Executive Coaching: Core Transformation and Wholeness Work

Executive coaching focuses on leadership development, stress management, and behavior change for senior executives seeking career progression and personal fulfillment.

### The Transformative Power of Core Transformation in Executive Coaching
* 💼 Stephen Josephs, a highly successful executive coach with over 40 years of experience, shares his journey into executive coaching, starting with **NLP** and later incorporating **Core Transformation**.
* 🔄 Core Transformation is a process that works with unconscious parts to address behaviors, thoughts, or feelings that aren't working for us, leading to **profound shifts in behavior and self-understanding**.
* 🎯 A client example is discussed, where a high-level executive wanted to change his sarcastic behavior, and through Core Transformation, identified the underlying need for **peace and respect**.
* 🌟 The process leads to what is called "**The Core State**," a state of being beyond behaviors, where **peace and other positive qualities** are experienced.
* 👥 Core Transformation is particularly beneficial for executive coaching, as it helps leaders move from a "**heroic**" stage to a "**post-heroic**" stage, where **collective wisdom is celebrated** and **leadership is more inclusive**.
* 🧠 The process also helps develop empathy and understanding, allowing coaches to see the **positive intentions behind seemingly negative behaviors**.
* 🏢 In the context of business coaching, Core Transformation can address various challenges, including **stress, performance anxiety, and leadership development**.
* 💡 Stephen emphasizes that **Core Transformation is a powerful tool for aspiring coaches**, even if they don't have a traditional business background, as it can be **learned through practice and experience**.

welcome to this Andreas NLP video podcast. Executive coaching, helping clients find fulfillment and authentic expression in leadership. I'm Tamara Andreas with Andreas NLP. I'm a court author of the book core transformation and international trainer for core transformation, the wholeness work, NLP, bunch of stuff, and I'm really delighted to have with me Stephen Josephs. Stephen Josephs has over 40 years' experience as a highly successful executive coach. In fact, he told me once that once he got started, he never even needed to market himself because his clients just came to him by word of mouth. So I'll be asking him about some of the keys to his success. Then at the end, we'll have some time for Q&A. So if you do have a question that you'd like to ask, please feel free to ask to add your questions into chat at any time. So Stephen, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experiences with us. Um, so I'm curious, how did you get started with executive coaching? I had studied NLP, and I was an NLP

trainer and I noticed that people who came through our course. A lot of them were business people, and they found it, uh, they found NLP very useful. So, I started using NLP in business, and that's really how I got started. It was before, uh, people were calling that kind of work coaching, so I would just go into a company and sort of set up shop and anything that, uh, that they wanted, whether it was a change in behavior or to enhance their performance in some way, you know, I was there and ready to do it. That's how I got going. Okay, great. And now you told me that, um, you have already an example prepared of a client that wanted to change something, and yeah. And what was the behavior that this client thought was a problem and needed, he needed to change it? He didn't like the fact that he responded to someone sarcastically. Okay, and and he recognized that it was something that he, he did every once in a while, and it seemed to be part of his personality or, uh, how he responded to.

the world and he didn't like it because uh it wasn't good for the culture to respond to people that way. You know he was a pretty high-level executive and uh and also after you respond to someone in that way uh you have to clean it up afterwards and he didn't like that either. Okay so he was noticing that it was you know harming his relationships with others and and making others feeling feel uncomfortable or or you know making it difficult for their the company to have good clean communication right and and I would say Tamara that that uh often people have um different avenues for feedback. One that your viewers might be familiar with is 360-degree feedback where um where they usually through a coach people are either interviewed or they have uh um an online kind of test where they are responding to the person's behavior and the whole idea is that there are some behaviors that are best practices and other ones that need to be remediated in some way and so a lot of people get the idea that you know

they have to change their behavior if they want to be a better leader, or if they want to progress in their career or something. So, um, this is just one example of someone wanting to change their behavior, right? Yeah, now, um, so he wanted to change it, and I'm wondering, had he already tried changing it on his own before asking for your help, you know? I don't think he really tried to do it. It's just, uh, sometimes in coaching, I start off sessions by asking, Okay, where would you like to, uh, direct our combined intelligence today? That's always a good question, and he said, Well, you know, I was sarcastic just, and then, you know, he just picked out something that he wanted to change. Okay, great. Um, but he, it wasn't an ongoing project, and, uh, wasn't something that really disturbed him. There are times when people have behaviors that they're really upset about, especially very, uh, uh, kind of aggressive, verbally aggressive behaviors, and they feel, uh, sort of powerless to change them. And, you know, as executive coaches, we run into

