Leanne Woehlke
Well, I am thrilled to have Dave Buck here who is the head of Coachville, which is a fantastic coaching school with us. Today,
Dave Buck
Oh, yeah,
Leanne Woehlke
yeah. Well, you just talk to us a little bit about
Dave Buck
Hi, everybody, first of all, great to have you here ready to play? Mm hmm.
Leanne Woehlke
Do you tell us you've been in this coaching industry for so long?
Dave Buck
Yes. True story!
Leanne Woehlke
Can you talk a little bit about how you got into coaching?
Dave Buck
Of course, that's a, I'll give you the short version because that's a very interesting and long story. That's super fun. But the basic, the basic gist of it is in my 20s I was this rock and roll entrepreneur, great business going and I really got into personal growth, okay. And I was like going all the seminars, reading all the books, I was big at lamb bark, alright, like landmark education, which probably a lot of your listeners know about. I was doing all the classes programs there. And then I had a life incident. Okay, which I which, which one of those incidents? We'll talk about that a little bit more later, but I had this big life incident happen more like, everything just went wrong. Business started floundering marriage fell apart, lost the house. Only thing I was left with after this major debacle was me and my car. Okay, so I basically lived in my car for a year. So when I was living in my car, I was really hanging out at the New Age bookstore all the time, because it was warm in there. And I was totally into this stuff. And I started doing all this visualization. But what happened was this is the clincher was when I was I was doing all these programs at Landmark and Landmark Education was really the first place that talked about coaching from a life perspective. Okay, that was a big innovation that was happening around the Landmark world. So they had this deal where if you had done a program and you wanted to do it again, you could do it for free if you were a coach. So I had no money because I was living in my car and I was homeless. So I was like, I can do all the programs again for free by coaching. I'm like, yeah, I'm totally in. So that's how it all started. I started coaching all these landmark programs. And then Thomas Leonard, who worked at Landmark for Warner Earhart, he left Landmark as an employee and got the bright idea, hey, this coaching thing can be a profession. Right? So he left Landmark started the life coaching profession. I heard about it from a friend at Landmark. I didn't know Thomas at the time yet, but a friend of mine through Landmark said hey, Dave, life coaching is a profession now you can totally get certified. I was like what? That is all me. This is like in the 90s. And so it was like from I'm living in my car to coaching because I could take the classes for free to becoming a professional life coach that happened in the 90s. And then I met Thomas Leonard and I became best friends. That was a whole long, crazy story. But that's basically how it is. It's like, life sometimes gets these takes these crazy curves. And then you find yourself in just the perfect place at the perfect time. Like not by you know, wasn't my own doing. It was like, other than my own doing of, you know, crashing my first business, but I could take responsibility for that. It's called not marketing, but that's a whole. That's a whole different story. But yeah, so that's how I got into life coaching. So in 1997, I was one of the first life coaches. And since I had been in business since I was like 12 years old, doing a whole different kinds of businesses, the business part actually came pretty easy to me. So what happened? There was, I was one of the very first life coaches to create a multiple six figure income just on the phone talking to people sitting by the lake talking on the phone to people, and you know, having a six figure business. So there were other life coaches that were starting to get into that six figure realm, but most of them were doing their big money in corporate. I was actually a personal life coach, making six figures and I was one of the first ones in the world. So that's kind of how it all that's the that's the shortish version of the story.
Leanne Woehlke
It's I have to ask what was your first business when you were 12?
Dave Buck
My first business when I was 12, was cutting grass. And then, then I moved on to delivering newspapers, babysitting for kids, cleaning houses, just like everything. I was like young entrepreneur around Downtown. That was pretty much me.
Leanne Woehlke
I love it. I'm noticing that there's, like this entrepreneurial gene almost, is inbred in people. And it It helps them. Yeah. It helps them just figure things out. It's almost as I call it, like a scrappiness.
Dave Buck
Yeah. It is a scrappiness. It's true. It's true. But you know, what, a big thing for me just in terms of the whole business thing that that we were talking about was I, I slammed headfirst into this wall of fear. And I didn't know it at the time, that you know, this is in my late 20s, when my computer software business, which was going really great just slammed in, you know, slammed into a wall. And the thing was, I had built all of my businesses on referrals. So it was all personal relationship marketing. And then my computer software company got to a point where like, the referrals weren't really coming anymore. I was going to have to start doing more marketing, like traditional marketing, like getting out and doing things in the world to get business. And I just couldn't do it. I just could not at that time, I just slammed into this wall of fear, which I've since, you know, figure it out, but, and then it got into once I got into the coaching, I started slamming into that same wall of fear, but this time I had a coach. So made a big difference. And then I figured out what this big wall of fear was all about. And then from there. My business really has flown since then, with lots of, you know, bumps along the road. I don't want to see you know, hasn't been smooth sailing all the way for sure, because life's not like that. But I was able to figure out what the big wall of fear was and then play with it and move and move on.
