1. REAL COACHING TECHNIQUE:
Eight Steps to a Coaching Breakthrough
An Interview with Mike Brown and Glenn Livingston
(This is a Transcript of a Free Full Length Audio Available for Download Below)
http://coachcertificationacademy.com/TheBlog/8-steps-to-give-your-client-a-breakthrough/
Glenn Livingston's companies have sold over $20,000,000 in consulting and/or
coaching services. Glenn has worked with over 1,000 coaching clients and
directly supervised many coaches and psychotherapists, and his company's work
and theories have appeared in dozens of major media like The New York Times,
The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Sun Times, The NY Daily News, and many
more! (He's also appeared on ABC & CBS radio, UPN TV, etc)
Mike Brown is one of Iyanla Vanzant's Spiritual Life Coaches at Inner
Visions Institute for Spiritual Development. He's worked as a Personal Spiritual Life
Coach for the past 9 years and has extensive training in Crisis Intervention,
Behavioral Modification, and Conflict Resolution. Mike completed One Year of
Master's Level work in Spiritual Psychology at The University of Santa Monica, and
holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from GeorgeWashington University. You
can reach Mike at 706-504-9631 and/or CoachWithMikeBrown.com
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2. TRANSCRIPT:
Eight Steps to a Coaching Breakthrough
2
[0:00:00]
Glenn: Hey, this is Glenn Livingston. I am here with life coach Michael Brown. How are you,
Mike?
Michael: I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Glenn: I'm doing very well. I'm a little confused about whether you prefer to be called Mike or
Michael.
Michael: Mike is fine. You can call me Mike.
Glenn: Okay. My grandfather was named Mike so that's a positive association for me. Mike
actually has a unique eight-step process for engineering emotional breakthroughs.
That's what I wanted to talk to him about today. But Mike, just before we do, could I just
get a little bit about your background, how long you've been doing what you're doing and
kind of how you came to be who you are?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I've been coaching now for I'd say about 12 years. I'm one of Iyanla
Vanzant's spiritual life coaches on her website at Inner Visions Worldwide. In case you
don't know, Iyanla Vanzant, she's one of Oprah's life coaches, Oprah's Lifeclass.
People may have seen her there.
Glenn: Very famous woman.
Michael: If you ever enter her website at Inner Visions Worldwide and you look up her coaches
there, I'm one of the coaches there.
Glenn: That's some good credibility.
Michael: Pretty decent. I've been through many different types of coaching, facilitating type
programs. I think I've calculated over a thousand hours of coaching, facilitating, training
and multiple dualities of coaching. I have quite a repertoire of coaching in that respect.
That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I mean I can go on and on and on which I love to
do but...
Glenn: Well, I do want you to go on and on about lots of things. You're more than qualified and
they wouldn't have you on if you weren't. I'm glad that we got to know that about you.
Talk to me about how you came to this eight-step process and why is it important? What
does it produce?What is the process?
3. [00:01:31]
Michael: Basically, the way that I came up with this process was I had been coaching for several
years. I know you notice as a coach yourself, Glenn, there are so many different tools
that you can learn as a coach. I literally have hundreds. I'm sure you have hundreds of
tools as well. What I have found is in all these tools, for me, I kind of developed this
myself throughout the years. It's kind of my own method, eight steps to coaching - a
client’s internal breakthrough.
I think the single most important thing is being able to facilitate or coach a client to have
or experienced an actual breakthrough. The reason I think that is because a
breakthrough is the very thing that's going to have them make a real change in their life.
I think it's about 50% of the work that they can actually have an internal discovery on
their own.
Glenn: Could you give me an example?
Michael: There's a way that a coach can come to you. They can talk to you or they could give
advice. But when someone has an internal breakthrough, it's something that you feel
like you discover on your own in the context of a session about yourself or about
something that happened in your life. Then when that happens, it stays. As opposed to
the person offering you advice.
That's why I think it's important, the skill of being able to coach someone through a
breakthrough is critical.
Glenn: I'll give you an example from my own personal life. I went through a very severe
financial downturn right around 9/11. We were involved in a research facility. We were
spending $150,000 a month which we didn't really have. We'd made a lot of money in
some other ways. We kind of stepped outside of our core competencies. We just
basically lost it all and then some. We wound up $700,000 in dept and it was just a
miserable, miserable time.
