Ever felt stuck in a 'woe is me' mindset with no clear path forward? In this episode we sit down with life coach Doug Hartle to unravel how coaching can reframe your perspective, leading to self-discovery fueled by the Holy Spirit and a renewed sense of personal responsibility. Through enlightening discussions on the similarities and differences between coaching, mentoring, and spiritual guidance, Doug shares insights from his Facebook group, Coffee Thoughts, and motivates listeners to embrace growth within their Christian journey.
In our conversation with Doug, we shed light on the delicate subject of suffering and how it's possible to adopt a victim mentality in those circumstances. We discuss the potential hazards of this mindset and explore how it can be replaced with a scripture-anchored perspective. This episode delves into the profound impact of modern technologies, like social media, on our worldview and how they can unintentionally foster a victim mindset. Doug enlightens us by highlighting how a coach can switch this narrative by encouraging an attitude centered on seeking God's will, even amid hardships.
But our journey doesn't end there. We dive deeper into the essence of love in coaching, drawing inspiration from the ultimate coach, Jesus. His unconditional love for everyone serves as a blueprint for us to love others as they are, and encourage them to follow His path. Doug emphasizes the importance of being grounded in our identity to love those not following Jesus, and we delve into the promises Jesus gave in John 13-17. We also address the critical role of the Holy Spirit in transforming lives, the power of personal stories, and the importance of coaching to communicate these life-altering experiences. This episode is not merely about coaching, but an exploration of the transformative power of faith and love in our lives. Tune in to be inspired and transformed!
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Ever felt stuck in a 'woe is me' mindset with no clear path forward? In this episode we sit down with life coach Doug Hartle to unravel how coaching can reframe your perspective, leading to self-discovery fueled by the Holy Spirit and a renewed sense of personal responsibility. Through enlightening discussions on the similarities and differences between coaching, mentoring, and spiritual guidance, Doug shares insights from his Facebook group, Coffee Thoughts, and motivates listeners to embrace growth within their Christian journey.
In our conversation with Doug, we shed light on the delicate subject of suffering and how it's possible to adopt a victim mentality in those circumstances. We discuss the potential hazards of this mindset and explore how it can be replaced with a scripture-anchored perspective. This episode delves into the profound impact of modern technologies, like social media, on our worldview and how they can unintentionally foster a victim mindset. Doug enlightens us by highlighting how a coach can switch this narrative by encouraging an attitude centered on seeking God's will, even amid hardships.
But our journey doesn't end there. We dive deeper into the essence of love in coaching, drawing inspiration from the ultimate coach, Jesus. His unconditional love for everyone serves as a blueprint for us to love others as they are, and encourage them to follow His path. Doug emphasizes the importance of being grounded in our identity to love those not following Jesus, and we delve into the promises Jesus gave in John 13-17. We also address the critical role of the Holy Spirit in transforming lives, the power of personal stories, and the importance of coaching to communicate these life-altering experiences. This episode is not merely about coaching, but an exploration of the transformative power of faith and love in our lives. Tune in to be inspired and transformed!
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast. Tim Allman here and I have the privilege to have for the second time as a guest partner in the gospel from Fort Wayne, indiana. I met Doug on an Uber trip back to the airport and if you missed our first conversation, man, about his life journey, the ups and downs and the faithfulness of God, you got to go back a few months now to listen to that one, but wanted to have him on to talk about the topic of coaching. Coaching is different than mentoring or even having a spiritual father or mother. Coaching leads towards self discovery and that is always the best discovery Self inspired by the Holy Spirit discovery. So thanks for hanging out with me again, doug. What a joy to call you a friend and a partner in the gospel and the blessing of technology I pray it works to allow us to have this conversation today. So just lean into the topic of coaching and self discovery.
Speaker 3:Thanks, tim, so great to be with you again. I appreciate the opportunity. We were talking just off camera about coaching and what it really is. To me, coaching is helping someone get over obstacles and on the other side of that, hopefully, they are in a better place than they were before. In other words, I'm no longer who I was before that caused me to run into those obstacles. Coaching, we hope, is excuse me is something that we look in the mirror for.