Leanne Woehlke
Now that's so interesting, because what I know about you and even going through the CoachVille program, I think one of the The the methodologies that you have is your inner freedom method.
Dave Buck
Yes.
Leanne Woehlke
So was that born out of your own experience? Totally.
Dave Buck
Let's just say yes. Yeah. Because I haven't been in the personal growth field for so long. And, and then coaching people the basic methodology of around fear, what I was, you know, when early in the field of coaching and and personal growth was what just get over it. Just get over it. Like just do it. Like just do it just get over it, pout, you know, don't you know, crush your fear. And what I found out was that's just a terrible method. Like it just doesn't work for most people, like a very few people can overcome fear with the just get over it. approach. And even then, those people who can when you're younger, when you get a little older, it doesn't work anymore. Like you just can't get over it, because it's deeper and it's more at a non conscious level. And it's, it's, it's tricky. So that's where the inner freedom method came from from it came from my own experience and then also coaching. So many, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who are slamming headfirst into fear and then saying, well just get over it, I would cheerlead the crap out of them. And it just didn't work most of the time. So I started looking for answers. And that's how the inner freedom method was born. And it's a it's a it's really a deep, it's a deep coaching. The inner freedom method is this deep way of exploring what's happening to you within you at a non conscious level and it's exploring the body and exploring your relationship also, with supermind, which is this human potential energy field that we're all connected to? And if you start if you learn how to read what's happening in your body and what's happening around you, you can start connecting the dots and figure out what is this fear about. And that was the big turning point was, instead of trying to fight fear, overcome fear. You look at your fear as your friend. And you realize that and what I realized in coaching so many people was almost any fear that a human being has is a social fear. There's not many physical fears, like there's no Tigers chasing us, you know, in the woods, so it's related to other humans is that so it's a social fear in some way. And all social fear is learned. And the thing we learn to fear the most is our own unique power. Because that's where we get we we get in trouble. early in life just by playing and being ourselves, and then trouble happens, and then you learn Oh crap, either consciously or mostly non consciously. Whenever I do this thing I do, people don't like it so I'm going to stop doing that. And gradually over time your unique power gets buried under fear now that's a good news bad news story. So then the good news is once you know that what you're really afraid of is your own unique power when you start to feel afraid. With the right coach you can use follow that fear like a treasure map and, and and rediscover your unique power. So that's what I do.
Leanne Woehlke
And I've got to just say is I did an inner freedom session with somebody yesterday. Nice and it's it's turning out to be, I think, my favorite methodology. And it's so different than anything anyone else is doing. Can you describe Little bit of it seems like everywhere I see nowadays people are calling themselves coaches.
Dave Buck
Sure.
Leanne Woehlke
And so can you describe a little bit about the differences and types of coaches and how CoachVille and what you do is like you gave you a little sense, but how is it so different than?
Dave Buck
Well, I mean, first of all, coaching is awesome, right? So, of course, a lot of people want to do it, right. That's one thing at the same time. You know, like, if you if you think of like basketball, for example, there's coaches at all levels of basketball. You know, the little league basketball team has one of the parents coaching who maybe did a weekend basketball coaching course. And now they're coaching their little league basketball team. Fine. That's okay. Right? That's okay. Hey, but they're not professionals. Right? That's the thing. This is where it gets clunky. You know, it's, you know, a little Basketball Coach doesn't expect to get paid. And then you have high school basketball coaches, they don't get paid too much, but they get paid a little bit. And then you have college coaches and then pro coaches and there's levels. And so life coaching is the same thing, right? So you just want to be respectful of the levels. And so the higher level of professionalism is going to be someone who's got more professional training and as gone through more experiences to prove and show that they can coach at a professional level. So I have no qualms with someone going to a weekend coach training program and then coaching their friends or coaching some colleagues at a you know, pro bono or low fee rate. But if you want to be a true professional and coach at a high level, then you need to go for professional training and even in in all the sports. You know the basketball coaches, soccer coaches, you can coach your little local team with a little bit of training, but even people who played at a high level, they have to go to the full multiple week, multiple month training programs to coach at a professional level. That's all it is. It's just, it's just a it's just about levels. So at CoachVille we, we teach people how to coach at the highest level, we know we're a full certified program with the international coach Federation, which just basically means we jumped through a crap ton of hoops to be able to say, we did that. And there's value in that. It's like, sometimes you think, oh, man, we're jumped through a lot of hoops. But that's part of what distinguishes professionalism in most fields is you just have to jump through the hoops and show you can do certain things at a certain level. And you know, I've taken lots of training programs, and over the course of my life, and a lot of training programs are pretty bad. Right And so, to be an ICF accredited program, you really Have to document that you know, what you're doing as a training program, and it's rigorous and it's hard. And you know, it just basically shows, hey, our training program is really professionally done. And we help people become truly professional coaches. And that's, that's what we do.
Leanne Woehlke
That's a great distinction. I love your analogy about the different levels of coaching. Because it is I think, you know, people as they're thinking, well, gosh, maybe I should have a coach. And I've had someone say, like that they had worked with a coach and they didn't get the results they expected. Mm hmm. But I don't think they knew what they were buying.
