Dani Tan: Welcome to my coaching Q and a series where I cover common questions and misconceptions about coaching. I'm going to share my take perspective and answers to these common questions and misconceptions. And so for this one is, you know, how do my clients succeed in coaching? How are they successful within coaching? Dani Tan: And in the course of the last two years of coaching clients that I've had, I looked back to see which ones really. Felt like they were successful, achieve what they wanted to achieve. And what were the commonalities and patterns for them to achieve that success? And I just want to say that success is defined however you would want to define success. Dani Tan: So success has looked like more confidence, ability to have typical conversations, ability to manage up, ability to lead a team that is underperforming and turning around ability to.

Get a promotion to get two promotions, to get salary increases, to get brand new jobs, to pivot careers, to just be able to have a better balance within their personal and professional lives, to choose themselves and prioritize themselves. Dani Tan: So many different aspects of it have come in on how they have defined success for themselves within coaching in general, and how it's affected them after coaching. I usually do a check in with my clients after we work together. So when our time ends, I'll check with them six months later, a year later, And see how they're doing and kind of just like look back to see, you know, what are the lasting impacts and effects of what life looks like for them now.

Dani Tan: And so with that, I distilled down what were the common traits, patterns, routines of those who were able to achieve what they wanted to achieve and continue to. And so the first thing I would say is. They came in out the gate, actively engaged, or at least in some way, shape, or form, they were engaged and they were committed. Dani Tan: My clients are very, very ambitious. They're very motivated. They're very driven and they are relentless. So they will be there to take the coaching and they'll say, this is what I want to achieve. This is what I think I should do. Help me figure out what the plan is and what is your take. And so I'll always share with them what my take is, what I think the plan should be and what we should prioritize.

Dani Tan: And we will collaborate together to do that. But they take that guidance and they run with it. So yes, do sometimes they have to take the guidance and like sit with it and marinate it and think about it and then they take it into action. Yes. But the thing is, is though they know that they came into coaching to challenge what they've been normally been doing. Dani Tan: So the thing that differentiates folks is those who Are going to question and not try something new and just sit and do the same thing they've been doing before those will not necessarily yield the results versus the others who are like, okay, this is uncomfortable. It's a little bit challenging and it's different from what I've normally been doing, but I came into this space to do that.

Dani Tan: So I'm going to experiment and try it. So they will go ahead and they'll stay curious and they'll experiment and they will try things. They also, if they maybe are not aligned with it, They won't just sit and be quiet. They'll have a conversation about it. So if maybe they're not aligned with the [00:03:00] coaching, they might say, okay, but this is what I think. Dani Tan: And we'll have a conversation about it because it's not just a one way street. It is about having that conversation and trying to experiment. The other thing is too, is that they come with questions. Like they come to each coaching call with, you you want This is what I've been working on. This is the update. Dani Tan: This is what I'm doing.

This is what I have questions on. They are not just coming in waiting to, you know, have me address them of what is next. They have their own perspective, their own point of view, and their own motivation of what they want to do. And the other thing is they are really engaged between sessions. Dani Tan: So how I work with my clients is for private coaching is either we meet every other week or we meet, three times a month, which means we just have one week off, but they are engaged in between sessions. So if we talked about an assignment to work on or project to work on, they are giving me updates in Slack. Dani Tan: I use Slack to communicate between sessions. If you don't know what Slack is, you can send messages, documents, voice notes, videos, pictures of updates, and they will send me updates between sessions.

So that way they can feel like they're keeping track on their progress and the momentum is going. So they'll ask clarifying questions, they'll share updates, they'll, we'll track their progress. Dani Tan: We'll talk about challenges and those are the ones that really define it. If you're only using the coaching space, that's totally fine if you're busy, but the ones that have the most momentum are constantly working through things, in between sessions as well. The other thing is that the clients that I work with who have track towards it, they know that for them to continue to push forward and to expand, to hit their goals. Dani Tan: It's going to take a lot of continual practice. It's going to take a lot of building that self belief and it's gonna take a lot of self reflection and ownership because the thing that happens is everyone's really excited when they start coaching and then it starts to dip off in the middle when you're like, I haven't gone the results.

Dani Tan: It hasn't yielded yet. I haven't got what I wanted yet. And so then. They start to like throw out all these different things. I haven't had enough time or what I'm doing is not working or I need a new answer. I need a new strategy. But really the reality is that middle part is like the messy middle. The difficult part is about sitting back and reflecting on what has been working and what you need to do more of, or maybe to take ownership on. Dani Tan: Yeah, I've been kind of doing it, but not really doing it, or I've had some commitment, but not a lot of commitment. And that's okay. We're not like going to guilt it. We're just trying to observe it so we can make a plan for go forward.

So the folks who are successful, they will have like true honesty with themselves and ownership with themselves and reflection with themselves of what has been working, what hasn't, and they'll communicate it too. Dani Tan: That way we can create a plan and continue to work together. And they also know. That with growth comes discomfort. What I'm going to ask you to do or what we're going to talk about will not always be like easy peasy and approachable to do. Sometimes it is stepping outside that is going to be the uncomfortable part, but knowing that you could communicate that to me, that you have me in your corner and that I'm here to support you during that is really, really important too.

Dani Tan: And the other piece that I would say is. I don't like to feel like you're working in a, like a chamber where it's just you and an echo chamber where it's just like, we're just echoing the same things back and forth to each other. I think it's important to have evidence and a belief and a proof of the system and the model. Dani Tan: So if you were trying to build a business, if you're trying to get a promotion, if you're trying to pivot careers, if you're trying to plan this amazing trip, I don't believe in it just being of what you believe and what I believe is guidance. I will ask you to Build relationships. I will ask you to have informational interviews. Dani Tan: I will ask you to network and it's because I want you to start to build the belief and the evidence that it is possible outside of just me.

