One empowerment coach tip, or NLP Practitioner tip, that I would give any coach is: know your stuff.
Am I talking about experience? No! I am talking about the 3-pound sponge between your ears. To use your brain, use your smarts, and put in effort to become smarter.
Then, you can become the badass empowerment coach or NLP Practitioner you wish to become. Your abilities and expertise will come across anywhere you walk your talk. Whether it is social media, videos, workshops, meetings, etc.
The empowerment coach tip is: know what’s what, and be able to explain it. When I hear coaches mixing up fundamental things, I know this is evidence of something lacking. This relates to learning, effort, self-reflection. Things that any coach may control when offering others empowerment.
So, here is a post on how to un-pet-peeve myself.
Have you ever thought of the difference between an emotion, a feeling, a value, and a belief?
Empowerment coach tip: emotions, feelings, values & beliefs
What is an emotion?
An emotion is a chemical response inside the body. The people around us can stimulate this, but there are other external factors: loud noises, temperature, air pressure. There are also factors inside us, such as hormone shifts, blood glucose levels, understanding of where we are in relative space. Even movement or posture, good or bad, can create a chemical response. Then there is what we eat, drink, inhale, and the list goes on.
What is a feeling?
Feelings are the interpretation of the emotion. You use the glasses through which you see the world, as well as your thoughts, to do this. You can interpret the emotion as good or bad, but it is highly subjective. Even if I were to have the same emotion you do, I would feel quite different. In NLP, we say “the map is not the territory.” Meaning your interpretation of the world around you is not the actual world around you.
What is a value?
A value is an inherent rule you have, a criterion for well-being in life. It is a personal foundation that we stand on that determines the wrong and right, the unhappy and happy, the resourceful and not resourceful. Every behavior, even bad behavior, has a positive intent or value. For example, overeating can be about comfort; acting like a victim can be about love and wanting to be seen.
What is a belief?
A belief is something you trust to be true. This can be limiting as well as empowering.
When you work as an empowerment coach, as an NLP Practitioner, or just want to improve your own life, you can ask some questions. I am using what we call the meta-model in NLP training. The meta-model is a type of questioning that makes the unconscious conscious. I teach this to give coaches laser sharp precision to coach linguistically in an empowering way, and to be able to launch clients into more awareness and personal change.
Empowerment coach questions
1. What, specifically, is the chemical response inside my body?
2. What, specifically, are my thoughts that cause the feelings?
3. What, specifically, is causing these thoughts about the emotion?
4. What would happen if you interpreted the emotion in a more empowering way?
5. What, or who, is stopping me from taking action to change your feelings?
6. What is it that I need to do so that you control?
7. What is the positive benefit that I get on some level by experiencing these thoughts? Even when they are not helping me?
8. Can I meet this positive benefit in more empowering ways? What would happen if I did?
9. What are the beliefs that are at play? Are these beliefs causing empowerment or the opposite?
10. What is in the coding of my past that is causing these beliefs, if they are negative? What could I do to change that?
By the way, if you get stuck on this entirely then it is time to see an NLP Master Practitioner, or preferably to take an NLP training.
At the end of the day, another one of the most important empowerment coaching tips I can provide is to ask:
“Is my reality testing accurate? Or is my excess baggage speaking?”
What empowerment coaching tip would you give others?
Resources
Book
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever – Stanier, Michael Bungay
Video
What is the difference between a feeling an an emotion
Former student?
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