that uh fairly often um yeah. I bet so. Now, so then, you did a process called core transformation with him, right? And um, have you heard of it? Yeah, I've heard of it. Yeah, what a coincidence, right? And uh, you sent me some slides already to share. Just let me know when you want me to share the slides. Well, we can, we can look at it right away as an example because that uh, that'll make it more concrete for people. So let's go right to that. Okay, so here are the slides now. Yeah, so uh, next slide. There we are. Yeah, oh yeah, so I asked them, okay, there's a part of you that wants to um, you know, that is sarcastic. Let's interview that part, basically. And he uh, when he asked that part what it wanted, it wanted to retaliate. Okay, so and I'm gonna just uh, pardon me for interjecting her moment. I'm gonna just um, um, explain for all of our audience if if you're not familiar with chord transformation, the process works with unconscious parts and most everyone can

recognize when we have some kind of behavior or thought or feeling that isn't working for us. It's a problem. We want to change it. If it were in our conscious control, we would have already changed it. But consciously knowing about it hasn't changed it. So we could say it's an unconscious part of us generating it. It's on automatic pilot. And so, you know, it's as though there's a part of us doing it, even though consciously we don't want it to happen. So yeah, go ahead then, Stephen. Thanks. So, I really welcome your explanation of this because you've been teaching it for 30 years. So, I want you to jump in and kind of fill in what I'm missing. But anyway, that part said it wanted to retaliate. And part of the process is to say, Okay, good. Thank you. Just imagine that you've retaliated fully and completely and then what is it that through retaliation you'd want that's even more important to you than that, right?

and then he said set the record straight, and that same that, that same kind of inquiry keeps going. What would you want? That's more important than that. And you could, and he said get them to back down. So already this part has given us a lot of information, and it's also, as you'll see, it's progressing towards what, and core transformation is called The Core State. So he's now ensure he's respected. What's the next one? I forgot. Oh yeah. So now we're getting towards more of a state of being. So these, these other things aren't so much a state of being, but finally he gets to peace. That if, if he, that part is ensured that it's respected, and then it can relax. And now that it can really relax, is there anything more than that that it wants? And he says peace. Just interject again a little bit. So what we find is that using this precise line of questioning while we're communicating with an inner part of us inevitably leads to something that we

call a core state and so and and often relatively quickly we get here and this is at a being this level. It's beyond having or doing or getting results from other people and it might be something like Oneness love inner peace fullness presence and it's always something that the person experiences as being very positive so even if the part is creating a behavior that they really don't like that you know they consider the behavior to be very negative even harmful by exploring in this way we always get to a state of being that the person experiences as being wonderful is being very positive okay so thank you for letting me interrupt here and then go ahead and then what happened next well I've got to say that uh when I hear you explain it it's uh it's very inspiring to me because uh your description is so clean and precise and that's why you're such a good teacher I guess thank you so much. It does take a while to you know to hone in these descriptions of course yeah it does and

and I should also say, as uh, as kind of a testimonial, I uh, encouraged my nephew to go take training with you, and uh, the training has been marvelously effective for him. He's, he's really good at it, and that's because you and Mark are so good at teaching. Well, it takes good students too, and we have our students, though we have a lot of good students. I'm glad for that. So anyway, thank you, and thank you for, for your um, confidence in us to send your nephew our way. Yeah, well, I want to say something about just, just this initial part of core transformation because there's, there's a learning after someone does this a number of times with a number of behaviors or thoughts or things that they want to change about themselves. What they come away with is that I have these parts of myself that seem to want, uh, you know, some things that are counterproductive. But ultimately, they all want some kind of state of being that's, uh, really enjoyable and sometimes sublime, and it's

and I think the meta-learning here is really the great learning, which is that you don't have to fight with these parts. Um, uh, people have, uh, sometimes critical parts that are nagging them and stopping them. You know, sometimes that's, uh, part of what leads to procrastination or performance anxiety and things like that. But all of a sudden, or not all of a sudden, but over time, they get to understand that these parts are working for their benefit and, uh, that's a major change for people right there, exactly, yeah. And we get wonderful, amazing benefits even before we've completed the process, even in the first few steps of it, even we're getting a profound shift in our inner orientation towards ourselves and towards this part of us, yeah. So back to our person who has, uh, sarcasm and, uh, wants something else as a Target Behavior. Now we're going to ask, okay, if you have peace as an ongoing way of being, uh, how would that enhance your experience of relaxing, um, and and then that person invariably says

oh be much easier to just relax. It seems like a natural thing to do, which is what this God said. And then you can go for the next arrow, and you can, you know, have pieces and an ongoing way of being, um, effect when you want to ensure that you're respected. And then he said, I don't have to ensure that I'm respected. It's not really an issue anymore. I'm just fine with whatever is going on. And the same with the rest of these. I don't have to get them to back down, he said. Um, as far as backing down went, he said, I don't have to set the record straight. I don't have to get them to back down. I don't have to grab them by the lapels. And I still can, um, make their understanding or move towards an understanding that's more accurate. In this particular example, the client responded sarcastically to someone mischaracterizing their work. So that's why it set the record straight, but he felt like, I don't have to grab.

