March 17, 2025
Mastering Client Challenges: Technical vs. Adaptive Coaching
Mastering the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges is the game-changing skill that separates good coaches from transformational ones. While technical challenges require more information or step-by-step systems, adaptive challenges demand a fundamental reframing of beliefs and mindsets. The problem? Most clients (and coaches) misdiagnose which challenge they're actually facing.
When you rush to provide advice without first identifying what type of challenge your client is experiencing, you're likely solving the wrong problem. Your overthinkers and perfectionists don't need more information—they need help addressing the belief systems keeping them stuck. Learning to recognize these patterns transforms your coaching approach and dramatically improves client results.
The Coach Accelerator program provides a comprehensive framework for identifying challenge types and responding appropriately, regardless of your coaching specialty. Through weekly calls, real-time feedback, and a supportive community of heart-centered coaches, you'll build unshakable confidence in your coaching abilities. The six-month program combines group learning with personalized guidance, creating sustainable income without sacrificing your personal life.
Ready to elevate your coaching and help clients achieve breakthroughs? Book your free coaching call today and discover how to leverage the technical vs. adaptive framework to increase your impact and income while transforming your clients' lives.
Want a personalized strategy session for free? Book a free call with Marc or Teresa: https://www.modernleadership.us/apply
Whether you're going through a challenge, or working on a powerful goal, join Marc or Teresa for a 20-minute strategy session and leave the call with a plan to make it happen!
Chapters
00:00 - Redefining Modern Leadership
43:32 - Technical vs. Adaptive Challenges
01:37:16 - Understanding Challenge Types
03:00:06 - The Power of Adaptive Coaching
04:53:00 - Coach Accelerator Framework
06:39:09 - Building Coaching Confidence
10:09:08 - Program Structure and Benefits
Transcript
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It's time to redefine leadership.
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Welcome to Modern Leadership, where we see things differently.
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Our podcast is all about empowering entrepreneurs like you to achieve the next level of success in business and life.
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We believe that you can create a massive impact in the world without compromising your personal life or family time to do so.
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We're committed to providing you with actionable tips and strategies weekly to make that possible.
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So if you're ready to become a modern leader and make a lasting difference in the world, consider subscribing, turn on notifications and dive into our community.
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We want to thank you for being here, because the world needs your leadership now more than ever.
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Let's go.
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There are two challenges that you and your clients are going to go through.
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The thing, as a coach, that we have to understand is what type of challenge do we have?
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Because if we want to meet our clients where they are, we have to identify what of these challenges do they have before we can even help them.
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What I typically see is coaches will rush to start giving advice and direction or start getting in them to ask them questions, to take them through maybe a framework that they have and they're dealing with the wrong problem because they've never even slowed down to figure out what challenge does my client have?
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Because everybody's different and everybody needs a personal approach to how they can overcome challenges.
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We teach this in the program as the difference between technical and adaptive challenges.
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Now I'm going to describe them to you in a second, but I want you to think about some of the things that you're going through, or some of the things you help clients through.
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Which one do you find, more often than not, to be the type of challenge that people think that they're going through, and which ones are they actually going through right Now?
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The first one is called a technical challenge.
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What a technical challenge means is they need more information.
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They need to know what to do, how to do it, the steps, the system, something in place.
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Those are the Google searches that you can do, right.
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So if you get a health and somebody in health and fitness and they're like I just need to find a diet that works for me, I just need to find a workout program that I enjoy, right, can you tell me which one you recommend?
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That is them thinking that they have a technical challenge.
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They Can you tell me which one you recommend?
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That is them thinking that they have a technical challenge.
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They need more information.
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Now, the truth is, sometimes people need a technical challenge.
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We actually had somebody in one of our groups who was like hey, mark, I'm really struggling with this thing, and it was something related to putting together posts and using your core values in order to inject it.
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Something that we do inside of our program is teach people how to speak more authentically in their own voice so they can attract clients based off of their strengths, not just because everybody tells them to do something.
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The same way on social media right, We've got to find our own story right.
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And being able to have that conversation, I was like, oh, they just need to know this piece of the puzzle, and so I gave them a teaching and training on it and it totally unlocked everything for them.
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As a matter of fact, they found a client because of it, and when that happened, I was like, oh, this was a technical challenge that I was dealing with.
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It wasn't an adaptive one.
