EE044 – Kim Ades – Creating Phenomenal Leaders

• The aim of their coaches is to help the client reach their goal asap
• Her coaches work on a social contract rather than a business contract
• How coaching differs around the world
• The skills that a good coach requires
• How a coach can offer something different to their clients
• Why a coach should be a role model to their clients
• Why a good coach should have a coach themselves
• What makes a good client!
• Why companies should have a coaching division
• How to move people to action

[00:00:00] Exceeding expectations. Episode 44. This week I speak with a lady called Kim Adams who runs a company called Frame of Mind Coaching and she coaches leaders to become phenomenal leaders who then create more phenomenal leaders and she’s she has a quite different approach from what is certainly from what I’ve heard before anyway and she’s helping to help people become coaches who then can help many other people. If you’ve listened to this show before and you like what you’ve heard why not leave a review for us on something like iTunes or pod bean or one of the many platforms where you’re able to leave reviews past us please do share the episode let other people know if there’s anything that you think they’d particularly find valuable from this episode and it would be great to hear from you if you’ve got suggestions for people that you would like to hear being interviewed on exceeding expectations. Right now it’s time for this week’s episode with Kim at is. Exceeded expectations. And my guest this week is Kim others. How are you doing.

[00:01:19] Kim I’m great and super super happy to be talking to you today and youth in Toronto in Canada. Yes. Still not warm here. It. Get warm in Toronto. Not yet. Not yet. We’re waiting for it. You have a couple of days a year. I would imagine. Yeah. Just a couple you company is Mind Coaching. It’s called Frame of Mind Coaching. I said you want to tell us about that.

[00:01:45] Yeah. So I’ve been in business for 15 years we have a team of coaches all over Canada in the US. We certify coaches and what we call the frame of mind coaching method and what we do is we coach the highly driven population people who are entrepreneurs who run sizeable businesses and executives and the executive team and what we do is we focus on how they think and how their thinking impacts not only their personal results but the results of their teams their families their friends everyone that they interact with.

[00:02:17] And so how long have you been doing it.

[00:02:20] At 15 years I’ve been at it for a while.

[00:02:23] And what was it that got you into. What was it made you start a company in the first place how did it come about.

[00:02:27] So before this company some a bit of a serial entrepreneur before I started this company I used to own a software company and we used to build simulation based assessments and the purpose of those assessments was to help companies make better hiring decisions. And so what we did was we tested people we looked at their IQ we looked at their personality traits. We even looked at their behaviours their actions and what we were trying to do is figure out what traits identify a top performer. And one of the things we discovered because we collected really so so much data so much rich data and that data told us an interesting story is that sure intelligence is important. Personality is important skill sets are important but there is one key characteristic that outperformed all of them. And we discovered that if a person had a high degree of emotional resilience they would be much more likely to succeed than others. And so that was a very interesting finding for me. And so after I sold that company I started to explore the area of coaching and I thought you know what. Mostly in coaching and most coaching worlds were helping people reach their goals by creating a plan and then holding them accountable to that plan. And I thought Yeah but hold on a minute what about this emotional resilience component. What is that really about. And if we look at emotional resilience it’s the ability to bounce back from adversity with with great speed and agility and even leverage the adversity. Except in coaching we’re not really doing that we’re not we’re not fostering that we’re not teaching that and I thought well what if I start a coaching company and I thought to myself I bet the people know what to do. They’re just not doing it. The question is why. And if I can explore that if I can understand how people think and understand their emotional resilience baseline and I can help them move that baseline up a few hundred notches then I’ll create outstanding performance or I help them. Achieve their goals. And so that’s what I did. I started this concept called Frame of Mind Coaching where we focussed exclusively on thinking.

[00:04:37] And so do people that you’re working with. They already experienced coaches before they come to you know.

