Video Transcript: Semi-Directive With Trial And Error

All right back again, Steve Elzinga here, coaching basics number two, we're  trying to figure out how we can be non directive and directive at the same time,  I'm calling it semi directive. And we've looked at, you know, ways that you can  do that by asking questions by doing case studies by letting clients tell their own  stories, you know, all of this is about how to get the client more motivated. The  truth is, the information of what it takes to succeed at most things in life,  whatever it might be parenting, marriage, business, sports, the information is out there. I mean, if the people were incredibly motivated, they could go out and  figure all this out. But people don't. And the reason that they don't, is because  they're not motivated. They're, they're wallowing in the chaos of their life, they're  wallowing in the chaos of their lack of parenting skills, or, you know, doing the  right things in their marriage, or the, you know, they can't figure out what to do  for a career. And, and, and, and, you know, they don't know which direction to  go. And so instead of making decisions to try to figure that out, they just, you  know, most people just sit there. And so they need help to, to sort of do what  they could do. But most of it comes down to motivation. People just aren't that  motivated. And so as a coach, you're trying to motivate them and to tap into a  person's own desires, and try to help them, you know, get rid of some of the  walls and the things that are clouding their vision. You know, what, once  someone has a clear vision of what they're supposed to do, or what they could  do, and where that could lead in their life, then people become more motivated.  Okay, so here we go. Slide Show. All right, making the directive more non  directive by using trial and error, trial and error. We looked at this, you know, by  asking questions, by telling stories by using case studies. Now we're looking at  one way you can get people more involved in their own solutions is trial and  error. Most things we learn in life, are by trial and error. If you think about it,  walking. I mean, when you were one, it's not like it's not like someone's said,  Your mother came up to you and said, Okay, now what I want you to do is I want you to pay attention to how I walk, see how I walk? Yeah, you got these two feet, and you know, I'm not crawling, I'm not using my knees, or my hands, just  walking on my feet, and I heel, toe, heel, toe, heel toe, one foot in front of the  other. Alright? Give it a try. Your one year old looks at you like, what. no, it was it  was little by little you were on your knees for quite a while, which is you know  better than your belly, but you're on your you know, and eventually, somehow  you get on your you're holding a couch or you're holding something. Your  standing up on your feet, but you're holding on eventually you let go and you go  and you walk. talking. It's not like, you know, we put two year olds in a speech  class. You know, this is how you learn English. No, it's all around you. And then  the, you know, babies make little sounds and then, you know, the parents and  everyone around them gives sort of positive encouragement when you're on the  right track. Oh, my child said dada, you know, it was probably just gas but you  know, he was encouraging. And then eventually, little by little, the kid figures out 

that when I say dada really good things happen. And then that's how you learn,  you know, your face, your your lips, your tongue. All these things have to be in  the right shape to create sound. It takes a long time to figure out 1000s and  1000s and 1000s and 1000s of utterances to try to figure out how sounds go  together what a consonant and a vowel is, but it's all trial and error. They don't  like okay, how do you make the So you put your lips to get, you know, as adults,  we'd have to think about it, the TH sound some cultures don't have certain  sounds and it's extremely hard for a person in the culture that never use that  sound to figure it out when infants can figure out that sound it in, in the proper  culture. These things we learned by trial and error relationships, you know, what  works in the relationship, what doesn't work in a relationship. In going to school  learning to get along learning to fit in with a group to be part of something, these things, take trial error, if you do it this way, it works well. If you don't do it this  way, then it doesn't work well. So people that are isolated from other people, it's  really hard to learn anything, because we learn from as much from our mistakes  as we learn from our successes. So we need an environment that allows us to  try and try again, and then learn and then adapt and then try. Most of who we  are, is because of trial and error. But how do you coach teach through trial and  error. So again, we're trying to make directive coaching, a little more non  directive, or what we're calling semi direct. Okay, guitar, for example. I could, I  could, you know, I could just hand someone a guitar and say, Good luck here.  Just put, start putting your fingers on these frets on these strings in any manner  that you would like, and then strum a chord and see what it sounds like. And  people could do that all day long and never hit a you know, something that  sounds good. And then they hit, stop, stop with the guitar, believe me. So we  have to show them a knot, right? I have to show you what a chord is. It this is  how you do it. And then you play this, now you hold this one, and then you play.  This is how you hold this one. And then you play it. Now, the problem is when  people do that their fingers aren't used to this one fingers touching another  string. And it just sounds horrible. It just sounds horrible. So I challenge people  look, you have to practice 20 minutes every day. For 21 days in a row. If you do  that 21 days in a row, through sheer trial and error, your fingers will figure out  the proper place to be and, and your hand. Because every one hand is slightly  different. This chord, you'll be more like this, and this chord will be more like this. And I don't know what it's going to be. But I'm guarantee you in 21 days, your  hand will do it. In the beginning, you have to do it in faith because it doesn't  sound good. You just have to follow what I'm telling do exactly what I'm saying.  Do it for 20, 21 days in a row, then the first 5, 6, 7, 8 days your fingers are gonna hurt, it's gonna sound horrible, but you just keep doing what I say it's directive,  I'm telling you what to do, you're gonna succeed if you do this. And you have to  do it in faith. And the first 6, 7, 8, 9 days is gonna sound horrible, but eventually  this is going to click in your mind, this is going to click, all of a sudden, your hand

