Video Transcript: You Are Not the Fixer: Humility in Coaching

🔄 You Are Not the Fixer

We're back, so now we're going to get into some of the key behaviors that can hurt your coaching or can help your coaching.

You are not the fixer. Okay, so embracing a posture of humility—release the pressure to fix or rescue. Some of you may be saying, “Oh, I can do that. That's really easy to do,” but it is a pressure.

Trust God as the ultimate agent of change—not us, not you. And learn to coach with compassion, not control. This is really a big word. They could do a whole class just on this. Okay, so that temptation to fix.

Most of us are problem-solvers. We like puzzles. We like fixing things. We like bringing order—it’s the Rubik’s Cube.

Especially a lot of men like to fix—whether it’s plumbing or whatever it might be, or do-it-yourself. You know, look it up on YouTube and do it. You feel part of it is, you really feel good when you fix something. You’ve got that drain problem, and then someone told you, “Buy this thing,” and you didn’t know what you were doing, but you did it, and then in the end, it worked.

Well, and most of us, or many of us, were raised with fix-it parents. I mean, parenting itself sort of feels fixing-like. You have a problem—we’re here for you. So we, in a sense, raise our children, and we're fixing a lot of problems. We’re modeling that. A lot of good things happen when you parent or nurture someone, and we fix it right away.

Your child spills a glass of milk—we don’t wait till the next day to mop it up. We do it right now.

Now, we could probably have them do it right now, which would be a better thing—which would be more like a coaching thing—but my point is, we’re motivated to get things fixed and to get them fixed when we see the problem.

Or we go the other direction. Here’s a problem—I don’t know what to do about it. I’m in denial about it. I just want to not think about it. I avoid. And I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about it. So there are plenty of marriages where—we’ve got a problem, but we’re not going to think about it or deal with it. We’re just going to deny it, and then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until, you know... the whole thing falls apart.

This creates pressure, pride, and burnout. Yeah. Because—and we both experienced that in ministry—where you help, help, help, help, help. You’re trying to fix, fix, fix, fix. But at the end of the day, they’re not responsive. And you’re doing this, this, and that. And in the end, pretty soon you’re like, “You know, why did I even go into ministry?”

Yeah. And I think part of it is, we tend to think that most problems are not-knowing problems. You just don’t know how to talk as husband and wife. So if I, as your pastor or helper coach—if I teach you and show you how to do it—then everything’s going to go well.

But a lot of things are not a problem of knowledge. They’re a problem of attitude. They’re a problem of self—poor self-esteem. They’re a problem of, “Well, you didn’t encourage me, so why should I encourage you?” They’re a problem of revenge. They’re a problem of all kinds of other issues that are leading to this problem.

And what I love about this next statement: real change doesn’t come from us. It comes from God. It is showing us that every image-bearer belongs to God—not us. Yes. And He has a track into their life through the power of the Holy Spirit that is almost mysterious. And if we’re thinking that our fixing can change someone—yes—we’re the ones that set ourselves up for failure or burnout.

Yeah. We’re being used by the Holy Spirit to help in this situation, but we’re helpers on His team.

🤫 How Do I Do at Silence?

How do I do at a silence? Right?

And in, yes—didn't get the feedback baseline of where you are now. You know, you're very good at that. You know what? That is a good area of growth for you.

No, I think it takes that. And in some ways, what you're doing is you are modeling the very thing you'll be asking someone to do when you coach them. Because if you're unteachable, and we just give you all these coaching principles thinking, “Oh, we could, in fact, make you into more of a monster”—if you're already the answer man, and now you can fake people out by having the coaching methodology, you know...

So that's why, in some ways, all of these presentations really are about: What do you want?

👫 Coaching as a Companion

Coaching as a companion: You walk alongside—not ahead, not behind. Encourage without taking over. Point to Scripture, not self. Pray, don’t push.

This is interesting—as a companion. In a lot of ways in ministry coaching, you can vacillate between non-directive... but also, there are times when there’s a little semi-direction going.

Yeah, when you're close to someone and you get to know them, yeah, you can coach, you know, with the advice—or what is it? The hurts of... what is it? There’s a passage: the wounds of a friend can be trusted, yeah?

I mean, there again, we’re not getting into when you should point Scripture out—we're not getting into that yet. Later in the sessions, we're going to talk about it. But “as a companion” is a true, real thing.

Yeah, it's... you know, bottom line: you care about the person.

Yes.

And the person knows that.

Yes. The more you know that I care about you, the more I can be a director.

Yes.

But in the beginning, you don't know that at all. So if I start directing you, and we haven’t established that fact that I care about you...

Then people are resistant.

💡 Quotes from Jesus

Quotes from Jesus:
“Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
“You are the light of the world.”

You reflect His light—you don’t create it.

I think that’s a hard one for us to get.

🛡️ What Humility Produces: Safer Conversations

What humility produces—safer conversations. Why?

Well, you know when you’re in a relationship where someone’s telling you what to do—like we’re in a golf tournament right now, and you spent all your time telling me how to hit the ball—I’m not, when I take my next shot, it’s not a safe situation.

Right?

If I do something wrong, I’m going to hear about it: “You didn’t keep your head down.” So I think that with coaching too, if you’re always giving the little directives...

