, and Coach Accountable is a love letter to that style of coaching. That's sort of like it's right in the name, right, coach Accountable? Let's be accountable for that.
Speaker 2:These conversations don't just feel good because, again, they do. They're amazing. They're great when your coach is worth their salt, they're going to be in a good place. But what happens after? Oh man, if everyone's really truly getting their money's worth and their value and can say like, oh my God, I got so much out of working with Carlo those four weeks because she had me journal and I knew she was watching and the conversations that we had outside of my doing the work and showing up, oh, it's easier to be able to say to a new person this is how I roll, this is how we do it. Do you want this? It's easier, for that was a pretty great, you know, one month or three months session or whatever. Do you want to continue? I, I'm just so bullish on coaches thriving because if they're thriving for the right reasons and not a slick you know, marketing budget, that means really good differences are being made with actual people.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Oh my gosh, that just makes me so excited. Um, I buy into the same philosophy that you do um around coaching. I was. I was trained in a in a coaching um certification. That was very different and very much about deep conversation and integration of that conversation into your life, because that's when it makes a difference. I was just responding to something this morning, but it's like so often with clients they they think they need, you know, additional tools, additional skills, additional knowledge, additional training, and what I see over and over again is they really just need integration. You know, it's like I had a conversation with someone who was like I, wanting to communicate better and thinking that I need to take, I need to go to improv and I need to take some communication classes and maybe I need to do toast masters.
Speaker 1:And I'm like well, wait a minute. Like yes, those things are great and you might want to do those things. However, when you go to this event, what if you? Just because he would get awkward or have, you know, social anxiety? And I said, what if you just leaned into curiosity? And so the next week he practiced that, completely changed all of his conversations in that room. And I think, as humans, we think that, like you said, someday we're going to be better at that. Someday when this or this or this, then I'll really have that mastered. No, it's not really that it's.
Speaker 1:there's a thousand moments today that you can go, you know, step into that moment in a different way, with a different approach, and change your results right now. You know, and then practice that over time and build that muscle. Like that's the work I want to do with people.
Speaker 2:Can I tell you, what you just said reminds me of what I think is one of those sort of like again, kind of cheeky, magical thing that a coach can do, a human who cares, and that's what I think. It's kind of like you. You almost like I dare you to go to that party, I dare you to lean into curiosity and see what happens, right, like as kids, right, but I dare you to like jump off that thing. That's kind of hot. Yeah, I dare you right. So we all have it that like daring someone to do something bold has a sort of like mischievous angle to it but as a grown-up coach who's like to stand for that.
Speaker 2:You know your client to be less socially awkward to go and light up the room and find that he can do that today, not after six weeks of attending Ghostmasters. Like you challenged him in a loving way. You throw down the gauntlet just a little bit. What if you just lean into being curious? I suspect he had some follow-up questions.
Speaker 1:Actually, I mean, I don't even know that he did. I think he got it and he came back like one week and then the next week. Basically, I mean, when we did talk about it, I guess we did talk about, you know, getting in their world. Take the focus off of yourself and get into their world, you know, and that takes the pressure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yes, this is what I was saying to my client. Right? Because when we have social anxiety, we're worried about ourselves. Right? Because when we have social anxiety, we're worried about ourselves, right? And so if we get curious about the person we're talking to, it takes all that pressure off and it's genuine and authentic in the moment, and that's when amazing things happen in conversation.
Speaker 2:And that's where the magic of a coach is, because you told them that you fleshed out. Here's what that looks like. You know, you, it might've been. You might've had a little bit of like the. Well, let me unpack it for you so that you're you're convinced, you're sold, that it's worth a try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I promised you, one of the big things that I believe in the moment had him screw his scourge to the sticking place and actually follow through, was that he gets the joy of being able to turn back to you, carla, and say I did it, that was cool, because if he'd read it in a book he'd be like that's a cool idea, and maybe he'd have thought to himself I'll do that. But of course, promises we make to ourselves super easy to break. But if you wanted to kind of honor that, you took the time to suggest it and and again, kind of paint the picture of what it looks like so that he could come back and say, like you know what, coach, that worked, man we are so this is where coaches, I think, have a tremendous edge in, shall we say, leveraging the people pleasing instinct of us, of other people.
Speaker 2:We want to look good. Right, we want to. We don't want to be like a chump. Coach, I'm going to do X and then you're going to have an awkward conversation. Hopefully, if coach is the type who's like you know, did you do it? How'd it go? Oh, I didn't. It could be a little awkward. Instead, we love coach, I'm going to do X and then you go do X and it was a, and you can't wait to talk to Carla next week and tell her how it went.