Dave Buck
Correct. That's right. That's right. And, and that's, that's, that is really the big thing. That's where it's like, okay, you could say I'm a basketball coach. Okay. Are you a little league basketball coach, or are you like coaching, you know, the San Antonio Spurs, like, what, you know, they're all basketball coaches. So, you know, it's just about what is the level of the coach and so really This what this is about, I think in terms of professional coaching is it's it's about when when you have when your dream is big enough, then you're going to look for a big enough coach. You know who's who's ready to walk with you because coaching is walking with or playing with. This is a big thing about coaching. You know, what makes coach Phil unique, I feel also is there's a lot of coach training programs that have come into being over the last 20 years that have sort of, they, they what they call coaching is like this hybrid model of like social worker, and project manager. It's like, let's talk about your problems. And then we'll come up with an action plan and I'll manage you in action. Right, so it's like this social worker project manager combo plan, but that's not cool. teaching that is not coaching, but that's what most people do, right? But real coaching in any way anything whether you're coaching basketball, or piano, or dance or any kind of coaching is simply play together to play better. Have a great coach is going to play with you. Practice with you so that you can play better. And that brings up the big question that everyone always asks, well, how do you play life? And that's really what we've what we specialize in it CoachVille is talking about you can play life. In fact, you can and you can practice life. You can practice life, and then go out and and play for real. And by practicing, you get better you get confident, and then when you do the things that you want to do for your dream. You do them with confidence with capability with energy because you've done before you've practiced that a bunch of times with your coach. So that's the big thing. You know, when you're talking about doing an inner freedom session, that's a way of playing with someone using their visualization using their body awareness. You're like, in them in there with them, you're walking with them. It's not Oh, tell me about your day and tell me about your problems. It's like, okay, we're going to dive into your mind through your imagination together. And we're going to explore this situation and figure out where the fear is coming from. That's some serious deep coaching stuff. Like that's the real thing. So, yeah, that's and so that's really the big thing. And CoachVille, what we're all about is played together to play better.
Leanne Woehlke
I think it's there's also a transformational aspect in my experience of CoachVille, that it's helping people to then be able to go on, it's not just managing the tasks.
Dave Buck
That's right.
Leanne Woehlke
That's which I think was was such a great distinction when I experience that, can you talk about how you came up with the concept of play, which is part of CoachVille,
Dave Buck
it really is. I had a big, you know, awakening, you know, life is a sequence of awakenings. And as you as you know, so this was about 12 years ago now, so I started CoachVille with Thomas Leonard in around 2000. And then in 2003, Thomas died of a heart attack, and I inherited CoachVille, and I was running it and it was hard, and all sorts of trouble. And I was in all these lawsuits, it was like just a crazy time I ended up with a wicked case of post traumatic stress disorder. So a lot of you knows a lot of really deep challenges and then coming out of that traumatic experience. I was blessed having Great therapist and then great coaches. And to have you know, the possibility is post traumatic growth, like you can't when you go into a deeply traumatic experience, if you have the right support, you can pop out of it in a big growth mindset. And so what happened to me was when I popped out of the post traumatic stress, I had this major awakening about coaching, which I had been doing for a long time and leading the field for a long time. But I really had this awakening that we've gone off track. And as similar to what I spoke about with you just a little bit before we got off track with the field of coaching and it had devolved into this social worker project manager thing. But that's not what coaching is. I come from a I was a college soccer coach for 14 years I've been a performing artist. I used to sing jazz and little clubs and I had athletic coaches and I had had performance our coaches. And I just suddenly woke up to the fact that the performance art coaching experience and the athletic coach experience was very different than what we were doing as life and business coaches. It was like a totally different thing. And like, what is it like a bass when I've had voice coaches? My voice coach didn't say, oh, what do you want to talk about today? My voice coach says, sing something for me. What are you singing? Let's sing like, and then we're singing back and forth and playing and practicing. My soccer coach didn't say let's talk about your soccer problems. My soccer coach says, Okay, let's play. Let's work on these moves. Let's try out this situation. So I'm thinking, what are we doing? How did we devolve into this problem centric view of life? That's not life. Life is for play. I just had this awakening. We're here to play live. And that's really what Put me on this new road of, we've got to talk about coaching as play, you play with someone you play together. So how do we play life? That turned out to be very interesting, you know, journey for me to talk, figure out how do you play life and to draw in my wisdom from performance art and athletics and business and leadership and personal growth. And that huge like Venn diagram became, you know, what we do a coach, build a play life method, and then talk about how to play life and coach life. And essentially, the simplified version of it, which took years to create, you know, it's like, you know, something is good when it's simple. Like, it started out really complicated. And now it's simple. So, to play life as a human being, we all do the same thing. So this is how we play we relate to other people and we play for influence. We create things and experiences and we share them with people. We explore new places to see new things and also to be seen. And then we experiment. We try to do things in new ways and playful ways without worrying about mistakes. And those four things, relate, create, explore, experiment, that's how we play. That's how human beings play. And so, as a play Life Coach, what you're doing is you're talking with your player and playing with them on Okay, what are the converse? What's the next conversation you need to have? And you and I have done this many times, like okay, let's roleplay the conversation. So you get some clarity on what you on the influence you want to create. What are you creating that you want to share with people and then we
