Some Thoughts About Imposter Syndrome

I remember the first time I got up enough courage to go out and speak publicly about neuroscience and coaching. I joke that I was afraid the neuroscience police would come and arrest me. I wanted to share what I was learning, but had very little confidence that I actually knew what I was talking about. I was lucky in that the group I presented to was warm, receptive, fascinated — and appreciative. They loved what I had to share and encouraged me to keep going. This has been, indeed, a true privilege. My community, my system, has supported me, and with practice and feedback I was able to appropriately let go of feeling like I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. With time and further feedback and learning, I now embrace my own expertise.

Every time I hear the term “imposter syndrome” I feel like I have a stone in my shoe. Something in it rubs me the wrong way. I know the feeling exists, and, as I hope illustrated through my own story, have felt this way myself. But is it a syndrome? To me, calling something a syndrome makes it feel like it is, in some way, a disease. something internal, wrong, and damaging. So maybe I want to start there — using the term feeling rather than syndrome. An imposter feeling. Ok, but now what?

Well, I think there are two key ways this feeling occurs (and they can definitely be interrelated) — the personal and the systemic. The personal comes from the fear that we lack knowledge, skills, and/or experience. I deal with this a lot as a coach. Clients feel like they need the next level of certification or degree in order to be legit — and critically — before they put dare to put themselves out there. But it is “in the arena” (to use Teddy Roosevelt’s famous phrase) where we refine ourselves, we make the mistakes critical for learning, and get feedback as to whether we are on the right track or not.

If this is the main source of the imposter feeling (and it is distinct from the systemic impact mentioned below), the way forward is to be Roosevelt’s person “who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.” Neuroscientists who study neuroplasticity know this — mistakes and feedback and trial and error are how the brain “wires” itself.

So in this case, getting over an imposter feeling isn’t that complex, to be honest. You can activate the potent power of neuroplasticity by doing these two key things:

ONE: push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone, into the “learning zone” where you do make mistakes at times. In my early days of speaking about neuroscience, sometimes I was blessed to have an actual neuroscientist in the audience, who would point out these mistakes. This helped refine my knowledge and I am ever grateful.

(And of course, if you genuinely need knowledge and skills, go get them, just don’t use “I need more training” as an excuse not to be in the arena.)

TWO: Make sure you have a chance to reflect on your efforts with a supportive person (a coach is great for this). This is critical for your brain to bring into awareness what you are doing right, as well as the mistakes you may have made. Checking back on your growth over time is also critical, because the brain tends to take “now” as what is true. For example, if you reflect on how you have grown as a public speaker over a year, you will see that going from a 10 out of 10 in nervousness to say, a 6 out of 10, is movement in the right direction, not a condemnation that you “still aren’t there.”

But what if the feeling doesn’t go away? And what if you know you actually do have the skills and abilities, but still feel like an imposter? This leads us to the second way people get this feeling, which is the systemic, from the relationships and/or system they are in. As the brilliant 2021 Harvard Business Review article, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome pointed out, imposter syndrome may be the internalization of systemic racism, bias, and other forms of oppression and abuse.

In my own work focused on relational trauma, I have seen that all too often people develop imposter feelings when they have experienced a toxic boss or workplace, a toxic family, and/or a toxic relationship. If you consistently get the sense that nothing you do or say is right, smart, or sensible, and have the tendency to look within rather than blaming others, you may well end up feeling like you must be a fraud, blaming yourself for everything, and even giving up in order to not be unfairly criticized.

As the authors say in the HBR article I mentioned “Even as we know it today, imposter syndrome puts the blame on individuals, without accounting for the historical and cultural contexts that are foundational to how it manifests in both women of color and white women. Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”

So, for the second way an imposter feeling is created, we must address the system the person (male or female) is in. Rather than fixing the person, we need to fix the places and the relationships. What can the individual do? Here are a few thoughts:

ONE: Recognize abuse for what it is and be willing to call it out. In a toxic system, you need to stop blaming yourself and taking unfair criticism to heart. I know this isn’t easy, especially for sensitive people. but I do want to say that it’s no more spiritual, enlightened, or emotionally intelligent to take responsibility for what is not yours than it is to blame others for what is. Internalizing doesn’t change anything and just makes a person ill.

And if you have a coach or mentor (or god forbid, HR) who wants to focus on what you are doing to “co-create” a toxic situation, move on. This is not fair, true or helpful — it’s taking the coaching world way too long to see this, but it is another way of victim-blaming and shaming. If you are being put down and devalued in any relationship, whether workplace or personal, a coach should be helping you with boundaries and choices. You do not “co-create” abuse.

TWO: Inclusion zones / inclusion people. I mentioned above that I was privileged to have kind, warm, supportive people around me as I developed my neuroscience expertise. This is huge. I wasn’t questioned at every turn. I was celebrated and encouraged. This is a blessing and one of the many reasons I love my profession — it’s an anti-imposter-feeling-inclusion-zone. The system was pretty much ok, so I just had to work on me. NOTE: this included doing some healing from other toxic systems in my past! And if the system isn’t inclusive and warm, then the question is, where can you find it? How can we be inclusion zones for each other? Even one inclusion person can be a helpful antidote to a toxic system as we work to move past an imposter feeling.

I honestly wish I could offer more advice here, because there are far more unhealthy systems than there are healthy ones. But at least these two ideas are a start.

A final thought — an occasional sense of not knowing or being able to do everything is not a bad thing. We can be curious knowledge- and skill-seekers without feeling like we must be frauds. It’s called being a healthy and appropriately humble human.

I Don’t Have a Magic Wand

In coaching, when the client is willing and able, it is amazing how almost everything works. But when the client is unwilling and/or unable, it’s amazing how pretty much nothing works.