Then it’s not safe, because you’re looking for the problems in my life—and I’ve got plenty of them. But if you’re more of an encourager, you’re walking...

“How did that feel when you made that mistake?” Right? “What did you feel?”

Right? For example, in golf, I’d be, “Well, how did you feel about that swing? What did you feel?”

“I think I was a little quick.”

“Well, maybe you were.”

Yeah. So there’s a, you know, quick scheme. Exactly. You know—maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t—but you’re giving me the freedom to evaluate myself without feeling too bad about myself.

That’s... you know, we’re going to have to try this all weekend. We’re doing this—this taping—here while we’re also, you know, in the daytime we’re in a golf tournament together. And it really is—what a great topic. We’re doing this while we’re here together.

Yeah?

Well, yeah—we’ll keep you updated through the whole presentation as we finish it this week.

👂 Greater Spiritual Sensitivity

Greater spiritual sensitivity—how come?

Yeah, I guess it’s the whole listening. You’re listening. You’re sensitive—it's when you’re aware of someone else.

Right.

When you’re not aware of someone else, you’re not very sensitive.

Yeah, say it right.

Right. But when you understand how they... you know, “I’m trying to help you think about this, not just give you my opinion. I’m caring about you.”

🙇‍♂️ Characteristics of Humility

So, drilling down into humility—what are the four or five characteristics of humility? So let’s just, you know...

Just talk about that.

Yeah, you know what comes to mind. So now I guess I’ll start, because I raised the question.

One is—to really, if you want to be great—to really have, to be the servant. I mean, to really lower yourself.

Yeah.

In a relationship, like—your agenda is not as important as the person you’re talking to in this relationship.

Yep.

🙇‍♂️ Humility: No Stage Stealing

But sometimes, you know, we use that servant one—“Aren’t I so great to serve,” yeah? But then again, pride seeps in.

Yeah, which is how we... I think humility is that opposite thing, where, you know, my ultimate goal is to make myself feel better—even though I’m helping you, right? I’m helping you because it makes me feel good to help you.

All right—well, okay, hold it. No, no. I mean, we’re talking—we’re going deep here.

Yeah, the deep here is to let that be real. Yes—that you are second to Jesus Christ. You are second to them. And that is the first posture of humility.

Yeah, I think it’s when—in some ways—it’s when I do not steal any stage that you could stand on.

Wow. That’s right.

Because I could. I could slip in and take that stage a minute and, you know, pontificate about what I know about something. Or—"Henry, you know, this is what happened to me..." and now I give you an incredible, killer example of the thing I’m trying to help you with, right?

But now I’ve taken the stage—when he had a story he might have been able to tell if I was a little more patient. I just let him tell his story. His story isn’t as good as mine, right?

So there again—I want to steal that stage. Because a lot of times in our coaching or our counseling, we have trigger things. They say something that triggers a memory: “I helped someone just like you, and here’s what happened, and I know this is what works, and you are my project now because I know what to do.”

Yes.

But it triggers my taking the stage rather than—yes, your words did trigger me, but I’m resisting taking it. I’m not going to tell you about my story. I’m going to let you tell yours.

Your story is going to stand—because mine might be one-upping yours. I don’t want to do that.

So the “one-up-man,” yeah—to just say, I don’t need a better story. I don’t need a fixing posture. This coaching session is not about getting my ego stroked.

Okay?

That’s not—this session has nothing to do with... In fact, I’m not even doing coaching because I’m doing it for ego fulfillment. Because the fact is, coaching can be very frustrating. People don’t respond.

Yep.

🤝 Letting Go of Control

But again—because it’s not on me if you don’t respond. That’s on you.

Right.

I am doing what I can to help you, and you have to want to help yourself. If you don’t want to help yourself, then maybe I can’t help you—and I move on.

And I don’t... you know, otherwise counseling is—oh, you feel bad. You go to bed at night and you didn’t change them. They didn’t listen.

Yeah.

And “What’s the point of this? I read them the Scripture and they just ignored it. Maybe the Bible isn’t powerful.” All those negative thoughts we have about ourselves and our abilities. And then I don’t want to do it again—and I burn out.

Well—and even another thing that comes to mind is to really humble yourself before the Lord—to let Him do the fixing.

Yes.

And in His time.

Yes.

So you may never be on the docket to get the credit for anything good. It might be three years from now—you started some ball, and this happened, and that happened—and you never find out that this guy did eventually turn his life around, and it was because of something you did. And you’ll never hear about it.

🕊️ Make Room for God to Work

Really—to make room for God to work.

Yeah.

❤️ From Control to Compassion (Session Wrap-Up)

So we wrap up this session:
From control ➡️ to compassion.

Reviewing:
You and I are not the fixer,
but you are a faithful companion,
a grace mirror,
a question asker.

I think—you know—we didn’t mention under the grace mirror...

We are not like in the secular coaching: “You’re just a mirror.”
“Ooh, I’m so glad that you’ve got me, because I just reflect anything that you have or don’t have.”
So if you’re an atheist, if you hate people—I just reflect that back to you. Right?
No judgment. I just reflect it back.

But we are grace mirrors.
We come from a belief system.
We are spiritual mirrors.

And we don’t just—if you’re a, you know, a Hitler-type and you want to hurt people—we’re not going to just reflect that.