We use the inner freedom method to get into your non conscious experience of freedom. So you can see where your fears are. Because this is the thing that's really big. My big dream in life right now, this is a bit of a segue in or a pathway in, but my big dream is to unchained the spirit of play in human beings and to guide people all around this world to play for their dream by hiring a coach. Okay, this, these, all these pieces go together is you know, life. We're here on this earth to play for our dreams. And we are not here to do it alone. Right? We are here to have a guide and to guide each other. And so when you look at this notion of playing life, well relating to other people, with the idea of influencing them in a positive way, well, that has a big fear, fear of rejection. It's we all learn it. We're terrified of rejection. We talk about creating and sharing. So we all have something we want to create or experiences we want to create and share. But what's the fear, fear of disappointment. We all are totally chained with this fear of disappointment, then exploring. You think about our curiosity where we were humans we want to explore. But then we learn the fear of trouble, like getting in trouble, like there's going to be trouble. And then with the experimenting, and just trying new ways of doing things, we all learn this terrible fear of mistakes, and perfection needing to be perfect. So, all of these fears are learned. I live in New York City, and there's children in playgrounds, and I'm telling you little children and playgrounds are not fearful of mistakes. They are not fearful of rejection. They go and talk to whatever kids are there and they start creating games together and they're not Afraid of, oh my god, this thing we're creating right now is to four year olds, it might not be perfect, we better not do it. No, they just play. So my big inquiry has been where what happened to us? How do we go from these wildly exuberant, playful creatures to so fearful? And you know, that's been my big journey is, first of all to learn where all these fears are coming from, and then create a coaching method to unchained us from these fears and, and part of it is, as adult players of life, we actually have to take responsibility for the raw power of play because it's powerful. And it so we have to be able to play with responsibility. That's the big thing. So and but we can we're all totally capable of learning how to play with responsibility, and be responsive play and be responsible and that's, this is this is What this is what playing big in life is all about.
Leanne Woehlke
So how do you approach someone who might be in a traditional, like corporate very structured or sure reality and get them to embrace the idea of play?
Dave Buck
Yeah, it's it's not easy.
It's not easy because the environment always wins like this is what is you know, this is one of our mantras that CoachVille. So we are all fear that we've learned, we learned in an environment, okay? We all learn our fears, in the environments we grow up in, whether it's at home, and then school, and then jobs, we just keep reinforcing these fears. Like As humans, we need to be fearful of our power and our play. Okay, we keep learning that fear over and over again. So, he first of all, you just have to help help the person see that their that their fears have been learned. Okay? It's not inherent to who they are, okay? Fear of play and fear of our power are learned. So then if you can just get that idea, then you can just start making small steps. I mean, like anything else, you just have to start making small steps. But the big piece of it is any human being any collection of human beings, they're human beings. So while you might think, Oh, I can't relate to that person, I'm afraid but the truth is, they desperately want you to relate to them. They desperately want we're all yearning to connect and to be seen and to play. So you just have to realize and have the courage and that's why the person with the coach, okay, so the person with the coach has their corporate life. So as a coach, you would say, all right, what some who, let's think of someone on your team that you would like to connect with in a in a deeper way, and really start to have better conversations than whatever you're talking about. So they think of that person, there's gotta be there's always someone, and then you roleplay that conversation, what do you want to ask them? What do you want to do with them? What's the little, you know, mission you want to create on your team to get everyone on board to do things in a new way. So you start role playing, you start exploring the fears that they have. And so they're the ones with the coach. So they're the ones on the adventure at their office, that are going to start this little mini revolution of getting people to connect and play and experiment and explore which they are all yearning to do. They're all yearning to do but they're just equally afraid. Okay. So the one who has the coach becomes the courageous one. says, hey, let's try something a little different. Let's relate to each other this way. Let's, let's not exclude people, just because They don't believe what we believe or whatever, right let's, let's be more open, let's be more inclusive. This is what all human beings are yearning for. So it's just, this is what I say when I say, play bid for your dream by hiring a coach. You're not going to do it alone. Yeah, we're not meant to and you're not going to if you want to play any bigger than you're playing now, you've got to have a coach and and but I've done this many times I've coached many people in seemingly impossible situations. And through coaching and playing with their fear. They were able to be the courageous won in there in that place, and and help help to break free.
Leanne Woehlke
I think something you were talking about about
practicing those conversations with those role plays is so powerful. You helped me with one with my husband and what I was what I was thinking I was portraying and community King was so different than how it was landing. Mm hmm. And the listener. Yeah. And that's, you know, we think in my in our heads like, Oh, well, of course, this is what I'm saying and they should know it.