One of the cherished roles I play in the coaching world is as a mentor to other coaches. I love helping them figure out what might be going on in their clients’ brains, how to apply coaching techniques more effectively, and what to do when things get a bit stuck. In these conversations, occasionally a coach will list off everything they’ve tried with a particular client and ask me what they are doing wrong. A percentage of the time I have ideas and new directions for them to try. But a percentage of the time, I don’t.

I remember the early days of my own journey as a coach. I was on fire with all my new tools, techniques, and understanding of how to help people. I was amazed at how much just listening deeply and asking open-ended questions enabled people to clarify things for themselves and move forward. I loved all the cool tools I had that helped clients have transformational breakthroughs. I felt powerful and that power was, well, a bit addictive. Nothing better than big WOW from a client. Or an “I’ve never thought of it that way before.” Yay me (pats self on back), I rock!

The problem with taking responsibility for this is that it works both ways. When nothing was effective with a client I was also certain it was me. I clearly wasn’t good enough as a coach (I tell beginning coaches that we often acquire a new coaching “saboteur,” who sits on our shoulder pointing out the myriad mistakes we are making), insufficiently able to help this client. And again, a percentage of the time perhaps I was right and was missing something a more experienced coach might not. But a percentage of the time, I was wrong. It was, in fact, not me. And neither was the transformation. It was about the client, their openness, their willingness, and their efforts.

So let me share that in my experience, there are a few types of clients where it just ain’t gonna work no matter what you do. Here are three that come to mind (and there may be overlaps).

ONE: The “I paid for this, now fix me” client. I’ve had some of these in my 20+ years as a coach, but luckily, not more than a few because they are incredibly annoying. This type of client seems to believe that their growth should be automatic once they have sent the money. Or perhaps simply that their responsibility is limited to paying the invoice. As if we, as coaches, were appliance repair people there to tweak a few gears and electrical connections while they sit there and kibbitz.

TWO: The “that’s not in my comfort zone so I won’t” client. Now, I have all the space in the world for a client feeling uncomfortable. If I am doing my job, that’s going to be part of the deal because I want to help them disrupt older neural pathways for the sake of creating new ones that lead in the direction they want to go. Most clients understand this, and the “I’m not comfortable” is something to notice while trying anyway, as they realize that this is the only way to change. But the “so I won’t” type of client says they want change, while not doing anything to push themselves. Then all too often they complain that “coaching isn’t working.” Ugh.

THREE: The “that won’t work” client. This client already “knows” what will or won’t be worth their effort and prefer to enroll us in all the reasons our coaching tools, questions, homework etc. are bad ideas rather than stretching themselves. They may argue they have already tried something to no avail, or that “that sort of thing doesn’t work for them.” As a coach, working with this type of client can feel like we’ve been cut off at the knees. I sometimes even find my own ideas and creativity becoming constrained as my brain buys in to the “that won’t work” conversation.

Ideally, we weed out these clients in a chemistry or sample session by making it clear a) what coaching is and isn’t and b) what we expect from them. But sometimes they sneak through, at first agreeing that yes, of course coaching is about their own effort but then sliding off into excuses. Or we are coaching through an organization and the person is doing so as part of leadership program, or they have been told they have to be coached for some reason, but haven’t had a sufficient chance to opt in with full understanding. In these cases, I have seen that pausing to educate about what coaching is may work, with the client realizing that they didn’t understand and seeing that their own effort = their own results.

But it also may fall on deaf ears, with the client still expecting you to do coaching to them. In this case, it’s very much ok to walk away. You weren’t issued a magic wand with your coaching credential.

One additional note: I think it also needs to be said that sometimes a client does come to coaching with every intention of making an effort and authentically engaging in the process, but finds that something is firmly and persistently blocking them, and/or that the coaching process is stressful or triggering beyond their ability to cope. Generally this is because of some sort of unhealed trauma. A coach with additional training in trauma may be able to help here, and/or the client may need to explore therapy.

Neuroscience and Coaching, Myth and Reality, Choice Magazine 2023

In the spring of 2023, Choice Magazine asked me to consult on an issue focused on neuroscience and coaching — kind of a “state of the union” as of today. I helped them identify themes, select authors, review articles, and I wrote the lead article on where we have evolved to, with a sidebar on neuroscience myths and reality.

This article was published in, and reproduced with permission from, choice, the magazine of professional coaching  www.choice-online.com.

choice-v21n4-feature-betzDownload

Is Coaching Always About the We?

There is a phenomenon in Quantum Mechanics that physicists know as “entanglement.” Basically, it breaks down to this (please forgive the oversimplification): if you take 2 objects that were created together, say two electrons, separate them, and then do something to one of them (maybe poke it), the other will react instantly as if it was being poked itself. Even if it is on the other side of the universe. (Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance.”) Layer on to this the “Big Bang” theory that we all came from one small ball of matter and it gets really interesting. We don’t yet know if what happens on the quantum level applies on the human level (there are different sets of rules for each level), but maybe we’ll find this to be true. Maybe if I poke you, it hurts me. Maybe if I help you, it helps me. Maybe if I heal a bit of myself, it heals something for the world.

So let’s look at coaching. My training has me keeping my attention off myself, focusing on my client and helping them find their own answers. This is good, and it works. And/but lately I have been asking myself what it might be to coach into the WE. That is, maybe there is no one “out there,” just pieces of the same basic matter that I am, vibrating the same as I do, and connected now as we were in the beginning. So who am I coaching? Am I indeed, always (on some level) coaching myself?

I am starting to believe that everyone I coach holds a key piece of healing for me and the rest of the world. And not in some nice, distant, can’t we all just get along way, but really. Perhaps even in practical, useful ways. Those of you who are coaches know this – we often say to each other things like “Well, all my clients are showing up this week with mother issues. Maybe I need to look there myself!”