Speaker 3:We don't try to point to other people in my own coaching, on my own coaching page, and if you want to follow you can go to Facebook. It's a private group called Coffee Thoughts, coaching and Motivation. There's a public group there as well. I no longer post to that. It's the private group that I post to, no charge. You can just get in there for free and just ask me to be a part of it, and I'm happy to have you there.
Speaker 3:Every morning I give a little blurb of what coaching is, and last time we talked we briefly got into the three pillars of my coaching. One of those and I think it's as important as the other three, and those three make a braid, a bond, if you will but one of those is personal responsibility. In other words, we see these great quotes in books, or we see an amazing meme on Facebook, or we see something that we go gosh, I wish so and so would hear that, so and so. Really needs to hear that, gosh, if so and so would apply, that their life would be amazing. And I used to be the same guy. Boy, you need to hear this. You need to hear this. The you that needs to hear is probably in the mirror before anybody else If you don't hear it yourself and apply it yourself. Quite frankly, tim, nobody's going to care what you got to say If you're not applying it yourself, because you've had lots of years of not being the best you you can be, and so people remember that. They remember who you used to be, and if they don't see improvement in you, how in the world are you possibly going to offer something to them?
Speaker 3:And what I believe is that self-help is a little bit of a misconception. As believers, I think self-help should focus us completely on who Jesus created us to be, and some days I'm better at that than others, but always, always, we should be looking at how does this impact me as a coach? Last couple years I've really been diving into is this who I am. The stuff that I'm given to others, am I applying it to my own life? I never ask anybody to be perfect, because I'm not, but the stuff I give them, I just say, okay, this is tough.
Speaker 3:And I had somebody say to me one time where do you get that stuff? How do you get all this stuff? And I said, well, the memes. Like everybody else, I steal them and I share them, but the stuff that I write with my memes or the stuff that I put in my own publications, is stuff that the Spirit gave me. Oh, really, that's it.
Speaker 3:I go, well, yeah, from me hitting my head up against the wall enough, and him saying, all right, are you ready to listen? So the stuff that I give is usually stuff that I've had to go through myself, and you and I talked a little bit about that last time. The things we go through in this world, I hope, are launch pads to get us to a better version of ourself because of what the Lord taught us. And those things that we go through I call them obstacles. That's what coaching is how do I get over those obstacles? So I hope that was a little bit of an explanation of how I approach coaching and what I see is coaching and, excuse me, the personal responsibility required to be a successful coaching candidate and to be a successful coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest thing of all time, and the Gospel says it's been done. Jesus has accomplished everything for you.
Speaker 2:And all you do is, like a little child, a little infant even, is say thank you and crawl up into the arms of your dad once again, who loves you unconditionally. And yet, as we, there's two different kind of journeys, or even conversations that take place in the Christian journey at the exact same time, and one is defined by confession and absolution and saying, wow, I have sinned and thought word, indeed, I am far from you, god, and I have no right to be in your presence. And then, at the very same time, there's this kind of growth journey. So you start to put a pin, a circle, and then we're growing up. We're growing up, hopefully we're growing up, and he who is the head, jesus Christ, and the thoughts and the actions are becoming more and more aligned. And it's not, it's not even me who's who's doing this growth, it's Christ who lives within me. Our whole perspective has been changed and now we realize that true life is found in sacrifice and service, and God even using suffering to produce this crazy.
Speaker 2:This I can't get over reading the scriptures, especially the apostle Paul, and how he leveraged suffering and and actually rejoiced. Right Romans, chapter five, he actually rejoices in suffering, speak about the role of suffering and how a coach can kind of maybe shift the mindset of a person from from the why woe is me to God. What do you want to teach me? How do you want to reveal yourself to me in suffering that I've maybe imposed upon myself because of my sin, or maybe something external that's happened because of? The world is absolutely broken. So talk about the role of coaching and suffering there, doug.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great point. As we do it to ourselves, sometimes it's done to us. Both of those times are a combination to make us who we are. None of us are exempt, is my one of my catchphrases with people. None of us are exempt. We're all going to go through it. We're all going to go through it, or we're all going to do it to ourselves, which causes us to go through it.
