“My Wife Hired a Hitman to Kill Me”… Craziest Coaching Session Ever

Craziest Coaching Session Ever…

It started with Russian mail-order bride and a hitman…

_{Don’t dive in the water with your client unless you want to drown.}

…but I’ll get to that in a moment.

If you want to save someone from drowning, you can’t jump into the water with them…

…or you will both go under.

It’s the same when you’re trying to coach someone.

If you “jump into the water” with your client…

you lose the ability to be objective enough to help them.

Yet we do it all the time.

Like in this crazy coaching session…

It was a free coaching session I ran for a 70 year old man…

And I dove head first into the water with him…

He was ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’.

(That was my thought at least…)

And as I tried to remain objective…

…he told me one of the craziest stories I’d ever heard in a free session.

He was recently divorced from a Russian mail order bride…

…after discovering that she was about to hire a hitman to kill him.

Russian mail-order bride hires hitman? — _{My client had an interesting situation to say the least!}

I’ll spare you the gory details…

Bottom line… he was afraid for his life.

So while his wife was visiting her family in Russia…

…he contacted the authorities and she was not allowed to return to the U.S.

What a relief…

But the whole time he’s telling me this story, I’m thinking…

“This sounds like something from James Bond.”

What kind of man orders his wife through the MAIL??”

“He’s a well educated, successful businessman… how can he be so stupid?”

“He should know better.”

But that was only the beginning…

Now he was in the process of trying to find another mail order bride…

This time from Thailand…

Someone in her 20’s…

His adult children were trying to stop him.

“Damn straight,” I thought.

“They’re trying to keep him from getting killed.”

And now he wanted my help?

For what, I don’t know…

…because I got so caught up in his story that I couldn’t think straight.

I got so caught up in his story that I couldn’t think straight.“

I had jumped into the water…

…my thoughts were swirling around.

…and I was drowning in drama.

…instead of discovering the mindset that drove his actions.

I was a deer in the headlights…

…and I sat there…

Frozen…

…not making any real difference.

I asked him a few token questions…

…like “what are you going to do?”

But, mostly I just listened to him, dumbstruck.

He decided not to let his family get in the way of his marriage strategy…

…resolving to no longer worry about his family’s judgements.

So I guess he did get some value…

But not because of anything I did…

You could’ve replaced me with a lamppost!

As Steve Chandler has shared, even a lousy coach provides value, just like a lamppost can be valuable in a coaching role.

How does the lamppost stand in for a coach?

Let’s suppose that your coaching client went out to a lamppost at night and talked about his problems, hopes, and dreams…

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Even though the lamppost doesn’t ask any questions, or provide strategies…

The client can’t help but glean some insights, ideas, and solutions from his “conversation with the lamppost”.

Point being… In this session, I wouldn’t say I was any better than the lamppost.

How could I have done better?

I should have been more curious…

I could have coached him to…

…reinvent his relationships with his family.

…identify his key limiting beliefs when it comes to relationships with women.

…transform his dating strategy.

Because it’s not your job to fix your client… It’s your job to empower them…”
Dr. Colette Coiner, PCC

I could’ve discovered his needs and what he really wanted…

But I didn’t do any of those things.

And as a result…

He didn’t enroll into coaching with me.

And he didn’t really transform his life at all.

I FAILED him because I was too busy wrapping my head around the story…
…reacting to a drama that I didn’t want to understand.“

I FAILED him because I was too busy wrapping my head around the story…

…reacting to a drama that I didn’t want to understand.

So, how do you avoid this?

Here’s How to Avoid Getting Caught up in a Client’s Drama

There are 2 pitfalls that every coach must navigate in order to stay above client drama.

Pitfall #1: Getting caught up in your client’s stuff… buying into their beliefs and their story.

Pitfall #2: Getting caught up in your own stuff about their stuff. Buying into your own beliefs and story about their beliefs and story (Which is just judgement).