For probably two years, I was furious at the person who kind of advised me in that
direction, who was actually at that point a coach. Most coaches don't do that. But I
remember talking to someone after that, another coach and they asked me. He said,
"Well, what if it's true that it's his fault? What good does that do you?" They asked me,
"Are you going to sue them?" I said no, "I'm not going to sue him. He's done too many
fantastic things for me in my life. I'm so much better in so many other ways. I'm just
never going to sue the guy."
3
[00:03:29]
4. He said, "Are you going to drive to his house and beat him up?" I said, "No, I'm not
going to do that." He said, "Well, what if you could get him to admit that it was totally his
fault, what good would it do you? What purpose does it serve for you to grind the axe
and cogitate in all that negativity?" There's that old Buddhist saying that says, "Men who
pursues revenge should dig two graves." For me, that was a breakthrough. I remember
that moment. I was actually in the car on route 102 driving to a 7-11. I remember
exactly where I was on the route. I remember something just overtly lifted from me. It's
like all the energy inside me turned around from pursuing revenge to thinking, "Okay,
well, so now what? Now, what do I want to do with my life?"
The rest of the story is we were back on track. We paid back the debt and we kind of
rose from the ashes. Now we're doing terrifically. That was a breakthrough. That's an
example of a breakthrough for me. It sounds like you've systematize the process of
questioning and being with people so you can make that happen. Maybe we could talk
about that.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that example. It's a perfect example of what you have
to deal with. Because the single biggest thing that you have to learn to deal with when
you're coaching your clients to having a breakthrough is resistance like you were using
your example right there. Obviously you had some kind of resistance. You were upset
or you were angry. Whatever it was that you were experiencing, it was an internal
experience.
It's usually two types of resistance. There's what I call mental or thought pattern
experiences like, "Why is this happening to me?" or whatever is going on in your head
about that. "This shouldn't happen. I don't like him."
The second type is emotional or feeling blockages. That could be like anger or fear or
sadness. Maybe you were experiencing some of those feelings.
Glenn: Feelings that consume you, sure I was.
Michael: Exactly. Those are the main types of internal resistances that we have to learn to deal
with as coaches to be able to move somebody through an emotional experience or a
repetitive thought pattern that they're not letting go. Obviously, they don't move past
that thought pattern without emotional experience then they're just going to keep doing
the same thing and producing the same results because they're going to take the same
actions.
Glenn: What of the eight steps, how do you do that?
[00:05:30]
Michael: Yeah, so the eight steps are this. The first step is basically to set a clear intention for
yourself as a coach prior to the session. To me, this is critical. I did this before I even
did this session with you. I always do this prior to going into the session. You could
4
5. set your own intention but the idea is you want to have an intention about where you
want to be in relationship to the client or how you want to serve them.
I'll just give you an example. This is the intention I usually say to myself. I say it's my
intention to be a spirit in which conduit flows through so that spirit facilitates the highest
healing and growth to fulfill the highest potential, the highest good of all. I see
wholeness in myself and I see wholeness in this client. I let it be that so be it and so it
is.
I know that down path but it's the intention that I say that I'm bringing in to the session
for the client and for myself. The intention itself will create a space that you step into.
That's the first step.
Glenn: That's a very kindhearted way to go about it.
Michael: Just real quick, one of the things I say about intention is people have different energy
around intention like, "I don't believe intentions. I don't want to set them." One of the
things I will say to people, to the people listening is that we always have some kind of
intention that's running whether you believe in intended intention or you can think in
intention or not, there's some intention that's running. If we don't consciously call forth
an intention, then that intention that you're not setting is going to be running you
anyways. I always encourage people to set a conscious intention or some other
subversive intention to end up being running the session or running you.
Glenn: Sure. You might not be aware of it but you're thinking this guy coming to see me is an
evil bastard and I'm just going to get his money.
Michael: Exactly. There is some intention that can unconsciously overtake you and be operating
through the whole session. That's what people really get, is your underlying intention.
It's not even so much about what you're saying to them. That's important too, though.
That's step one, setting intention for yourself.
