It is important that you and your client are clear on the boundaries of your coaching relationship, especially if you are friends, colleagues or family members. This includes how you will treat confidential or sensitive information and if you may have to escalate something if you fear for somebody’s safety. Coaching is not counselling or therapy, nor is it advice, and it helps to be clear about that.

It is important that you keep the content of sessions confidential and respect people’s privacy.

You may need to recommend a client seeks professional help. We will update this section to include places you may want to signpost to your client but their GP is always a good place to start.

To fully discharge your responsibility around confidentiality, GDPR and people’s wellbeing you may want to use a consent form, you can find a template in the GDPR section.

Make sure you have discharged your responsibilities around complying with GDPR, this includes getting consent for storage of recordings and notes. We have a template for wording you can download here.

If you are planning to record your sessions you must get the consent of the other person. This should be done at the start of the call.

This is a descriptive exploration about how the mind works NOT a ‘How To’. You are not giving advice or solving their issues.

Be clear about what is really on offer with your clients. As we have said, coaching isn’t about fixing somebody’s problems or giving them advice. Many people don’t realise what is actually on offer for them and unless you point that out, they won’t orientate themselves towards it.

In understanding more about the universal principles of the human mind people are able to access their innate capacity to create, get things done and experience freedom of mind.

We are in the business of waking people up to their own greatness. We explore this understanding with people so that they can experience transformation in their lives through insight and realisation. What’s on offer is to thrive, not just survive.

It may help to open with an informal discussion, to set the scene and understand what they are looking for. Be clear on expectations from both you and the participant.

It helps to be explicit about how you are going to work, your roles and what you are trying to achieve. This is the deal.

You can keep going back to this deal and make adjustments where and when needed. You can “check in” with the deal every time you meet in a light way, if appropriate.

Make sure you are both clear on your roles.

By roles we mean:

• Your role: to be open, listen and be in service, look for your own insight. To point them to their own design for success and insights and if necessary disrupt their thinking

• Their role: to be open and look where you are pointing. To be reflective and look for insights and realisations.

Your role is not to solve their issues!

Insight is the currency of transformative coaching. Your clients insights will be the source of their transformation and your insights will help you point them to theirs.

Look to your own grounding, what do you see in this moment is universally true for everyone?

If you’re not awake and conscious, it’s really hard to help other people.

Being aware of your own grounding will give you the space to deepen it leaving you better capable of sharing this understanding with others.

Show up and be present with your client. Be aware of how the human mind really works.

We all have a living intelligence that allows us to have insight, learn, be resilient in any moment.

Remind yourself of this in the moment. Are you pointing them to it?

We know the power of your grounding first and foremost shows up in your presence. Being centred in your understanding of the principles allows you to be a transformational presence that others will tune to before you even speak.

Take the pressure off! Remember that your job is not to have or give an insight to a client. You are simply pointing them in a direction they may not have considered before and creating a space for them to have realisations for themselves.

E.g. you are a tour guide showing someone else around your favourite city. You aren’t imparting your wisdom but rather directing them to notice what you’ve found useful/helpful.

How are you listening to your client? Where is your ego in the conversation?

Be aware of how much of your own personal narrative is involved as you’re listening. Noticing any interference will increase the potential for you to have an insight in service of your client.

Get clarity on what it is your client wants to get out of their time with you.

They will be looking for change in the content of their life - that’s fine. In the main, a game changer would be to create something new or remove something they don’t want in their life anymore.

This is something you will have asked when making a deal with them and is in service of them to check in each time to see what would be helpful for them in that moment.

It is in service of your client to nudge them to what is really on offer. What would the thing they want really bring them?

E.g. fixing a relationship at work would bring them joy, productivity and more time.

We know the power of transformation lies in the Mechanics. Understanding the Three Principles leads to realisation and transformation. It is in service of your client to understand the relevance of their content and programming and then pointing them underneath that to how it really works.

It’s not in service to get ‘stuck in the tar’ of their content but nudge them to see the mechanics of what it is they want/are struggling with.

When somebody’s mind is very noisy it is difficult for them to ‘hear’ they’re own insights. If you notice your client has a really noisy mind, it might be more helpful to start there rather than leaping in to the content.

You might have to ask someone what is going on for them.

It helps to know how your client sees the world, how reflective they are and if they are interested in exploring how the mind works (or if they just want to fix their problem). Your understanding of this will help you shape the conversation with them.

People get stuck when they have a misunderstanding about how their mind works. Look for insight for yourself on what your client may not have realised about their mind.

E.g. they don’t realise we all have separate realities.

Once you’ve got a sense of what your client has misunderstood about how their mind works, it’s helpful to look for insight on what they could realise about their situation.

E.g. it would be helpful for them realise we all have separate realities.

In our experience most people get stuck in one of these three misunderstandings:

• The world works outside-in

• It is normal to feel less than completely at peace

• Our intellect is smarter than the intelligence of life

Talk to us if you’d like to explore this further.

Respond in the moment to what comes up with your client.

As a suggestion, this can often look like

• Pointing them back to their default, settled state

• Teaching, questioning and listening

• Postponing a session if needed

• Going with the flow.

The ability to do this develops with your art and skill

Continuously respond to your client in the moment. What may be in service of them one time may not the next. Be explicit and look for insight for what may be in service of them moment to moment.

Knowing the power of insight and being familiar with letting your wisdom nudge you along will create the conditions for both you and your client to look for insight allowing them to see for themselves the intelligence of their own system and their innate ability to seeing something fresh.

We want to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Part of creating the conditions for your client to have an insight is disrupting their thinking and showing them their own potential to see something differently/get out of their own way.

The rapport and connection you build with you client is part of you creating the conditions your client to have insights.

Point out when your client has a realisation.

Have they realised something or understood it intellectually? Nudge them to see the power of realisation in service of them seeing more for themselves. People often bank their realisations and actually taking some time to look at the implications fo a realisation can really help land it for people.