UpdateAI – Zoom meeting assistant
If you’re looking to level up your CS leadership skills, Nils Vinje is the man you want to listen to.
Nils is a renowned leadership coach and the founder of B2B Leaders Academy, where he works with leaders from different organizations and frames leadership as the ability to be able to empower others and create an environment where their ability can blossom.
His expertise is especially effective for customer success leaders, considering he joined the budding industry after earning his MBA in 2009. Nils quickly climbed the CS ranks, moving from a customer success manager to a vice president within three years.
Nils, in the latest episode of “[Un]churned,” talked to UpdateAI CEO Josh Schachter about what it means to be a leader who empowers others – and why it’s an effective method of leadership. Be sure to listen to the full episode for tips on how to grab an audience’s attention in unique ways. But first, let’s dive into what makes an effective CS coach.
Trying to help someone tackle a new skill or work on improving an existing skill? Nils said it’s critical that you first “acknowledge the past.”
That means taking an honest assessment of why someone has had a hard time developing a particular skill to begin with.
For example, Josh told Nils he wanted to get better at public speaking. Nils asked Josh to look back on anything that may have hampered his development as a public speaker – and Josh shared that, at the age of 6 or 7, he had a poor experience speaking in a school play that stuck with him for years afterwards.
Further, Josh said the act of being an energetic public speaker didn’t come naturally to him because of how he was raised. With a social worker mom and a dad who was a doctor, Josh wasn’t raised to brag about his accomplishments.
From a coaching standpoint, this brings out a “visceral” reaction within the pupil – allowing them to truly examine what’s been holding them back. Nils said this lets Josh acknowledge the belief “he’s dishonoring his mother or not living in alignment with the values” she raised him in. Once that’s out in the open, it’s liberating – and allows the coach to help the student reach their destination easier.
“The past won’t change,” Nils said, “but you can focus on the future.”
The next step a coach needs to implement is having their student clearly articulate who they want to be. You have a much greater chance of hitting a target if you are aiming for it, after all.
This goes beyond merely saying you want to get better at public speaking. As the coach, get granular. Ask “who do you want to be on the stage in the future?”
That can include having better posture, speaking more clearly and slowly, and having the ability to keep the audience in the palm of your hand. Maybe that’s the antithesis of who this person is right now.
“But the best part is, we have the ability to change our beliefs,” Nils said.
One trick Nils uses is having his students rate on a 1-10 scale how passionate they are about making these changes, with 10 being the most intense. If the person you’re helping says it’s not very strong – something around 5-6 and below – it’s worth diving into the lack of passion. Again, asking questions is key here.
And you may have caught something by now – Nils hasn’t told his student anything yet. And that’s by design.
What separates a good coach from a charlatan, Nils said, is asking engaging, thought-provoking questions that allow the student to examine why they really want to accomplish something. That’s important, rather than simply giving them a game plan and telling them to follow it. Instead, it creates buy-in – and that tends to pay off.
“When you ask great questions, you help others find the answers,” Nils said. “And they’ll be 80% more likely to follow through with whatever they discovered.”
Put simply, that’s what a legit coach does. So keep in mind, if you are in a CS leadership position and looking to help your team members reach a new level, don’t be afraid to ask questions. That’s where the gold is panned.
Josh 0:06
Hey everybody, and welcome to this episode of [Un]churned. I’m Josh Schachtor, founder and CEO of UpdateAI. I’m really excited to be here today with Nils Vinje. Nils is the founder and CEO of B2B Leaders Academy. And he’s a customer success expert. Thank you Nils for being on the show.
Nils Vinje 0:24
My pleasure. Just excited to be here with you today.
Josh 0:28
And I’m excited to have you and as you know, I thinr our conversation about a year and a half ago was my first endeavor into customer success. So you taught me the very foundations of CES back then. So it’s cool going full circle with you.
Nils Vinje 0:43
I remember that conversation very well and and had a blast and was intrigued by what you were building with update AI, we had really good conversations been wonderful to get to know you and see the progression of your product and solution and bringing it to market.