[00:04:43] So the people I clients we have our business owners and what happened. And what happens. Business owners executives of substantial companies. They’re the top performing contingent of the population. What happens is they come through coaching. They go Holy smokes. That was amazing. And some of them say how do I learn to be a coach. And then we invite them into a certification process where they learn the coaching skills that they experience as clients. So they literally dedicate a year and a half of their lives to this process so that they can then coach other people. So those are our coaches not our clients at that point.

[00:05:26] Right. And so was it used you food that you do different so to help these people that you coach to because you coach to be coaches. So one of the things that we do in our coaching process is again you know we focus on how people think.

[00:05:40] And not so much on what they do. So what they do tell us how they think but we’re still focussed on how they think. And so you know for us the relationship between the coach and the client is really really critical. That is really the we’ll call it the transportation vehicle to help someone get from where they are to where they want to be. So in our coaching process what we do is we start off with a six month coaching period and that’s broken down into two components. The first 10 weeks and the rest of the six months in those 10 weeks there’s a call once a week every call is recorded. We ask our clients to listen to the recording so that they can start to become aware of how they speak the words they use the emotions they have the stories they tell and what we’re trying to do is really increase their awareness of how they show up in the world. The second thing we do is we ask them to Journal in an online journal a private and secure online journal with their coach and their coach reads and responds to their journal every single day no days off No weekends no vacations. So it’s that level of contact that level of intimacy is unprecedented in the coaching world.

[00:06:50] And so what kind of his honesty again is unbelievable.

[00:06:54] If I can tell you how transformational the experiences it’s just mind blowing over and over and over again.

[00:07:02] I mean what would have expectations before I came into it. And then at the end of it what how does it. How did it change.

[00:07:08] Well I mean they expected to experience coaching and maybe they expected to receive good coaching for what they do receive is over the top.

[00:07:17] Outstanding coaching. And the reason they have that is because they spend so much intimate time with their coach who is skilled and able to really get to the core the heart of the matter. They’re able to go deep and they’re able to do that with speed and that’s really critical.

[00:07:34] And so you know normally when you think about a coach well here is the coach and here’s the client and there’s a certain kind of relationship that’s established which is very professional in nature in the in the frame of mind coaching world what we try to do is we try to really tear down boundaries so that the coach and the client are literally well figuratively not literally but in in a boat together rowing right.

[00:07:59] So they’re in it together. And the philosophy is they’re choosing each other and they’re taking a journey together. And.

[00:08:09] It’s not an arm’s length relationship. It’s a very intimate relationship because of the frequency of contact and the nature of how that fits together. So imagine you’re a coach and you’re reading someone’s a journal every single day. What do you think’s going to happen. They’re going to make progress at lightning speed.

[00:08:26] You were telling me about how you really wow your client so well. What is it that you feel you have. What is it you do that does that.

[00:08:33] So number one is we’re on it right. So when someone journals were responding quickly so. Right. Well so we’re there for our clients. We show up and we’re present. So like on a very basic level that’s what we do. That’s the the basic minimum expectation for our coaches. But over and above that one of our core values is generosity. So what does that mean. It means that our coaches. Are wired to go the extra mile. So let me give you a whole bunch of examples. The other day one of my coaches was on a call with his client and he discovered like she’s always working working super hard. And the conversation was what would it look like if you took a little time off to take care of yourself. What would you do with that time. And she said well there’s this book that I’ve been wanting to read and you know I would take the time to do that. And while.

[00:09:25] At the moment he hung up the phone with her he actually went on to Amazon and had that book sent to her the very next day. He didn’t need to do that. It’s not part of the mandate. He’s not paid to do that. It’s not you know in our process. Oh at week three send a book to your client. That’s not what it was. He took his own initiative and he did that. I’ll give you another example. Another coach had a client who discovered who rediscovered that she liked to paint. So my coach went to the store and purchase five canvases and had them sent to her. Like these are things that are over and above the call of duty. I’ll give you one more example. One of my clients actually took his journals that he wrote and codified them. And what he did is he discovered that in those journals there were certain themes that showed up themes where he was struggling over and over and over again and he ended up writing a book about his experiences and what he learned that. He discovered as a result of journaling. So he wrote this book and it’s coming out very shortly called The Fast Forward mindset. And right before he published it he said hey you know like I’ve been kind of talking to him through the whole process. But he said hey you know it’s about ready to go out. And our director of operations said send it to me I’ll edit it for you. That’s not part of what we do.