Dave Buck
That's right. But they don't.
Leanne Woehlke
They don't know. And that was that was a huge profound awakening.
Dave Buck
Yeah, it is. And that's coaching, right coaching is, coaching is playing together, and observing. That's what great coaching begins with the power to observe someone at play. You play with them, you observe them, and then you can share. This is how this is coming across. This is how you're coming across. Let's experiment with some new ways. And let's visualize some new possibilities. And that's coaching. I like to use the metaphor of a tennis coach because people can kind of get this picture even if you've never played tennis, you've probably seen it. So a tennis coach is on the other side of the court hitting the ball back and forth. And so as the coach, you use your skill level to hit the ball at just the right level of challenge for the person you're coaching, right? So they have, they might have little skill and the balls flying all over the place, but you use your skill to always hit it to them in just the right place. So they have the challenge that they can rise up to. It's not too far just right. And that's what great coaching is great coaching is being the observer and the play partner, the practice partner to keep giving your player just the right level of challenge that they can rise up to and then they keep rising up to the next challenge and the next challenge in the next sounds by playing together. And over time. Amazing things happen. You get better and better. You get clear and clear your dream becomes more real. And then it's just starts happening. Yeah, yeah, that's what I say. That's, that's the It's a coach's practice partner. I think that's really an important distinction when you think about so for all the folks listening, if you have a coach that's kind of like, oh, tell me about your day, tell me about your problems. What do you want to talk about? Okay, I'll hold you accountable for some tasks, then you just say, No, this isn't gonna get me where I'm going. I need someone who can actually play with me and guide me and keep challenging me to play better in life. That's what I need.
Leanne Woehlke
Right and, and that is, that's a huge distinction. They don't need somebody necessarily to follow up on their day planner. No.
Dave Buck
No, one thing I want to talk about too, yeah, is this might appeal to to your your listeners. I'm a I'm a I don't even know how to say this. I use tarot cards a lot. Okay, I love tarot cards, because they give me a view into non conscious awareness. And so My favorite tarot card is the tower. Okay, so in the tower card, you've got this tower, and then this lightning bolt just comes flying out of the sky and smashes the tower. And then there's two people depending on the card deck, but there's usually two people that are just flying out of this tower. Right? And so, I have in my new coaching program that I'm creating the symbol is the lightning bolt. Okay, because that's, to me what coaching is, coaches are lightning bolts, okay? Because if you think about these people in the tower, they might be up there in the tower because they're trying to, you know, get safety away from life, like the tower is the comfort zone. And then the lightning bolt just goes Blam. And then they're flying out of air. It's like Alright, well, we're in the world now. Let's go I guess we're at our tower is shattered. So we got to get on adventure. But the thing that's interesting about the tower is that when you see these people flying out of there, they might have gone up there on their own to try to escape from life. Be safe from life, but they also might be imprisoned. Because in in, you know, in ancient medieval times, towers were used to imprison people. Right. So, as I was thinking about it, like these two people are up there. We don't know if they're up there on their own, or if somehow someone locked into imprison them up there. But it actually doesn't matter whether you were imprisoned by someone else, or you were imprisoned by your own fears of the world. You need that lightning bolt to get out of there. Like, bam. All right. We're out. We're out of the comfort zone. Now we're out of the tower now. All right now let the adventure begin. So I just really think that's so that's to me what coaching is about coaching is the lightning bolt because our human instinct for self preservation is always going to keep us really closely tied to, you know, this self preservation zone or comfort zone. And when you start to move out of that zone, the first thing you're going to experience is fear. Because that's how the human being as organized to keep us safe. So your fears trying to keep you safe is trying to keep you away from troubles you've experienced in the past, but almost always, your dream is on the other side of that fear. And so what you need as a human being is to understand first of all, there's always going to be a pole there. This natural pole inner pole between your dream pulling you out, and your self preservation pulling you in, like up into the tower for safety. And that pole is always going to be there. And I'm a big proponent of self love and just saying, We have to stop these things of saying, Oh, I have self sabotage. Or I have self limiting beliefs or I have a bully or a demon or a gremlin or a beast. It or my ego is trying to blah blah, blah, like no stop all this derogatory, blaming, blaming, never helps. Blaming any aspect of your humanity does not help. It doesn't make it better to say, Oh, I have a self saboteur lurking inside of me, that doesn't help you live your dream, right. So it's like we got to love up our own perceptions of our humanity. Say, all right, I have this dream, this vision It's calling me out. I my self preservation instinct is pulling me in. And that poll is what makes life interesting. And that's why there's the coach, the coach is that lightning bolt to keep smashing the tower and keeping you out in the world where your dream is going to be fulfilled, you're never going to fulfill your dream and the tower. Now, so that's the thing is the coach as this capable guy walking with you playing with you, continuing to challenge you through that zone of fear because like I said, Every fear you feel is a fear either of play or your own power.
Leanne Woehlke
So sometimes people will say like, Oh, I read this book, and it helped me understand some aspect of myself And sure, how is that different than working with a coach?
