Video by karlandrewmartin

If your clients can tilt you off course from your values mid-session, you're not coaching them, you're crippling them. Hi, I'm Carl Martin, executive coach for some of the top organizations in the world and founder of Arable Consulting, and this is my series on the four habits of healthy coaches. In the coaching session, it is almost inevitable you're going to touch on subjects that

strike a nerve with your clients. They may lash out, they may become rude or insensitive or step over the line. And your job as a coach is not to give in to bullies or pacify a victim mentality. Your job is to gently but firmly help them course correct back to the best of themselves,

the highest ideal, the person whose actions align with their values. Many coaches get intimidated in these moments and start to allow their clients bad behavior to dictate their own behavior. You're human. Of course, you're going to want to help or defend yourself or empathize to the point of compromise. But the best coaches cultivate the ability to stand a distance from their own

internal experience in those moments. They refuse to let their clients' insecurities or rash behaviors pull the session off course Here the winning habit to recenter yourself in these moments and stay true under pressure When things get tense you need to be able to respond from a centered place So I want you to enter your cave where

if you're an arable leader or coach, you ask yourself the questions that help you get to true. Ask the three questions of the cave. Who am I? This reminds you that who you are is not dictated by the words or actions of the person in front of you. Secondly, what is the point of me?

This reminds you that your purpose is not diminished by someone else's misunderstanding or misrepresentation of you. Thirdly, how will I be? This is the moment where you choose to act in a way that is according to your values and your identity, regardless of what the person in front of you is doing or thinking.