them by the lapels anymore. Um, and I can make them, uh, I can correct their understanding without having to retaliate or the rest of these things. So yeah, uh, yeah, awesome. And you know, that's your example is a wonderful example of this. And of course, um, everyone who's on this who does core transformation, this will sound familiar to you because this is typically what happens, isn't it, that as when we, when the part has the core state already, then whatever behaviors they were doing that were counterproductive, it's like, Oh, well, I don't need to do that anymore. I can, I can do something else that's, that's more true to my authentic inner nature, my best self, we could say. Um, yeah. Is there any way, Tamara, to find out how many people that are online right now are executive coaches or interested in executive coaching so we can find out really, uh, where to direct this? You know, that's challenging with our, uh, we could ask them to, to leave a comment in chat. Okay, that's a good idea. And then

you know, as far as, are you an executive coach or what is your interest in there because there may be people who are another kind of coach. There may be people who are interested for their own personal benefit, how to change behavior that I don't like. You know, there might be all kinds of, there might be executives, business people themselves who are on the podcast. Well, that's good. All right. So, Tamara and I welcome questions and comments from you so that'll help guide us to make sure we're relevant to you. Yeah, yeah. So now what we're going to get to a Q&A shortly here. Okay, there's something though that I think will be relevant to people no matter what their profession is. I think people will find it of interest. You mentioned something to me about how your, you know, all business coaches probably or all coaches and all people are interested in how to change behaviors, you know, and you know, we could call that like a short-term goal. You know, this is

a specific change I want it might take, you know, a relatively short time to do, right? Right. You were sharing with me that your goal in Executive coaching is a little different than a lot of people's, a lot of executive coaches, right? So I really think, uh, my goal in Executive coaching, first of all, I deal with a lot of, uh, very senior Executives, and they get to a point in their career where there's, uh, it's like this little inflection point, and, um, one of the things about that inflection point is, hopefully, they have gotten over the stage of development where they want to demonstrate that they're the smartest person in the room. Being the smartest person in the room or having to demonstrate it all the time is simply bad for your culture. It makes, uh, it's almost like you're trying to be the brain at the center of a hub, and everyone else is a spoke, and, um, you make all the decisions, you just take information from other people, and you come up with all the bright ideas.

and they're secondary to you. That kind of culture um can be really great if you truly are a genius and you just happen to luck into the right Market strategy. But often the collective wisdom of the group is going to add a lot of benefit. Not just for various ideas, but as an executive, you now have much better bench strength, as they call it, or you know, ideas for succession planning or something like that. And so that's just on a very practical level, on the level of personal fulfillment. Um, to be at a stage of development where, uh, your idea is sort of like a little narration, uh, where you're the hero. So we call these heroic stages, and heroic stages of development have a purpose. And the purpose is to become really great at something. So for instance, if I want to be operated on by a heart surgeon, you know, I want that person to at one point in her career to have wanted to be the best heart surgeon in the whole world, and they're going to

show everybody just how good they are. Um, that makes us very confident and it gives us a lot of skills and capacities and stuff like that. But to be a leader, you need to get beyond it and, uh, when you get beyond it, then, uh, your culture has benefited in the ways that I described. It's, uh, the collective wisdom is celebrated. If someone comes to you with an idea that you didn't think of and it's better than yours, instead of giving them the not invented by me response, um, you know, you're much, you get curious and you give them resources to develop it. And it's a much better place to work. It becomes a magnet for people, uh, you know, to want to work at that place. So there's a lot of benefit to, uh, making the kind of changes that we're talking about. And I think core transformation really, really helps with that. And, uh, I've got some examples of that too, but I, I just wanted to stop talking and ask you if you have anything to add.

yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Well, thank you for this. And if I can just encapsulate or summarize a little bit, so, it sounds like human beings, and in particular leaders, I mean, but all human beings too, go through stages of development as an adult, um, where there are stages that are at a heroic, um, level where we want to be the best, we want to be the one with the ideas, we want to get credit for our ideas, and, etc. And, at this stage, then we're as the leader. If I'm a leader at this stage that I'm not likely to be enlisting and inspiring my team to be making a lot of contributions, um, because I'm, you know, I'm the one who wants to be the best. Whereas, if I can get past this stage to the post-heroic stage, you're calling it, I believe. Then, then I am, of course, I still have all the same skills and knowledge that I did before. However, now I'm more interested in eliciting the creativity.

that that the input of others so that we together can can come up with something that's better than if I just came up with it on my own would that sum it up. Oh yeah, yeah, that's very nicely really summed up, and I think um there's something about core transformation that makes people curious. And also, the other thing is one of the hallmarks of post-heroic leadership is that you're able to be able to be in the shoes of the other person and uh and care about it. So one of the things that core transformation does to promote that is that uh so I have an example of someone, a leader who was very upset with somebody else's behavior and was quite angry at them. So I I we entered the core transformation process by me asking the question if you yourself even though you would never do what this other person is doing if you yourself were doing it what kind of emotions and thoughts and beliefs would be driving in anew. So um so they took a moment and they were able

to kind of feel those things, and then we started the core transformation process right from there, saying well that part of you that feels like this, that believes this, what does it want, and then we're back to the same core transformation process. So what that does is ultimately, at the end of the process, it relaxes them about those kinds of thoughts and beliefs inside that would generate that kind of behavior, and it allows them to accept it in themselves in a different kind of way and see that it has intended outcomes that actually are ultimately positive. And so when you have that understanding with yourself, it's easier to transfer that to a conversation with someone else where you can assume that this person may be acting in sub-optimal ways, but someplace down deep, they really want some very, very positive things in the world. And if you actually believe that, it's much easier to have a conversation with that person instead of pouncing on them. You know, it can be a much more productive interaction.

yes for sure. and so when we experience within ourselves that parts of us that we thought were very negative, we discovered that they actually want something positive at a deeper level. then it's easier than to also recognize this in others' behaviors that we just can't stand. that somebody else does. we can recognize that that person wants something positive. that inner part of them wants something positive through that behavior. and this ability that you're talking about to change in NLP, we call this changing perceptual positions. so instead of being in the position of being myself, I can step into the shoes of somebody else and pretend as though I'm this other person. and this ability to change perceptual positions, it's not the same as core transformation. however, we do teach it also in our core transformation seminar because it's so compatible with core transformation. it's complementary. this ability to change perceptual positions. and we actually take it in a little bit different direction with what we call aligning perceptual positions.

I'm not going to go into what that is, but you know, we teach like an advanced way of changing perceptual positions as well, yeah, and and this ability is it's part of the post-heroic stage, isn't it? Being able to go into other positions. It is, and you know, I think actually the perceptual uh position part um is is another and really wonderful way to do it, and even if you didn't do that the way I described it, simply accomplished part of it through just just playing the core transformation process, and they're very complementary, they work together. I think it's incredibly powerful, and you know, by the way, that's that's uh very good uh in preparing somebody for a negotiation and um uh so I'm a big fan of core transformation for that reason too, and then I want to bring up an example of something that happened just the other day. So um lately in the news, the high-tech companies have been laying people off and uh sometimes there are significant layoffs, you know, 10 or more of the

workforce has to be let go. You hear about that from Amazon and other places. So, I was working with a pretty senior executive, and she was talking about talking to people who had been let go and having a conversation with them. And then, she, you know, she in her background, she had learned some healing techniques, and she had the idea that she had to create some kind of boundary around her so that she didn't get negatively affected through empathy or sympathy, you know, and that she didn't get burned out from doing this. And what we actually ended up doing was doing a core transformation on the idea of protection. And she ended up feeling like she didn't really need a boundary anymore because she was able to. I'm trying to think back to this example. I think she was able to talk to the part that wanted to protect the other person and wanted to protect her. And once she got to a core state through dialogue with that part, she realized

that she didn't, uh, that it was okay for her to feel all these feelings without having them overwhelm her, and that way she didn't have to push the other person away anymore, and she didn't have to, uh, uh, sort of like become non-responsive, um, as a way of protecting herself. She was able to just be there with the other person and have a dialogue without being afraid of being overwhelmed. I don't know if I said that very well, but but it really works. I think you said it really beautifully, and um, and this is something I think we've all been there, sometimes feeling as though we need to defend ourselves, yeah, against something, and it's not that our physical safety is threatened, um, however, we feel emotionally like we need to defend ourselves against something, and that's, that, you know, that I think is one of the just Universal human struggles that we, that we have, and to transform that so that, you know, we can just be present and be aware of our own feelings and be aware of the other person without needing to change.

