The Best Coaching Books You Should Read as a Coach:

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Coaching Masters Podcast. It is your host, Diana, and today we're gonna dive in into a short and sweet podcast episode. Today, I guess I'm gonna start by saying how important it is for you as an amazing coach to continue and foster education. Hopefully you're here and you're either interested in coaching and making that a business and becoming a coach, or you're here because you're already part of the Coaching Masters, or you're here because you're already a coach and you're just listening to podcasts to continue to grow and elevate and learn and amazing that you're here. Thank you for tuning in and to us. So I wanted to start with wherever you are in your journey, it is important for you to foster education, right? And hopefully you're about to do or you have already done your certification or your accreditation. If you haven't done so, then I highly recommend us, the Coaching Masters, we offer an amazing accreditation for you to learn how to become a coach and learn all the skills and tools needed in order for you to be the best coach ever. We really do that here. And if you want to dive in it into and know more about it, just go on our website and book a call with us so that you can learn more about it. Now, one thing that is important to know is that for you to be an amazing coach is for you to continue to learn. I know that that so many people say it's like, "Oh, just learn, do it, and then go ahead and do it." And 100% do it. There's something called such as like, I forgot, it's like maybe decision paralysis or something like that. I got trapped into that loop where I was like, "Okay, I got my accreditation." And then I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna go for my NLP." And then that's why internally, I wasn't thinking about it, but internally, I was like, "And that's when I'll be a great coach." Then I got my NLP master, and I was like, "Okay, now I'm gonna be a great coach." And that continued to delay me actually holding space for other people and actually coaching people. So there's a balance between education stopping you from actually doing the thing that you want to do, because that's just covering the fear of not feeling good enough to do the thing, of feeling of inadequacy, of imposter syndrome as well. And so this is my way of telling you that if this is you, 100% understand it, get yourself together, work on those beliefs, on those things, get yourself a coach or read the books, and take yourself into a process and actually go do the thing and launch your business and actually go do it. Right? If you're not there and you're kind of like, "No, I'm cool. I really just want to learn more than anything. I'm already practicing, but I just want to become better," then amazing. This is what this podcast episode is for you. Learning is such an important thing for us to do as coaches, because we want to really make sure that we stay ahead of the game, that we are creating the best space possible for our clients to really transform, to change, to go from point A to point B, to evolve, to grow, to become the best versions of themselves, really. This is what we got into this field for. And so it is important that as you continue to grow and your clients continue to grow, then you also must need, then you also need to grow, and your skills need to continue to expand. At first, it's really good to just stay with the basics. If all you do is stay with the basics, honestly, that's all you need. However, I know that with people as coaches, because we're humans, too, we love to evolve and we continue to evolve, and so we might want to specialize in certain things. Over the years, since I started coaching myself, I've specialized in different things. At first, I started with just working with overwhelmed entrepreneurs and really just helping entrepreneurs heal from burnout and really prioritize self-care and learning how to create a balanced life for themselves and not just be all business and go, go, go. Then I shifted to teaching different holistic practices for coaches, and I became a trainer for that, which is something that we offer here inside of the Coaching Masters, a holistic coaching certification. And I grew into that because I was already seeing so many results from the clients, from all the tools that I was giving, that now I felt like it was my time to train coaches into really bringing all these tools and learning how to do it inside of sessions. And then now I do something completely different, and I love it. Again, it's like my business has evolved with me, but my business has only evolved with me because I have essentially dedicated my time and my life to learning more, to really becoming the best version of myself. And through that, it took investing in more programs, it took investing in my own mentors and coaches, it took reading books and just finishing my education and all of it. And so today, what I'm going to give you is a list of books that can help you into becoming the best coach there ever is and there ever was, and for you to really feel so confident and so ignited into what you're doing. And I separated it into, let's see, one, two, three different sections, I suppose, of different books that I can give you. The first section is all about you becoming the best coach ever. Hopefully, you're starting the journey or you just started it, you're a newbie, and even if you have done this for a little while, this is really great refresher for you to get even better and hone in on your skills and really just become the best coach that you can ever be. Now, you don't have to read all those