You Are The Curriculum: What my car woes have in common with coaching

I’m sitting in the lobby of my auto mechanic as I write this. It’s my second time here today.  It’s only 9 in the morning.

I originally came here at 8 - right when they opened - because over the weekend, my car had started consistently making an unavoidable noise when I accelerated. It seemed important to fix, and I have places to go this week, so I cleared my schedule and made sure I was at the shop first thing.

There was only one problem. This morning, after a weekend of noise-making, my car was silent. 

No matter how powerfully I pressed on the gas pedal, no weird noises were produced. So, even though I had experienced the noise over the weekend, even though I moved meetings to make this happen, even though I was first in line - they couldn’t help me. 

It’s not that they didn’t believe me. But in the absence of any blaring physical issues with my car, and without an obvious symptom for them to experience, they didn’t have the information they needed to help me and my car.

Sure, I could leave my car for them for 2-3 days for them to do a lengthy and blind inspection that may or may not tell them anything. But as I mentioned, I have places to be this week. And so, I decided to leave with my car.

While driving home, my car started making the noises again so I drove back, and they are looking at it now. 

But that’s not the point of this story. The point is that this same situation pops up in coaching. And my experience at the mechanic today perfectly highlights why there can be so many misunderstandings, unclear expectations, questions, and even disappointments around how coaching works and what needs to occur for a client to experience results.

What’s the plan, Stan?

The number one question I get when I meet with prospective clients is, “What will our work together look like?” This is both a very easy and very difficult question to answer. 

Most clients come to me with at least one area of life or project they want to work on - changing their career, building a business, finding more satisfaction in life. And yet, at least half of the time, the key to accessing what they want exists in an area of their life or way of being that they don’t raise as a focus. 

This is kind of the point. Isn’t it?

I only work with intelligent people with a decent level of self-awareness. So, I’m assuming that if there’s an area of life they want to improve, they’ve already done a decent amount of self-investigation around what could possibly be holding them back. 

A part of my job is to help locate and shed light on the blindspots. And if you’re coming to work with me, chances are you aren’t providing me a full list of your blindspots. Otherwise they wouldn’t be your blindspots. 

So, we wait. Actively. We work with what you bring. We poke around. And sometimes - oftentimes - another previously hidden theme emerges.

This is like the noise in my car. Once it appears, we can do something about it. But until then, any diagnosis or plan is a best guess - and may distract from the actual work that there is to be done.

Return on Investment

The number one question I hear from people in general is, “How do I figure out of a coach actually going to help?” 

This is an incredibly valid question, especially these days as the past couple years have brought an online coaching boom. You don’t need to go far to hear piles of horror stories about shiny, seemingly reputable coaches with promises and testimonials coming out of their ears who, upon receipt of payment, were suddenly non-responsive, delivered boilerplate or even stolen content, and unfortunately in many cases, became dogmatic, combative, or abusive with their clients. 

Under this lens, the idea of “you and your life are the curriculum for our work together” might seem suspicious. And I hear that. If I were paying a lot of money to sign up with a coach primarily due to their online presence, without ever actually having a coaching conversation with them, and they were making grandiose yet blatant promises about my income and lifestyle potential - I would have questions too if they then said that I was going to set the curriculum.

The reality is that in the midst of all the noise and confusion, there is a middle ground. It’s this middle ground that I look for with anyone I personally am seeking to hire. It’s also what I recommend for others to seek out when they ask me how to choose a coach. 

It looks like this.

It’s possible for someone to tell you how they are going to work with you in a way that makes you feel supported without making magical promises about your outcome. It’s possible for someone to both hold an overarching vision and structure for you while giving you the space to explore other areas of your life in service to that larger vision. It’s possible for someone to tell you that they don’t have a full plan outlined for the entire scope of your work together, but to share with you what they currently see, what they’re going to be looking out for, and what tools they will be drawing on. 

It’s possible for an auto mechanic, instead of taking your money and your car to “fix” something that they really aren’t sure about, to be honest about what is and is not possible and what they can and can’t promise. 

Would it feel better in the moment to have a promise, a certainty, and the mirage of productivity? Sure! 

But that’s not why most of us hire coaches, auto mechanics, or any other service providers. Most of us hire these people to help us experience the best results in the least amount of time, and oftentimes, for the least amount of money. 

And for that to occur, clarity and honesty - no matter how momentarily annoying that clarity and honesty might feel - is key.