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Now, most people will think they have technical challenges.
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Many of you guys think you have technical challenges, that you need this, this, this and this, and once you do, everything's going to be good to go.
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Only, what we really have is what's called an adaptive challenge.
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An adaptive challenge is one where you have to reframe the way that you think about it.
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It's one that you have to attack your belief system and find out what way you currently believe and what's a new way that you could believe, to help you actually go out there to take action and to get the results.
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That way, I talk with a lot of people who are overthinkers, perfectionists, people who have to have everything done beforehand and they don't need more information, even though they're trying to ask me for more information.
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They need me to help them get to the root of what's actually holding them back, which is their belief system.
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So here's the thing there's going to be times when you need to be a technical coach, which we call this mentoring, which is giving them advice.
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Maybe you've been a few steps ahead of them and you want to share, maybe, your roadmap, and there's a very specific way we teach to do that, because what you don't want to do is try to plant a seed that like there's only one way to do it and this is your way and it's the only way to do it, because if you do that, you're not meeting them where they're at.
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You're meeting them where you're at right.
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But then there's opportunities for an adaptive challenge, which is asking a few questions.
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We did this in the Coach Acc.
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We had a conversation, and what some of the things that we do is.
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We set it up where people ask a question, a challenge, something they're facing, they need some help with, and then the coaches on the team ask questions and then it filters through me and I tell them like hey, this is a good question, this is not a good question, and here's the direction for you to go.
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Well, the person was asking a question about social media and everybody wanted to jump in and share some tips and strategies on what they could do, and I'm like, no, we got something else that's really here.
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And when we started to ask questions to really identify the adaptive challenges, we got to the end I'm like, hey guys, how many of you guys thought it was going to end this way?
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And they were like we never would have thought.
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And it's because, as coaches, sometimes what we do is we jump in and we think about, oh, this has to be an adaptive challenge or this has to be a technical challenge, instead of figuring out what kind of challenge we have first.
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That's why getting to identify the actual challenge that your person is going through, that your client, that your friend, that your kids are going through, and getting more clear on it, not only is going to help you, but it's going to help them too.
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Now, these are the things that we teach and we take a deep dive inside of the Coach Accelerator, and this is why our coaches are having more success than they've ever had before.
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Because when you think about this, think about this, what would it feel like to step into a session knowing that you know these things?
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But you have them down pat.
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You can help them identify what they truly want and make sure that they don't have any language in there that's going to prevent them from finding another way of doing it right.
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Number two you help them create a very simple plan that they can execute on without feeling overwhelmed.
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Number three is you can help them stay out of the whirlwind the day-to-day life has gotten in the way.
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And number four is when they have a challenge or something coming up, you can identify what challenge it is and show up as the coach that they need to.
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What happens is you get your clients results.
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Do you know what happens when you get results?
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You make more impact and more income.
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And that's really the philosophy and the process that we help people through inside of the program, because when you have all of these things and you step into a coaching session whether it's a consultation or you're about to sell somebody into something I got to tell you your level of confidence is on another level.
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And when you lean into that, they're going to feel it too, because you really can help them when you get through this process.
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This is the same exact process that we've been using in our one-on-one clients to be able to help them, and we wanted to bring it into the Coach Accelerator so that everybody has the roadmap to be able to go through that.
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As a coach, you're already making a difference in the world, but what if you could take your confidence and the results of your clients to a new height?
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If you're looking to fine-tune your feedback and guidance for even more client success, I'm here to help.
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During a free coaching call, we'll uncover new strategies to align your business with your values, increase your confidence and help your clients achieve even more.
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Let's set you up for continued success and growth.
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Book your free call today.
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The link is below.
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Thank you for being willing to lean in.
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Let's get right back into the show.
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So, when we think about some of the curriculum and teaching and the training that we do in the program, this is some of the stuff that we do.
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Number one is we share a proven blueprint to build unshakable confidence in your coaching abilities so you can attract clients with ease right Now.
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When you have confidence, not only does it exude through you and get you to show up on a different level, but it also helps your clients show up and get results.
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If you're a little hesitant as a coach, you have lack of confidence.
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Your clients are not going to be taking action.
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They probably aren't going to be signing up with you and even if they do, they won't be consistently taking action themselves and getting results, and that is a spiral that you don't want to get into right, want to lean into the confidence that you already have built inside of you, but you just need a few different ways to pull it out, and that's what we do.