Speaker 3:Paul, as you mentioned, how often did Paul travel with a doctor? Remember that guy, dr Luke, right. So Paul got beat up so bad that I think if there was a woe is me guy in this world, it should be Paul, right. And he even said hey, this stinks, I hate this, but you know those thorns in my side. As he discussed the sin he couldn't quite conquer, he said the grace of God is how I do it and that's where I lead people. Woe is me is easy in this world.
Speaker 3:If you look around for just 30 seconds on social media, you're going to see somebody who has what I call a victim mentality. And I tell people all the time guard against the victim mentality. I also tell people guard against how much time you spend with those living in victim mentality because it will draw you in. I'm not telling you to ignore those people, I'm not telling you to just cast them aside. I'm telling you you got to be careful that you don't get drawn into it. And for those who are in that victim mentality, I've got one client that I think of that never calls me for a session unless there's something woefully wrong. It's legit. Those problems literally are happening to them. So I get why.
Speaker 3:But you cannot, thinking through the victim mentality and thinking as a victim. You can't possibly find the solutions in Jesus or anybody else. Even Jesus pull you out of that without you asking. Of course God can do anything. God doesn't need our tithe on Sunday. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, but he asks for it. He asked for the obedience, right. So when you look at that concept of you and God getting through this together, the Bible clearly tells us to put the good things of God in our heads Back in the Old Testament. I keep these words in my heart so later in life I won't forget them, right? These are all the Doug Hartle interpretations. You can find that at any bookstore for about 37 cents, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:But the bottom line is they, the victim mentality is not where God wants us to live. Now, make no mistake, I am not in any way embracing a prosperity gospel. Oh, ask God for anything and he'll give it to you. Well, okay, I get it If we ask for it in Jesus name. Well, along with asking for something in Jesus name, I believe also asks for something in Jesus will. So if he doesn't want you to be whatever you're asking, do you think for a second you're automatically going to get it from him. So there's this complication that we face when we start to pray and we start to look to what it means to get rid of our victim mentality.
Speaker 3:I call it American Christianity versus biblical Christianity or global Christianity versus biblical Christianity. Follow the Bible. What's the Bible say? Well, the Bible says he wants you to be good in minded spirit. The Bible says he wants us to be a more than conquerors. The Bible says that he wants us to be victors. The Bible says that he wants us to follow him to that, wants us to seek him, seek the mind of him and be him, be in him, and that's how you get over the victim mentality. You got to figure out what does he say about it? And that's the question.
Speaker 3:As my coaching practice has grown over the last 10 or 15 years, I've just started to really look at myself and go gosh, what does God say about it? In my morning coffee thoughts on Facebook, I tend to be more of a positive motivational speaker, if you will, but if you look closely, most of that's rooted right in the Word of God and I've even been convicted that Sunday morning coffee thoughts is strictly about what does Scripture say. I go a little deeper, because I don't think we can get out of the mindset of defeat. I don't think we can get out of the challenges that we have without focusing first on him. Now, here's the other side of that. Just because you focus totally on him doesn't mean you won't have problems. You will Look at the news.
Speaker 3:Man, we're in a bad place, worse than I've ever seen it in my life, and I don't know. I think my parents used to tell me that the late sixties were kind of like this too, but we didn't have instant media. So everywhere we look, this victim mindset is crashing in on us. What was me? By the way? You hate your brothers and sisters. That's what the news tells us. Everybody that's different than you, and sometimes the people that are exactly like you, you're hated. So this whole technology, social media thing that we've got going, that you and I tend to make a living from, sometimes can be a really negative thing and I think is a very negative thing.