Speaker 1:Yes, totally. I mean just having that call on my calendar can keep me accountable and get me get things done right when you know you've got that coming up. But then all the other elements tied to it, I think you're right it does. It's very impactful and, like you, I've been on both sides. I've been the coachee and I've been the coach and it's it's powerful. It's powerful to be. You know, I think one of the things that helps my clients the most is staying in a conversation like this. Right, like we don't often have places where we're having conversation about life and showing up fully and what that even looks like and what that could mean and what's possible, right, a lot of people don't have places in their life where they're having those conversations on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:It's a reminder to do it and, most importantly, it's a reminder oh you can right, yeah, you can transcend just inertially getting by and take sort of bold actions and again that sort of coach, that caring, wise and coach, or even you don't have to be terribly wise, not that you are not, but you can just be as a spotter Again. You can have in the gym, like the gym metaphor if someone's like benching 300 pounds, you can have someone that's not quite as beefy just be able to spot and make sure that the bar doesn't like choke them on their, their, you know, just land on their chest and like trap them as a coach. It's so funny, it's.
Speaker 2:I've heard coaches wonder who am I to coach this powerful person? Right, the answer because you could get imposter syndrome. Like, oh, they're up to bigger things than I am. Who am I to coach them? You could get an imposter syndrome real quick if you don't realize a key again, part of the magic and mojo of a coach You're not them.
Speaker 2:You bring an external perspective. You bring caring plus I'm not in it so I can see more clearly or help you see other perspectives which will add power to anyone, even if they're up here with whatever station in life and whatever blah, blah, blah, looking good, you can make a huge difference for someone just by caring and being a person about it. That has a new vantage point, and so you can challenge someone to do something, even something that would make you scared, like, well, look, you're at this point, you should try X and I'll be listening for that. You did it and we can celebrate to next week if you did, or complete whatever we need to complete if you've lost your nerve and get you back on the horse. Tons of metaphors, right yeah, that's the fun of a coach man.
Speaker 2:These conversations that you say it reminds you to get bigger, to play a little bigger, to do something. Not a six-month plan of Toastmasters and improv classes. Nah, tonight I love it what you said, those, those opportunities every day to just practice, what would be so true we think we're stuck, and I think that's one of the things I learned in in Landmark.
Speaker 1:but, um, you know that you, you stuck is sort of a something that created a fabrication of your mind, right, and there's, there's I believe you're never really stuck, you know, and there's this conversation that there's so many alternative pathways to take. But back to your last note of like just this conversation and exciting and what it can do in your life. I'm curious to kind of turn it back to you, like anything you want to share with what you're up to next inside of Coach, accountable, or anything that you're excited about, a project, or take that anywhere you want to go.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, I tell you what I mean. Just some like inside the web guy entrepreneurs studio, the web guy entrepreneur's studio, we can riff. I have had for a while now a series of essays that are called the Coach Cannibal Perspective and I put them on the web. They're there, they're just hanging out, carla.
Speaker 1:There's like 37 of them, but I want to be I want to see them All right well, it's just there.
Speaker 2:I haven't told anyone in official capacity, but if you just type perspectivecoachaccountablecom in your browser, you'll see stuff like this. Because I'm realizing, thanks for indulging me. I'm like, all right, I'll just share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is exciting.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of perspectives on coaching from being an Uber fan who's gotten a ton from it, but without being, shall we say, I'm not tied to any particular school of thought. I didn't invest a whole ton to like. This is my, you know, schooling and this is what I believe to be the right way, and I went this high up the mountain with this accrediting levels. So anything that contradicts that will break my brain a little. I have to defend it because otherwise it undermines the effort.
Speaker 1:This is why I love you and what you do.
Speaker 2:Contrary to all that, which I think is a lot of people who are, again, deeply enmeshed in the coaching world, and certainly most people who have, shall we say, thought about it deeply for 20 years. I'm a guy who's thought about it deeply for 20 years without that sort of thing. I'm just some guy who's gotten some really great things from being coached, who's had some experiences amazing and not amazing and I'm in the perspective that I've got that I'll be, you know, again one of these days I'll slap on a click here to subscribe button and you'll figure out some platform. I don't even like to. I'm a tech guy. I hate like trying to whittle through like platforms to figure out which is the best one. Oh my God, do I sympathize for any? All coaches who are trying to figure it out that eventually find your way to coach accountable. There's a lot out there and there's a lot of. So I feel your pain. I can't even be bothered to do it for this, but I will eventually. But the point is I'll put a subscribe thing and then I'll be like okay, let me do this, cause I do have like a list of about a hundred essays that are still to be written that are just like, oh yeah, that's a good one to flesh out as an idea. And the idea is think of me as your would-be client who has seen it all and is wanting to just whisper into your ear this is what I wish you would know to give us a great experience. This is what it's like to be on the receiving end, and this would make a big difference to have this wonderful thing that you do coaching actually work for us.