Josh 0:59
Thank you. Okay, so we’re going to talk today about leadership, which is a really important topic. Before we dive into that, I want to warm up a little bit. The name of our podcast here is unsure and it’s raw. It’s authentic. And so we want to learn about the raw authentic nails vignette. So a couple of quick, rapid fire questions for you. Right. Where were you born and where do you live now?
Nils Vinje 1:21
So I was born in Santa Monica, California. And currently I live in Phoenix, Arizona.
Josh 1:29
I don’t know if I knew you were born in Santa Monica. What street in Santa Monica. It’s
Nils Vinje 1:34
the St. John’s Hospital. And right in the middle of hardest Santa Monica. I grew up in the Marina del Rey in the Pacific Palisades, and then branched out from there. I’ve lived in a number of times.
Josh 1:46
St. Johns is actually known for their for their deliveries. So you’re born again. I got lucky. I got a funny story. So my first proper job in tech, I had to start 15 years ago, my first real job in tech was with eHarmony, the dating website. And so we were about a quarter mile from St. John’s over in Colorado Center, Yahoo center back there. Yeah,
Nils Vinje 2:13
yep. And it’s transformed so much the Santa Monica area. And Playa Vista is actually where there’s a lot of headquarters of some very large tech companies. And we actually ended up living in Playa Vista for the first like, five years that the development was being built. So they built it in phases in this first phase was, you know, some condos and townhomes and single family, small single family homes, but it was really an experiment. And how could you bring inside of Los Angeles, a very densely populated area? How could you bring a community together around open space? It was really cool. And now, years and years later, the place is filled with 1000s of people and all these tech companies just down the road from where we used to live is quite fascinating.
Josh 2:58
Yeah, yeah. Silicon Beach, they’re trying to reach San Francisco. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a
Nils Vinje 3:04
little bit of a different ballgame. But you know, that’s for another time.
Josh 3:08
Well, what’s going on in Phoenix these days? How is the tech scene looking in Phoenix, Arizona,
Nils Vinje 3:13
what there’s been a massive influx on account of you know, when the pandemic hit the Phoenix and greater Arizona area has received a lot of transplants, we were one of them. We used to live in Bend Oregon prior to this and San Francisco prior to that, so we like to optimize lifestyle and where we live for based on what we think is most important for us in our family. And so we’ve moved around several times and love Phoenix, you know, it’s it’s everybody’s like, how do you deal with the heat? And it’s like, well, you know, you’re it’s warm in the morning. It’s warm in the evening, and you have to work inside anyway. So it’s really not that big a deal. Now, if I was a roofer or some tradesmen working outside, probably different story, however, we absolutely love it. And I think the texting has grown considerably here because a lot of companies have, even before the pandemic had used Phoenix as a hub, we got ASU, right in Tempe, you have a is only, you know, a short drive south in, in Tucson. And so you have this huge crop of incredibly talented people coming out of university every year. It’s a wonderful place to build companies and to get started and you know, at the time we moved here is great cost of living and now it’s completely different. So that’s a whole other story as well, but it’s been a blast.
Josh 4:27
Is it too early to call it silicon desert? Yeah,
Nils Vinje 4:30
I think I think so. I think there’s a long ways to go it’s the it’s the silicone extension, whatever the windows little, little little finds out on the chip that goes to the end and has a little end note that’s that’s my guess is where we’re Phoenix’s
Josh 4:45
I love I love I love hearing that now, you know, you’ve got to get Silicon Beach over and the west side of La you’ve got silicon slopes and Utah. Yep. It’s funny to see
Nils Vinje 4:55
right in the middle of those two, you know, more or less geographically as well as You know, kind of metaphorically, to. Yeah. And I think in the next probably 1020 years, this Phoenix will develop its own, you know, even larger startup ecosystem as a result, again, of just, you know, the proliferation of SAS, the wonderful work of entrepreneurs, and a great environments in place to raise families and make a living and have a good time and have a good life.