Speaker 3:And that victim mentality and coaching to get people out of it is I start to focus them on the right things, focus them on what Jesus says first about them. There's the other, there's another pillar who am I? What's my identity? Right, your identity is who Jesus said you were. Your identity in Christ is the most important thing about you. And so then you couple that with the other two pillars. And of course we were talking about personal responsibility. And that final pillar is healthy boundaries, and I was talking about that earlier too. Be careful who you hang around with, be careful what you let in your head.
Speaker 3:So those three pillars, right there are how I get people, I attempt to get people beyond this victim mentality. What was me and how do I seek a better day? And on the other side of it, here's I've got one of my coffee thoughts posts in a couple weeks says hamburger helper is only going to be good if it's willing to help itself. And there's some of that out there. If you don't want to not be a victim because victim has become your mentality, that's all you know. That's your identity. It's going to be tough to get beyond the victimhood. You got to want to be okay, and so we spend a lot of time talking specifically about what do you want. Don't let me waste your money and I don't want you to waste my time if you don't want to be okay and some people don't. So we spend a little time talking through how to get in a position where I want to be okay, because it is easy to sit back and look at woe is me.
Speaker 3:That's where I was last two years and I looked at my wife and I said, man, I'm not going to let that be my identity, because it got tough for me the last couple years. I shared with you but I refused. I wasn't going to let it be my identity. It was tough, it was dark. I spent a lot of time with a friend of mine who is a sometimes business partner and coaching partner. I ran into her husband one time and said when is your wife coming back from Florida? I got a dump on this lady. I had to get rid of that junk in my mind. I had to not harbor that stuff in my head, and we tend to be guilty of harboring things, guilty of not forgiving others. Man, forgiveness is not for others, by the way, it's for you and it's a command from Jesus. So, anyway, I just said a whole lot right in there. Pick that apart if you want to, because I need to, I need to. Let we got to catch up.
Speaker 2:No, I love it. I love it. I love the three pillars. Identity If identity is not locked into who Christ says you are, who the Father, son and Holy Spirit and the waters of baptism say you are, you are mine, everything else kind of falls apart. I think that's the core pillar. The other one then personal responsibility.
Speaker 2:This life has been given to me as a gift and I am called and hardwired by the living God to bring beauty and love and life and hope and peace into the world and to use my gifts. This is 1 Corinthians, 12 Romans, 12. All right to use my gifts to glorify God and to bless my neighbor. He hardwired me for love and community and man. I just want to have arms wide open, not protective of me, arms wide open, and yet at the same time, I love Jesus. Words, right, you got to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents. And yet at the same time, there will be folks that seek to steal, kill and destroy. They're not, they're not possessed or anything like that, but they are under the influence of Satan, right, and he wants to steal, kill and destroy and divide us from God's calling his purpose for our life. And so how do we have appropriate boundaries. I love that appropriate boundaries Shout out to Henry Cloud right Appropriate boundaries in our relationships so, so huge, and then we build.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then we build that team, right, doug, of people who are around us, who are loving and encouraging. Champion of Jesus had a team of people, this close knit group of friends. How much more so do we do we need that? This is a book. I don't know if you've heard of Pete Stanky. I'm just about done with this book, teaching fish to walk, and it's church systems and adaptive, adaptive challenge and I don't know if you've done much on systems theory. It's a.
Speaker 2:It's a theme that keeps coming up for me consistently that we what he talks about and I've referenced this before another podcast but the rings of relationship and everybody needs to have close, close friends, right? Jesus said the three, jesus had the 12 and family kind of in that close ring. And then there's a middle ring of kind of the village, doug, of folks that you're kind with, your on mission with. This is your kind of wider community network, right. And then you've got a third ring, which is the outer ring of relationships, which is basically the itch that social media is scratching today and what many sociologists are figuring out today, family systems folks are figuring out today is that the middle ring of support is is unraveling. It's not even there for many, many people.