Step two is, in the session Itself, you want to connect with the person immediately.
Maybe this is the first time you've had a session with them. Whether it's the first time or
the second time, it doesn't really matter. You can still connect with the person. I
usually just take about two to three minutes to do that.
5
[00:07:34]
It is a pretty simple way to connect. You just ask them, you say, "How are you doing?
What's been happening? What's going on?" Just listen to them for a little while and
connect with them. Then maybe you share a little bit with them about what's been
happening with you or who you are if it's the first time. Obviously, you want to say who
you are and what you do but in a short way.
I'm always mindful about this because when I was new to coaching or when I see new
coaches, you don't want to let connecting become a 20-minute thing. You could talk
6. forever about how you're doing or how they're doing and they can actually start to
launch into the problem. I say, "Hey, how are you doing?" They say, "Oh my God, I
lost all my money and my girlfriend left me." Then they're launching into the problem
before you even set an intention for that session.
If that does happen, I'll stop them. I'll listen to them for about two minutes and say,
"Hey, can I just pause you for one second?" You want to make sure that you create the
space where they can say whatever they want to say. You say, "I want to hear what
you have to say but can I just pause you? It's really important that we set an intention
for this session. You're going to get to say everything you want to say right now but I
just want to make sure we set this intention, can we do that?"
One of the things I would do with my client is I get permission. Permission is a huge,
huge thing in coaching. I ask their permission, "Hey, I apologize. Can I stop you? Can
we do this?" Then usually they'll say, "Oh yeah, yeah, we can do that." Once we do
that, then I move to step three which is to coach the person through an intention in the
session.
Before I move on to step three, do you have any questions? I mean, I could go all these
steps straight but I want to check in with you to see…
Glenn: Oh no, I'm quiet because I like what you're saying. I think you're setting a solid
foundation and then having to listen with genuine interest and kindhearted spirit.
Everything is making perfect sense that's why I'm quiet. With me, no new is good
news. I'll speak up if I don't like something or I need to clarify something.
Michael: Okay, that's perfect. I just kind of want to check in with you first so it's more of a
conversation, not me just going through all the steps.
Glenn: You're doing great. I'm very interested in what you're saying.
[00:09:25]
Michael: Thank you. Thank you very much. Step three is basically to coach your client into
their own intention for the session. I have a simple formula that works really, really well
for this that I want to offer your audience here, Glenn. It's pretty much this. I tell them a
little bit about setting intentions. Sometimes you have to coach a client through an
intention and so I'll tell them that. I'll say, "Hey, we're going to set an intention for this
session. I have a little formula that I'm going to give you. It may be very simple for you
to set the intention and if it is, that's great. If not, I might have to coach you a little bit
through the intention. But the intention needs to be yours. It's not mine, it's yours."
That's a very important thing. This is not me setting an intention, it's them setting
intention for themselves.
Glenn: What would be an example of an intention that they might set?
6
7. Michael: Let me get to the formula. The formula is this. I ask them to write this down or to
repeat it and they'll say something like, "It is my intention to feel, fill in the blank, and be,
fill in the blank, about, fill in the blank."
Glenn: That's interesting.
Michael: I do this for a very specific reason because before, over many years when I had them
set the intention, I would just say, "Set an intention", and they would tend to just go off.
It would become this complex thing about what they want.
Before I even set the intention, one of the things that I'll do is I'll get present to them
about what area in their life, that's going to be the about part of the intention. I'll just say,
"Hey, what area of your life right now is holding the most energy for you?"
There are only so many areas and I know you know this as a coach, Glenn. There's
going to be like their relationships, business, career, money, health. These are like the
five main areas. There's not many more areas in life other than that that people
contend with or they deal with. I help them to narrow it down. It's usually right there. It
doesn't even really matter what I'm coaching them on. I coach in many different areas.
I've been a business coach, a life coach, a spiritual coach, a career coach.
Even if I'm coaching them in the context of business let's say, often, what a client might
be dealing with right there has to do with their relationship. It's all relevant. If that's
what's there for them, if all they can think about is their relationship with their girlfriend or
their wife and they're having a hard time focusing this session, I say, "Let's deal with that
right now." Because these are all interconnected. I know you know this as well, Glenn.