[00:10:50] Right. So. It’s it’s relevant to the client. It’s important to the client and we do it because that’s who we are.

[00:10:59] On this set. It’s food for most coaches how long a typical client would stay with a coach in an event any different for you.

[00:11:08] Well it’s a very interesting question because in a lot of coaching worlds the goal of the coach is to keep the client forever. My goal is not to keep the client forever.

[00:11:18] My goal is to support the client when the client needs it and to create independence not dependence so length of time doesn’t necessarily indicate quality of journey. Right. So what does referrals.

[00:11:34] And so you get a lot of referrals we get a lot of us for because our clients aren’t just moderately happy clients they’re raving fans.

[00:11:44] Is he overseas based in Canada. But you mentioned you’ve got a lot of clients in the United States as well. We have clients in the United States and Australia and Japan all over the world because all of our coaching is virtual. Right. So. Said my question is going to be how different are those different secretaries. Is there much difference in the way the coaches need to go about what they do is they know if we have.

[00:12:11] It’s very interesting because every coaching experience is extremely unique and customized to that client based on how that client journals.

[00:12:19] But we have a framework that is set set in place that all the coaches lean on and rely on. So we have a process that they use that is consistent from client to client and a framework a set of principles and concepts that they lean on to help the client get from where they are to where they want to be. So the process is the same. Experience is unique because of what the client brings to the table.

[00:12:44] And you before you were talking about the whole kind of generosity of of what you what you bring to can you. Can you elaborate on that.

[00:12:53] Well for us yes. You know they’re paying for a certain timeframe you could say right. So there’s a call once a week and then there’s a call every two weeks and then there’s a journal. But if the client has an emergency we’re not clocking our time. If a client has something serious going on our coach picks up the phone and says OK let’s talk now you’re off like we’re not we’re not paying attention to time and so are our coaches understand that the relationship isn’t based on this business agreement it’s based on. A different kind of contract maybe a social contract that says I am here for you to help you and there’s nothing holding me back from giving you everything that I can possibly give you.

[00:13:41] You do. You spoke about before that you know your clients tend to be highly driven entrepreneurs and so on. And in some of those decide to to become a coach after they’ve been through the you know working with your coaches what sort of percentage of those do do decide to become coaches.

[00:13:58] Well we’re certainly not looking for her everyone to become a coach. Right. So I would say if I look at our clients you know maybe 5 percent decide to go through the route of coaching and then from that 5 percent we select those that are skilled and who have a natural intuition and ability to coach what would you do.

[00:14:25] Would you say I mean you talked about resilience. What else does a good coach need.

[00:14:31] So for me a good coach needs a whole bunch of things beyond resilience resilience is the thing. They build over time. But a coach needs to understand patterns. They need to understand what they’re reading and hearing and understand what the source of the pain comes from a coach also needs to show up right.

[00:14:50] They need that that reliability that component to say OK if a client journals I’m not going to read the journal in 10 days I’m going to read the Journal today. So they have to have that sense of reliability. They also have to have a dedication to their own personal development. They have to be driven themselves. They have to have achieved already some significant goals of their own lives. Because I don’t want my coach to just be coaching.

[00:15:16] I want them also to be role models for their clients to demonstrate a journey that they’ve been on showing where they started and where they went to. They also need to be very very human and compassionate. They need to understand and not be judgmental about where somebody is suffering or having a struggle.

[00:15:37] And so do most of the coaches have coaches themselves.

[00:15:41] Absolutely. They started off going through coaching with Frame of Mind Coaching. Right. So they started off saying I need a coach. Can you please coach me. I’m going to go through the process. And so they every single one of my coaches started off with a coach.