Let’s try this: what if the best coaching inhabits a space where matter that was separated comes closer back together so that the healing dance can be seen? And we each play a role. The client, in an amazing act of courage and trust, lays out their life on the table as content to be worked with, observed, and experimented upon. The coach stands next to the client and focuses the work (I guess this is why we’re the ones getting paid). And because of our interconnection, as the client’s life comes into more coherence, the coach gets benefit too.

I love coaches. We are a bunch of mushy, kind, bold, curious, self-aware and passionate people who want to create a better world and are doing our darndest to facilitate this. And of course we are wonderful – we have been part of thousands of acts of healing during our careers, and each one does something irrevocable to us.

Tips for Using the Body in Coaching

These days, more and more coaches are moving from head-focused coaching to include the entire body in their work with their clients. Some even use this as their primary coaching technique. Why? They understand that the body is more than just a vehicle to carry the head around! The body has its own way of thinking, holding memory, and understanding issues and challenges in the client’s life. As my friend and colleague Amanda Blake says, “The body is our social and emotional sense organ.”*

Here are a few ideas for working with the body in your coaching. None need to be the entire session–you can add in working with the body to increase awareness, generate new insights, and/or facilitate a shift. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but to give you either a place to start from if you don’t typically use the body in your coaching, or perhaps to provide some new ideas if you already do. 

1) Use Embodiment

• Have client sit or stand in a way that reflects how they are currently feeling. What do they notice from here?
  
• Have client take an empowered/strong stance. Here’s a few prompts you can use.
  • Stand up
  • Relax your shoulders
  • Open your chest
  • Raise your chin level with floor
  • Look ahead with soft eyes
  • Keep you hands loose
  • Feet firmly planted, as far apart as feels comfortable
  • After client is grounded in this body position, you can ask things like:
    • What do you know from here?
    • What does your topic look like from here?
    • What’s possible from here?

• When a client uses a body-related metaphor, have them embody it literally and ask what they notice. For example:
  • I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. Have client pick up something heavy and put it on their shoulders. What do they notice? 
  • I have to walk on eggshells around her. Have client crumple up pieces of paper, put them on the ground to represent eggshells, and walk on them. What do they notice?
  • I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Have client get between the wall and something else big (a chair, their desk, the couch, etc.) What do they notice?
  • I need to take a higher view of this. Have client (safely) get up on something – a stool, the stairs, etc. What do they see from here. 
  • What else can you think of? This is a very playful addition to your coaching that almost always generates amazing insights. The trick is not to have them do something different or “better,” but to have them do what they said. There are insights there just waiting for them.

• Have client show you how they are feeling or seeing the situation through gesture. 
  • I think of this as a clever “hack” to get the client using their body. People are used to using their hands, and for clients who are less in touch with their bodies just showing a gesture may be more accessible. It also works great on Zoom!
  • When client is in touch with a new commitment, goal, or way of being, ask them for the gesture of that, and have them practice this during the day as a way to support this commitment (don’t forget to have client create a structure to remember this).

2) Use Movement

• Have client move to a new place in the room to see how things look from there. This is particularly helpful when you are working with reframing/exploring new perspectives. (Many coaches have shared that they love to ask their clients to look out the window.) 

• Do a “walk the talk” coaching session – that is, go for a walk and have your client do the same (either in person or simultaneously while on the phone). Movement brings oxygen to the brain and helps us find new ways to look at things. 

• Ask client to stand during the session instead of sitting at their desk (bonus points, coach does the same). This is one reason I prefer to coach over the phone–as a coach I like to move around my house. Tell the client to feel free to move as they might be inspired, and check in – where in your house or office are you now? What does this tell you? 

3) Use Interoception (Interoception is a lesser-known sense that helps you feel and understand what’s going on inside your body.)

• Ask clients to check in with their body during the coaching. For some, this question can create a “deer in the headlights” response, so I prefer to say something like this:
  • I’m going to ask you to focus your awareness on your core. What do you notice in your face, throat, chest, heart area, stomach? Any sensations there? How would you describe them? 
  • Go slow, and help the client tune their attention to these areas. 

• If client typically says they feel nothing, you don’t need to push it, but don’t give up either. Higher interoceptive abilities correlate with higher emotional regulation. Just bring it back gently from time to time and see if client can develop this ability. (All humans have internal sensations, but some are cut off from feeling them.)

• If/when client has interoceptive awareness, you can expand their awareness by asking questions about the sensation, for example:
  • How big is it? (I like to use a standard comparison, such as tablespoons, cups, balls, coins.)
  • What color is it?
  • What texture is it? 
  • What shape is it? 
  • Does it have a sound? 
  • You can repeat this sort of question, because often, the more attention that is given to an internal sensation, the more likely it is to change. 

These are just a few ideas for using the body in coaching–it’s also a great place for coaches to be creative in service of their client having more awareness, insight, and shifts in their life.

*If you’d like to understand more about how the body thinks and processes, I highly recommend Amanda Blake’s book, Your Body Is Your Brain.

Ways We Listen (and the Brain)

Listening…. perhaps the most important part of coaching, and one of the first things we learn. I remember what a revelation it was when I took my first coaching class and they taught me how to listen. Like many of you, it had never occurred to me that there were actually different ways!

We can listen self-referentially where it is “all about ME;”  we can listen intently to the other person, focusing on their words; and we can listen to the other person with a softer focus, including their energy, their body language, their tone, etc. 

Let’s take a look at what I think is happening in the brain in each way of listening, and why all three are absolutely critical for coaching.

Listening to Self — It’s all about ME. Me, do you hear me? ME!