[00:11:34]
Glenn: I often do that with my business coaching clients. The relationship eventually comes
7
into play. It has to.
Michael: It totally does so I always follow the energy. Like, "Where's your energy right now?"
That's all they can think about is their relationship. I say, "Let's deal with that so you can
have a breakthrough in that so that we can move on to your business stuff." They say,
"Okay."
For instance, the area might be their relationship. That's going to be the about part of
the intention. Then I just give them the formula and then I say, "Go ahead and fill in the
blank." Then I give them a moment. I say, "Only use one word for those blanks. Don't
use multiple words, just use one word." So then, they'll create the intention. They'll fill
in the blanks. They might say something like, "It's my intention to feel happy and to be
at peace about my relationship with my wife." That's a great intention. Then I'll say,
"Hey, that's a perfect intention. That's awesome."
8. Now, sometimes they might set the intention and they'll say something like, "It's my
intention to feel like I don't hate my wife and be less upset about my relationship with my
wife." Now, that's when I'll step in and I'll say, "Hey, that's awesome that you set that
intention. May I coach you?" Again, permission, "May I coach you on that intention?"
Because we want this to be a clear, positive intention.
So if they're focused on what they don't want that they say, "It's my intention to feel less
angry." If they focus on what they don't want, then they're going to create anger.
Glenn: Our unconscious doesn't really understand the negative. It requires more energy to
interpret a sentence that has a negative in it than it does to interpret a sentence that has
the positive because you first have to understand what the sentence would mean.
Without the negative, then you have to negate it.
The problem with that is that it's fine when you're focused and clear but in the heat of the
moment, in the course of our everyday lives, the sentences or affirmations which include
negative statements, "I don't want to fight with my wife."
What happens is your mind doesn't have the time to make the flip. It's almost as if
you're walking around saying, "I want to fight with my wife. I want to fight with my wife.
I want to fight with my wife." People don't really get that but it's very important to phrase
it in the positive.
[00:13:32]
Michael: Exactly. What I'll do at that point is if it's not a clear positive intention, then I'll ask their
permission to adjust it. They usually say, "Yes, you can help me." Then I'll adjust it. It's
my intention to feel happier. It's my intention to feel joy. It's usually just one word, one
word works best. If they're using all kinds of multiple words, it can get a little bit hairy.
Simpler is always better.
So then, once they set that intention, I'll say, "That's great. That's awesome." Then I'll
just have them repeat the intention with as much believability as they possibly can. Like
I really have them center themselves, sit down, "Are you sitting down?" "Yes." "Sit
down, close your eyes. Now, I want you to state that intention with as much
believability as you can possibly muster, like really get into it." Just take a deep breath,
have them get them centered, and then they really state the intention.
Once they state that intention, then I just have them take a deep breath in, release it,
and then from that point -- and this goes into step four, I ask them a question, "What is
present with you right now, from this space that you're in, what's there right now?" Then
I say this to them just like I said. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be anything. Just
tell me what you're thinking, what you're feeling right now.
It's crazy how this works, Glenn. But whatever they bring up, it doesn't matter. It might
not even be about the intention that they just set. It's relevant. They'll start talking
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9. about something. I don't have an example here right now. But whatever it is, I start to
follow them and I listen.
This moves into step five. Step five is listening very deeply and very closely to
everything that they said. Part of what I'll do is active listening. For people who don't
know what active listening is, you're basically giving a person back what they're saying.
You don't want to necessarily parrot it back verbatim but you want to give them an
experience that they're being heard for what they're saying.
You're really being with them. They cannot say anything wrong. At this point, I'm not
even necessarily coaching them. I'm just listening to them and really getting into their
world and what's happening.
Glenn: We're reflecting and supporting the process of verbalizing what's on their mind with
regards to the intention that they stated at that time. You're making it safe for them to
think all the thoughts and feel all the feelings surrounding that intention. You need to do
that so that you can get everything out on the table.
9
[00:15:44]
I don't mean to upstage you. I'm sure that's what you meant. Because the essence of
unleashing your clients' creative genius and everybody has creative genius inside of
them, is making it possible for them to think thoughts that they couldn't think by
themselves, that weren't safe for them to think by themselves. If you make it possible
for them to do that, they will come up with a solution, they will. I understand why this
works. Please continue.
