“Ego” is Latin for the word “I.” The human ego is fascinating. It appears to be the center and source of “self,” yet it gets in the way of our goals and relationships and even dealing with reality (e.g. “denial”).

The most important paradigm shift and skill for anyone who wants to “coach” life or relationships is to accept that the highest priority in doing so is Empowerment simply because people need to take responsibility for their life, relationships and goals, which comes from the inside, not from the outside such as asking for advice or being given and accepting advice or direction or even from scientific evidence or research.

One element that Professional Coaching has in common with Client-Centered Therapy is that many adhere to the value that it is best for the practitioner to be as “transparent” and “invisible” as possible to empower the client to take charge of their life and overcome internal and external obstacles rather than relying upon an outside “expert” to “fix,” “heal,” or direct their journey towards their desired outcome.

It is my opinion that being an effective Coach and empowering our clients requires putting our EGO aside, 100%, and I will share with you that in my experience this is the biggest challenge for trainees and the biggest high that I get from being a coach.

My Journey as a Coach

I started out as a counselor then became a licensed therapist (MFT) and the burden of responsibility for “treating,” my clients, for whom I was required to provide a “diagnosis” and were usually funded by insurance reimbursement via the medical model, NEVER felt right or good to me. Applying the Medical Model to Life and Relationships pathologizes people as having internal problems that need fixing when what most really need is empowerment for self development, self direction and goal achievement. It took me 15 years as a clinician to figure this out.

After my coach training, which didn’t directly or clearly address this at all (other than vaguely referring to the “Law of Attraction”), when I transitioned my couples therapy practice to relationship coaching I found myself putting aside everything I knew about relationships to focus on empowering my clients 100% as “The Chooser” in their life and supporting them to tap into who they are, what they want, how to get what they want, and getting into action to make it happen.

After awhile I developed what I think of as my “coaching presence”, which is (what feels like) a complete loss of self, almost “mind-melding” with my client, and the most amazing result from this state for me was that it seemed like I was “channeling” the wisdom and power of the Universe for the client and what was happening in the session was not really coming from me at all. As a therapist then a coach, I’ve always tried to empower my clients by being as “invisible” as possible but this was on a level I never imagined.

You might think that what I experienced as “channeling” was simply “intuition,” a very understandable point of view that I would take if someone was describing this phenomenon to me, but I swear to you as someone who understands intuition, is highly intuitive, routinely taps into intuition in my work and values the role of intuition in helping others that this complete loss of self feels like a whole level above intuition that I haven’t experienced before.

Whether you call it “channeling” or “intuition,” it felt wonderful to be of service by getting out of my head and being WITH my client 100% and it seemed to be more effective for them as well. This “coaching presence” became a well developed skill/muscle that became easy and automatic for me at the beginning of each coaching session.

The resulting “channeling” phenomenon became the source of my innovative coaching paradigms and pioneering the development of the field of Relationship Coaching (which didn’t exist when I started out as a coach in 1997). All the IP of Relationship Coaching Institute such as Conscious Dating, Radical Marriage, The Communication Map, etc. seems to have been channeled from the wisdom of the Universe as there is nothing about me and my life that makes sense to me that I could have created this stuff from my head. Perhaps I’m too humble but I don’t believe I’m smart enough to simply make up this stuff. If anything, I believe it all came to me (“channeled”) in response to being present for and being of service to my clients, which led me to conclude that our “Clients are our best teacher.”

One example of our “Clients are our best teacher” is that prior to becoming a coach, all of the entrepreneurial enterprises that I attempted were flops and didn’t go anywhere. When I became a coach and let go of my ego and had the epiphany that “Singles become couples” and truly had NO IDEA how to help them, the smartest thing I’ve ever done was to put my ego aside to do some Market Research and get help by convening a focus group of singles in my office and ask them a million questions that led me to develop a highly successful coaching business in a very short time.

Starting from a blank slate, which at first felt scary and helpless, having a truly open mind I was able to develop a whole new approach for singles who seek lasting love that I called “Conscious Dating,” all of which seemed to come out in response to being of service to my single clients more than any idea I could have come up with on my own.

Same with couples. As a couples therapist I had no idea how to help couples once their relationship was functional (fixed). I took lots of trainings and workshops and read lots of books and dreamed of having an Advanced Partnership, but Radical Marriage was developed (“channeled”) from experiences in my own marriage and helping my couple clients as a Relationship Coach.

As a runner I used to get “Runner’s High” and it was exhilarating. As a coach I experienced a similar high when I learned how to be fully present for my client by letting go of Ego and seemingly getting inside their body/mind/experience and gave up taking responsibility for or trying to control or drive the session outcome to empower them. The side benefit of doing so was that somehow the wisdom of the Universe became more present and powerful as the driving factor.

How to Remove your Ego from the Coaching Relationship

As a coach trainer and mentor I can tell you about the power of letting go of ego with your clients and WHAT it is, but I have no real clue how to teach or mentor HOW to do it directly, other than starting from intention and continual practice until the muscle is developed. I did develop two tools/paradigms for being an effective coach that will help put aside your ego indirectly:

My paradigm of the “Coaching Superpower,” which is simply asking the best coaching question that occurs to us in each moment of a coaching session to focus our clients and move them forward. Asking good coaching questions empowers our clients and evokes their inner resources.
My perspective that good coaching questions are neutral and to let go of directly trying to ask “powerful” coaching questions as attempting to do so comes from ego.

You can only follow the two guidelines above by putting aside your ego. The better you get at focusing your Coaching Superpower to help your client, the better you get at removing your ego from the coaching relationship. Removing all statements, judgments (opinions, advice), and self references (using the word “I”, etc.) during coaching sessions is a good start.

That’s my best answer to “how” to do so, which is more indirect- by doing one thing well you’re not doing the other thing that doesn’t work, but perhaps that’s all that’s needed. For me, there is no “switch” I can directly turn on or off at will unless you become an ascetic and devote your life to the spiritual practice of doing so (hard to do so as a parent, in a marriage, and making a living).

The Bottom Line

In my opinion and experience, Ego is our biggest obstacle to personal and professional success as a coach and with our clients. But having your clients feed your ego with their gratitude, dependence, and praise feels so good! We’re human and this dynamic is so pervasive and powerful that it may “seem” like there are ways to achieve success and serve your client from your Ego telling you how smart you are, but that is the purview of self appointed Gurus who cultivate “followers” who agree with and depend upon them, not coaches. Having a big ego can be financially profitable though, so it’s tempting!

We’re the opposite of experts- we have to assume that we know nothing and are helpless and our client is all powerful and that anything that comes from our head or Ego doesn’t belong in the coaching session.

I think a side benefit of putting Ego aside with our clients is that in addition to empowering them, we influence them to do so as well, which facilitates them to be more open to taking risks, accepting new ideas/options/information, developing relationship skills and EQ, etc., all of which gets blocked by our client’s Ego and are necessary for their success in life and relationships.

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