Understanding that much of human conversation is two radio speakers blasting the “me” channel at each other can be such an eye-opener, and often just this piece of information changes people’s lives. And one of the blessings of my own life for many years has been hanging out with fellow coaches, who know how to be truly curious about another person. How to actually listen. What a relief. It’s what our clients come to us for, and for many of them, it is a transformational experience to actually be heard, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

Listening to self is all about running things through your own filters, judgments and opinions, and no good coach, no matter what coaching school they trained with, does this. Coaching is all about helping the client find their own answers, and we can’t do that if you are only listening to ourselves, where all we are doing is mapping what the client is saying onto our own experience.

But there is a way this sort of listening is part of the coaching dance. We actually have to use our own thoughts to inform how to listen to the client. I think of it visually as a series of circles, with self in the middle.

Here’s what is interesting about listening to self from a brain perspective. You have to include it. We never get away from our automatic self-referential thinking. In fact, if we did, we would not understand anything at all. This has to do with the fact that many of the neurons in our brain are “multi-modal.” That is, they fire if we do something, and they fire if we watch someone doing something, if we imagine something, and if we remember. Same neurons. You may have heard the saying “the brain doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination.” It’s so well understood that many athletes use visualization techniques to improve their performance, and there is vast evidence it works. They are strengthening their neural pathways by imagining the action just as they would by doing it. In fact, better — because they can imagine an even better performance than perhaps they are doing.

But what does this have to do with listening to self? Well, as neuroscientist Jerome Feldman, an expert on how the brain understands language, puts it: “if you cannot imagine someone picking up a glass, you can’t understand the meaning of ‘Someone picked up a glass.'” We have to actually imagine what we are being told in order to understand it. We simply have to run it through our own experience. In neuroscience terms, we “simulate” things in our own brain in order to make them meaningful.

We are simulating others’ experiences in our own brain all the time, but because much of our imagination and memory is not conscious, we aren’t aware we are doing it. Our brains are meaning-making machines. Anything anyone says to us we automatically and immediately try to understand through our own mental simulation. If you say to me “I kicked a ball” my motor neurons (and yours) for kicking a ball just fired. In fact, they fired as you read that sentence. You are not conscious of this, but if we had you in a brain scanner it’s what we would find.

I’ll wrap this up by saying that as coaches, we can’t help but listen to self all the time — and we wouldn’t want NOT to. It’s a gift.  The key is to be skillful with it. To develop our ability to discern what is understanding and what is judgment. And then coach from curiosity. When we listen only to self, all we are doing is responding from our own experience. It takes the other levels in harmony to truly coach.

Listening to Words

Let’s start with a poem:

Why Poetry? 

Helen Keller said
she came alive
when she learned her first word
water
Anne Sullivan traced it in her palm
over and over
while the wetness splashed around them
water
from a chaotic background of everything
jumbled and banging together all at once
came one thing
alone and distinct
water
and she, the girl, the being
was there
her conscious life
now possible

we need distinctions and clarity
we need to know where one thing starts
and another ends
we need to shape our amorphous feelings
into some sort of understanding
poems are our Anne Sullivans
tracing something
again and again
on the contours
of our mind

~Ann Betz

While this poem is titled “why poetry” it could just as well be called “why listen to words?” When we listen to the client’s words we listen carefully for specifics. We tune our attention to what we need to pull out from the background so it can be distinct, clear and understood. It is a pointed, present, focused listening. 

In terms of the brain, when we listen this way, we are probably listening somewhat more with the left hemisphere of the brain. The brain, as I am sure you know, has two hemispheres. It’s because as humans we walk upright and have a lot to process. The walking upright means our heads can’t just keep growing and growing to accommodate a larger and larger brain, so our brains specialize by hemisphere. 

The big picture on the two hemispheres is that the left hemisphere is attuned to the details in our environment while the right is more focused on the big picture. Things like language and emotion and creativity, long thought to be “in” one hemisphere or the other, actually overlap into both, although they are dealt with very differently. The right hemisphere sees the big picture but not the details, the left sees the details but not the big picture.

When focus on listening to the words our left brain gets activated to pull out the figure from the background. When you do a word search puzzle, your left brain is what finds the particular word in the sea of letters. The right brain would only be able to see a bunch of lines and — here’s what’s really important – wouldn’t be able to make meaning of them. In Jill Bolte Taylor’s wonderful TED talk and book, My Stroke of Insight, she talks about having a stroke that took out much of her left brain. When she needed to make a phone call, she couldn’t recognize the numbers. She had to match them one by one from a business card in order to make a phone call, a long and painful process. Without her left hemisphere, the numbers had no meaning.

When we listen intently to the client’s words, we listen carefully for what is important and distinct and meaningful for the client. Sometimes this is a bit like doing a word search as they pour out their lives to us. And often when we reflect back “what we heard” such as a key value, longing, or frustration they are amazed and ask us how we got that from what they said! And then, in the coaching relationship, meaning and understanding emerge for the client, as well as goals and forward action. 

Listening to Everything

Here’s a story from Nietzsche: There was once a wise spiritual master, who was the ruler of a small but prosperous domain, and who was known for his selfless devotion to his people. As his people flourished and grew in number, the bounds of this small domain spread; and with it the need to trust implicitly the emissaries he sent to ensure the safety of its ever more distant parts. It was not just that it was impossible for him personally to order all that needed to be dealt with: as he wisely saw, he needed to keep his distance from, and remain ignorant of, such concerns. And so he nurtured and trained carefully his emissaries, in order that they could be trusted. Eventually, however, his cleverest and most ambitious vizier, the one he trusted most to do his work, began to see himself as the master, and used his position to advance his own wealth and influence. He saw his master’s temperance and forbearance as weakness, not influence, and on his missions on his master’s behalf, adopted his mantle as his own – the emissary became contemptuous of his master. And so it came about that the master was usurped, the people were duped, the domain became a tyranny; and eventually it collapsed in ruins. 