[00:15:58] But what I mean is do they still even once they as Wilkins a coach today still have coach I guess so.

[00:16:04] So they have two things a lot of them have coaches that they work with but a lot of them partner up and help each other they coach one another.

[00:16:14] And as far as I mean I just of do you what does a good coach need. What does as far as a client is concerned. What makes a client really receptive to good coaching and I know you’re busy on a site to people who just don’t work well with a coach.

[00:16:30] Yes. So some people aren’t really open to coaching. Some people aren’t open to putting in the work. So you know it’s this one area where the client needs to put in as much work as the coach the client needs to show up not only to the calls but they need to do the daily journaling.

[00:16:47] They need to be willing to look at themselves. They need to be willing to take responsibility. And in our case those clients who really really move at the speed of lightning are also listening to their own recordings every week. So they’re hearing themselves and they are receiving coaching twice in a week. Right. Once directly and once through the recording. So what we find is people who really accelerate are completely committed to the process.

[00:17:16] And so do you ever need to sack clients because they just simply not doing what’s asked of them.

[00:17:22] Well we have experienced clients who aren’t willing to do the whole thing. We still you know try our best to coach them because we always want to take someone we want to meet people where they are. And so you know we try to work with them where they are in.

[00:17:38] You know a few rare cases we’ve decided OK. This isn’t working.

[00:17:42] It’s ok we can call it a day but that’s not it’s a very rare experience for us.

[00:17:50] What are your general thoughts on over delivering and exceeding expectations game.

[00:17:57] For me it’s it’s absolutely part of our DNA. It’s part of our process. It’s part of how our coaches are wired and how they are taught how they are encouraged. What we highlight is that extra mile is the relationship. You know one of my coaches.

[00:18:16] Had a very tough client one day and this client going to kind of give you a broad story.

[00:18:23] This client became pregnant and wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep the baby. Very difficult situation difficult decision to make. Anyways it was it was a very tough road. She was really struggling and thrashing about and the coach and she decided hey I can’t do coaching anymore.

[00:18:43] But the coach remained in contact and remained friends with this particular client and helped her come to a final decision of keeping the baby.

[00:18:57] The client was so grateful that the coach never let go. Never gave up never walked away that. That the coach became this child’s godmother.

[00:19:12] What we’re doing here is.

[00:19:15] Yes there’s a coaching process. Yes there is a methodology. Yes there is a philosophy and an approach and a framework. And all of that stuff. But if the relationship between the coach and the client doesn’t exist.

[00:19:31] No progress is made. So that’s the basis of it. And if that’s the basis of it we need to establish trust and we need to wow our clients as often as possible.

[00:19:43] A few. Can you think of any examples where you’ve really been surprised with an experience you’ve received that you just weren’t expecting.

[00:19:53] Yes I remember that I hired a coach many years ago who is a very highly acclaimed coach and I was working with her for a period of time and at the end of the period she said to me I have decided to give you this coaching like completely. I’m not charging you. That completely shocked me and wowed me completely blew me away. Didn’t expect it. It just completely in she said I think you know I am contributing to your life so that you can contribute to the life of others. And I see you doing that I see that happening before me and I’ve chosen you to gift my coaching.

[00:20:39] And so imagine I must have had such an impact on you.

[00:20:42] It blew me away. It it just totally and completely shocked me. Humbled me all of that.

[00:20:50] And so would you say that as part of you approach now is because of that experience.

[00:20:57] No I would say that part of my my approach is based on my upbringing. My parents were always over the top super generous in every aspect whether it was someone who needed money they would go and talk to my father if it was someone who was sick my mother would be there with you know food and money. If it was someone coming to the to the house for dinner my mother would make a spread for food for an army. And so it was part of how I grew up it was part of my. You know my upbringing my culture. And so it’s just the way we do things.