Dave Buck
Well, it it's it's different in a lot of ways. I mean, when you When you read something and have an insight that that is good, it can be great, right? But then Living it is the challenge. Right living it, applying it using it in life. And this is something I do all the time as a coach, someone will read something or get inspired by something that they read. And I'll say, Oh, that's so great. Let's practice it right now. Right? So take it from concept, what's the concept? Okay, well, how do you apply that in life and then either we're going to roleplay it, if it's a conversation, or we're going to do inner freedom, we're going to go into imagination, and imagine yourself actually doing it, whatever it is, and then that makes it real, then it's like, okay, now, you take it from a concept to I can now see myself doing this in the world. And then once you get that practice with a coach, then it's so much easier. And then you can do it, then you just then you can do it. So that's the thing. It's like coaching is the it's the catalyst to go from good idea to living in the world.
Leanne Woehlke
So if someone were to go through the CoachVille program, what does that look like?
Dave Buck
It looks like a big adventure.
That's what it is. It's a big adventure. Well, it from a
Leanne Woehlke
How long is it?
Dave Buck
Yeah, I mean, it takes it takes about a year, sometimes a little over a year. And the classes are all done by phone. So you dial into a conference bridge and your classmates will be there and your instructor will be there. One thing that's really unique about CoachVille, as you know, is we're really big on practice. So on every call and every class, part of that call, you're going to be coaching. Your practice partner and your practice partner is going to coach you. We use the maestro bridge to technology. So we're in the big group. And then we break out into small groups. There's lots of conversation. It's very dynamic. Every call is a dynamic experience. And then in addition, there's there's a lot of audio that you listen to of coaching calls and other prior classes to get the concepts and to really listen to the code, listen to coaching, done at a high level. So it's a multifaceted experience. And then we also really encourage you to have practice players, you know, to apply every week what you do in class with your practice, partner, then do that with 234 or five people in your life friends, family, colleagues, whoever people you know, on Facebook, just get into practice, you've got to do it. Coaching is mean really coaching, if, as far as modalities go, coaching, when you're doing it is more of performance art and the only way you To get good in any performance art is practice, you've got to practice. So you have guidance, someone observing you, and then you go out and practice. And so that's the the coach program is, is a sequence of, of classes and concepts that take you for take you through this whole journey of learning how to coach another person first to recognize their own power to recognize and articulate their own dream. And then to, you know, through the play life method, you learn these ideas of how to play life and the fears that we experience in playing life and how to coach people through those fears. Then we go even deeper into the non conscious part of coaching, which is the inner freedom method. And then we also have a whole curriculum around coaching the person in their environment and you know, your your folks Well, we'll understand this. But playing life is in many ways is a game of alignment. Right? It's a, it's an energy alignment. So there's you, you want to create an energetic alignment between the you that you want to become, and your dream. And so when you start to shift, who I've always been this, but now I want to become this new version of myself, I've always done this, but now I have a dream of doing something new, something bigger. So then you've got this new version of you this new dream. And now the game is to get alignment. So you've got to line up your beliefs, your skills, you've got to recognize the fears you have, you have to align your conscious mind your non conscious mind, your environment, your connection to the super minds, you've got a real line all these things between the New Year And your new dream. And so the coaching curriculum basic the CoachVille coaching curriculum, walks through each of the steps that you need as a coach to create that alignment, conscious mind, non conscious mind, environment and super mind. And then you've got to create that energetic alignment. And that's really what life coaching is. It's the playing together, and then playing this alignment game. And that's what we teach you how to do.
Leanne Woehlke
I think one of the things that was that struck me and was a little surprising when I went through coach felt is the amount of personal growth that I personally experienced throughout the program as well. So it wasn't just like skill set learning how to coach but it was also a personal trainer, you
Dave Buck
share an example I would love to hear it.
Leanne Woehlke
Yeah, I began to look at how my business was going to operate a little bit differently, as well as how I was going to interact with people within you know, my world. Yeah, so lots of differences. And I can look at even starting privately coaching clients, which wasn't something I was actively doing prior. And I wasn't sure that that was going to be something that I did, but through the classes, and then through the practice players that I had throughout the program, I really began to love it. Like that was my favorite part of the week. And then I had people who even people that I coached a year ago and coach them for, you know, I would do three months at a time and then six months, because they wanted to continue on. And there are people that still don't text me and say, Hey, can I have a session? I need to? Yeah, he threw some things. Sure. I love that. Yeah, that was surprising.