Speaker 2:Versus again, what I in the, in my story of coaching, the villain is feel good insights that go nowhere. That's my villain. So I'm, I'm, I'm taking this. So the perspective is out there and waiting to be launched. It's just ready to go locked and loaded and I I realized for myself I don't want to do this. If it's just me. I've been solo for a while. I've had team in the past and training, for what a fanatic I am about being awesome with people. Thanks, carla, by the way, earlier for the shout out about customer support. I really am precious about. We'd be great with people. So training has a lot of activation energy to it, but I put out a hiring thing and I've got someone starting a new CA staffer on Monday.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited to welcome Noah to the fold, I'm excited to have him in my dojo and learning what I am calling not the John Larson way, but creating it as the coach accountable way, and then I'm going to have some space and the feeling of I have backup. So maybe now's the time to actually launch the Coach Gumbel perspective, and the idea is this can be useful food for thought to be great as a coach in novel ways, more than we'll just coach better and do even better for what the, shall we say, the recording will show, which is again what a lot of definitions of certification all are to do. Well, how did you show up on the call? Okay, that's because there's no machinations for measuring everything else, ie what happens when you're not there and do they do the work? Do they actually integrate it? What are the kind of results? So my definition for what makes an awesome coach goes way beyond how you actually show up in the call, and that's not to diminish the call, but I'm saying that the experience of being coached can be more than the conversations. So the perspective I see to it be worth a read anyway, whether you use Coach Calum or not, ah, we're good, I don't care, it's all good.
Speaker 2:But if it can be a useful resource and food for thought and some, I don't know, stir the pot somewhat, counter melody perspectives on how the usual melody of what it is to be a quote unquote competent coach, are something that makes it a little more richer, a little more dynamic, a little more than just the conversations and helps coaches to distinguish themselves and be that much better. Well, mission accomplished. I want client coaching, clients to have a bang on experience where it's truly impactful and meaningful. This might be an expression of my thumbing my nose at having, you know, done six months worth of weekly calls for a thousand bucks a pop, where I have very little to show for it. Nothing was written down. It really started with a. So what do you want to talk about today? It was lovely, there were great conversations, but, man, if someone can charge that kind of scratch and get away with just conversations, I think there's a lot of room for some pretty darn good coaches to absolutely dunk on that experience and get people more.
Speaker 1:I love this so much. John, please get this book together. I want it. I've been to your. What's that?
Speaker 2:It's not a book. I mean maybe someday, but it's just, it's not a book.
Speaker 1:What is it? What's it going to be?
Speaker 2:It's a series of essays that I'll probably you know just essays, two or three a week and again there's 40, there's, there's 30, I believe there's 37 in the till and they're kind of fun again.
Speaker 1:Perspective on how to be an amazing coach well, I I'd like them all in one package, because they sound amazing and I've attended. I don't know what you call them.
Speaker 2:Webinars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, webinars, where we as users come together and you have taught us things and given us perspectives that are so different than anything else you find in coaching. That's why I love what you do, that's why I love your work, because it's unique, it's different. You come from a completely different angle, so I can't wait for that. So, if I can be of any support, if you need any readers and want some input, I'm in your corner.
Speaker 2:Wow, Awesome, Carla, that's super encouraging because, wow, yeah, you're a fan, You've been a long time and if you're saying that like, yeah, the novelty of that perspective, as I do, sort of from a I don't know black horse kind of angle, sort of outside of the industry, like know, I largely said everything I had to say in that series and yeah, there's about a dozen. I think there's about 20 of them that you can see at coachcom slash webinars, I guess if anyone's interested with fun things like how to run a business, how to give your clients more.