[00:21:35] Well one of the things I’ve noticed is that the top sportspeople and and even some stars in the world of postpone acting and so on. Now you have regular coaching no matter what level with their own. And yet some of the people much further down don’t have coaching and they don’t realize the importance of coaching is what what would you say about that.

[00:22:00] Yeah. There is a perception that all if you need a coach something must be wrong. And that’s really the antithesis of what we’re doing. It’s you know what. If you want things to be really really right then hire a coach and you know most of who we work with are already high achievers but they want to get to a next place or maybe they’re frustrated with something or there’s a struggle that they’re experiencing. And so I would say that if you really want to live that extraordinary life if you want kind of to milk your life then work with someone who can help you experienced that.

[00:22:36] And you say that you work with high achievers and so probably the people who are maybe even just starting not starting out to get to that level of being high achievers they’re probably more likely to get there by to help someone like a coach.

[00:22:49] A hundred percent. One of the things that I’ve discovered over the span of my career not only coaching but prior to this in the assessment world is that high achievers do three things three things consistently.

[00:23:03] The first thing they do is they look at how they think and then they challenge their beliefs. What does that mean they say OK. Like I’m struggling with this problem whatever it is what do I believe to be true about this problem that’s causing a bottleneck. So they’re always questioning their basic premises premises OK. So that’s one thing they do. The second thing they do is they access resources so they they are not afraid to ask for help.

[00:23:30] They’re not afraid to pay for help. They’re not afraid to look around and say Who can I talk to. What resources available to me. And even if I don’t think like you know if it’s a stretch I’m not going to be afraid to do the asking.

[00:23:45] A lot of us don’t access resources because we don’t believe that they’re accessible to us or we don’t believe that someone will be willing to give us that resource. And last but not least they focus on what they really really want like almost with blinders on they’re very very clear about what their goal is. And they do not get distracted or deterred from their goal. So those are the three things that I see in the high achieving population.

[00:24:13] So how do you see your company growing over the next four years. What would you like to achieve in the next few years.

[00:24:19] Yeah. So for me you know I have a team of coaches and they’re all incredible and you know we’re growing from the standpoint of reaching more significant corporations. I see that continuing. But one of the things I see happening is working within companies to develop coaching divisions so go in and train people internally to coach. And do that for a multitude of different organizations so that they have internal coaching bodies or divisions that can serve their corporation or organization. So I see us moving in that direction a whole lot more. You know I’m doing a lot of speaking but I see as growing by adding other spokespeople to the company as well. Other speakers other people who are kind of in front of audiences and spreading the message if you will our coaching group will probably grow as well. And one of the things we’re working on right now heavily is our digital marketing efforts which you know interestingly enough in the past we’ve tried and we haven’t been all that successful and now you know we’re really increasing our efforts that way and we’re starting to see some results. And so you know lots of ways that we need to grow.

[00:25:38] Most of that is most of the coach staff. Is it face to face or is it much of be done online.

[00:25:44] None of it is done. Face to face. And so. So again there’s a phone call so I can be talking to you wherever you are. From my office. Right. So the phone calls are virtual and the journaling is virtual so it’s all virtual. And some people say well isn’t it better to have face to face conversations and one of the things that we’ve discovered is that when we can create a level of anonymity actually the relationship goes deeper faster because there’s greater trust that’s established. It’s very odd but that’s what happens on the coaching side.

[00:26:18] The coach has a different degree of concentration when the person isn’t in front of them when they can listen only just listen to the story the words the intonation the emotion.

[00:26:32] Bonus cuts quite a surprise. I would never never have imagined that.

[00:26:36] Yes is very interesting. Calls are recorded and we ask our clients to listen to the recording so you know what we discovered is people have what we would call deep dark secrets even if they’re not actually that deep in that dark. Our clients believe they’re deep and dark afraid. So if you can create a safe environment and anonymity is part of that safe environment they’re willing to expose those deep dark secrets that are really holding them back a whole lot faster before you talked about how you’d like to within the next few years go into companies and have a coach in division.