books. In fact, information overload is a thing, overconsumption is a thing. It's more about take what you need and leave what you don't, but these are great resources for you to have so that way you can enhance your coaching skills. So, again, this episode is going to be super short and sweet just because it's all about me listing the books, right? And I'm not going to educate you about each and every single one of these books. I haven't read all of them. It's just more about recommendations of what you can do in order to get yourself really ahead of the game, really get yourself increasing your confidence and really doing the thing that you were meant to do, which is to help people become the best version of themselves. So, the first book that I have or the first section is all about you becoming the best coach, right? The first book that I have is Super Coach by Michael Neal. This is a great book that pretty much every single coach that gets started starts reading just overall an amazing book. Then after that, we have Coactive Coaching. And this is the proven framework for transformative conversations at work and in life. This book is written by Karen Kimsey House, Henry Kimsey House, Philip Sandhall, and Laura Whitworth. It's also a great book for you to have and to have into, for you to be able to understand that coaching is a two-way street. We also have the heart of laser focused coaching. This is a revolutionary approach to masterful coaching, and it's by Marion Franklin. We also have Coach the Person, Not the Problem, a guide to using Reflective Inquiry by Dr. Marcia Reynolds. This is so good because, again, we're not focusing on like, oh, this person said this, and I said this, and da-da-da-da-da. We're helping our clients really understand more outside of that, not get so caught up on the content of things, but on the context of things, and also just overall liberating themselves. And this is a great tool for you to ask better questions. But in order for you to ask better questions, you have to attune your ear into listening more, and observing more, witnessing more over you just asking questions for the sake of asking questions. It is a master. It is a skill that you got a master, and so this is a great book for that. The next book would be Effective Group Coaching. Tried and tested tools and resources for optimum group coaching results. This is for you guys that are really looking to expand your coaching business and shift away from one-on-one or solely one-on-one and to do more group programs and whatnot. So this is a great book. This is written by Jennifer J. Britton. And again, if you want to learn all about how to hold group programs and how to do group coaching, then this is a great tool and a great book to have and to read. You also have Helping People Change, Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen Van Boosten. Again, great book. And last but not least in this section, we have The Coaching Effect. What great leaders do to increase sales, enhance performance, and sustain growth by Bill, Ekstrom, and Sarah Wirth. This kind of like blends in and goes into the next section, which is all about business. So again, information overload, right? I give you a list of all of these books. Take what you need, leave what you don't. I've been wanting to do this podcast episode for a while of like the best books that you can have and that you can get when it comes to when you're starting your journey or when you're kind of like a newbie. Again, because books provide you with more insight, more understanding, and in one way or another, it brings more confidence within you because then you're working through things, you're absorbing things in a different light. And again, these are things that not only you can use for them for yourself, but you can also give as resources for your clients too. So now let's hop it into the business books. Like these are just three. If you include the last one that I gave you, it's four. And now these books are and why three, I guess, is because it's hard to find some of the books that are in business. And then there's probably many more that I could find. But we're going to focus on these ones. You become a coach or you're becoming a coach. Amazing. There's one thing and one caveat to that is that you're starting a business alongside of that. If you need help with starting your business, we do that here as well in the coaching masters. We do have a program specifically for that to two programs that are specifically business oriented. And one of them is specifically about launching your business as a coach. And so if that's where you're at right now, great tool, book a call with us. But the first book that I wanted to talk about is a very famous book, really amazing book, and it's called the prosperous coach increase income and impact for you and your clients. This is by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin. And this is a book that again, we want to work on your money mindset. We want to work in helping you actually believe that this is going to work because it is and it can work. But you got to put the work in it as well. The next book would be the trillion dollar coach, the leadership playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell. This is by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle. I haven't read this one myself, but I think the title in itself says a lot and I read the reviews and it seems like a great book. And last but not least would be the long game by Dory Clark. When you start this business, especially when you become an entrepreneur and you start practicing, you launch your coaching business. Really, it's not about, okay, yeah, you