There is a wonderful book by Iain McGilchrist called The Master and his Emissary, which explores our divided brain. McGilchrist’s take — and I wholeheartedly agree — is that the right hemisphere, with its connected, global focus is truly the master, while the left hemisphere, with its more analytical focus, is its emissary. Or should be, at any rate. In our society we seem to have very much turned this around.

The third way we listen, to everything, includes the first two ways, but is bigger and more global. It is like the master in the story. It takes in everything — that which is being said and that which is not said. It takes in everything going on around the conversation as well. The dog barking, the phone that cuts out or becomes full of static (I used to live by a railroad track. The trains only went by twice a day, but it seemed always at just the perfect time to underline something happening in the coaching).

When we listen to everything we soften our focus into a bit of right brain dominance and take it all in. And here’s an interesting fun fact for you: you may have heard that we have neurons in our heart and our gut. Talk about an embodied brain! Anyway, we do. But here is the thing — this information is somewhat more available to right hemisphere, which is more attuned to that which is new. This may be why it comes to us sort of vague and out of focus. Or why we get an image or a color or a sound. This is the language of the right brain, not words. And it’s why we need the left brain — listening to words — to help.

I love this line in the story: It was not just that it was impossible for him personally to order all that needed to be dealt with: as he wisely saw, he needed to keep his distance from, and remain ignorant of, such concerns. In order to take in all the information the right brain takes in, it can’t possibly focus on all the small details. It needs the help of the left brain to do this.

Integrating the Levels

There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.
~Arnold Bennet

I’ve been wracking my own brain trying to think of an analogy for how the three ways of listening (and the brain) work together. For some reason I keep thinking of a family at the zoo.

One wise parent (the Right Brain) is watching everything, aware and vigilant and taking it all in. This parent can’t really talk, so they use other means of communication. The other parent (The Left Brain) is looking at specific things, enjoying a particular monkey playing, for example. This parent is probably also reading all the scientific names and habitat information! And their child is acting out the animals themselves, making monkey noises, and putting their body in the shape of an elephant or giraffe. The child is always on the side of Righty, where Lefty can’t see it. So Righty has to poke Lefty or find other ways to get Lefty’s attention so Lefty can understand and explain what the child is doing, learning and understanding.

(Whew. Sometimes metaphors can be a bit strained! Let me say right now that this is a highly imperfect way of looking at how the brain and listening work, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.)

One way to think about listening in the coaching relationship is to think of the three ways of listening as different aspects of the brain. If we think of listening to self as the active child in this analogy, this is the part of our brain that makes sense of things through our own experience. As I mentioned,  we use the same part of our brain to think about other people as we do to think about ourselves. This child is experiencing the zoo by experiencing it, understanding what is going on by imitation and embodiment. What does it feel like to be an elephant? Let me try it! 

When we do this as coaches (and in general in human relationships) we do it pre- or sub-consciously. We map things onto our own experience in order to understand. And if we can’t do this, to a great degree, we can’t really understand. In other words we need to listen to self — but as coaches, we must be responsible for it. Acting like an elephant is of course not the same as being an elephant — this is where the otherways of listening and the importance of curiosity come in.

If we think of listening to words  as the second parent in this analogy, this is our Left Brain. It is attempting to understand the world by focusing on one thing at a time, gathering information, and analyzing. In coaching, we use this way of listening to hone in on things. To help our client see the monkey of their purpose in all the foliage of their life. 

But this aspect of the brain doesn’t connect well with the child, with the embodied understanding. The child’s wisdom comes to the other parent, the Right Brain, or listening to everything in this analogy. This parent is watching everything all at once and nothing in particular. And while the Left Brain parent can’t see everything, this parent (the Right Brain) can’t speak very well. So they look for ways to poke the other parent, both in terms of the interesting things the child is picking up on as well as the other things in the environment they are sensing. Then the Left Brain parent can speak about them, and focus them in a way that is helpful to the coaching client.

It’s a partnership, and I think the most effective coaching happens when this family is harmoniously exploring together. We never want to break them up, even though each member may lead the way at times. We need them all to work with our clients, to understand the world, and to enjoy the zoo.

.

The Power of Choosing a Perspective

(W)hen people are allowed to make their own choices, they feel empowered and alive. When we have no choice…our energy ebbs.”

~Rock and Page, Coaching with the Brain in Mind

Most coaches are trained to assist the client in shifting a limiting or stuck perspective, or in neuroscience terms, reappraising a circumstance for emotional regulation (emotional regulation being a neuroscience term for calming the heck down). As we all know, while there are things in life that we can’t necessarily change, we do have the power to shift how we look at them, and that can often be very empowering, freeing, and even transformational. In fact, one of my neuroscience instructors once said he thought the ability to change our perspective is the single most important life skill for resiliency he could think of.

By opening to new possibilities, coaches can help the client come to a place of choice and develop actions and accountabilities from there. While the idea of reappraisal can be used very simply by asking a question such as “what would be another way of looking at that?” often the client needs a more comprehensive process when they are feeling stuck. Best practice in helping coaching clients find a new, more empowering way of looking at things might follow this sort of process*:

1. Start with first clarifying the concept that having a perspective on something may be limiting their choices, and, as mentioned above, while we may not be able to change all circumstances, we can change our view of them.
2. Next, get very clear on what their topic is. This is critical to the process because often a perspective in embedded in the topic and for this method of coaching to work, they need to be pulled apart. For example, “Not being far enough in my career,” is a perspective (not being far enough) on a topic (my career).
3. Help the client identify and explore their current perspective–this is important so that client has the chance to bring to the surface and be present to where they are. The current perspective may not be in full awareness unless you do this, and may feel to the client as simply “how it is.” Exploration of the topic might include having the client check in on how the perspective makes them feel, what they think, say or do when they look at their topic from here) embody the perspective (how they stand, sit or move in this perspective), and/or check in with their internal state as they look at their topic from this perspective.
4. Help the client “try on” and explore a series of different perspectives. What would their topic potentially look like from different viewpoints? Have client explore each one as in #3 above. It can be helpful to have the client move their body physically to a new place in the room with each new perspective.
5. After ideally exploring at least two new perspectives (an experienced coach trainer once told me that less than that feels to the clients like options rather than choices), the coach asks the client to choose the perspective that feels empowering, one they can honestly stand in going forward. The coach then helps the client create an action plan from this new perspective and the client moves into action and reports back to the coach.