Michael: Yeah. That's right in the line of what I do. What I'm doing is I'm listening in a specific
way to the client like I'm listening to their inner leader. They actually have an inner
leader who has the answer already. It's amazing how this works because at the end
when it all happens, the person thinks that I'm a great coach and I did something great.
But I was actually just listening. They were the one that was actually leading the
process and it seems like I was but I'm listening to them.
Glenn: Very typical. I don't know how you guys do what you do. You must have to study for
eons to do what you do. You're like, "Dude, I was just listening." But see, that's the
thing, Mike, is that people aren't listened to in life. It's an amazing opportunity.
Michael: It is. I think that's one of the biggest benefits of having a great coach, they listen really
well. As I'm going through step five, step five takes the majority of the session. I'm
really listening to them. I'm listening specifically to their inner leader. You can just have
a simple intention if you're a coach to say, "I'm listening to their inner leader."
Then that inner leader will tell you where its going and how to fulfill the intention. I have
their intention in front of my by the way as well so I'm present to that. I write that down
myself. What ends up happening, every session is absolutely unique the way that it
10. goes down. But what I can say is this, is that ultimately what's going to happen is
they're going to be in resistance.
Usually right off the bat, they're going to bring up what I was telling you about earlier,
some kind of emotional resistance which is fear, anger, sadness or mental, limiting
thought forming pattern resistance which is, "I can't do it. I'm not good enough.
Nobody likes me. They won't help me." These repetitive limited thought form patterns.
When they hit that resistance, they're really in what I would call "in their resistance". At
some point, I'll step in. Again, going back to permission, then I will offer a process. I'm
not going to go into processes because I have a gazillion processes that I take people
through. I'll say, "Can I offer you something?"
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[00:17:58]
They'll say, "Yeah." I say, "Well, what I'd like to do is I want to take you through a
process that can help you to move through what you're dealing right here. Are you
open to trying something different?" I'm wanting them to say, "Yes, I am."
Glenn: What do you do if they say no? I would imagine it's rare that they would say no if you've
done everything right to that point.
Michael: It is and I'm glad you brought that up. I don't even know if I ever heard that but it's a
great question. If they do say no -- by the way, them saying no is a form of resistance.
This is a great question, Glenn, because there are times and it's happened to me and
I'm sure it's happened to you, where a client will start to resist you as a coach. They're
resisting coaching or being coached by you. I ask them something like that and they
say no, then they're resisting either me or they're resisting being coached.
The way that I deal with this is that I let them, I let them resist me. I don't try to
overcome their resistance. Anytime you're trying to overcome somebody's resistance,
never, ever ever ever works. Trust me because I've tried it a million times. The more
you try to overcome someone's resistance, the more resistant they become.
Glenn: Exactly. What I teach my students is to have an attitude of intrigue, accepting intrigue
and just to be very curious about client resistance because client resistance is just a
natural part of the process. People don't develop blocks unless they're really crazy and
coaches typically don't work with crazy people.
People don't develop blocks for no reason. They've had experiences. There are
people in their environments who maybe are not facilitating these other solutions.
There are things that you're going to do to shake up their world and there are good
reasons that they have these walls. Every time one comes up, it's almost like an
opportunity for you to learn more about them and over time help them grow more but
they need to have the experience that it's perfectly okay to have these walls if they want
to have these walls. You're not going to domineer them and force through them.
11. Michael: Exactly. I don't necessarily say this to them, Glenn, but I'm telling you the way that I
coach or the way that I think. When someone says, "no", I honor that "no". It's a
boundary or it's whatever you want to call it.
[00:19:56]
Glenn: This is a little bit more of a psychological comment than a coaching comment but it's
relevant because what people don't understand sometimes is that saying "no" is a part
of childhood development where we start to form our identity. When we're able to say
"no", we recognize that we're separate human beings with autonomy. Mom might want
us to do X but we want to do Y and we have the capability to say "no". If you take that
away from people, if you take away their ability to say "no", then you're taking away their
autonomous self.