see results in one month and some coaches have seen results in like six months or a year or whatever. Amazing, great. I do wish that for you. However, this is a long term game. Like, we're doing this for the long term things of really creating this for not only for our own financial freedom and time freedom and all of that, and working for ourselves instead of working for someone else, but for the purpose of also helping other people. And if you want to help other people, it's going to take work and it's going to take, you know, time as well. And so this is a great opportunity for you to actually see that what you're doing in here, it's going to create so much change and so much impact. And it's going to require work and time and you got to be in it for the long game because this is what we're here for type of thing. So again, great books when it comes to understanding not only the business, but getting you in the confidence and into the groove of what it is like to become an entrepreneur and start your own coaching business. I forgot, I knew that there was another section, there's four sections to this. Now, I think I mentioned before, you know, like when you start, you get accredited as a coach, you become a life coach, and this is great, but you might want to niche down, you might want to specialize in a certain type of coaching, you might want to be a self love coach or a confidence coach or a performance coach or a breathwork coach or, you know, whatever holistic coach. Again, we offer this inside of the inside of here and the coaching master is a holistic coaching certification done by moi. And it is something that helps you create or have like different holistic modalities and spiritual modalities and how to integrate that inside of your your coaching services. But outside of that, you may want to seek to learn other different approaches or the different modalities or different ways of and different tools to integrate inside of your coaching services, services, right. And so these are great books that you can start to read and dive in into so that way you can learn into what you want to specify and specialize in, but also so that you can start to implement it with that with your clients. So the first one is the art of somatic coaching and body and skillful action, wisdom and compassion. This is by Richard Strozzi Heckler, PhD. Now if you want to learn more about somatic coaching, I did a podcast episode about this not long ago. And so if you want to learn more about what that is, then check that episode out. The second one would be coaching psychology manual. This is from Margaret Moore and Bob Schesson, Shannon Moran. I'm sorry if I'm butchering that. But again, we want to learn more about psychology. And I think it's really great if you as a coach start to learn more about psychology, because we're helping people, right. And by intrinsically helping people, then we're working with the psychology of people and the psychology of groups and the psychology and psychology in general. So you getting more knowledgeable in psychology and in people, it's going to be really great for you. And it's a great resources so that way you can enhance and actually understand people more. Now the following book is systemic coaching and constellations, the principles, practices and application for individuals, teams and groups by John Whittington. Now this is really great. It's all about learning more about when you're with your clients, you know how to do systemic coaching and family constellations are really the interaction of interpersonal relationships, especially in the familial system, and how the family system influences a person's behaviors, patterns, ways of being, emotions and whatnot. And so this is a great tool if you want to continue to expand more on that, especially if you're doing coaching with couples or, or, you know, teens or moms or parents, you know, like this is a really great tool. The next one, I haven't, I haven't read it, but it's called Time to Think. It's Listening to Ignite the Human Mind by Nancy Klein. I think this is great in order for you to enhance your own ability to listen because it is a skill. Listening is a skill and we as coaches, we don't want to get advice. We want to ask questions, very powerful questions, but at the same time we want to give the opportunity for the client to really express and for us to listen so that way we can attune into what our clients are needing in that moment and asking even more powerful questions. The next one would be if you're all about performing and want to focus on performance, random coaching for performance is a great book for you. It's Growing Human Potential and Purpose by John Whitmore. Literally the book title is Coaching for Performance, Growing Human Potential and Purpose and Great Resource. I haven't read it myself because I never actually dive it into coaching performance, but the reviews and the synopsis of what I read seems like really great. And last but not least, because you are dealing with people as well, this is a great resource that I think it would be amazing for you, is Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. This is by Daniel Goleman. And again, great resource for you to become more acquainted and learn about Emotional Intelligence and emotions. It's going to provide you with a set of skills and it's going to help you stand out so much more as a coach. And last but not least, I thought I'd add more of a self-help like for you as a coach, right, for you to become more just better at yourself and intrinsically learn more about yourself. The more insight that you have about yourself, the more awareness that you have about yourself, the