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Number two is our systems to create sustainable income and grow your coaching business without sacrificing your personal life.
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So when I say we keep things simple, we keep them super simple, so it doesn't take you a million hours to be able to grow your business and to do the things that you need to do.
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That's also going to mean stopping some things that you're doing right now that are wasting your time.
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We're going to get in there.
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We're going to help give you some clarity.
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Teresa will help you a lot with that, because that's her specialty.
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But really getting you to do less of it is actually going to create more in your business, believe it or not, and whether you're a brand new coach or you've been a coach for a long time, what we like to do is provide you feedback along the way so you continue to elevate where you are as a coach being a coach for 12 or 13 years, but then also the entire group having different strengths we combine those together and we help everybody lean into each other so we can create an environment where you get positive, constructive feedback nothing negative or anything like that, but a way for you to keep growing your coaching, but also your energy and your motivation as you go, because one of the things that we always do is tap into motivation, into hope, making sure that when you leave the calls, that you're fueled, fired and ready to go.
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Next we share is our step-by-step process to master your time management, productivity and focus, and one of our bonuses that we have is a special way of combining what we're doing here, which is a group program which keeps you motivated, learning skills, getting you to take action, accountability all that stuff with actually a way of having some one-on-one bonus calls to help work through some things that you're personally going through.
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This is why I think our clients are having the best results, because they're not just focusing on one way or the other either one-on-one or group.
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It's a mixture of both.
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When you have both of those, it's a game changer for you, because you will get yourself to start taking action and then have one of us or Teresa to be able to help guide you through that process of any time that you could potentially be stuck.
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Next one is our strategy to help you and your clients take consistent action and step into your full potential as a high performing coach.
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So we have a process for people to follow to go through, and it doesn't matter what coaching modality you have.
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We have people who are grief coaches.
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We have people who are coaches for the corporate world.
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We have coaches who are health coaches.
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We have so many different coaches, but we teach them a universal framework to be able to help their clients go through very similar to what we talked about today, just in a little bit more detail.
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So you know exactly, from the time you start coaching your client to the end, when they're no longer going to be your client, what to do and the path to be able to take them.
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So you know that you're doing the best for your clients.
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And the last piece is the supportive community of heart-centered coaches who not only are committed to growth but want success just as much as you do.
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Being a part of a community like this is really what I hear time and time and time again is like knowing that there's a place that I can go to to get feedback from everybody in the group and to be able to be held accountable and to get that energy is a game changer just in and of itself.
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Now, how we do this and how we share this kind of information and teach and train and provide this feedback is we have a six month program, so the Coach Accelerator is six months in length.
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All right, this includes not only the teaching and training but, like real time feedback.
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We're going to open it up to questions and practice so you can actually practice the skill of coaching.
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What we found is so many times people like learn the philosophies of coaching, they go through 72 modules and they don't actually have time to sit down to coach, to ask questions and to see what it feels like on both ends, and so we make sure that we incorporate that into everything that you do so that way you can become better at it by actually doing it, not through theory.
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We have weekly calls four times a month, so there's a fifth Saturday.
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We only have four calls that month, so every Saturday we have a call.
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You're going to have access to all of our personal notes and we actually create stuff as we go, hearing from you guys, depending on what you need.
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And we actually create stuff as we go, hearing from you guys, depending on what you need.
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And one of the people in the group was like you know what I really love a framework to be able to take somebody through in a session and so that's what we did today.
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We created a universal framework so that everybody can have something to follow through when it comes to a coaching session, to make sure that you're able to help them out as best as you can.
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Right To identify those two different types of challenges and which ones you're dealing with.
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Right.
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And then access to our private community app.
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So we have an app off of social media, it's off of Facebook, it's inside of our private community, so that we can have conversations and not know that, like Aunt Susie is like watching right.
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And, by the way, if your name is Susie, I apologize.
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Just what came into my mind, but, like anybody like that, it's just going to be people who are focused on positivity, around growth, around doing what they can to help you elevate, to lean into the energy and find different solutions and be creative on how we do that.
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We're in an environment like that.
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Like they say, you're the average of the five people to spend most time with.
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Just that by itself will elevate you, especially when everybody else is doing coaching and vice versa.
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It's a really, really powerful thing to be a part of that community.
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