Coaching is really about encouraging people to feel more autonomous and able to
master their environment and make their own decisions and be the master of their own
fate. Being able to say "no" is a good part of that. In some ways, having the
experience of saying "no" to you makes it possible for them to be stronger in the world.
It's not an utterly defiant "no". It's being able to say "no" and have the experience that
their relationship goes on in a constructive way even though they said "no".
Michael: Absolutely. It totally is. When they say "no", I might say something like, "How can I
11
serve you right now?"
Glenn: That's interesting.
Michael: I literally think of it like a ball, a physical ball. You could imagine like I have the ball and
then I hand you the ball and then you have the ball and then you hand me the ball.
When a client says "no" to me, I feel like they're handing me the ball. They're saying,
"Here, no. Here's the ball." I'll hand them the ball back. I say, "How can I be of service
to you?" I'm handing the ball back to them so the ball is now on their hands.
Glenn: What might they typically say at that point?
Michael: They could say a million things, Glenn. But they could just say, "I don't want to do this
anymore." Or they could say, "The way that you could help me is just listen to me." Or,
"The way I want you to help me is tell me what to do. Tell me what to do."
Glenn: "How can I be of service to you?" That's a brilliant question. I have to say I really
respect your brilliance with that because it accepts the clients' negativity and it facilitates
further progress by putting the ball back in their court and giving them an opportunity to
be constructive in a different way. I'm very, very impressed with that, Michael. I
haven't heard that before. I'm very impressed.
12. [00:21:50]
Michael: Thank you. Using that specifically in that situation, don't take it personally, they may be
resisting you or they just may be resisting coaching in general. I resist coaching.
People will resist coaching.
Glenn: It's a good sign when that happens because it means that they're ready to deepen their
relationship. They're ready to show you this other side of themselves that they don't
show to people in polite conversation.
Michael: Absolutely. I don't even know if I've had a situation where I went further than that
maybe once where a client is just in total shutdown resistance. If they are and I say,
"How may I be of service to you?" They're just like, "I don't know." You can't do
anything. They just offer more resistance. I would ultimately say, "You know what? It's
totally okay. We can just end this now. Then we can pick it up and do another session
next week if you want to do that. It's totally okay."
Glenn: I've also told clients that maybe we should just sit silently together for a while.
Michael: That's a great one too. That's perfect because it creates the space where they don't
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have to do anything.
Glenn: The other technique that I've used in those situations is for me to use that opportunity to
talk a lot. I could use it as a recap of what's gone on. I could tell the client some story
I've been wanting to tell them about, some thought I've been having about, what they've
talked about so far. Sometimes I could just even talk about some movie they were
talking about before. As long as in what I'm talking about, I'm not telling them what to do
or necessarily revealing too much about myself personally and doing it for my own
needs. I find that when you talk more, it whets the clients' appetite for them to talk.
Eventually they'll say, "Okay, enough already, I'm ready to talk." When you're quiet, it
helps them to be more quiet.
Let's get to the other steps though because we've gotten into this interesting tangent
and we haven't gotten to the last two steps.
Michael: Yeah. I'll take them through a process to release whatever the resistance is. Again, I'm
not going to get into all that. There are many processes to releasing resistance that we
could go through. This leads to step six. They'll go through the process, they will have
the least resistance. They will had some kind of breakthrough, either a huge
breakthrough or a small breakthrough. Don't get caught up in the magnitude of the
breakthrough. People can have huge breakthroughs and it doesn't seem like anything's
happening over there.
[00:23:51]
13. Glenn: Yes. You don't have to get caught up with the feeling of the breakthrough either.
There are some things where there is a subtle shift in the way that they think. Then six
months later, you see it had a dramatic impact on their behavior in their life. But at the
moment, it didn't really feel like anything special. There's no way to really get you to
believe that as a new coach until you've had the experience a few dozen times.
In the beginning, you're kind of looking for the feelings in the room as reinforcement but
what the ultimate reinforcement for how well you're doing as a coach is really the results
that you get. That's why I tell coaches to look back every six months or so when they're
working with ongoing clients. Sometimes my clients do programs but when you're
working with ongoing clients, look back every six months or so and ask yourself how
have they progressed in their life. You look at the original goals that they set. Are they
moving forward towards their goals? That's how you assess progress with a client, not
how it feels in the room at the moment.
