MELD Coaching

I guess you could say that in a broad sense, almost any guy who wanted to change could benefit from coaching. Now the men that I’ve attracted over the years and received a lot of benefit are men who are often successful in their career or are on the road to being successful, but aren’t satisfied at home, or they want to improve their leadership or their success at work. They realize that investing in themselves will produce the best ROI.

They often realize there’s a gap between being connected to or feeling successful with their emotions, with their relationships, and with a greater community, and possibly also with just feeling they’re living a life of fulfillment.

I discourage men who are just looking for a quick fix, and sometimes for a small, unique issue that’s not recurring. A quick fix might be all you need. Still, I do my best work with men who are really looking for fundamental change, becoming more efficient across the board —not just in their performance at work, but also in their being and performance at home, in relationships, and in their whole lives.

Often, for coaches, the process starts with a free consultation. I want to know if working with me is going to be the best return on your investment for you and for me. Am I able to make a significant difference in your life and what you want to achieve?

If we both feel it’s worth a try, I ask men for a six-month commitment. It’s not in writing, so either one of us can quit at any time. But I set that up because I don’t want just to be doing a quick fix. I want to create fundamental change that is not just sustainable but generative, in which you, your nervous system, your emotions, and how you interact with people all change at a level where you’ve learned new principles and really new skills that are self-perpetuating. You keep refining those skills because they’re fundamental, and that’s something you could always continue to hone.

Through the process of coaching, it weaves between integrating somatic awareness, somatic releases, and working with your relationships. A lot of what I do is give men simple homework to reinforce what we’re doing in the coaching session, but also to work on what’s happening live  — what’s actually happening in your life. So you go out, create change in the session, practice that change, enhance it, and then come back — just like a good coach would. Okay, that was great. Well, let’s work on this particular little skill over here because I see that that’s where it started falling apart. We keep honing that.

Over a course of time, you’ve come up with a way to perfect your way of being in the world in such a manner that it just starts to stay with you. My ultimate goal for decades has been to get people so they don’t need me. Which doesn’t mean I’ll never see you again, but I don’t want to keep seeing you every week for the rest of your life. Honestly, I’d get bored, you’d get bored, and I certainly believe it’d be a waste of your time and money.

I often suggest other therapies, processes, events, ways to build on what we created. I’m a huge advocate of using other therapies, disciplines and experiences to continue to grow.

Over the years, men have reported a broad range of improvements in their lives. It usually starts with a stronger connection to their own sense of awareness, somatic, and certainly emotional awareness, confidence, and just more presence.

With that, they find themselves reacting less frequently and feeling more grounded under pressure and leading in a more authentic way, rather than from a place of authority, but from a place of presence. This comes from a deeper shift in their nervous system. They’re able to maintain or regain self-regulation, which means being relaxed and present.

With all that, they not only feel safer, but they also generate that sense of safety for others, which is critical to building secure connections with people. Which means everyone from your partner at home to your employees at work, with less effort on your part, trusts you. And they want to be with you or work with you.

What I’ve found from working with leaders —and I believe they have discovered — is that there’s really no separation between leading at home and at work. Now, we might not see our relationship at home as a leadership relationship, but it’s certainly a relationship, a connection, as any good leadership really is at home or at work.

We show up with the same body and the same nervous system, and for better or worse, the same history at home and at work. Now, the people might be different and the situations are certainly different, but how our nervous system responds is going to be similar.

When we can unlearn or release the limitations of stress, trauma, and the enculturation of how to be that really is not us from us, and we connect to these deeper, maybe disconnected resources, we develop deeper connections, not just with ourselves, but also with others. You start leading with presence where you’re bridging between connecting at home and leading at work and finding that sort of flow state or knowing how to get back if you lose it of just being present with what you’re feeling and speaking from what you’re feeling and knowing and then interacting with others and responding in a congruent way where the conversation creates more connection and or more results.

There are many coaching trainings and certification programs. Some will train the person in a logical approach to directing their clients on how to change their behaviors. These trainings can be a foundation for a coach’s practice. What you want to look for is a coach who has gone beyond the standard practices to embody a method that has a track record of success. He may have done postgraduate study or developed his own method from his experience.

The best way to evaluate a coach or coaching program is to do your due diligence and conduct analytical research. But after you’ve narrowed it down, feel your body. What’s your body saying? Now you might have resistance, and then the next question is: is that resistance more out of fear, like oh you really might be good and you might call me on my stuff and I might really have to work, or is the fear more like I think this is good hype and it doesn’t feel authentic. So ask those questions, trust your body, and be willing to make a mistake. Invest a little time and money, and if it doesn’t work or you don’t feel the connection, and you don’t feel safe, don’t continue. But at some point, you’re going to have to take a risk, knowing you can always leave if it’s not working, and work with someone else.

As you evaluate what they say or write, is there a sense of substance, or is it slogans? Do they have a good way to explain how they facilitate change, or is it just the standard platitudes that you often read other people writing? And then, to the best of your ability, evaluate results, which is not charisma.

Another good tell is not only what they are promising but how much they are promising. If you work with me, your life will transform, and you’ll have everything and more you want, versus, yeah, you work with me, and it’s going to be work. No guarantees. Yeah, I’ve got a track record, but the track record is predicated on my clients doing work.

Well, that approach might be a little scary, but just like seeing two personal trainers. One could say, yeah, come work with me, and we’ll have fun. And I won’t push you. And the other one says, yeah, I’ll push you. In the beginning, you know, it might not feel great, but we’ll get you in shape. And I’ll teach you how to train yourself. Well, I think that second trainer would be the one you’d probably choose.

I’d use the same approach with coaches. You’re looking for a coach who will help you become more of who you want to be. Not give you another system or model of who you should be, which initially might be a better or more efficient model, but it’s really someone else’s model. What you want is a process or a method, not a model, a technique that’s going to help you discover and actualize who you really want to be.