Dave Buck
No, you you made a lot of amazing, amazing leaps in your own potential and possibility. And the thing that I say all the time when I talk to people about business, a lot of people and we've been taught this notion That you build a business in order to become free. But the truth is, you have to become free in order to build your business. And that's really what I saw you do as you became more and more free to express your own power, really owning it and expressing it and realizing that Yeah, I am this powerhouse. I can be kind of bossy. And and this is the thing I say. I said all the time. We learn to fear play and we learn to fear our power. And so your power, your bossiness power was wholly chained up. And as you unchained that power and started to express it, people then actually felt more at ease around you because they're like, oh, now she's finally just Being herself. And then that's when good things start to happen. So as you became free, then your business started to grow. And that's, that's that's actually how it works. So that's why, and you're not going to be free, this is the thing, you are never going to get free by yourself. And we're not supposed to the idea that we're supposed to be able to do things ourselves is a is a wrong notion from the industrial age of school, where everyone has to sit there by themselves. And the teacher says do your own work if you help your neighbor, you're a cheater. That's not human. That's dehumanizing. Humans are co creative, collaborative creatures. So the idea that I should be able to do this myself, that's just a totally wrong notion. You shouldn't be able to do it yourself. You're supposed to be co creating every Hero's Journey story from the beginning of humankind, the hero has a guide. Well, there's a reason why all these stories have written this way is because humans are supposed to guide each other on our adventures. So just we got to let go this Industrial Age school thing of sit that sitting there by yourself doing your own work. And it's so isolating. And that's really I find the biggest problem that people have in any endeavor in life is isolation. isolation. Barbara Sher always said it isolation is the dream killer. So you've got to get out of isolation and back into co creation, and that's why I'm so big on you know, unchained the spirit of play, and hire a coach. That's, that's that's the, that's the plan.
Leanne Woehlke
So if if who comes to coach Phil, like, what kind of people are they people who were
Dave Buck
business consultants? Are they Yeah, all kinds, you know, people ask me all these digital marketers, are you asking me to like make my avatar I'm like, a human who wants to be awesome. Like, that's our avatar. I don't know what else to do. tell you, I mean, we have so such a diverse population. We have students all around the world who speak English from very, you know, Jordan, Sweden, Czech Republic. I mean, US, Canada, obviously, but all around the world, different ages. It used to be there was a sweet spot of like 45 to 60. Now we have 20 year olds in class, right? We have 20 year olds, we have 70 year olds. So there's no age if you it's really people who have had some life experience that they want to share. And they want to learn how to do it in the best possible way. So what anyone who's You know, I think the the people who become a coach are the people that have faced some kind of a big challenge, had some awareness that has helped them get through that challenge, and now they want to be a guide for others and they also want to keep growing right? That's really those are the two components, you have this desire to be a guide for others, and you want to keep growing because like you said, this is something we tell people all the time before they come into our school. Life Coaching is the most rigorous personal growth program ever invented. If you want to keep growing a lot, become a coach, because every person you coach is going to actually challenge you to keep growing and raise your level. So those are the people who come to coach Phil. I mean, it's from a wide variety of things. This is funny story. I met this woman I was speaking at an event. This woman was there. She said, Oh, coach Dave, you know, I've been a social worker for 20 years. And, you know, I was thinking I want to start coaching, but I don't think I really need any training. I'm a social worker, I already know how to do it. And I said, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your social work training has almost no correlation to coaching and she was like, so mad at me like that, I would say such a thing. So anyway, I don't know how but she decided to do our program. And so I had her in class the other day. She's been in the program for like three months. She says she's during the during the q&a, she says, coach Dave, I just need to apologize for you. I was so mad at you. And you told me that my social worker skills were not going to apply to life coaching. But now I'm just going to tell you, you were right. This is totally different than what I was doing before. And I'm so glad I'm here learning how to do this. This is making me so happy.
Leanne Woehlke
Well in it is different. I've had clinical psychology, PhD level courses, I've had group psychotherapy classes, social classes, clinical interviewing classes, and it's very different than what I learned at CoachVille. And I could have been a coach without those classes.
Dave Buck
Right for sure.