more you know about yourself, then the more that you can help other people. There's this phrase that I hear a lot and it's so, so, so, so true. It's like, you cannot take someone if you haven't gone that deep. It's not that phrase. You can only take someone as deep as you've gone yourself. And this is so true. Like, we want to be able to do the work and body it, really be an integrity with what we're preaching, with what we're teaching, with what we're showing, with what we're telling other people to do. We want to be able to do that too. It is important. It is crucial. It is, for me, it's one of the most integral things that a coach can do. If you're holding a hold space for someone else, you must do it for yourself first. Whether that be through you sitting with yourself in stillness, learning about yourself, growing, hiring someone to help you see those blind spots for you to be better, do it. This is like, I feel like it's a must. You can't ask someone to like, "Hey, invest in me." And all of these things will happen to you when you haven't done that yourself. You also got to put that out for you. You want to embody the work that you're doing. So these are some self-help books and also some books that you can provide as resources to your clients that will help them. The more knowledge that you have of resources that you can give to your clients, the better your abilities will be as well because it helps your client to do the work on themselves on their own, not need you all the time, which is important that they do not need you all the time or that they do not need you. We don't want them to become codependent to us and we also don't want to become codependent to them. And so these are great resources to give. The first one is the gifts of imperfection. Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are by Brainy Brown. Everything by Brainy Brown is amazing. The second one actually is there to lead brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts. It's also by Brainy Brown and amazing books. She is so, so, so good. All of her work is basically evidence-based and researched and whatnot and just her work. It's all about just doing compassionate work and really diving in into ourselves and accepting ourselves for who we are. And so great resources for you as a coach, but also great resources to give to your clients. The next one would be Atomic Habits, an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones by James Clear. Totally amazing book. If you follow it step by step, it really will create and change your life radically. It's all about habit making and it's so good for you as a coach, especially if you're starting of creating the habit of becoming the best coach ever, but also a great tool to give to your clients so that they can understand the science behind habits and actually implement the things that they are learning with you inside of sessions. The next one would be The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhyani, just unprecedented book. We want to be able to understand more about the mind, again, self and also resource for your clients. This next book, again, freaking amazing. If you're doing a lot of mindset work, especially this is going to be great for you as you start your journey as a coach and also mindset at work for your clients as a compliment if you're doing mindset work with your clients, which in turn, I feel like most coaches do a lot of mindset work. The book is called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Dr. Jo Despenza. Fantastic book, just overall fantastic book. The next one, I haven't read it, but it's on my list. This is by an amazing doctor that I'm just obsessed with. Everything that he talks about is just so, so freaking good. As you can tell, I dive more into the self-help stuff and that it provides me with more understanding, more knowledge, more improvement for myself, but also a better way of holding space for my clients. This is called The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Matei. Oh, just amazing. Just go read it. That's all you do. Just freaking fantastic. It is true that the more that you amplify your knowledge, the more that you begin to dive in and into yourself and into understanding people and the world and all of it, the better you're equipped at holding space for other people, at coaching other people. This is why when we say it's like your experiences matter. Your experiences have value and they provide you with so much knowledge. It's because it is true. Your experiences have wisdom and all of these books in one shape or another, there is wisdom being passed down to us that allows us to grow, to heal, to evolve and to be better human beings and therefore, and this is what we're doing as coaches and so you can take a lot from all these teachings integrated in your life and body it and then teach it and then give these tools to your clients. Last but not least, freaking life-changing book. It can be a bit dense. It's a bit big. It's a bit, it's very scientific. It's a bit long, totally worth it. It's called The Body Keeps a Score, Brain, Mind and Body and Healing of Trauma. This is all about understanding how the body stores information, the body stores trauma, wounding all of it and how the approach is not only just mindset work but also body work too. This book is by Bessel van der Kolk. Amazing resource. Let's just like again, all you do is this book and all you read is that book. It will transform 100 percent how you do business and how you do your services and how you show up for your clients. Well, I hope that you enjoyed this episode and yeah, I cannot wait to see you on the next episode. See you later.