Speaker 2:And guess, guess what role the church has played sociologically for the last 2000 years. And even, you know, the Jewish, the Jewish temple, this, this wider sense of a village of love and care and support. If things fall apart, I'm going to be okay because I'm loved by this wider village, this middle, this middle ring. We don't have it today and I think coaching has a major role of helping people kind of find themselves with that wider network of support. Any response to that, doug, as I kind of pivoted off of I love your three pillars and then we're hardwired for relationship and I think good coaching right allows us to to lean into who are the people that, the assets, the gifts of God that he has placed around you, all of the, the relationships, any response to that middle ring kind of being untethered today?
Speaker 3:100%. I think you're absolutely right on the money there. I've not seen that book. I wrote it down. I want to look at that. That is that that's some good stuff. I love what you're saying there.
Speaker 3:So how important, then, to get that middle ring, to get those people were that you can join arm and arm with, to to go out and attack this thing. I've seen a lot of, especially since the attack on Israel Last week. I've seen a lot of memes where there's a, there's a flag of Israel and there's the lion of Judah in front of Israel and and we I love that and I love the fact that we are Rising up, if you will and that's not a political statement for me, because, quite frankly, there is some biblical stuff there. I'm not going to dive quite that deep into it, but Maybe this is just a wake up call for us to all go. Man, I got to get my stuff together and I got to join arms with right people and the church and gosh, not that the church is perfect they're not, are they. They struggle just as much as we as individuals struggle, and we've looked elsewhere to find what, what it's supposed to look like for us, when, in fact, it all goes back to the love of Jesus, the word of God and who were supposed to be, based on what he says.
Speaker 3:If we can get a bunch of people as individuals to be who we're supposed to be and then lock arms, you know you, like you said, you've got Jesus, had his three, he had his 12 and then it went out from there. There's there's something to say to be said about going out from there. I love that. That is, that is a cool concept. I need to look more into that. But what are we going to do to get there? What are we going to do to lock arms with people and find that middle ring? The first thing we got to do is be okay here and be okay in our inner circle so that we can expand and do what we're called to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, amen, and that is. I think there's a major call this is the American Reformation podcast a major call for the church to be the church. Yes, proclaiming the gospel and, yes, being very, very intentional about helping people find themselves as safe and secure in a, in a community with that kind of village, village mentality. That is the power of the local church today. So if let's dig back into coaching, where it is that we're going to be able to do, where could folks find solid coaching? Just look at the life of Jesus. How was Jesus a coach for the 12 and beyond? Doug?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, he loved him right where they were. He loved them right where they were. He was hanging out with prostitutes, fishermen, who were nasty and dirty guys. He was hanging out with tax collectors who were just as nasty and dirty. In a different way, he was hanging around with Pharisees and Sadducees and and correcting those religious zealots when they needed to be corrected. But what he did above everything else was he loved them right where they are. And he loved them first and then said by the way, woman at the well, where your accusers, well, they don't accuse me anymore. And he goes yeah, me neither now, just go and don't be that. He loved her first and then the the story over and over and over. You can hear that story. Was it the woman at the well, was it the fisherman that he called out of the boat and said leave your, leave your boat, follow me now, not then, now, not when you get the cast in, not when you get your bills paid, not when your wife says it's OK, now, leave, follow me now. And so he took people where they were because he loved them where they were and because of all of that he was followed.
Speaker 3:I think, then, until we love people where they are. It's going to be tough, we've got you know. Look at them. You do, man. I've been saying this, but I've said it 150 times in the last couple of months we tend to want to love people if they're like us. We tend to want to love people if they're not dealing with messy, unbiblical things. If you're dealing with same sex attraction, if you're dealing with calling yourself out of what God called you to be in your, your gender, the biology of Jesus created to be, if you are not a Christian, in fact you're a Muslim or a Jew, or I mean, look at what's going on in Gaza. Are we loving the people who attacked Israel? Right now, it's hard, isn't? It isn't hard to love the bad guys, but Jesus did. He loved them where they were and that's how he got them. He loved them where they were.
