Martin Messier

August 14, 2023

How to use the NLP Modeling mindset in coaching

I spent the weekend in Montreal with my wife. She has officially begun rehearsals for her upcoming concert, and her band is all based there. I see lots of traveling in the near future for us.

One of the musicians' wife is a coach. We ended up having an interesting conversation about coaching and NLP while samba was running loose in the room next door.

After I explained to her how modeling works, she asked me: "I fully get the value and power of modeling, but how does it apply to coaching a client? Do you mean I should model a great coach?"

Yes! But it's not just that.

Beyond a skillset, modeling is a mindset. It's a lens through which you view the world and how you move through it.

When you're coaching, you're generally asking yourself two questions:

  1. Where is my client right now?
  2. Where does my client want to be?

When you bake the modeling mindset into coaching, you add a third question to the initial set of two:

  • Who used to be where my client is now, and is now where my client wants to be?

Answering this question inevitably leads to a proven path to the result, in two powerful ways.

Numero Uno: since someone else was in that situation and made it to the desired situation, there's implicit proof that it's possible. This reinforces the belief in the transformation.

Numeros Dos: since someone else went through that exact journey, we know a specific route exists that leads to the desired destination.

Checkmate!

That's why I encourage all my clients to operate from the modeling mindset AT ALL TIMES!

Why?

Because it comes with confidence + competence built-in.

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