The Art of Coaching: Evaluating the First Session with Joanna

Megan McCrory00:01:29

Okay, Donna, so we just had the first session with Joanna, and this is kind of our little debrief after that. I think it's important for the listeners with the series to understand you as a coach. What were your impressions about the first session with Joanna?And then I also have some little thoughts and some notes that I took while listening to you guys. From your perspective, do you feel like the first session was.I hate to use the word good because it's like, it's very subjective, but do you feel like it's kind of on track for a first session in terms of what you dug into and the goals that were made?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:02:09

Yes, 100%. I think she came in with a lot of the same concerns that most people have when we start working together.I love that she's already quite aware and prioritizing sleep is a huge one that a lot of people don't prioritize, unfortunately. And I think that already elevated us to, like, next step. You know what I mean? So I love that, and I think that that's really great.And the fact that she really does love to understand why and understand things a little bit deeper. Yeah. So I definitely think it was on track. It was just fun talking to her and. And fun getting started.And for me, my main concern is after every call, but especially after the. To not have her kind of overwhelmed and like, oh, what did I get myself into? We just killed her coffee a little bit.But otherwise, she felt quite confident to move forward and try out the goals that we discussed. Yeah.

Megan McCrory00:03:07

So from listening to it, I had a couple points. We were both trained from the same health coaching school, and the approach is to ask what's new? What's good?To try to get to the top of mind of what the person is saying, thinking about, to make sure that that's the first thing that you dive into instead of the coach really leading the call. From the outside perspective, I could see that she didn't quite grasp that's what you were asking her.I think that's kind of the learning of how the coaching relationship goes. And she's never been coached before. And that is, again, one of the reasons why we picked her is, okay, we want this experience to show that, what.What do you expect? And she did ask us several times, like, what should you know? Are we following a program? Are we doing this? Are we doing that?

Joanna00:03:56

I'm excited to do this. So there's also this little bit of anxiety of, like, what are we going to talk about?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:04:03

What is she going to say?

Joanna00:04:04

Am I doing it all wrong. I mean, health is so complex and there's so much information out there that I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed.And you know, I pretty have a scientific training as a background, so I always think like, okay, I would love to see the data on this, but there's so many aspects to it that I don't even feel like I have the time to dive into.

Megan McCrory00:04:27

Obviously, first of all, every coach is slightly different in how they approach their sessions, but most good coaches are not going to just sit there and talk your ear off for the entire session. They're supposed to listen and, and try to pull that out.And I could see you trying to pull that out and getting back around because sometimes also people go on a little bit too long. You're like, okay, I got that. Let's keep moving on. Because we do have a timed session. It's not a two hour gab fest with our best friend.What, what was your take on like, kind of getting going and kind of getting out of her? What was top of her mind?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:05:06

Yeah, you know, it was the first session and she wasn't coach before, so I did expect to get very full answers to my questions, even when we were talking about the sleep. And basically her sleep is fine and she's energized. And it could have been like, oh, yeah, no, it's, it's totally fine. I don't need to.But I do appreciate that she went deep into it because it gave me a better view of what's going on. Because if I just asked, how's your sleep? And she said, yeah, my sleep is fine. I sleep eight and a half hours.Sometimes I am up, but it's fine and I don't need to work on that. Then I wouldn't know. Well, is she energized in the morning? Is she not? Are the kids letting her sleep through the night? Are they not?So it was valuable information. And then yes, as you said, I tried to then redirect it and just go like, cool, checked off. Let's move forward.Joanna was very good at sending us kind of, you know, what she. Her thoughts before we actually started, which I really appreciate.So, you know, I could kind of work with that and just, I just highlighted those things and I just brought it up to kind of try to focus down to what can we tackle first and what is actually important for her.So as soon as she was talking about fasting, as soon as she was talking about the chosen diet of the family and stuff like that, I realized that that's obviously top of her list without her even necessarily knowing because it wasn't things that she mentioned before in any of her notes, but because that came up, I know that that is something that is more urgent to talk about and is more important.

Megan McCrory00:06:43

Yeah, yeah, I noticed that she said that she acknowledged that she didn't take time to notice her body and she didn't have the accountability.

Joanna00:06:53

And I love the idea of regular coaching sessions as a sort of touch point, like just to keep me on track where I can try something out for a couple of weeks and then come back and have a little bit of a structure where we can look back together and say, well, how do you feel after trying that? Is it something that you want to keep?I tend to try things on my own, but then I, I don't have the discipline all the time to keep up or even reflect on, hey, does this help me? Do I feel better when I do this or not? So, yeah, a little bit of external accountability.And accountability, Buddy, let's say, is always really helpful.