If you only come to me for the advice and for the information, and I'm giving you the strategy, it might not, sink into your system as easily is as if you could get additional. Dani Tan: Perspectives that will help back up the model that will tell you that, okay, it's not just one person giving me guidance and perspective. Actually, here are five other people who have done something very similar to help solidify your belief in the ability that it is possible to do this. It's also a way of called like reverse engineering. Dani Tan: So understanding what it is that you want to achieve and being able to reverse engineer of how that is possible through different pathways or different sources. So I will ask you to have those conversations people so you can feel like it is possible.

And that is the thing is that. There will be discomfort potentially for those of us who maybe feel guilty or weird or uncomfortable about asking other folks for help. Dani Tan: But in order for you to be successful in any space, you have to have a support system. So this is also a practice in asking for help and putting yourself out there and creating relationships. Those are all crucial things for any goal that you want to achieve any goal. Think back to any kind of goal, and there is some kind of, part that comes into play when it comes to relationships, when it comes to putting yourself out there, when it comes to having conversations, and building relationships, and having research. Dani Tan: The other thing that was very, very interesting was that they detached.

Detachment was crazy! Thing that snuck up and surprised me of the folks who were most successful, the people who were able to detach from the outcome for those who were like, I have to have a job by in [00:08:00] three months. It has to happen. Dani Tan: If it doesn't happen, it's, life or death. Like, I don't know. I just has to happen to those who clung so hard to the results. Those who clung so hard to the timeline did not yield results as quickly because they were coming at every single strategy. They were coming to every single task with this feeling that each thing had so much weight that it had to work. Dani Tan: And if it didn't work, everything's going to fall apart. And that's a lot of pressure to put on every single conversation.

That's a lot of pressure to put on every single task. That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. So those folks actually. It extended the time for them to yield their results because there was all this unspoken pressure. Dani Tan: For those who were able to detach and say, This is what my goal is. I want to either build this business by this day, or I want to have a new job by this day, or I want to, you know, plan this event for myself by this day. And all I can do is surrender and know that I'm going to show up and do the tasks that I'm asked to do and do the best that I can do. Dani Tan: And at [00:09:00] least I know I put the effort and energy in and whatever happens, happens. Those folks got what they wanted the fastest.

The fastest because they were showing up to their tasks and they're showing up to their conversations. They were showing up to the work that they were doing, and it was a different kind of energy. Dani Tan: They were just coming with curiosity, with excitement, with understanding, knowing that at least they were taking steps forward. It was insane, but those folks were able to yield the results faster and more efficiently than the people who were too attached to the result and therefore putting all this unspoken and sometimes spoken pressure on themselves and on every single conversation. Dani Tan: It was like every little thing was the weight of the world, which just has you show up much differently.

I think of it as like, you know, if you, you're, it's like, you don't want to feel like you're desperate, but you're showing off that you are desperate. And so it's just trying to find the right way to care about your results, care about what we want to do, but not feel like everything is on it, which is why I always talk about like, what is your plan? Dani Tan: A, B, C. It's important to have those backup plans. If things don't pan out, [00:10:00] because if you don't have them, then you feel like there's so much pressure, but the backup plans almost like relieve the pressure for you. So you can show up more in alignment with who it is that you want to be when you achieve these things. Dani Tan: So that part was a very big surprise, uh, shocker.

But the other thing that was interesting was that when you had this attachment, you were more comfortable with short term failure. You were more comfortable with rejection. So if you have fear of. Rejection. You have fear of failure. You have fear of judgment. Dani Tan: Those who had really strong attachment to their results were very scared of almost like pushing themselves out of their limits for, really being able to show up in a way that made sense for what they were trying to achieve. And they were too scared of the failure, too scared of the judgment, too scared of the rejection. Dani Tan: And to attach the result that they, they weren't necessarily taking the steps. They would quote unquote take the steps, but not fully.

So, oh yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna network. And they would just like send out some messages, but not really pursue the right, you know, not really pursue them or follow up with them. Dani Tan: They would just, it's like, you're just going through the motions, but you're not really going through it with the intent that you would do if you were just So I think that was important too, and they would just remove the pressure of the timelines. They just knew if it didn't work out in this scenario, this is what the next time I would be. Dani Tan: And I think they created the space for those opportunities by doing that, which was the craziest thing that I would say, but I would say ultimately they were engaged.

They were committed. They were curious. They would experiment. They were comfortable with, you know, timeline shifting their, ability to create a plan A, a plan B. Dani Tan: They knew they would have to step out and do something uncomfortable. Because that's why we're here for growth and they were able to really communicate also what their, their needs were and are. And those are truly the, the metrics of the clients that who are going to yield the most results, not just in coaching, but just in general. Dani Tan: it's like, I always say personal development growth, it's a lot of work. It's not for the faint of heart. but if you're coming in and you're like, what does it look like? I would say, these are the things that it would look like, but.

The thing that's insane is that you could just see these [00:12:00] beautiful, insane results and successes on all different levels and all different shapes of forms. Dani Tan: If it's belief, confidence, decision making, new businesses, new lives, new states of where they're living, uh, new partners, I've seen so many different life changes that have happened, not just business changes that have happened. And that's what I would say you would need to be successful. And what has made my clients most successful to yield amazing results.