Ep #31: Therapy Vs. Coaching

Welcome to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha-mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.

What’s up, my brother. Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. And if you couldn’t already tell, I am super excited about today’s episode. I’ve given you guys a lot of information about causal coaching, the model, the universal truth. We’ve talked about emotions; we’ve talked about relationships.

But today, we’re going to talk about the difference between therapy and coaching. And there is a huge, huge difference. Now, don’t stop this episode. You might be thinking to yourself, oh I know the difference, I already understand the difference between therapy and coaching.

But I promise you, you are going to want to listen to the next 20 to 25 minutes of this episode because I’m not going to give you that outward looking inward type of distinction. It’s not that, well therapy is something that insurance will pay for or it’s not that therapy is a licensed industry, or it’s not that therapy I something that goes into a file and goes on your record, where if you apply to a job, they may ask you have you ever received therapy before, whereas coaching doesn’t have anything to do with that. That’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is really the core distinction, the big difference between therapy and coaching. And you’re going to find out – you might be surprised to find out that these two industries are very, very different. So let’s start with the definition. Let’s talk about what therapy is.

The definition of therapy is treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. Coaching, the definition of coaching is a form of development in which a person supports a learner, I would say like a student or a client, in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance.

So, if those two definitions alone don’t show you how different these industries really are, then let me paint a picture for you. I want you to imagine a spectrum of health. Now, this could be a spectrum of physical health or mental health, and I’m going to give you examples of both.

On one end, on the left side, we have sickness. We have this below average place. And on the other side, on the right side, we have excellence, the above average place. And in the middle, we have average, right, we’ve got wellness.

So a therapist, the goal of a therapist is to take an individual from the far-left side, from that space of sickness or below average, up to the middle, up to the average, just to get them there where they’re in that average place, where they’re just well; take them from sickness to wellness. A coach then takes over.

A coach works from the middle to the right because a coach will take someone from wellness to excellence. The goal of a coach is to take you from average to above average.

Now, this is true in physical health and mental health. So think about it this way; physical therapists, that’s why they have the name therapists. A physical therapist works with injured people. If you have an injury or had an injury, you go to a physical therapist go get back to well, back to a place where you have no injury.

Then you can go to a fitness coach to take your wellness, to take your healed body, to another level, to go faster, to go heavier, to get stronger, to get more capable. So it’s kind of like a handoff. If you’re sick, then the therapist is what you want, but if you’re well, if you’re in that place of average and you want to take yourself up a step, you want to go to that next level, that’s where you work with a coach. And it’s the same with mental health.

If you have a mental health issue, then you want to go to a therapist, you want to go from this mental problem, this mental disorder, up to where this disorder is no longer plaguing your life. And then the coach takes over and gets you to that next level.

And I want you to think about it even in a way of functioning versus nonfunctioning. So a therapist is going to take a client who is low to nonfunctioning and the goal is to get them back to that functioning state, that fully functional level. With coaching, the client is functioning. They are living. They are able to function in the world, and maybe they’re functioning even at a high level.

They’re functioning at a very high level but they want to break through the ceiling. They want to get to that next level. They want to take their potential even further. They want to see what they’re capable of. That’s when you hire a coach.

So there’s a very different thing going on here. Let me give you an example with dependency, with addiction. Let’s say you are a drinker, so alcohol is a dependency. If you’re drinking and you’re drinking so much that it’s starting to get into your life and you’re no longer able to function, you’re drinking so much that you’re waking up late, you’re not getting  to work on time, or maybe you are getting to work but because you’re hungover and you’re drowsy your performance drops. Your boss is always on you about what’s going on with your work and it’s getting into your relationships, all of a sudden, your relationships are becoming more dysfunctional, that’s where that drinking, that behavior, might need some therapy, because you’re really not functioning.

You’re getting to a point where maybe you’re losing your job, you’re losing your relationships, you’re staying in, you’re drinking more and more and more and you’re no longer functioning in life. With coaching, maybe you’re drinking but you’re still functioning. You work hard, you go to work all day, you come home, you have a six pack of beer or a couple glasses or a bottle of wine and you do this every single night, and then it’s not affecting your job, it’s not affecting your relationships, but you start to maybe say, look I know that I can perform better, I know I can get a better quality of life if I cut back on my drinking.

So you’re still functioning, but then you want a coach to help you set up a plan to cut back on your drinking. This is true with everything. This is why I use the example of a physical therapist because somebody who is hurt or injured, they want to get back to a place where they’re no longer injured. They want to get back to work. They want to get back to where they’re walking again or back to where there’s no pain in their life. And so they hire a physical therapist and they go to physical therapy.

Once that pain is gone, once that injury has healed, then you hire a coach. And then with that coach, you take your fitness to the next level. You really get into how strong can I get, how fast can I get. So, kind of giving you that sort of difference, that distinction, it might become clear to you that not everyone needs a therapist but everyone needs a coach.

Some people, and if you didn’t already know it, the most successful people have multiple coaches. I don’t know a successful person that doesn’t have a coach. I’m going to be honest with you guys, I have three coaches myself. I have three coaches. I hire three different people to help me with three different parts of my life. And that kind of gets into the topic of what types of coaches are out there because there are so many types of coaches out there.

There’s relationship coaches, there’s dating coaches, there’s nutrition coaches, there’s fitness coaches. I was a fitness coach for 10 years, closer to 15 years. There’s confidence coaches, which is kind of what I do now, I do that causal alpha male coaching. There’s business coaching. There’s marketing coaches.