Megan McCrory00:07:35

I think that that's like a real common thread and. But I feel like she's still a step ahead because she knows that she should notice these things. She just doesn't pay attention to it.Where there's some people who are like, wait, what do you mean that I didn't sleep well? And that has something to do with what I ate the day?I mean, so I feel like she's already, with that kind of analytical mind of hers, moving a little bit ahead of not starting from zero in terms of understanding her body and understanding what's going on.So I feel like that's on one hand really good, but on the other hand, is she going to jump to conclusions or, you know, potentially kind of over analyze things? Yeah, but I did. I really liked the question that she asked you, like, what do I need to do to get the most out of this situation or the sessions?

Joanna00:08:26

Hey, before we really dive in, I kind of had a question around, like getting the most out of coaching. I wanted to know from your experience, what do your clients who really seem to get the most out of it, what do they do?I mean, what lessons can I learn from your experiences around how do I get the most out of these sessions?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:08:49

Yeah, that's a really good and loaded question and I'll explain why, because again, everyone's different.I've been doing this for like a decade and I've been working with so many people and I really can't think of even two that were kind of going in the same Pace the same way, tackling the same things. So it is hard to answer that.

Megan McCrory00:09:11

I know you kind of gave her a non answer, which I completely get why you did that, because everybody's different.But I did think about this because I didn't have to talk during the session and I did think about a few things that, like, you know, like what you were talking about with diet, like everybody could use more fiber and more vegetables.And I thought for people who are listening that if I had like one or two things for people to say, like how to get the best out of the session would be to, number one, come fully prepared to be in the session. Like.Yeah, I think the way to get the most out of the session is to take a couple deep breaths before you start, get into a room where you're not distracted. Because I think that when you're distracted either externally or internally, that's one way that you're not going to get the most out of the session.And I think that would be a really common thing that I would say, like, let's say that would apply to everybody. The other thing, somehow thinking about what you.We talked about in the session for a couple minutes every day to make sure that it's still in the top of the mind, that if you don't ignore it and just come to the next session in two weeks and have completely forgotten about it, because those two things together I think will set up anybody in any coaching situation in a better way forward. What are your thoughts on that in terms of kind of giving a little bit more of a concrete answer around how to get the most out of a session?Do you have something to add?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:10:42

Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think what I do around those things is I tend to more kind of suss out their energy when we jump on the call.And if I feel like if there's distraction, I'm quite, you know, it's a superpower that we have with adhd. We just feel people. So for me, it's more kind of like, does she feel relaxed and smiling and not distracted?Does she feel like a little bit more wired?And then I'd probably go into a breathing exercise with her at the beginning of the call and just kind of, you know, find a good level for her in that moment and then same.So as you said, like to think about this just a couple minutes a day, every day between the sessions, for me it's more, you know, be in touch with me, let me know how it goes. Which means that she is trying to do things and she is keeping me updated throughout the time in between the calls. So I think it's just basically.Excuse me. I think it's just, it's all that fat in my coffee. I think it's just a different way to tackle.Basically the same thing is giving them this like abstract thing of like just relax before the call or think about it. Like, it's not, it's for, for me in my brain, if someone told me think about it a couple times that day, I wouldn't because when. What. Who?Like, it's too abstract for me and my brain, you know, we have our day to day grind and to add something as simple as like think about intermittent fasting or think about whatever we talked about sleep or is just going to fly over my head. So I, I get why you're saying it that way because that's kind of the way that works for you and that's the way that works for me.So that is exactly what differentiates, I think different coaches and different coaching strategies, but it all kind of comes to the same end result is like, let's just be here in this moment. Let's make sure that we're doing this on a daily.And also for me, I guess, because the goal that we talked about was more very day to day and the goals usually that I talk to them about is more day to day. It's like in my brain kind of obvious that it will be a day to day, that they will, that they will think about it or apply it.And I always just hope that they will just be in touch. Sometimes when I feel like the person is just not, I contact them on WhatsApp and I'm like, how's it going?You know, just to bring back this kind of like, hey, remember me? I'm your accountability partner. I'm still here. I know you're quiet, but I'm still here.So just give me a yeah, thumbs up or dude terrible or something to cling on to if that makes sense.

Megan McCrory00:13:21

Cool. Okay. So overall, good first session with Joanna. I was feeling her energy.I think it was very interesting for me to just listen and kind of take a few notes here and there and let's see how session two goes in a couple weeks. Any last thoughts that you want to talk about?

Danna Levy Hoffmann00:13:41

No, I'm just super excited to see how she does. Hopefully hear from her in between and. Yeah. And move forward. I'm excited about it.