is going to make one little shift and it's gonna make all the difference. And in 21  days, you'll have it figured out. Sailing, I use that example to I'll teach you the  basics. But I'm gonna let you through trial and error doing the tiller. If you pull  this direction, the boat goes the other direction. But but but when you start  looking at the water and what's going on. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And  eventually it will feel as natural as can be, it won't feel like you're doing the  opposite thing. It'll feel like this is the right thing to do. But it will take some trial  and error. You'll get it wrong for a while. marriage, parenting is the same thing. I  can teach you something. And now you go out and try it but you're not going to  get it quite right. But over time you're going to learn because good things will  happen. When you do it right. Bad things will happen when you do it poorly.  That's the nature of trial and error. It's a stick and the carrot. You do it wrong.  You get hit with a stick. You do it right. Someone gives you a carrot because that is talking about horses right? Hit the horse or you give them a carrot. We're all  like horses. How do we teach concepts through trial and error? By example  parenting teaching the skill of responsibility well as the client to try anything that  comes to mind that might lead to the clients child becoming more  responsibilities, responsible. So you teach what Responsibility Responsibility is  when your child says, I will take responsibility for the decision or for making this  thing happened. And I am willing to live with the consequences of whatever  happens. If I do a poor job, and something bad happens, and I suffer, I'm willing  to take that consequence. Or if something good happens, I expected to be  rewarded, because what I did so, you know, you ask a client, okay? What  responsibility thing can you give your child to see if it works. For example, you  could give your child the responsibility for getting up on time to go to school.  Maybe your child doesn't get up on time. So you got to keep pushing, shoving,  yelling, screaming, you know, pushing them out the door, they gotta go to  school. So you say nothing, you know, why am I taking responsibility? You know, my kids, 12 years old, he can get up on his own. Here's your alarm clock, get  up. Okay, but the child has to take on responsibility? And what if the child  doesn't get up, then what's gonna happen? While the client says, Well, I guess  he has to walk to school, I guess he does. Now, if you drive him to school,  what's he going to learn? I can get up on time, or I could not get up on time, and  it doesn't affect me in any shape. It doesn't doesn't affect me negatively. So the  client has to figure out some thing to try now. Did it work? I don't know. Did your  child learn anything? Or didn't the child learn anything? Who knows? I don't  know. It's trial and error. What's gonna work what's not going to work? So next  session as the client, what happened? Did you kid get up and when the alarm  get off? Well, actually, my child didn't get up. The alarm went off, and he didn't  get up. Okay, so then what happened? Did you make him walk to school? Well,  no, his mother wouldn't let him walk to school because, you know, it's  dangerous. Who knows what's going to happen? So I ended up driving him. 