Josh 5:25
Okay, well, we’ll save the the Urban Planning chat around the Phoenix area tax for the next episode we do together. And we’ve got a
Nils Vinje 5:33
lot of potential topics here. Yeah, yeah. Well,
Josh 5:36
we’ll keep going on this. So So I want to actually go back to my introduction of you, I cut you, I cut it short. I didn’t do it, do it, do it merit. And there’s a reason that I want to read off like your full proper intro. So a little bit about you nails professionally. And I’m reading here, I’m cheating. But you went from being a CSM customer success manager to a VP of Customer Success in two and a half years. Yep, you founded the very first customer success consulting firm in January of 2015. I don’t know if I buy that or not. I want to hear more about that. But it doesn’t actually matter for the point in front of me here. You, you’ve been recognized three times as a top 25 influencer in the field of customer success. You have an MBA in management and organizational behavior, which is one of my favorite courses in MBA. You are a certified leadership coach, and you got over 1000 hours working with clients. You’re the host of your own podcast, b2b leadership. And you’ve written a best selling book 30 Day leadership playbook, right?
Nils Vinje 6:36
Yep. A lot of great stuff. Let me pause there because I do want to share with your listeners, Josh, you can get a free digital copy of my best selling book that Josh just mentioned, 30 day leadership playbook by simply going to be to be the letter B, the number to the letter B leaders academy.com, forward slash book, strap your name and email and I will send you a free digital copy and get your hands on it some incredible tools and credible techniques, which we’ll talk about today. But you can get a free copy by going to b2b leaders academy.com forward slash book.
Josh 7:08
Okay, awesome. So so that’s my point right there. So Neil’s just cut me off. So I’m gonna stop right there and go through a 22nd advertisement of my book, in the middle of this podcast, right. And my point here is that you are not shy, you are not you are not afraid to promote yourself, you’re not afraid to, to chest thump. But it’s it’s in a very pleasant, playful way, because that’s your personality, and you’re not afraid to just just self promote. And I think it’s done done wonders for you over the past several years. And previously, as you’re growing your career in the more corporate world, you know, you and I have spoken offline about that. So and that’s kind of the topic of our conversation I want to make that the topic of our conversation is what folks need to do really to market themselves to be able to grow their careers and their leadership.
Nils Vinje 7:58
That’s is a wonderful topic. And I was not naturally gifted to do this. Right from the get go. This has been a long evolution, as you noted that I started my consulting firm on January 1 2015. So we’re coming close to eight years now of being on my own. And the way I look at it, just like the promotion with that book is that I have this incredible thing that I know that if I get this into the hands of managers, directors, VPC levels inside of b2b SaaS businesses, I know I can make a positive impact on their life as a result of sharing my expertise from having been a leadership coach for over 10 years, worked with hundreds of clients for over 1000 hours, one on one, to help them work through the biggest leadership challenges that they experienced. And I took all of that expertise, everything I’ve ever coached on taught on, you know, dreamt up thought of, and I condensed it into this book, in a way that anybody could understand and get value out of. So when I look at it, as promotion, I’m looking at this promotion, to get a result for the people who are going to get the book, not necessarily just, it’s all about me, and I want you to you know, get on my list and whatever, I truly do believe that if you read this book, and if you implemented even one tiny piece of the then no amount of strategies I share, your leadership skills will dramatically improve. And therefore you have an opportunity to improve the lives of the people that work for you. People work with you, the people in your personal life in your professional life. So there’s so much goodness wrapped up in that. And that’s the mindset that I go into when I think about promotion is what’s in it for the audience. And we’re gonna have a good discussion about this because from a leadership perspective, inside of a company, we got to start thinking that way, it’s not about us, it’s about them.
Josh 9:42
So, okay, so so this is now like for you going on five minutes now that we’re talking about Nelson’s credentials, right? Like we just had a little little commercial break. Then we went through we read, we read off your your, your background, then we had the commercial break. Now we’re still talking about the book. We’re still talking about your 1000 coaching hours. All these things, I’m still reinforcing it right now two seconds ago. Right. But my point is that I wouldn’t do that. I’ve always felt very uncomfortable talking about myself and my own accolades and celebrating those things. But I really respect that you do. And I think that it’s something that, you know, I’m looking looking up to you in this regard. Like,
Nils Vinje 10:21
can I ask you a question though? Here? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What makes you uncomfortable? In those situations? You don’t share that?
Josh 10:30
That’s a good question. I mean, this is this is now going to turn into a little bit of a therapy session, right? But that’s okay.
