Most coaches don’t need to worry about the Drop. Not because the Drop doesn’t happen in a coaching conversation. But because the Drop is built in to their model of coaching.
But if you want to be a great coach—a coach who has a bigger impact than most, who makes more money than most, who changes lives like most coaches ever could—your life needs to become about the Drop.
HOW MOST COACHES BUILD THE DROP IN
If you look at Byron Katie’s “The Work” question: “Is it true?”, or Rich Litvin’s question: “What would make this an extraordinary conversation?”, you can see that the Drop is built in.
For Katie the Drop is chosen by the statement. That’s it. The statement doesn’t matter. Your Drop is to examine the truth of this statement. It’s simple and predictable. For Rich it’s no different. His question creates a certain kind of Drop. The Drop is your dreams. Tell me about them. You can have them now.
Of course Rich’s questions is broader so it doesn’t always work, but it often does because it is a Drop creator. Which is why if you’re like most coaches—the average coach, the mediocre coach, even the good coach—you don’t need to worry about the Drop, because you’ll get to something. It’s just built in to the way you show up as a coach.
Because in all of the coaching conversations I’ve ever watched, consistently, repeatedly, the Drop is the fundamental foundation of all the magic that comes before and after.
The Drop is the pivot point of great coaching and it’s NOT something you should leave to chance or formula. It’s something to be mastered, studied, and practiced.
But of course you’ll never realize this if you don’t practice it and discover this for yourself. So that’s what I’m going to help you do right now.
WHAT IS THE DROP?
The Drop is the place where the coach and client “drop into a pocket of coaching.” It’s the place where the coach and client choose or dive into a particular area of focus. It’s. . . you know, the Drop is hard to describe, actually.
Kind of like that old saying about pornography: “It’s hard to define, but I know it when I see it.” The Drop is like that.
When I watch a coaching conversation with a brilliant Drop, I can see it. Sometimes I can’t see it until after it’s happened, but even then I can feel it.
In a bad conversation it’s ALWAYS missing. And I mean always.
The reason? When a coach rushes to GET ON WITH THE COACHING, they very often miss the Drop entirely. They just start coaching on something. And it sort of works. Because, well, you can coach on pretty much anything. But just because you can coach on anything doesn’t mean that you should.
On the other hand, when a coach finds a Drop, all of a sudden the conversation becomes ABOUT SOMETHING!!! Ideally it becomes about what the client wants. But more than anything the Drop is about moving from the conversation being about ANYTHING to being about SOMETHING.
Mediocre coaching can be about anything. GREAT COACHING IS ABOUT SOMETHING.
So you should only care about the Drop if you want you coaching to be about something. Which is why your practice assignment for today, if you choose to accept it, is this:
During and/or after every coaching conversation this week ask yourself this question:
WHAT IS THIS COACHING CONVERSATION ABOUT?
If you can’t answer the question easily, or if you realize YOU can answer it but your client can’t, it may be that you didn’t create a Drop. So just notice that and wonder: what might change if my coaching conversations were ABOUT something, instead of about ANYTHING?
If you are the kind of coach who wants to care about the Drop, who wants to have coaching conversations, who wants to be GREAT—and is willing to study and practice to get there, download your copy of the Coaching Canvas today.