Michael: Right, totally. What I would say as a real breakthrough is when a person has an
internal discovery. I call it an internal discovery. That means they have an inner
knowing. It's not because you said something to them as a coach, it's because you
created the space in which they could have an internal knowing, an internal discovery of
something about themselves. It feels like they did it. "Hey, I did it myself."
If you coach one-on-one face to face, you can often see that moment on their face, in
their eyes. It's like, boom, there it is. It's like it is a moment in time. It's like they got it,
whatever it is for themselves.
Step six is what I call grounding the energy. They just had this great breakthrough.
They usually feel pretty great. There's a shift. There's a heightened sense of energy
and excitement. They feel free, they feel light, and I work with that energetically.
That's still part of the process. But the idea is you want to ground that energy into the
real physical world.
Glenn: I don't quite understand that, Michael.
Michael: They're going to be having somewhat of an experience energetically in terms of their
emotions or a feeling energy. They might feel lighter, they might feel free or they feel
that release of whatever the resistance was. It's an experiential type of feeling that's
happening inside of their body or in their mind, lightness, freedom. The way that I
ground energy is I'll get them present to -- right after they just had a breakdown, I'll say,
"What's happening in your body right now? What are you feeling? What are you
experiencing?"
13
[00:26:09]
They'll start to tell me, "In my heart." I'll say, "Where is it located in your body?" They'll
say, "In my heart. It feels warm, it feels light." I'll say, "Is there a color there?" They'll
say, "Yeah, it's like a white color. So I get them present to the experience that they're
14. having inside and I go into that experience in their body and I expand it. I'm not going
to keep going further and further in what they're experiencing.
Part of this is NLP. NLP is another coaching technique. They do a movement or they
do something where they ground that experience in their body with snapping their finger
or putting their hand somewhere on their heart so they remember this experience and
ground it. That's step six.
Going into step seven and this is very critical. I know you know this as a coach, is to
have them bring that energy because they obviously, they just had a wonderful
breakthrough and they feel great, is to take that energy out into the physical world to
manifest whatever it is that they want to manifest, to bring their goals into reality and
that's through taking action. There's a specific inspired action that they want to take.
Glenn: You ask them to decide what that is?
Michael: Exactly. I'll say, "Right now, where you're at", and this is step eight, because they're in
that experience, they grounded the energy. I say, "Is there an inspired action that
occurs for you to take out in the physical world?" When I ask that question, sometimes
people say, "Yeah, I just feel good. I want to go out and play and have fun." Like they
might be general about what they're saying. The idea is to get them a specific action.
Usually it's right there. You don't have to dig for it. They'll know what they want to do.
It's usually related ironically enough to the intention. They'll say, "I'm going to go and
talk to my girlfriend and tell her that I love her." That's a specific action that they're going
to take out in the world. Action is the bridge between the inner world and the outer
world. It's critical in all coaching or nothing's going to happen.
Glenn: This is very impressive, very well thought through, a nice structure for a session. Do
you get through all eight steps in every session?
Michael: Yes. It's weird. I didn't even know that I had these eight steps until I sat down and kind
of mapped it out and I realized this is the way that I always do it. I created this myself
based on many things that I've learned, I put it together and it flows this way pretty much
every time. Then just real quick with step eight, this is really powerful, Glenn, is that I
ask them this question.
14
[00:28:20]
I say, "Do you remember what your intention was?" They usually don't. If they wrote it
down, they did but I know what it is because I wrote it down. I say, "Do you remember
what your intention is?" They'll say yes or no where if they say, "Yes", I'll say, "What
was it?" Then I'll have them read the intention again or I'll read them the intention.
This is the question I ask, I say, "Did you fulfill part or all of that intention?" Often, they
will have fulfilled all of it. Sometimes it's part of it and that's fine. Again, don't worry
15. about whether it's all the intention or part of it. Then they'll say, "Yeah, I received part of
it." I'll say, "How much of it?" They might say 80% or 50% or whatever or 100%. If it's
part, I'll just say, "That's awesome. I just want you to get that." You want the client to
get that they were in one place and they moved to another place and they can feel that
difference from where they set the intention to now where they are in fulfilling the
intention.