Okay. So what did you teach your child about responsibility? Well, I guess I  taught him that he doesn't have to be responsible, because his parents will save him of whatever bad decision that he made. Yeah. And I realize, walking to  school might be dangerous. But if your child doesn't learn responsibility, guess  what really dangerous thing he's going to be doing when he's 19 or 20 years old, and you're not there to rescue him. You can, you could make them, you could  make them walk to school and you could follow in your car as he walks along to  make sure that nothing bad happens. You could you can do something about  the situation right now. But when he's 19, 20, 21, 25, he's moved out of the  house, he lives in another place. There's nothing you can do to protect your  child from his own irresponsibility. Number two, if there was success, talk about  why that may have been the case. Child, you know, the first day, I made him  walk to school. Second day, he woke up when his alarm went off, and he got  ready. Why do you think that is? I think it's because he had to walk the day  before. Number three, pursue a course of action based on what was learned.  Okay, so how do we now use what we have learned about this whole  responsibility thing with your child for everything? In doing his homework sports,  how he interacts? What he does at supper time how he dresses I mean, how do  you give your child more responsibility and let your child suffer the  consequences of his or her own decision? See, if you don't do that as a parent,  then your child when they don't want to do something, they just blame you as  the parent. Oh, it's my parents. And there are adults still blaming their parents.  Because why? Because they never learned how to take responsibility for their  own life. Number four, if there was no success, talk about why that may benefit..  You know, that's a lot of times because we, as parents don't let our kids  experience the consequences of their decisions. We don't let the experience the consequences of whether the child takes responsibility or doesn't take  responsibility. Number five, help client figure out what to try next. Okay, so you  tried this, this is what you learn, this is what you know, you didn't do this is what  you're going to try to do in the future. Okay, what else? What do you want to do  next? Is there another area of life that you want your child to learn  responsibility? Or should we move on to a new topic, like judgment? Or  discipline? Or whatever it might be? So there's, there's all these topics related to a bigger topic like parenting? You know, judgment, responsibility, the I am  somebody attitude, The I will try attitude, all these different things that are in this  class on parenting. So we explore one, we looked at one want to do we make  plans, we, you know, plan of action? And then Okay, are you satisfied with that  one? Or do you want to move on to the next one, or do you want to work more  on this responsibility. So, again, you're doing a lot of directing, but you're also  doing a lot of non direct, you're leaving it up to the client. And again, we're doing  that because that's where the motivation comes. The advantage of using trial  and error number one, the client is much more likely to learn something by the 

failures as much as the successes, so doesn't even matter if the client succeeds or fails. Because either way, it's a learning opportunity. In fact, often, the failure  is, it's something that the client learns more from them than the success. So you know, it's perfect for a coach. Because the coach wins either way, we make  progress. Either way. Number two, it's often easier to talk about and understand  concepts after there has been some struggle. People, you know, a lot of times  people don't learn because they look at things and they go, Well, that seems  easy until they try it. And when they try it, they realize that this thing is way more involved than they originally thought. That's true in sports, it's true in almost  everything. So allowing somebody to struggle a little bit at first. And by the way,  if people struggle with something for a while, then they're way more open to a  little bit of teaching. Right, that's their way more willing to work with the coach  towards some goal than maybe before, because now they're frustrated.  Frustration, pain, sometimes very useful. There's a proverb that says,  sometimes it takes a painful situation, to make us change our way. And that's  often. Number three, the meanings you as the coach are employing will not only  serve your current purpose, that is to teach something, but it will also become a  skill that will help your client with learning anything. So if you can successfully  use this trial and error thing to try to do this semi directive, coaching in the  process, you're going to help your client realize that a lot of things can happen  through trial and error. And, in fact, it's one of the major ways we learn anything,  but there's one big obstacle, failure, trial and error, a lot of error involved in trial  and error. But that can be a positive thing. The advantage of using trial and error James 1:2. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face  trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces  perseverance. That is one of my favorite passages, testing, trial, these things  produce something. It really produces faith. Faith that eventually you'll get there. Faith is believing something that you don't quite have that you don't Quite see,  that that's what our faith our Christian faith is all about. We're, we're trusting the  something. I'm trusting in heaven, I haven't been there. I accept it by faith, I  accept that God is going to guide me by faith, I step out in faith. And the more  times I do it, the more secure I am in that faith. Let perseverance finish it's work  so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. So this is  something that grows, the more you experience, trial and error, the more  confident you become that eventually there is a solution. And you're not  dissuaded by the failures. For example, Thomas Edison, Thomas Edison  wanted to figure out the electric light bulb, you know, it was candles before that,  and fire and lighting, gas lamps, burned houses. And then the whole electricity  thing was invented. But how do we make a light? And he tried filament after  filament, and they but they always burned out. And he tried 1000s and 1000s  and 1000s of things before he figured it out. But you know what his attitude was, with every failure, he said, Well, there's just one more thing I don't have to try 

again. I'm closer and closer to the solution, because I'm eliminating all the things that don't work. Well, if you can give your client that kind of attitude. There'll be  no stopping that. So in this session, what we really talked about is how to be  how to be a coach with a semi directive kind of style. And the way to do it is to  engage your client in trial and error, get them to try things. Otherwise, you're not  dictating what's going to work or what's not going to work. You're asking them to  figure out some options and then giving them permission to try and fail and then  try something else. By the way, that's not a bad gift to give anyone that you well, okay, until next time,