them somehow or defend ourselves against them, right? So, it's a tremendous blessing for anyone. Example, yeah, it was quite lovely to participate in. Oh, that's the other thing about core transformation is that it's really, for the practitioner, it's very non-stressful. It's very relaxed because you're encouraging whatever is there in your client to simply be there and with a sense of curiosity, you're kind of inquiring as to what it wants. I mean, what could be more simple and non-confrontational than that? And, oh, I know, go ahead. Yeah, no, I was going to say that a lot of people, you know, those of us who have gone through childhood, it's hard to go through childhood without collecting some kind of coping mechanisms that ultimately in adulthood don't serve us very well. And what I like about core transformation, so, the example of sarcasm is one of them, you know, I grew up in a family. My father was incredibly

sarcastic. I thought that's the way you talk to people. I had no idea. Okay, you know that, uh, that, that it was bad because I wanted to believe my father was good and I developed all his, uh, speaking patterns. It took me a long time to get rid of them. So what core transformation does, it can talk to the part of myself that had to, uh, had to embrace that at some point because it seemed like the best option. But then what core transformation can lead you to is to, uh, is to discover when in, uh, the process of growing up you actually adopted this as a good idea. And then have a little dialogue with that younger part about, uh, uh, no, it's not going to be like this forever. And there are going to be lots of options and, um, so that's one thing I like about core transformation. And the other thing is that, um, the kinds of, uh, discriminations or the, or that, that whatever the behavior was, uh, that there is, there is some way to use parts of it that are actually, uh, useful if applied.

with wisdom in adulthood, so you're not really getting rid of anything. What you're doing is adding wisdom to the equation. And um, so you get more resourceful from doing it. Yeah, for sure. Okay, now we've talked quite a bit about using chord transformation and also a little about changing perceptual positions. Now, there's this whole other model that we teach at Andreas NLP that I know that you're using already called the wholeness work. And um, just to give everybody just a brief description of what this is, it's a deep transformation method that's also developed by Connie Andreas. She developed core transformation and the wholeness work. And she developed the wholeness work through modeling experiences of Awakening. And doing the wholeness work brings about a shift in Consciousness through which we can experience a profound well-being. And what we might call suffering, you know what they call suffering in spiritual circles, falls away or life stress, we can say, just falls away. Um, and now even though it came about

through modeling, you know, Spiritual Awakening. It doesn't require any spiritual beliefs to do it, and to benefit fully from it, the beliefs don't matter at all, actually. Um, and you know, many people have heard of mindfulness. The wholeness work system accomplishes the goals of mindfulness and more. It's easier to do and more reliable in getting results, and gentle and kind. So, you know, that's just a short, a short, um, description of it. It's hard to put into words, really, uh, what it is. Um, but I'm just wondering, uh, Stephen, how does the wholeness work fit into your coaching work? Well, I must say, Tamara, that's the yummiest question you could ask me. And, uh, I think that, uh, so in my concept of Executive coaching, I think that the role of leadership is a spiritual path. I really, I think it is a path towards fulfillment and, uh, you know, whether you think that's spiritual or not, it's, um, uh, I think it is. And in my own background

just to share this I I have been meditating for a long time so in 2023 that marks the 58th year of two to three hours a day of daily practice and um uh I used to think that coaching that in Executive coaching everyone should meditate and uh I quickly found out that they they don't want to they don't want to because they don't have a lot of time and also the way meditation is often taught where the idea is to pay attention to your breath and gently bring your mind back when it when it Strays and wanders from that uh that a lot of my clients thought that that was a low yield errand that they were sending their mind on and they couldn't really see the benefit even though there's incredible research uh amount of research that shows how good meditation is for you but ultimately its goal is not to have concentration or even just stress reduction and relaxation it's to let the ego uh Fall Away um let this sense of of self fall away

and that's what um wholeness work addresses immediately and directly and uh very efficiently. So, I have a lot of clients now that get benefit through that, and they don't necessarily have to meditate to do it. But if they do want to do it, there is a process of using wholeness work uh by yourself that accomplishes what meditation does. And how I think of meditation is like this: suppose we're all sitting outside uh a room that's completely dark, and we're curious. We'd like to find out what's inside that room. So, it'd be great if we could just open the door, and we have as a source of Illumination a bright clear light that we could shine everywhere. And uh then we could explore, you know, anything that's in that room. But as it turns out, for most of us, we don't have a bright clear light. What we've got is a slide projector. It's got little shots of us, you know, in our childhood or blah blah blah, and we're