Nils Vinje 10:35
That’s coaching, coaching. But yes, that was a coaching question.
Josh 10:40
What’s the difference between therapy and coaching.
Nils Vinje 10:43
So in there, and this was one of the most eye opening things that I found, when I decided to become a coach, I did a lot of research. And there was actually one article that perfectly laid out behind the differences between all these different professions and what they meant. In therapy. The goal, oftentimes, I’m not saying this universally, and I do not knock therapy, I have used it myself, in my personal and professional life, it is a very, very valid entire field, and I love it. But there are some things it’s better for and other things it’s not. So from therapy, in a very general sense, a goal is to go back to the past, and work through the situations that happened. And by reliving them by reimagining different scenarios by really spending time in the past. And that’s, that’s, that’s the most general explanation, I can give a therapy. Now coaching. On the other hand, there’s one simple statement that is universally true across anybody, hopefully, who calls themself a coach, it is that we acknowledge what happened in the past. But we focus on what we want to have happen in the future. So on the therapy side, we’re going to stay in the past and work through it until we feel feel better about what happened in the past. On the coaching side, we acknowledge that happen. And then we focus on what we want to change to be different in the future. That’s the fundamental difference between those two. Interesting. So by my asking you that question. Right now, we’re one, I assume that I don’t know, the reason of why you might feel, you know, uncertain or, you know, not able to fully articulate your credibility, right. I don’t know, if I was a consultant, or if I was a mentor, if I was somebody who had been through the same experience, I might just in that instance, say, Josh, you know, what you should really think about ABCDE here’s what I did when I struggled with the same thing. And all I’m doing is telling you my worldly view, and not really curious about what’s going on inside your head. So as a
Josh 12:48
well, let’s go into this. Let’s go into this now. So okay, so if you’re, oh, I was raised in a family, you know, we raised in a family that that kind of focused on, on on actually my mom, my parents just retired, my mom was a social worker, my father, a physician, not in the business, not in the marketing, sales type of realm, right. So a little bit more kind of softer, spoken a little bit more a call of humility, not that the opposite is not, you know, being humble. But, and, and then I also just always had stage fright. I had terrible stage fright up until just a couple of years ago. And I worked through that really hard. I worked. I worked hard to get through that. And that’s actually been probably the biggest advancement in my own, like, personally, professional career is going from that being a weakness to somewhat of a strength almost, but nonetheless, like, I just, I feel uncomfortable. It feels like gloating, it feels like bragging. And it’s probably my mother’s voice from my childhood saying, you know, be be modest. Don’t be you know, be humbled. Don’t brag those sorts of things. But I’m not the only one right that has my mother in the background. Oh, yeah. So that’s the background, right? Like, that’s the background now. Yeah. Now, that’s the therapist. Now. Now. Now, now play the coach for me so
Nils Vinje 14:00
well. So in the therapy piece, if we were going down that and if I, if I wasn’t a therapist, see, I would probably go back to the relationship that you had with your mother, right, and the actual language that you used with her and the actual language she used with you. And I would probably even get you to remember, you know, the first time that ever happened. And it was probably pretty visceral when she said that or when it really hit home the first time. Right? And that formed a very strong belief about this is how we talk about ourselves. We do not do ABC, we do the E FF, right? And that belief is still living within you every single day, which prevents you from fully sharing all of your accomplishments in a way because you believe that if I do that, I’m going to be either dishonouring my mother or not living in alignment with the values that I was brought up with and that I think are important. Okay, fair. So we could spend years probably as a therapist and a client in that scenario and Now, on the other side, I as a coach, I’m going to I’m be curious. And if you’re willing to engage with me, tell me if you can think of the very first time that actually happened. I’m curious if something pops into your mind about the very first time you remember that feeling.
Josh 15:20
So we’re starting with a therapy here, going back to the very first time where
Nils Vinje 15:24
there’s a point because remember, we have to acknowledge, so we’re not going to disregard. Yeah. And I want to know, where that came from. I’m curious, is what is where did that come from originally, sometimes, that’s a very, very important moment to acknowledge for what it was and when it happened and why it happened. And that helps set us up for what we’re going to do. Instead,
Josh 15:46
you know, I’m really I’m not trying to be closed here. I want to be vulnerable, but I can’t remember that. It probably was just a little bit more death by 1000 slices type of thing. That’s fine added up. But I can, but I can I can actually go back and tell you the first time that I felt stage fright, and how,
Nils Vinje 16:05
yeah, what was going on? Yeah.