Each aspect of this process helps our clients to become calmer and more centered. In steps three and four, the client is allowed to notice that both their the initial perspective as well as subsequent “optional” perspectives are, as neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner says, “interpretation(s) of the world that need not define (them).” An expert in cognitive reappraisal and emotional regulation, Ochsner notes in one paper that “amygdala activity drops during reappraisal, suggesting that reappraisal is successful in changing what the amygdala ‘sees’ – that is, it no longer detects an arousing and aversive event.” The amygdala — a small almond shaped part of the brain in the limbic area — plays a critical role in scanning for threats and activating “fight or flight” mode, thus, keeping it calm is an important aspect of emotional regulation.

Additionally, when the client is asked to notice their body’s responses as well as their thoughts and attitudes in each perspective, it brings in an aspect of mindfulness as (ideally) the client simply focuses attention on what is there, describing it without judgment. The research on mindfulness and attention suggests that even something as simple as focusing on what is right here, right now, can be highly beneficial in managing stress and regulating the brain.

Sometimes coaches get into a place of wanting to help the client find the “right” new perspective as they explore possibilities, but this actually isn’t needed. Generally, the client’s thinking is becoming more flexible and open as the process continues, leaving them more able to find an empowering way forward. This is because the act of trying on a new way of looking at something recruits activity in the prefrontal cortex — they have to actively think about it — and when the prefrontal cortex is activated, it typically secretes GABA, which is a powerful inhibitory neurotransmitter. In other words, the impact of stress diminishes as perspectives are explored.

Another interesting thing to note is that many studies have shown that we have a marked preference for the status quo when making decisions, as the brain saves energy when it can do and think what it has already done and thought. When the client is asked to “try on,” that is, somatically, emotionally and intellectually inhabit, a number of new perspectives, it creates new potential neural pathways. This is why spending some time exploring each perspective helps the client. It’s fairly well validated that our brains don’t “know” the difference between what is real and what is imagined (for example, releasing stress hormones when watching a scary movie even though we ourselves are not being threatened in any way), it makes sense that imagining with powerful resonance a new way of looking at something feels to the brain as if it is real.** Thus, when the client is asked to make a choice, it could be that the status quo bias has been moderated somewhat and they are actually truly able to choose more freely.

When the client actively chooses a new perspective, this tends to reinterpret the meaning of the issue or event in a way that changes its emotional impact. Again, this drops activity in the amygdala, thus enabling the client to see more clearly their options and create a plan for achieving them. In addition, the deep and thoughtful process for identifying, embodying, and choosing outlined above inevitably brings the client to a new state of calmness, creativity and insight.

Anecdotal evidence (and my own experience in working with reappraisal for over ten years) also shows that the essential neuroplasticity of the brain enables us to build what seem to be neural pathways for reappraisal. In other words, coaches report that their more experienced clients have learned to automatically reappraise a situation, showing up on a coaching call saying things like,  “I got hooked, but then I told myself to look at it another way.” I myself have seen my ability to reappraise go from a conscious, often laborious process to become almost instantaneous when I encounter a stressor. For example, I used to fume when cut off in traffic. Now I find myself thinking “That’s ok, two seconds won’t make any difference to me and I am glad there was no accident.”

Happy reappraising, everyone!

---

* This is based on the process taught by The Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) called “Balance Coaching”
**The power of visualization is well-known in the world of sports, where it common for athletes to imagine a golf swing or ski run prior to competition. It is likely we have not even begun to tap the potential of this aspect of our brains. In The Brain that Changes Itself,  Norman Doidge cites numerous studies proving the power of visualization, from enhancing piano expertise to actually developing stronger muscles. (Doidge, 2007)

People Are Naturally Creative, Resourceful and Whole; Paradoxes and Complexity

Originating with Carl Rogers (founder of the humanistic approach to psychology) in the 1960s, the idea of “naturally creative, resourceful and whole (NCRW)” has become fundamental to professional coaching. But what does this mean? Is it a way to approach a coaching client? A perspective/belief about people? Or a fundamental truth about humanity? Let’s look at each of these, which I think will surface the paradoxes within.

ONE: Holding people as NCRW is an important way to approach a coaching client. To me, this fundamentally means that they have their own answers and it is not the coach’s job to give advice or fix things for them. It also means that, unlike therapists, coaches don’t diagnose their clients. We don’t label people, put them in boxes, or assume we know who they are or what is best for them. Powerful stuff and often revolutionary for the client. Humans are so used to giving and receiving advice that to be asked to tap into our own creativity and resourcefulness can really turn our heads around. And when we are asked, rather than told, we have to look within to find depths of ourselves we often were not previously aware of.

The science of this one is strong. Social science has shown that when we are treated as having autonomy and wisdom, we generally rise to the occasion. Neuroscience shows asking people what they want to do activates a “toward” state in the brain, lighting up areas associated with creativity, learning, and openness.* We want this in our coaching clients, because these are the ingredients for change. Also, when we hold them NCRW and they need to find their own answers, we are activating their neural networks and creating positive neuroplasticity. As one of my coaching students once said to me “Holding people as NCRW means the light bulb needs to go off in their head, not mine!”