looking around the room through that, and then, uh, so the idea is eventually you want to get, um, you want to get those slides to fade a little bit, and, uh, that is what, um, dropping the sense of self helps accomplish. So, um, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, pardon me for interjecting here just because we're getting close to being out of time now. So, yeah, well, we need to go to the Q&A portion pretty soon and, and check for questions, um, and so, yeah. So, the wholeness work allows us to be present with less, let's say, less projection of our own assumptions, our own beliefs, our own filters onto reality, more, more ability to notice things as they are, the more, the more we experience, um, ourselves as awareness, which we get to experience as, you say, very directly through the wholeness work. Yeah, yeah. So, um, all right, where do you want to take it from here? Okay, so they for asking, and so I want to give people some resources for how to learn more because, of course, there's a

lot more that we could talk about it if we had all day or you know several days to talk um. And so if you want to learn more about core transformation, you can see the description below the video for all the details and links. The first step that we recommend is there's a free 80-minute video introduction to core transformation that includes a full demonstration and a group guided experience of the first few steps, so you can start to dip your toe into the Waters of the experience of it. Then the next step after this is the chord transformation Foundation course. There's one coming up soon that's live online. I'll be teaching it, and so this is a way that you'll get to do exercises with each other, guiding others, being guided as well through the whole core transformation process so that you can experience the benefits of core transformation for yourself. And so there's one coming up live online. I do encourage signing up soon because there's a timely discount, and also we do have limited spots in the training.

so if you want to get your spot, then sooner is better than later. Now, however, for some people, it's not possible to arrange their schedule to come to the live online one. So we also have a streaming video course that you can just watch whenever it's convenient for you and get the same material that way. What it doesn't have, you know, just watching the video course, you don't get the exercises and the experience of it being guided through the process. So we have a solution for that too, and that is there's a Core Transformation Practice Group that's a wonderful complement to the streaming video course. It meets once a week, and so over the course of two months, you get to experience all of the exercises in the Core Transformation course. That is managed and run by Mark Andreas, who is my co-trainer in all the advanced Core Transformation trainers. He does a fantastic job. Right now, in fact, he leads most of the groups himself.

may be that in the future that might change, but right now he is leading most of the groups himself. And so it's a wonderful experience either way. Um, and then we also offer Advanced Training all the way through coach certification for those of you who are interested in developing a professional level of skill. The foundation courses for anyone really, pretty much anyone that, whether you're interested in it professionally or personally, that's the place to start, okay. Now there are books by Stephen Josephs if you'd like to explore more of his ideas on thoughts on Executive coaching, um, leadership agility, five levels of Mastery for anticipating and initiating change, co-authored with Bill Joyner, dragons at work, and Stephen wrote these books before he began using the wholeness work and course transformation as a focus of his work. So they don't talk about the wholeness work or core transformation, they do have some ideas on Executive coaching that you might find interesting, okay. And so those are the resources, and so now let's check in with our group.

Erica is with us. Yeah, Eric is with us and she'll. So we'll. We'll be hearing from her in just a moment. So first, Erica, do you have a sense of like of the people here? How many are here for or what like what portion of the group are here for because they're an executive coach or because they're a regular coach or because they're an executive themselves or a leader themselves or for some other reason for personal reasons or what are you noticing Erica? I yeah a few people have chimed in to share that they are executive coaches but mostly I'm seeing an interest in becoming an executive coach or sharing how similar similar intentions in whatever their workplaces are. I like to have one comment seeing creating psychological safety and working with teams um and yeah awesome so so a lot of it is uh executive coaches interested in becoming one and or you know what what about their own workplace you know what might help be helpful for their own workplace sounds like yeah okay and do you have a

question that you that somebody has brought up that you'd like to to bring to us. One of the couple people were wondering what are some of the typical motivations that might get them to seek core transformation or seek a core transformation coach. Or what are the pain points Executives have in order to consider core transformation. Okay, so Stephen would you answer this for us in the in the context of Executive coaching. What are the pain points or problems Executives notice that would get them to want an executive coach. Well, I think they want to sometimes navigate their careers and they want to find out what would be the next step for them. They want to develop the kinds of leadership behaviors that would be um that would demonstrate that they are ready and capable for the next stage. Sometimes it's just plain stress they've got just too much to do. And sometimes it's performance anxiety a lot a lot of people want to learn how to present better.