Josh 16:07
So this is funny. So I don’t know if I told it this at the start anybody. This was the first grade play. And it was some kind of like, you know, colonials and Native Americans. Something of like one of these, like, you know, Thanksgiving types of things. And it was in the auditorium at Braeburn Elementary School. My set my alma mater, can you call an elementary school, your alma mater, right, in Connecticut. And, and I don’t know what my role was, I think it was on the Native American side there. And I had this like, moccasin pouch that was supposed to handle somebody on stage. And I had like, one line when I did that. And I dropped the pouch. And I got nervous and embarrassed. And I started cracking up on stage. Yep. Mind you, I’m six, maybe seven at most. Yeah. And, and I was just really embarrassed about that. Now, that being said, like my whole family, they all have stage fright, too. So maybe there’s even a little bit of this, you know, nurture versus nature thing going onto is just kind of inherent. But for me personally, that was a moment that I think just got me off onto the wrong track. Yeah. Early, early, early age. And then there were there were later things in life. And even you know, cut, like when I was a young professional in my 20s, I would have to make a as a product owner. And so you’d have to go and talk about the new features that you just launched to the to the company, and my heart would be palpitating, and you will literally see you literally see the clothes on my chest moving from my heart pumping so quickly. Wow. Yeah. And now it’s actually enjoy the spotlight a little bit to be honest with you. So good. There you go. That’s
Nils Vinje 17:46
perfect. And have in those cases much later, and even up till now. Have you ever seen yourself as that little first grader, you know, onstage? Terrible, terrible, completely frightened by what was going on and dropping the pouch? And kind of messing up the lines? Have you seen that image and felt that? Well, yeah, even now? Yes.
Josh 18:06
Yeah, not now. But a couple of years ago, I did. Like when I was when I would get really nervous. Before it before it started. Before I made that switch, you know, recently, I would, I would, I would go up there be like, alright, don’t be that kid. You know, think positive thoughts. You’re gonna get through this. But I would see that that person. Yeah.
Nils Vinje 18:23
And anytime we say don’t do XYZ, or don’t think about XYZ, that’s usually the thing we think about, right? Okay. Don’t think about messing this up. And then the only thing your brain hears is, let’s mess this up. It’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. Okay. So from the coaching side, right, it’s important to understand the circumstances of where these things came from. And at a very early age, there was a belief formed that if you Josh, go out on stage, there’s a good chance, you’re going to drop the pouch, and you will feel really nervous. And you’ll get this entire visceral reaction throughout your whole body. That is a belief that at one point in time when you were six, or six or seven years old, that kept you safe. And what I mean is that that belief prevented you from going into perhaps the next player, perhaps going into a bigger role in a future play. And it kept you from experiencing that potential pain. That is the power of the beliefs that we have. Now, here’s the thing. Most people and myself included, I’m not immune to this. Do not ever reassess the beliefs we have about certain activities, like speaking publicly, or giving presentations or talking about yourself, right? We instead play the beliefs that were formed at oftentimes very early ages, just like your example here. And they play over and over and over and anybody listening to this can Matt immediately imagine this, if you’ve ever reacted the exact same way, in a very similar situation, whether it was about money, friends, significant others, husbands, wives, spouses, People, whatever it is a result of beliefs that are behind what it means to be on stage. Right. So up until a couple of years ago, there was probably a deep seated belief that if I go on stage, I will fit. And therefore my body is going to react a certain way. And it’s going to do everything possible to prevent me from feeling that pain. And so all of this, and so much of the everything we’re going to talk about here is all is there’s a lot of psychology in this, which is fascinating, because the best part is, we have the opportunity to change our beliefs. And this is the coaching piece where we acknowledge that Josh’s six, seven years old, experienced that what could have be perceived as a traumatic event? Right, very, very important piece. And we acknowledge that that belief that was formed then was done in a way that honored and protected Josh from putting himself in that position to feel that again, we honor that. It’s okay. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It’s just we honor that it happened. We acknowledge it. And now the question is, Josh, who do you want to be on stage in the future?