Speaker 3:The challenge is am I strong enough to love somebody who's not loving Jesus right where they are, without being pulled down? Now, do I have to go back to my identity again and make sure that's on fire? Do I have to make sure that I'm doing my thing? So now, now, when you see those memes that you say, man, I wish so and so would see this. Make sure I see it so I can be ready when it's time to love that person and that person I shared with you last time, who was in my car, who was searching heavy man was she searching? But she was sweet and I treated her with respect, right where she was. I have no idea if she knows Jesus or not today. She knows I know Jesus, she knows that Jesus loves me and she knows that Jesus loves her.
Speaker 3:And there's a there's a real loose interpretation of what St Francis of Assisi said Preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words. I think we need to go a little farther than that, but that's certainly where it starts. We've got to love them where they are. I don't know if that answers your questions or not, but that is what the spirit gave me just at that moment. We've got to love people where they are because we don't feel loved in this world until I figured out love. Until I figured out love, I couldn't be this.
Speaker 2:That's right. So Jesus loved them at the beginning I think it's in John's Gospel, right. He loved them to the very end, and that end was the cross in the empty tomb.
Speaker 2:And he gave them then hope and his spirit beyond. Like if Jesus doesn't rise from the dead, doug, this whole thing is off, and then if Jesus doesn't send the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter. Like we're eternally off. So I think it's this calling. I love Jesus's upper room discourse. He washes their feet.
Speaker 2:This is John 13, all the way to 17. I find myself just going back to that over and over again, and how he calls them up and out the night that he's betrayed. Right, he's sharing his very body and blood with them for the forgiveness of sins. This is going to be something that norms a church for the next centuries. Praise be to God for the Lord's Supper. And then he gives them this amazing promise like the Bible the Bible is a book of promises.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've ever heard that, but it's God. It's God making promises and then fulfilling those promises from the Old Testament. I'm never going to leave you. There's going to come one who will crush the serpent's head. Jesus is a promised Messiah. And then Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, and I think good coaching then calls out the promise of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the one that will never leave us, the one that will give us peace and purpose and passion for life, and I think good coaching calls out the power of. We talked a lot about, you know, jesus. Let's talk about the power of the Holy Spirit connected to good coaching. What does that look and sound like for you, doug?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that where you just went is perfect. We've got to focus on what can be, based on what God said could be, and that is the way to get beyond those obstacles we talked about when, when we, you know, a lot of people struggle if they don't have something they can tangibly put their hands on. Thomas was a good example of that. Until I put my hands on your side, I don't, I don't, I don't think it's you. You're a ghost, jesus, you're not, you're not, I don't, I don't believe in this. I think the spirit is the missing link to all these other great religions in the world. We've got some great people in religions that don't serve a living God. That, and I know them, I know these people. I'm like man. You're such a. You're just missing that little part of the.
Speaker 3:The word I'm looking for is the gosh, the transformational power of the Holy Spirit or the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. We, we, we tend not to be able to focus on that. Man. If it wasn't for the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, I wouldn't believe any of this. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be able to grasp any of this. But when people can flip that switch and go, oh, now wait, he can work without me seeing him. He can work without me knowing, he can work without me controlling the outcome. When I can get people to see that stuff to, to bask in what God can do for them, wow, that's a game changer, because now they can give up one of those potential obstacles they have, which is often control. I got to control my life, and you know people talk about that a lot with me and I, and when we get on the subject control, I said well, how's that working out for you, because you're here so clearly something's not fitting. So I think we have to bridge the gap with the power of the Holy Spirit in order to set ourselves aside from anybody else. You said it best earlier if it wasn't for the cross, if it wasn't for the death and the resurrection, and then if it wasn't for the Holy Spirit coming to comfort us, to guide us, to convict us, to walk with us daily, what good would any of this be? And so if we can bridge that gap, we're in good shape.