TWO: People are NCRW is a perspective/belief. This aspect carries the coaching view into day-to-day life. When we operate from this belief, we treat those around us as having their own answers and their own direction. For example, having learned this concept when my son was about four, I did my best to raise him from this perspective. When people asked me what that meant to me as a parent, I said it was a few things. One, his accomplishments are his, not mine. Two, his failures are his, not mine. Three, he has the right to make his own age-appropriate decisions based on what he wants for his life. Four, my job as a parent is to help him get the information and experiences necessary to make those decisions. Five, I am always here for him as one of his key resources to call on, and he knows that.

Holding this perspective about most people in my life not only makes them feel more empowered (I hope), it saves me from carrying the world’s weight upon my shoulders. I don’t need to take on other’s problems, but, just like with my son, I can be a resource for my friends to help process and sort things out. And honestly, I prefer being treated this way by the people around me as well. I like when my people assume I am NCRW–most of the time. Which brings us to the third point.

THREE: People are NCRW is a fundamental truth about humanity. Ok, things get sticky here in my opinion. Because you know what? As powerful as this is as way to hold coaching clients and even a perspective to live from, I don’t see it as a fundamental truth. The science simply doesn’t hold up. Carl Rogers proposed this as his belief about people, not his research-based findings. And back to the first and second points, it is a lovely, powerful and even revolutionary belief most of the time. But it’s a belief, and that is different from a verified truth.

In my opinion, coaches (as well as many spiritual folks) tend to take this as an absolute truth. People are NCRW. They are all capable of change and growth. They just need to be held in love, given a chance, supported, asked the right questions, etc. Carl Rogers certainly believed this,** but the data does not support it. (Which is, I have to say, kind of sad.)

What do I mean by the data not supporting this? Well, for example, there are personalities who are so disrupted by childhood experiences and/or genetic heritage that they don’t have the a) the motivation and b) the ability to grow and develop. (See The Broken Mug Metaphor.) And honestly, we don’t need to diagnose folks to recognize this. We can look at their behavior. Are they typically conflictual and defensive? Do they always play the victim card and seem to be unable to take any responsibility? Do they act entitled? Are they habitually unable to regulate their emotions? Do they consistently fail to honor promises? When we are dealing with someone who displays these characteristics most of the time, real, sustained change is highly unlikely (and these, by the way, are core traits of people who score high in narcissism).

People who specialize in treating those high in narcissism (if and when they even seek treatment, which is rare because they typically don’t see themselves as the problem), such as Dr. Ramani Durvasula, say that in order for these folks to truly heal, grow and change, it would take an almost superhuman effort. Years of therapy and the kind of self-reflection, taking responsibility, and understanding of having an internal locus of control that is completely foreign to their personality type– as well as the way they have constructed the world. Is it possible? Yes, with years of work. Is it likely? No.

There are other mental health issues that also call into question the idea of everyone being NCRW, such as schizophrenia, severe depression, debilitating addiction, etc. Maybe in these cases the useful question is, in what way is this person NCRW? (Also a great question for parenting.)

And what about the rest of us? Are we always NCRW no matter what? I’m not. Sometimes I can’t see what is going on right under my nose, and I need my people to point it out, not just ask me what I think I should do. It’s rare, but sometimes I honestly need someone to jump in with some home truths and unsolicited advice. And yes, we can parse words here, but in terms of the idea that I have my own answers, I don’t always.

For example, there was the time I found myself in an abusive relationship and, like many targets, couldn’t see it. I kept telling myself it was getting better, it wasn’t so bad, he was doing his best, etc. My friends could see it though. But because they are all coaches, bless them, they just kept supporting me in my choices. Finally, one day in frustration my business partner said “You’re bringing your bad relationship into our relationship!” and it was like a bucket of cold water over my head. I woke up. I remember thinking in that moment, “Holy shit, she’s right. I do have a bad relationship! I’m one of those people with a bad relationship. I’m living in a delusion.” I treasure that moment.

FOUR (Bonus): We can hold a paradox between people being NCRW on the spiritual level and being NCRW on the human level. This one is a personal favorite and the way I resolve the paradox sometimes. As a deeply spiritual person, there is part of me that wants so badly to believe in the goodness of all people. And yet, I now realize that this belief is a bit naive and was even part of what kept me stuck in a relationship with an abusive man. So human level sometimes means giving up on people because they are just not honestly committed to (or capable of) real change. We need to have good boundaries with some people who don’t treat others well and are not devoting their energy to creating a better world. And we can still hold them in love on the spiritual level, understanding that perhaps they still are NCRW, but only on a soul level.

And thus, this is my best attempt at understanding both the power of NCRW and the paradox of what it may truly mean.

—————————-

* For example, see: A Case Study of the “Pygmalion Effect”: Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1066376.pdf and Coaching With Compassion Lights Up Human Thoughts https://sites.bu.edu/ombs/2010/11/21/coaching-with-compassion-lights-up-human-thoughts/

**A good article on Carl Rogers’ views can be found here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html

Why Coaches Really Do Need to be Credentialed

Note: In this post I talk about credentialing for coaches, and I specify the International Coaching Federation (ICF). This is not the only legitimate credentialing body, just the one I am most familiar with, the most well-recognized credential internationally, and the credential I myself hold. There are other credentialing bodies and some good coaching programs also offer their own credential.

As a dyed in the wool rebel, I am surprising myself a bit in writing this post. Although I have been a credentialed coach through the International Coaching Federation for my entire 20+ year career, I always saw it as more of a pro forma thing. That is, necessary because I train coaches and write about coaching (not to mention my years consulting for the ICF itself). It wasn’t the thing that defined me as a coach.