Josh 21:09
I want to be the guy that speaks like you, the one that goes out there with a lot of energy and confidence and, and energizes the AVI audience does not get laughed at, obviously, unless they intend for that. And I want to build a brand, right on the face of my own company. Now building a brand and being on stage is very important for me professionally for the company. And then you know, for the rest of my career, it’s going to be important.
Nils Vinje 21:32
Perfect, that’s it, right. So that everybody who is listening to this from just the pure audio perspective, you can 100% hear the difference in Josh’s voice when he was talking about the past and what happened at that point in time and what it was like to speak, on stage, even publicly, up until a few years ago, we did a lot of work. It was very slow, it was very your head was tilted down, you’re watching the video version of this, you can see it clear as day. And the dramatic change in your physiology, when we talked about what do you want to paint in the future? What’s the vision that you want to paint? And if that vision is compelling enough for you, then we have the seeds to begin to change? Again, we acknowledge the past, we do not spend time, you know, ruminating in there and thinking, well, if I had done this differently, at six years old, I’d be a different person today. No, it’s I acknowledge the six year old version of me, I know that what I did, you know, wasn’t great, I know that the belief I formed kept me safe. And thank you for doing that and keeping me safe at that point in time. However, at this point in my life, being the face of update being the face of this, this incredible company doing everything I want to do on stage, that belief does not serve me anymore. And I’m ready to change because I want to become this much greater version from a presentation perspective. Right? And that I saw that all of that encapsulated in your body language and in your voice right there. So that tells me that one, Josh is ready and committed to change. And if you truly are, then the next question will be easy for you to answer. So Josh, let’s say you were able to become this wonderful presenter onstage, able to get people to laugh at your jokes and entertain them and be very confident and be the face of your company. That question is this, if you are able to achieve that, what is going to be different?
Josh 23:28
In me what’s going to be different as an output of that or whatever, as a result of achieving it? As a result of achieving that?
Nils Vinje 23:35
Take it however you like.
Josh 23:38
What’s gonna be different in that is I’m going to build more followership, I’m going to help my company help promote its brand and help it grow. I’m going to help my own personal brand. Quite frankly, I’ll enjoy the experience. It’s fun actually, when you enjoy going up on stage and talking like you feet and you know this Neil’s like you feed off of that adrenaline, right? You get to meet more people. You get invited to speaking engagements like you do. You know, travel as a result of that. So it’s it’s an especially now in a world where we are I do feel a little bit locked and caged up in my home office at times, right. Like that’s important to get out there and be able to speak because those are, you know, I’m not interested quite frankly, in speaking on webinars, it’s it’s more you know, of philosophy. It’s more it’s the in person stuff, which is a lot of fun. I never thought I’d say that’s right for but it’s an opportunity to meet people in person.
Nils Vinje 24:48
Great, that’s wonderful. Right? Those are all incredible benefits as a result of achieving this future transformation as future Josh out there now you’ve clearly articulated who you want to be in The future from a presentation spec perspective from a relationship building perspective from a company growth perspective. And I’m going to ask you one more question on a scale of one to 10. Josh, one not motivated at all. 10 willing to do absolutely anything, whatever it takes. Where are you on the scale of one to 10 to achieving that future version of you you just described?
Josh 25:22
I’d honestly say close to a 10.
Nils Vinje 25:27
How? Give me the number?
Josh 25:29
No, 10? I’ll say 10.
Nils Vinje 25:32
Good. Excellent. How you know, that is go ahead and share that? Well, I
Josh 25:37
know that a couple of years ago, so I worked at Boston Consulting Group group. And they do a TED Talk that they sponsor, which you can imagine is a big event. It’s International, it’s all the the most senior management there and hundreds, if not 1000s of people 1000s, if not hundreds of people that are in person watching you. And can you imagine the pressure of doing a TED talk in front of like the preeminent consultants in the world. And I actually applied for that I put together a video with our video production department in my company, I had a whole, you know, a whole well, well put together, I didn’t get the I didn’t get the role. But I was really serious about wanting to talk at TED. And for somebody who would have petrifying stage, right? That’s the worst thing you could do. Right? So that, to me, tells me I was incredibly motivated.