and uh and sometimes uh it's that there's a shift in their role because uh they used to be an individual contributor, and now they find themselves managing, and they don't know anything about leadership. And there are courses in that, usually that are taught in the organization, but they don't feel that they now have yet embodied the behaviors that are required. So those are just some things, okay, yeah, thank you so much. All right, and um, Erica, is there another question that you can bring to us in the field of Executive coaching? Do you work with teams or groups of people, and if so, what does that look like? Or yeah, um, sometimes I think, uh, I don't do it very much, because I I'd so much enjoy working with individual Executives, but often, um, you know, Executive coaching can be expensive for the company. Um, one thing about executive coaches is, uh, they they make a fair amount of money doing it, but that means that senior Executives can really have a budget for that, whereas people underneath

don't um but actually what you can do is work with groups of people. So one way I've done it is I teach them some of the meditation techniques that are involved in uh wholeness work. And even core transformation has some things you can do by yourself. And so I'll teach the whole group some things that they're all interested in. And some kind of meditation thing that they can do by themselves. And then I'll offer uh individual sessions. So if I have a group of 20 maybe uh I'll have two individual sessions for each one of those people. And then we'll discuss uh things that are pertinent and common to the whole group in group sessions. So it's kind of a hybrid model. And I I've done it that way okay you know one thing for people who are interested in getting Executive coaching. I I have to say that um uh core transformation can give you um quite a lot of capacity to address a wide variety of problems that people bring to you when it comes to

transforming people or changing their behavior. So, um, if you're not highly skilled in business, so I just want to tell you this little story. When I first got into doing, uh, working with business people, I thought, well, do I need an MBA, you know? Should I really just drop out and take two years and do that? Or I decided that instead of that, I could go make this wild claim, which was, uh, I had this business called Optimal Performance Inc. and I said I'd go to, uh, business owners and I'd say, do you have anybody who outperforms everybody else by significant margins and you don't know why? And they said, yes, we do have people like that. And I said, well, if you hire me, I'll tell you why they did how they do what they do and that'll, uh, lead give you the capacity to make better decisions about hiring and also the content of training. So that's how I learned about businesses. I just ended up, uh, modeling people who are very good at what they did.

that was my substitute for going to uh business school, and I got paid for doing it, and that's how I learned about business. So that's a very long way of saying if you get a bunch of clients, uh you can learn from them quite a bit while, while you're adding value to, uh helping them evolve in whatever ways are, are preferable for them. So don't be afraid, we're supposed to be afraid, we're supposed to get yourself a little bit in trouble, and then, and then get good enough to, uh, uh, you know, conquer all the adversity. Um, you don't want it to be overwhelming, but don't be afraid, and core transformation is like a rock-solid tool, um, so that you'll have something that you can offer that, uh, that you can count on that's beneficial. I mean, in the core transformation book, they, uh, I think Connie Ray talks about, uh, that it's a foolproof method, and, uh, um, as, as a fool, I must say that she's right, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to

not do it right. And uh, so anyway, I'm just trying to be encouraging. If you want to make that step to Executive coaching, uh, it's doable. I wasn't born an executive coach. My clients taught me how to be one. Yeah, that's and it's wonderful too to have the, you know, the same mindset. We're talking about this post-heroic stage mindset of I don't need to have all the answers. You know, I'm coming in and I know some things, and my client knows some things, and together we'll collaborate, and we'll, we'll allow something to happen that will be wonderful. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, Erica, is there another question? Um, I think you answered them, but another question came in about, you know, would a company consider a coach who hadn't been immersed in the in business or come through the corporate world themselves? But I think he spoke beautifully, spoke to that a little bit. Yeah, and I think, um, it's good to just just be absolutely upfront, just say, I don't have much.

um uh you know business experience yet uh but here's what I can do. And with all my clients, what I do is I have an initial session with them where um I, you know, I've done it various ways, but basically I want to find out if there's good chemistry and I can really add value. And so uh the way that you can find out about that for yourself is just say, Look, I'd like to find out uh if I can be useful. And the best way to do that is for us to roll up our sleeves and actually work on something. And then at the end of that, if you feel like uh, um, you know, that's going to be beneficial for you and I feel like I'm, I'm the right fit for what you need, then we'll continue. And if not, no harm done, yeah. Now some people starting out as, as coaches in, in the non-business world, let's say, um, start out by doing some free sessions, half-price sessions to get experience. Um, so I'm curious what your thoughts are.