But more and more recently, I have developed a great deal of respect for the fact that we, as coaches, can be credentialed, and I have decided that yes, indeed, we should. Let me tell you why. If any of you follow my sister blog on narcissism, But Now I Know Your Name, you’ll know I have experience with the whole world of toxic personalities, as well as a passion for education and healing all forms of relational trauma and abuse.

Because of this, I pay attention to all the ways people encounter and are manipulated by toxic personalities. This includes in the workplace, families, intimate partnerships, friendships, religious organizations, and cults. Why? The patterns are highly consistent and the negative impact very similar. And one thing I have noticed and become more and more concerned about is how many new age cults (such as the now-discredited NXIVM, just to name one example) use the term “coaches” for the one-to-one “work” (aka manipulation) sanctioned as part of the way they profess to help people develop.

I also recently listened to an interview on the wonderful podcast A Little Bit Culty. The guest had worked with a non-credentialed “life coach” for over 30 years. This person was so manipulative and coercive it left her severely traumatized — to the point that a professional giving her a neurological assessment called adult protective services.

Let me be clear — this is not coaching as an ICF credentialed coach would understand it. These “coaches” are not trained according to the ICF Core Competencies, and they are not required to follow internationally recognized ethical guidelines. They are, in my opinion, a frightening example of the looseness of the term coach.

Why frightening? Because without adequate training and ethical guidelines, anything can happen. As a neuroscience expert, I know that the way true professional coaches are trained is validated by brain research. If we follow the competencies and ethical standards, we are highly likely to create a positive, open, healthy brain state in our client. Because a core concept of professional coaching is that people are naturally creative, resourceful and whole, coaches do not dictate to their clients. And if a credentialed coach is manipulative and coercive, the client has recourse through the ICF ethical standards board.

But as anyone who works in the human development world knows, anyone can call themselves a coach. And to be fair, the term existed far before the idea of life or executive coaching became a thing about 30 years ago. But in this time we have evolved into a respectable profession with a track record of both ethics and results.

And so, if you are a coach, I do recommend being credentialed, whether it is by the ICF or another legitimate credentialing body or program with rigorous training and an ethical code. It helps differentiate you and protects our profession. If you hire coaches as part of an organization, make sure they have credentials. It protects you and your employees. And if you are personally looking for a coach, make asking about their credentials, training and ethical standards your very first questions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ann Betz is the co-founder of BEabove Leadership and an expert on the intersection of neuroscience, coaching, trauma and human transformation. She speaks, trains and coaches internationally, and writes about neuroscience and coaching as well as relational trauma. Ann is also a published poet who loves cats, rain in the desert, and healthy relationships. 

To order her book, This is Your Brain on Coaching, the Neuroscience of the ICF Competencies, click here.

Some Thoughts About HOW to Coach Around Trauma

Trauma and Coaching Series Part Three (Click here for Part One and here for Part Two of this series)

Relational trauma tends to create feelings of cognitive dissonance, shame and doubt. Many types of trauma can bypass cognitive functions and lodge in the body, creating implicit memories that are not connected to narrative memory. Even short-term trauma can disrupt memory areas of the brain, creating a sort of protective amnesia where details aren’t remembered or tracked. It’s common for a client to have false self-blaming beliefs and stories about the trauma that they have reinforced by excessive rumination. (It’s interesting to note that when people ruminate and blame themselves it can actually create somewhat of a feeling of control—this happened because I did X, so I won’t ever do X again.) In this post, we’ll look at both what to do and what not to do in coaching.

In general, clients healing from trauma tend to need:

1. To safely experience their full and complete current emotional state, including body sensations, emotions, thought patterns, etc.
   
   If the client is stable in their observer mind (see Part Two of this series on WHO to coach), they may find that a trusting coaching relationship is a safe place to explore their current emotional state. Even just talking things through with someone who is fully present and holding space with curiosity can be extremely helpful in the healing/integration process. And because trauma tends to live in the body, using embodiment techniques can help, in the words of embodiment expert Amanda Blake, to “surface the invisibles.” It’s very common for a traumatized client to not know what they don’t know. Their body has been partnering in helping them operate in the world as “fine,” while often still holding their tension, anxiety, anger and fear.
   
   
2. To learn ways to self-regulate their central nervous system as difficult emotions and sensations arise.
   
   Helping the client exploring sensations within their “window of tolerance” (see Part Two of this series for more on this important concept) is often a good first step in learning to self-regulate. Other techniques such as simple breath work, stress management techniques, and again, embodiment, can also help client become less “at effect” of their emotions and sensations.
   
   
3. To find and reinforce a story that creates an empowering narrative, without doing a “spiritual bypass.”
   
   Depending on the stage of healing and intensity of trauma, many coaching tools are designed to help clients surface and address limiting or false beliefs and reframe stuck perspectives. The strategy of reframing (sometimes called reappraisal) is one of the most powerful stress reducers we have available, and for clients healing from relational trauma can be a key part of the journey.
   
   
4. And sometimes to explore ways to get their central nervous system more regulated without having to tell the story.
   
   Sometimes helping clients explore ways to manage stress and discomfort without going into the story is the best strategy for the stage the client is in. A coach can also work with client to explore and move froward in areas of life unrelated to the trauma, gaining confidence and self-esteem in the process.

What NOT to Do

There is a lot we can do in coaching, but perhaps just as importantly, we need to look at what NOT to do:

1. Push the client outside their window of tolerance during the coaching.
2. Treat the abuse as a “compatibility” issue, a “bad break-up” or minimize the pathological behavior of the abuser.
3. Interrupt key features of the healing process by trying to get the survivor to “heal” quickly.
4. Make the victim responsible for the actions of the abuser.
5. Mistake the abuser as well-intentioned and communicate this to the survivor.
6. Refer without being sure referral partner is relational-trauma trained.