Speaker 2:I have another one in me. Actually it's funny you mentioned that because, like there was a, there was in the CoachGunner users group. Someone said, hey, how y'all use an AI, and CA's customer number one, john Kenworthy, chimed in with a lot of good insight and it got my gears turning. I didn't want to really put in my two cents, you know, in the, in the, in that, in that venue, cause I don't know, I've kind of got an ax to grind, but it reminded me and I just took the next day, like I took an hour on my porch with my laptop and just wrote an outline for another webinar which I suspect I'll be producing and putting out sometime in July, maybe August again, when Noah's up to speed. It's titled Remaining a Relevant Coach in the Era of AI, which seems to be on top of people's minds. I don't know if you know this, carla, but there's some concerns. I am deeply sympathetic and have a couple ideas of how to remain relevant Because, speaking of again coaching experiences where I'm a bit nonplussed or a little bit like underwhelmed, I had a coach where I paid 500 a session and he'd give me here's the transcript and here's the summary.
Speaker 2:And here was what was insidious about this. It was kind of raw from chat, gtp or whatever else and you read the summary and it feels okay, that was about what it was talked about. But guess what? The conversation was way more powerful than that and the hallucinations were subtle and insidious enough that if you didn't take your own notes of meticulous quality, either mentally or otherwise, you would believe that the AI summary that was given to you was oh, I guess that's what we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm a little pissed off, honestly on behalf of coaching clients. Coaches, please don't give AI product as here you go. Maybe use it for a mnemonic to help you augment your brain, that's okay, but at the end of the day, I would have really preferred if the guy had actually taken a beat to write up here's what I think was important and actually hit the high notes of where the world shifted with a nice little insight, because those happened in those calls. He was a great coach. But the product at the end like I'm going to use AI and give my clients more and I felt like I got way less. I felt like I got. I don't care, I can't be bothered. Here's what a machine thought of our conversation. It's almost offensive. Wow, oh my gosh, I have so much to say about this?
Speaker 1:Maybe we need to have another conversation about AI.
Speaker 2:That would be fun. Another time with AI-focused fun, it would be fun?
Speaker 1:It would be fun. There's so much there and I think that, yeah, people have to be discerning. People are, you know, even my clients will send me like, hey, I asked AI about this and look at what, what I got, and while there is some good stuff in there, there is some stuff to be watching for for sure. And it kind of sent them on a path of like, oh, you need to fix this and this and this and this about yourself and I, I just and this about yourself and I just that's not my approach and it was concerning a little concerning to me for sure yeah, that we would be going to get advice on our life from AI and then making decisions based on that too.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so much to be so much good and then things to be mindful of there too, and, um, wow, yeah, I'm holding myself back from going deeper there I as well, carla, but like, yeah, I pointed out a couple things earlier, like there's certain magic things that a human coach does, called like I dare you and I'll be listening for how it went and you can like I'm rooting for you. Like there's, there's a couple of things that so, yeah, we'll not, we'll not run this ax or dig into it too much today, but yeah, but I can't wait for your essays.
Speaker 1:I really can't wait, and I'm actually looking forward to that webinar. So, as we close, I would just love to know what does differently mean to you.
Speaker 2:What does differently mean to you? I mean, gosh, you kind of set me up for a spike volley on this one, because basically no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I am probably one of the few people who have thought about it as deeply as I have for the last 12, 13 years of evolving this platform. Who's not already kind of enmeshed in one of the schools of thought, the definitions of purity? And instead I come from purely pragmatic, what actually helps me to show up. I'm not the only one who has a hard time remembering just to fit it in life. I'm not the only one who gets charged and energized by recognizing like oh, there's the trend line, I can see how things are changing, and versus like, oh, I'm pretty sure it's going well, what's up, coach. I'm not the only one who really hungers coaching to be more than the conversations, because the conversations can only do so much if you're left to your own devices. So I'm a I'm some outsider dude doing my thing, man, and I think that's fairly differently. And when it comes to how I seek to contribute to this whole endeavor cause, man, I got a lot of good stuff from it and I want to pay it forward. I feel I owe nothing less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I enjoyed this conversation so much. I really see you doing differently and that's what inspired me to ask you on the podcast, because I feel like you really do that in everything you do, John. All my interactions with you, they're different. Just the way you communicate is different and it's really refreshing and I just thank you for all you're doing to make this platform amazing and support us as users and really make coaching, just taking it up notches. I feel like that's what you do you elevate the game and I'm all in. So I just thank you. Thank you for sharing your heart and yourself and you're just getting in your mind. Today was so much fun.
Speaker 2:Right on, I feel completely gotten. Thank you, carla. It's my absolute pleasure to show up, and here's to the climb man. I really am honored and appreciate you having me on today.
Speaker 1:Amazing.