Speaker 3:Now here's the real challenge, and so I'm going to ask you the same question, or ask you this question. There's a real challenge with giving Jesus at the 30,000 foot view so that people will at least listen to what you have to say, because right now Jesus can tend to be white noise. People just tune God out. Anything about God. I don't want to hear it right, so I give it to them at 30,000 foot view and I've got to figure out how to get it down to ground zero. And there's only one way for me to do that, and that's through the power of the Holy Spirit, because in my power I don't always do it right. You got anything on that because I'd love to hear it from a pastor's perspective.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you know, like you said earlier, it's just meeting people where they are, with no overt agenda. I mean, I've just been changed by the love of God in Christ Jesus and I've been incorporated into what I think is the greatest love story of all time, god's love for the world. And I'm ready to give a reason not to be people over the head but everybody loves a good story, right, and we get to find ourselves and God's, god's love story, shown in the person, the historical figure of Jesus Christ, one who defeated death for us. And so, yeah, if I'm given a, given an opportunity, I don't necessarily start preaching, but I'm just just sharing. I've walked through struggle, I've been close to pain and suicide, depression and death itself, and it's unnatural, it's not as the world should be, and so I just have hope because I believe enough seen, tasted and seen that the promises of God are true in Christ Jesus. And if you'd like to be connected to a group of people who are, who are walking that road, leaning into the promises of God not a perfect people, a hypocrite we're certainly a sinful, hypocritical, broken people If you want to, if you want to walk that journey, it's called, it's called the church, and the church are just a group of people who have been radically changed by the love of God.
Speaker 2:So I, when you ask that question, I think it really leans into the power of story for me, god's story, his 30,000 foot love story, the six acts of scripture, from creation to recreation on the last day. But then you know, personally I'm in a Lutheran tradition, you know and, and sometimes I think Lutheran struggle Maybe there's testimony, there's fear here, like how is the love of God radically changed my life? I think the everyday follower of Jesus in a Lutheran tradition we could use some coaching in sharing our personal story of how the Lord has changed me, right? So maybe there's some, some work to be done there. But yeah, I'm answering your question, doug. Anything that you'd like to jump off on there?
Speaker 3:I love it. I used to work in a coaching position that helped guys and gals coming out of prison to get back to the workforce, and one of the things that we used to teach them is everybody loves a redemption story. If you're a different person than you were in prison or before you went to prison and you want an employer to see that, now tell them how you're different.
Speaker 3:Tell them why you'll never go back the other way. And they used to say well, I've got into a 12 step program and I haven't been drinking or using drugs for you know seven years and I've connected to a really good group of people on the outside. I don't hang around with the old people anymore. That is the number one thing change your people, places and things. That's what the 12 steps talk about, and and they're right you have to be different. And then here's how I want to go forward. I want to go forward by being a productive member of society, etc. And we used to teach them to not just tell that story but to live that story. And I think that you're absolutely right. The redemption story of those guys is even a step below the redemption story of Jesus. The redemption story of Jesus is actually the redemption story, and so, if I like what you just said, we can figure out how to get them into the story and realize they are the story and look in the mirror once again, like I always say look in the mirror. What's your story saying? Are you a different person? You were before.
Speaker 3:I had lunch just on Thursday with a friend of mine who has been through some incredible struggle. I won't go too deep into it, but he lost most everything he got, and including his family. His family will have nothing to do with them, but his story is so different that anybody that would spend any time with him. And he's got some of those evil naysayers in his family who have lost their way, who are trying to destroy him. Satan is working through some people in his family, but he just continues to bask in the fact that he is a redeemed soul.
Speaker 3:He's different than he was. He has no desire to be that guy, even if he struggles and falls, which he sometimes does and me too, sometimes I struggle and fall but he has no desire to live that story. He quickly jumps back on the horse and rides again into the book of Revelation, if you will, and he knows Jesus and he knows Jesus didn't create him to be that other guy that he used to be, that double-sided hypocrite that he used to live. And his story is such a powerful story of redemption, of grace, certainly of mercy, forgiveness, and it all focuses on the Holy Spirit and the cross, the work of Jesus on the cross in the grace, in the depth of hell, where he takes the keys of life away from Satan, and that's what he basks. And even though his life still stinks, because he's people he loves deeply won't have anything to do with him because of his mistakes. The story, the redemption, is what he continues to focus on and that's powerful. I love what you just said about the story.