[00:27:12] How much of a difference do you think that could make to the company if they decided on a strategy like that.

[00:27:16] I think it’s a game changer. I think that amazing leaders don’t only have vision and strategy and intelligence. They are also incredible coaches and so when you think about what is the greatest challenge of companies of leaders it’s managing other people is leading other people. It’s inspiring other people. You can’t you can’t run a company by yourself. And so that is the most critical component I think it’s the game changing component that makes the company go from good or average to really really incredible.

[00:27:48] And do you know of any company who has tried an approach like that.

[00:27:52] Yes. So we’re working with a company right now. For example out of out of Quebec in Canada. And they have their whole entire leadership team who’s going who are going through coaching and what we’re discovering right off the bat is the leadership team is talking to each other differently. Their language is different their communication is different their level of stress is decreased. So imagine you have leaders who are stressed how are they going to interact with their team members. How are they going to produce immediately stress acts as a bottleneck. It siphons off productivity and especially debilitating stress and another situation as well.

[00:28:31] I mean I know someone might be fantastic at their job and they’ve got a lot of different skills and then they say progress that they put into management but they’re not a good manager. So in a situation that you’re describing then they can be coached and to be not only great at what they do but also to be a good manager.

[00:28:49] Yes. And so what we have discovered is that in order to be a great manager what we need to look at is how that leader thinks. What we’ve discovered also is that a person leads right where do they where do they lean on in terms of their experience for leadership. They lean on their experiences as children. They look at their parents and they say how did my parents parent me. How did they do that and how. How did I receive that. And they learn from that which isn’t always the best source of learning. And so they have a mentality about how to move people to action. That isn’t always consistent with the goals of the company.

[00:29:36] Interesting right.

[00:29:38] Yeah. Really. Absolutely. I mean as you as you said it could make you really could be game changing if companies were to realize how much better it could be having a coach in division within the company.

[00:29:49] It’s incredible. Like we’ve seen it in terms of our own clients who go back to their companies. They are completely different leaders and people around them notice.

[00:30:00] So if people want to find out more about Frame of Mind Coaching where they go to so Frame of Mind Coaching dot.com and on the Web site is an invitation to sign up for a complementary coaching call no strings attached.

[00:30:16] And I would say to you that that call will move the needle. That call will bring you a level of awareness that you never had before. So it doesn’t matter if you never signed up for coaching. Sign up for that call like that call is already.

[00:30:32] An experience that’s well worth while that will help kind of open up your eyes the things you are currently seeing.

[00:30:39] And would that be just to people who already sort of high achievers so is that to anyone.

[00:30:44] Anybody who we go from high potential leaders to high achieving leaders. So if you if you look at your life and you say I want to be a leader like that’s my track how do I get there.

[00:30:57] Like we’re looking for the drive we’re looking for the determination we’re looking for that you know that burning sensation inside. This is I want to get to somewhere better. And are you willing to put in the time I’m willing to look at myself.

[00:31:13] And would they. I’d imagine it could be based anywhere in the world anywhere in the world. Fantastic. Well came I’m sure you’re gonna get quite a few people respondents here and taking you up on that. So it’s been it’s been a pleasure speaking to you came in. And best of luck with frame frame of mind coach in the near future.

[00:31:31] Thank you so much I really enjoyed your questions too Tony. It was great.

[00:31:35] Thank you.

[00:31:39] My guess on next week’s show is Monica Irauzqui. She is the vice president and co-founder of Yang poo tours which she started about 21 years ago with her husband and she has a different approach to travel agency which is essentially what she does and she goes beyond what many of the people that are booking tours with her do expects and she has a real keen eye for detail. So that’s next week’s episode with Monica get our escape. Have you enjoyed this week’s show. Please do leave us a review to share the episode with people who you think may appreciate the show that gets us out to more people and that helps the show get better and better and get even better guests than we’ve already bought you. Hope you have a fantastic week and see you next week.