Often, what I'll say to them if they say they fulfilled 50% of the intention, I promise them,
"When you take this action, that other part of that intention, I believe it's going to be
completely fulfilled." Then it's awesome. It's the way the session ends right there.
Glenn: Is this typically in a 45-minute session or are they a little longer?
Michael: Yeah, I usually set my sessions for 45 minutes. Sometimes they might go as long as
an hour and sometimes they might even go a little bit longer depending on if I have to
take them through some process. I usually leave half hours between my sessions. It
could go an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and 30 minutes. That's rare. It's usually
45 minutes to an hour.
Glenn: It's rare that I hear coaches that actually leave that amount of time for themselves.
When I hear that, I say, "This guy is a good coach." Because I know that you're walking
the walk. You're taking the time in between to do what you just told me that you did to
put yourself in the right place and take some time for self-care and get ready for the next
client. I really like to hear that. Most coaches try to jam people in in the hour.
Very nice, well, this has really been an education for me, Mike. I really appreciate this.
If people in my audience would like to get in touch with you or learn a little bit more
about you, do you have a website? Do you have other offerings? Would you prefer to
leave them an email or a phone number? How should we do this?
[00:30:20]
Michael: I put something together, basically a 90-day coaching program that I put together that's
around this specifically. It's for business, career, relationships, spiritual coaches, for all
coaches. It's on how to coach your client so that they have a profound breakthrough. It
transforms their life forever. It's a 90-day coaching program.
You can find out more about that program by going to coach with mike brown.com.
That's www.coachwithmikebrown.com. You'll see that program there. It explains it all
there but if you'd work one-on-one with me coaching, where I'm going to coach and train
you around this process, take it further and even deeper than what you just heard here
in this session, basically what you'll get there is you'll learn how to master the eight
steps of coaching your client to a breakthrough every time. You'll further learn how to
create a space for your client to open up and have a breakthrough.
15
16. One of the things that I'm going to give in that is recorded actual breakthrough coaching
sessions that I've had with my clients myself that you can listen to where you can
actually hear what's happening, hear the coaching session and see how that works in
actual breakthrough coaching sessions, me coaching one of my clients. I'll do
like seven one-on-one coaching sessions with you.
The other thing that I'll do is I'll actually take you through a breakthrough or coach you
through a breakthrough yourself so that you can have the experience of what that's like
going through that that provides tremendous value for when coaching your clients. The
rest of the package is there, CoachWithMikeBrown.com.
16
Glenn: Very nice.
Glenn Livingston, Ph.D.
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![TRANSCRIPT:
Eight Steps to a Coaching Breakthrough
2
[0:00:00]
Glenn: Hey, this is Glenn Livingston. I am here with life coach Michael Brown. How are you,
Mike?
Michael: I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Glenn: I'm doing very well. I'm a little confused about whether you prefer to be called Mike or
Michael.
Michael: Mike is fine. You can call me Mike.
Glenn: Okay. My grandfather was named Mike so that's a positive association for me. Mike
actually has a unique eight-step process for engineering emotional breakthroughs.
That's what I wanted to talk to him about today. But Mike, just before we do, could I just
get a little bit about your background, how long you've been doing what you're doing and
kind of how you came to be who you are?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I've been coaching now for I'd say about 12 years. I'm one of Iyanla
Vanzant's spiritual life coaches on her website at Inner Visions Worldwide. In case you
don't know, Iyanla Vanzant, she's one of Oprah's life coaches, Oprah's Lifeclass.
People may have seen her there.
Glenn: Very famous woman.
Michael: If you ever enter her website at Inner Visions Worldwide and you look up her coaches
there, I'm one of the coaches there.
Glenn: That's some good credibility.
Michael: Pretty decent. I've been through many different types of coaching, facilitating type
programs. I think I've calculated over a thousand hours of coaching, facilitating, training
and multiple dualities of coaching. I have quite a repertoire of coaching in that respect.
That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I mean I can go on and on and on which I love to
do but...
Glenn: Well, I do want you to go on and on about lots of things. You're more than qualified and
they wouldn't have you on if you weren't. I'm glad that we got to know that about you.
Talk to me about how you came to this eight-step process and why is it important? What
does it produce?What is the process?](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)