Nils Vinje 26:28
Good, yeah, that’s perfect. That’s a great example of how they’re in pieces of you inside that want this more than anything, that is a perfect example of that. And a lot of times when the fear of whatever it is, we think is going to happen, overshadows you know, what we are doing on a daily basis, there will be little blips of things where you say exactly what you did. I’m not exactly sure why I did this, but it just felt like it was the right thing to do at the time. Right. And that’s wonderful, we have to honor that we had to bring that to the surface, we have to pay attention to those little things. And that’s a big part of my job as a coach. So as you’ve seen here, you know, we won’t get into too many too much more here. But as you’ve seen, what we did was acknowledge the past, we acknowledge where Josh was, previously with regards to this element of presenting and talking about himself and being confident on a stage. And we acknowledged it, it happens, right, we’re not getting that no matter how much time effort and energy on we spend on the past, it will never change. So instead, we focused on the future. And I got Josh to tell me what he wanted in the future for himself when it comes to presenting and being the face of his company and growing his reputation and having speaking opportunities, etc. And then I asked how motivated he was to actually do that. So I was able to do all of this and get to this conclusion, where you have this crystal clear vision of what you want in this area for you in the future, you’ve identified that you’re at a 10 level of motivation. Right. And now, it’s there a million tactics that we can employ to help you achieve that future vision. Right. But I did all of that, without telling you a single thing. The only thing I did was ask you several very powerful questions that got you to think about what does this mean for me, and that is the fundamental difference between a coach was a legit coach and somebody who’s a coach and acts more like a consultant. It’s like, Well, Josh, if you want to get better public speaking, you should just join this course. Or if you want to overcome your stage fright, here’s what I did. Right? That is the ultimate, de motivator on the receiving end of that. So yeah,
Josh 28:35
so coaching, I mean, clearly, I’ve derived a lot of value from the session. Like I said earlier, this wasn’t we didn’t come into this, with this episode, not the conception of having this conversation. But so you’ve you’ve put your, you know, you’ve proved the proof in the pudding here about your effectiveness as a coach, when I think of all the coaches out there, and I get pinged a lot on LinkedIn, like many others, I’m sure about coaches. And the impression that I have is that coaches can charge good money, and there’s a lot of charlatans out there that are not necessarily the best coaches. What is the distinction between a good coach and a charlatan? Coach?
Nils Vinje 29:20
Yep, that distinction is the ability to help someone discover the answers for themselves. period, full stop. That is the single most important thing that a coach must do. Now, it doesn’t mean that I can’t ever share my history and my examples, my stories, my advice and whatnot. It just means that ultimately, the only way my client you in this case is going to make any change in their life is going to be because it was their decision. However, they needed me as the coach to help guide them to that decision and uncover what was already within them. I’m just like that Ted example. There’s a little blip there. And now you see that in a completely different way. And now this was a little bit ago, a little while ago. But now you see that in a completely different way that this, that 10 minute level of motivation is really what was behind that blip. And now you see that as a result of going through this process, and me holding the space for you, acknowledging the past with you, and giving you a little bit of insight into beliefs and how that works, and how powerful it is, when we do change, because we’ve know what’s going to be different. If you had told me, you know, there’s not really anything’s going to be different. And when I asked you the question, if you achieve that, what would be different? I would say, there’s no point in doing spending any more time on this, because you will absolutely 100% not change. And that is one of my favorite questions. Because as soon as people tell me, oh, I want to do this, I want to do this one is I’m like, okay, great. When you do that, what is going to be different? And it’s probably not that much like great, no, no, can’t work with you. Because there’s no point in helping you because you have no desire to change. So those things are all within you. And the coach, the true coaches will be able to bring that out as a result of listening very deeply, and asking powerful questions just like I did. And perhaps I share an anecdote or an experience or something that would help you get to the next step. But I’m never ever going to tell you, here’s what you need to do, Josh, this is my, this is what I did, you should do the same thing.