Leanne Woehlke
You know, so that's, that's the interesting thing is it is a different skill set. One of the things that I find so profound is this idea of judgment free awareness? Mm hmm. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because that was a huge pivot. Yeah,
Dave Buck
this is a big, it is a huge pivot because it's essential to the coaching experience. And it's also essential to play. Okay? They, it's a part of both. So, to be to be able to play, you have to be able to just act without fear of mistakes. And this is very difficult, because in the industrial age, we really were harshly trained to fear mistakes, the fear of mistakes, fear messes, and all these other things. We talked about fear of rejection, fear of disappointment. Well, you can't play when you have those fears. So we talk about judgment, free awareness, which is this ability that all humans have to put yourself in into a mode of curiosity and to say, Oh, that's interesting. I was going to call this person but suddenly I felt this funny feeling in my chest so that I didn't call. I wonder what that's all about. That's judgment, free awareness. I wonder that's interesting. I wonder what that's about. I wonder why I started looking at Facebook when I was supposed to be creating my, my outline for my program. Wonder, right? So this is this is the judgment, free awareness and then as a coach, when when you're, when you're coaching someone, you know, they're facing fear. So what you don't want to do is bring your judgment to their fear. Coaching relies on profound belonging and what breaks are profound belonging is the feeling of being judged. What creates feeling of belonging is the feeling of being seen. We're all desperately yearning to be seen for who we really are without judgment. And so that's what the judgment free awareness is. Most people do not have judgment, free awareness. Because we come from the industrial world, we judge ourselves, we judge everything. So, first, the coach has to bring it. The coach has to bring, oh, that's okay. That's interesting. This is what you're going to do. But you talk, we talked about it, but then you didn't do it. All right. I wonder what happened. Let's explore this from a judgment free perspective. And gradually, the player will start to adapt and adopt a judgment free perspective. And that's when they start to become free. Judgment. Free awareness is freedom. It's the ability to play freely and experience life with wonder. And so that's it. that's what that's what it is. And then it's just all about having a little, just a little bit of responsibility to go with all that freedom is the right is the right blend. But it really requires that judgment free space that the coach creates the free space to practice. You got to have a space to practice. You don't just know how to do everything. You just don't know how to have every conversation you need to have, or how to create what you want to create, especially creative people. Like it's so easy to get caught in our in a trap of perfectionism. But that's just learned. If you were just if you were a human and you didn't go to industrial school, your creativity would be much more vibrant and online. So really a lot of coaching is to unravel all of these fears we picked up and and begin to be able to play freely again. But that's and that's what coaching is the ability to practice live, play live. unchained ourselves from these fears that we learned. We don't judge them. We just go, Oh, that's interesting. I have fear of rejection. Okay. Let's explore that. Where did that come from? What is another option that I have? What you know, how do I love up every aspect of me so that it's, it's equal to my dream because remember that alignment game like you just have to look at your non conscious ways that you learned from your environment and then love them up to be equal to what your dream requires. And that's that's where the judgment free awareness really comes in.
Leanne Woehlke
So again,
let me ask you this. Yes. What inspires you?
Dave Buck
What inspires me? Yeah, good question. Um, I mean, I get super inspired by my players all the time by our students that CoachVille like you You inspire me. I think that's really it. It's, it's when I see a person start to play life. It doesn't mean everything goes sunny and beautiful. I mean, you can play and it can be a disaster, right? But, but you at least played if you really just play when I see someone who just starts to play, you know, it's going to come good, like, play always comes good eventually. So that's the idea is you know what really inspires me is when someone, you can just see them take the chain off and express their power, express their playfulness and start to have things happen like when you had this major shift in your relationship with your husband that we played with over a period of time. Wow, that was so inspiring. When you changed how you were relating to your staff. And being and starting to be take your own power and being your you have this amazing power of seeing how things need to be you have great vision but you expressing that power was hard because it feels bossy. And you were afraid of that but when you when you took that chain off and started expressing it and then people started responding to you very favorably that's so inspired me. And so this is this is this is my life is just being inspired by my players.
Leanne Woehlke
That's awesome.
I appreciate you taking this time so much
Dave Buck
it was so fun.
Leanne Woehlke
Fun. I we could talk for hours I think. Good no doubt. Yeah, I know. tell our listeners How can people catch up with you? What's the best way to find out what you're up to and what CoachVille is up to?
Dave Buck
Yeah, the the best easiest way is just go to www.CoachVille.com it's been our website for almost 20 years and it's still there the www.coachville.com you know, you can find me you know, our phone numbers there if you want to talk with me personally, you know, I talk to people i'm not i'm not in some ivory tower. I actually Talk to people. So if you want to talk about your big dream, if you want to talk about your business possibilities in coaching, just go to CoachVille, get the number, give us a call, happy to talk to you.
Leanne Woehlke
That's amazing because most people don't even have phone numbers on websites any longer.
Dave Buck
I know we're crazy. We're old school. We have a phone number. I know it's true. Well, I, you know, I'm doing my age, I believe in talking to people on the phone. I know, it's weird, but I do.
Leanne Woehlke
Yeah, it's that human connection, which is why I think CoachVille is so special and, you know, offer something so different than any of the other coaching schools out there?
Dave Buck
Very, I mean, there's definitely some other really good schools, but I would say in the realm of coaching, from this perspective, that life is, we're here to play for our dreams. We're not here to work on them. We're here to play for our dreams. We're really as far as I know the only school that really emphasizes play and coaching. And playing together. So yeah, if you've been inspired by this notion of play, and especially playing with fear, yeah, come and talk to us, we can really help you do what you want to do.
Leanne Woehlke
And one of the other things that I love about CoachVille, is even the access to the book clubs that are held periodically, that are a free service and allow people to dive into different concepts and discussions together.
Dave Buck
Yeah, we love book club. I don't know when this is gonna go live. But if someone listens to this near the time we recorded it, we're next. Our next book is Seth Godin, his book, this is marketing. And, you know, I know Seth personally, and he was like, he loves the idea of us doing the book club. And so, yeah, we're pumped. I'm pumped for this as marketing. So if you listen to this soonish I'm Ben. Come and join us a book a book. We're always doing some awesome books. So just come and play with us.
You can connect with Dave at CoachVille at 866-548-6516
www.coachville.com