on that in business is it you know because you want to have credibility that you you know you're you're you believe in yourself you believe in your own capabilities. I'm curious about your thoughts on that. Yeah so I want to give you a nice model for pricing you know you get a bunch of people who are your target market you know the people that you want to go after and you describe the service and then you say what's the most that you would pay for this so they tell you what that number is and then you say what's the least that you would pay for this and still consider it credible. Now that's a really good question and if you've got 10 people you know each one having a high and low then you draw a line between the dots and you find out maybe that's your price. I I don't I I used to do it where I'd say okay let's have a session together and then uh there's no it if if you don't want to continue then uh there's

no charge for that. If you do want to continue, we'll include that session in, you know, a bunch of uh, uh sessions, a group of sessions that you pay for. So if they want to pay twenty thousand dollars, uh, for six months, then you include that as, as one of the sessions in that package. Okay, awesome. Well, I think that now we, we are actually are out of time. So I want to thank you all for joining us and thank you especially again Stephen for sharing your expertise and experience with us. Also, a brief thanks to Zach and to Erica for being here to support, to support us. And so yes, once again, this is Tamara Andreas, trainer with Andreas NLP. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Stephen Josephs about successful Executive coaching. And if you'd like to find out more about what we offer at Andreas NLP, you can just go to andreasnlp.com right now. You can get the free introduction to core transformation that I've been talking about at andreasnlp.com forward slash free.

f-r-e-e, so it's easy to remember, and you'll see all of our free stuff this way. And if you get on our email list, you'll be sure to get notice of more podcasts like this one, plus other offerings. So I hope you all can join us again in two weeks. I'll be interviewing Betsy Coos, psychotherapist, and she'll be talking about how she uses core transformation with her therapy clients, including those who have had or who have been given a very tough diagnosis. So I hope to see you then.

Executive Coaching: Helping clients find fulfillment and authentic expression in leadership

Andreas NLP

A Discussion on Executive Coaching with Stephen Josephs

Stephen Josephs has over 40 years of experience as a successful executive coach, initially using NLP in business before it was called coaching.

He shares an example of a client who wanted to change his sarcastic behavior, highlighting the common need for behavior change in leadership development.

The discussion also touches on the core transformation process, which works with unconscious parts to address behaviors that consciously we struggle to change.

The Core Transformation Process Explained

The core transformation process involves a precise line of questioning to communicate with an inner part of a person, leading to a state of being that is always very positive.

The process helps individuals understand that their counterproductive behaviors are ultimately driven by a desire for a positive state of being, leading to a profound shift in their inner orientation.

As a person reaches their core state, the behaviors that were once counterproductive become unnecessary, allowing them to embody their authentic self.

Executive coaching focuses on a different goal than personal behavior change, aiming to help senior executives transition from a heroic stage of leadership to a post-heroic stage.

The post-heroic stage emphasizes collective wisdom, celebrating the input of others and creating a better work environment.

Core transformation plays a crucial role in promoting curiosity and empathy in post-heroic leadership.

The core transformation process helps individuals relax and accept their negative thoughts and beliefs, leading to a more positive outlook.

It also allows for a better understanding of others' behaviors and facilitates more productive interactions.

The process of changing perceptual positions and aligning them is a valuable part of core transformation, complementing its effects.

Core transformation not only benefits the individual but also helps in preparing for negotiations and dealing with challenging situations.

The Power of Core Transformation and Wholeness Work

Core transformation helps to address and dialogue with the younger self that adopted negative beliefs, offering a shift in perception and adding wisdom.

The Wholeness Work, developed by Connie Andreas, brings about a profound sense of well-being and fulfillment, similar to mindfulness but more reliable, gentle, and kind.

The Wholeness Work provides a direct and efficient way to let go of the ego and achieve the benefits of meditation, making it a valuable tool for executive coaching.

The Wholeness Work and Core Transformation Resources

The Wholeness Work helps to reduce the projection of assumptions and beliefs onto reality, allowing for a more direct experience of awareness.

The first step is to watch a free 80-minute video introduction to Core Transformation, followed by the Core Transformation Foundation course for a guided experience.

There are live online and streaming video options available, as well as a Core Transformation Practice Group for weekly exercises and a chance to explore advanced training and certification.

Executives seek coaching for career navigation, leadership development, stress management, and performance anxiety.

Coaching also helps with the transition from individual contributor to a leadership role and offers valuable learning from clients.

Group coaching can be a cost-effective approach, combining meditation techniques with individual sessions and group discussions.

Core transformation provides a reliable and beneficial tool for addressing a wide variety of executive challenges, offering a foolproof method for personal and professional evolution.

Tips for Succeeding in Executive Coaching

It is possible to transition to executive coaching without a traditional background by focusing on the value you can provide to clients.

Offering initial sessions to assess chemistry and value, and being transparent about your level of experience can help in attracting clients.

When it comes to pricing, it can be beneficial to survey your target market to determine the most suitable price range.