Speaker 2:So good. Last question here this is so much fun. What makes for an excellent coaching session? So let people behind the curtain a little bit of a really good coaching session, when that happens for you and for the client. I'm talking about a little bit more because there's informal coaching, I think that takes place Sometimes, maybe it's over lunch etc. But then there's sometimes there's more formal coaching. I like to use a funnel concept, kind of what's going on and almost kind of the dump right at the high level. Now would you really like to focus on? And then, what are your hopes for this and what are, kind of your next steps that you're going to take? Person responsibility for whatever the topic or life transformation theme may be, or, in your experience, what makes for an excellent coaching session?
Speaker 3:Um, I you know coaching and counseling are different things and that's one thing I have to be very clear about with my clients. Sometimes we have to unpack some of the stuff that seems like counseling, but it's. It's only so we can get to the coaching. The coaching is you already said it in your question the coaching is when people want to accept personal responsibility, and I'm constantly focused on people will come and I coach couples through a marital, marital thing sometimes and people constantly come to me and say hey, what, uh, what about so-and-so, So-and-so did this to me and go right, when is so-and-so? Well, they're, I don't know, probably at work. I go okay, where are you? Right here? Okay, Then what can we do about so-and-so right now? Well, nothing, Okay. Well, who can we do something about? Well, I guess me. Yeah, yeah, that's it. So let's focus on you and let's work on you and getting them to realize they can't control others. They can only change themselves, and give them some glimmer of hope that that could potentially not guaranteed but could potentially change someone else's life because their behaviors are different. That's when it really gets good. Now I can focus on the meat and the potatoes of what we got to do in their life.
Speaker 3:A good coaching session is when you help them see they can only deal with them. They can't deal with others. So all I can do is work on me. I give people one session to complain and gripe and moan about whomever and it's always you, almost always couples. All right, you can talk about them once, one session. Get it off your chest because you need to. You got to dump that stuff. If not, we'll be stuck here forever. But then the next time we're going to focus on you and maybe it's how do I not get back into that situation again? What was it that caused you to not see the red flags? What is it about you that don't? You don't see yourself as worthy to be okay and in a good relationship? What is it about you that's not accepting responsibility to make sure you don't put yourself in that situation again? And that's when the sessions get good, when they start to see wow, my life is my responsibility. Now, what are me and God going to do about it?
Speaker 2:So good, Doug. I have so many other questions. We're a time though.
Speaker 3:How can people? Come up with you if they would like to do so it does.
Speaker 2:How can people connect with you, sure?
Speaker 3:You can. I would love to have you join me. Every morning about 7.30 or 8 o'clock I put a blurb out on coffee thoughts coaching and motivation. It's a private group. You can ask to join that or maybe it'll just let you join. I don't know where that's at right now. But anyway, ask to join that. You'll get a little blurb of something that I put out every morning. We are working on our website right now. I've been working on it all summer. We are working on the podcast, still trying to launch that. You can find me at either my name, Douglas Hartle, T-O-U-G-L-A-S-H-A-R-T-L-E at gmailcom, or you can find me at coffee thoughts dot or Doug at coffee thoughts dot life. I'd love to hang out with people on Zoom, or I keep threatening I'm going to come out to see you in Arizona and one day I will. There's potential of my kids moving out there.
Speaker 3:So I'm coming to see you. If I get that, that's it.
Speaker 2:Love to have you, brother. This is the American Reformation Podcast. I pray this conversation today was enlightening to you. Be a coach, find a coach, grow in your coaching skills, recognizing those three pillars Once again identity, personal responsibility. The IPB plan for good good coaching. Identity, personal responsibility and healthy, healthy boundaries in your relationship. Jesus loves you more than you can possibly imagine. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. We'll see you next week on the American Reformation Podcast. Thanks so much, doug.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Jim.