Now, when I say I’m an Alpha Male Coach, I do want to come back and I want to explain something to you guys. I’m not talking about this connotation that many people have about an alpha male. I’m not talking about the sort of brutish quarterback jock bully who aims to physically or socially dominate people using tricks, using gimmicks like flexing muscles or flashing cash at the bar.  I’m not talking about that kind of arrogant person that, you know, this connotation around alpha.

You guys who have listened to my podcast know that what I really mean when I say an alpha male is the man who has learned to manage and master his mind, the sentences in his brain. Those sentences that run in your brain are completely optional. You get to choose every single thing you think.

And when you learn to manage the unconscious thought and master the conscious thoughts, then we get into the universal truth, we get into the model, and you start to get all the results that you want. So it’s a results-based causal coaching. That’s what I mean when I say I am an alpha male coach.

I’m not talking about beefing you up in some gym so that you can go out and be physically dominant. That’s not it at all. I do work with health. I do work with wealth building. I do work with getting you in better shape, getting you in more optimal health. I do work with helping you build your wealth and financial freedom. I do work with you in your relationships. You can have amazing relationships, but it all comes from cognition. It all comes from how you think.

And my students, my clients, are in that place where they are ready to go to that next level. Now, I’m not saying that they’re not struggling, I’m not saying that my clients and students aren’t struggling, I’m just saying they’re not sick. I’m just saying that they don’t have a dysfunction or a disorder that’s preventing them from being able to function in life.

In fact, most of my students are highly functioning. They have a great job, they make good money, but they let their relationships slip or they let their health slip. They work so hard in building their business that they need a little bit of push on how can I lose this weight or how can I have better relationships?

In fact, let me give you an example. And this is a personal example, guys, this is about me, so this is going to really bond you to me here. I tell this story in my workshops, in my masterminds, but I’m going to make it a little more brief for this episode.

I was – if you listen to the first episode, you know that I am a child of abuse. I came from a divorce. My mom and my dad got divorced and my mom remarried to my stepdad who she later divorced. But while they were married, this individual, my – if you could call him a role model – my male role model at the time was very, very, very abusive to both me and my little brother.

And when I say abusive, I’m not talking about spankings and these kinds of things, I’m talking about some serious abuse where my brother and I really never ever went a day without having bruises on our body and we took a lot of trips to the hospital, let me put it to you that way. And now, you might say – we hid it from my mom, okay, we became very good at hiding it from my mother.

But I remember one day, I was like seven or eight years old and my mom had taken my brother to work with her and so I was left alone, I was left alone with my stepdad at the time. And you could imagine, I would be terrified. You could imagine my state of mind, like absolutely petrified. A seven, eight-year-old kid alone with this guy for like five hours, like, I don’t even want to explain to you the kinds of things that happened in that environment. And I was scared.

So during that time, what I did – and I remember it very, very well, I went into the bathroom and I stayed there for five hours. I hid in the bathroom for five hours while my mom was gone with my little brother. And I don’t know what my stepdad was doing, watching TV, I don’t really care what he was doing, but I remember this so well because I basically just sat.

I sat on the toilet, I got up, I looked in the mirror, I turned on the water, I turned off the water, I went back, I laid down on the floor, I got up, I moved around. I mean, it was a tiny bathroom, it was like being in a prison cell. I was in this place.

And I’m telling you this because this moment in my life created, for me, a thought in my brain. It created a sentence in my brain, in my beta condition, because I was a child, I was seven or eight years old. It created a thought in my brain that said you are safe in here. If you leave this room, you will get hurt. And so that, those sentences that started when I was so little, because for those five hours, I wasn’t beaten, I wasn’t touched, I wasn’t abused. And I was safe. And I learned that so well that as an adult, I learned to hide from the world.

I learned to “stay safe” as my brain was telling me, stay safe by staying indoors, by staying away from crowds.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was functioning. In high school I was a top level, highly competitive water polo player. I went into the military and I excelled there. I ran a gym, ran my own business for over a decade. In my gym, when I was confident, when I was around people that I trusted and knew, I was confident. I was powerful. I was a king. But I never went out.

Like I say, I played water polo, I was invited to parties in high school. I never went. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go. I gave excuses all the time. Oh, I’ve got things to do. Running my business, running my gym, I was invited out. My members, my clients, they would invite me out. “Hey, let’s go out, let’s grab a drink, let’s get some food, let’s have a barbeque, come over to my place on the weekend.”

I was always invited to go places and I would always have excuses. No, I can’t, no I can’t. I was a no man. Not nomad. I was a no man, and I was always giving these excuses because of that sentence that I was so unaware of, because of that beta condition sentence in my brain that said you are safe inside. Stay in your cave. If you leave, you will get hurt.

So for so long I was running these sentences in my brain. Now, when I figured this out, when I recognized the universal truth and I started using the Model to coach myself, that’s when huge changes – that’s when I broke out. That’s when I realized oh my gosh, this is just coming from my head. There’s nothing in the world that’s going to hurt me. There’s nothing out there that’s going to abuse me. I’m no longer a seven or eight-year-old kid hiding from an abusive adult in the bathroom.

I’m an adult now. In fact, I’m a very strong, competent, intelligent, ambitious, driven man. I had all these things going for me and I mean, even in my business, I was making over $150,000 a year and I was hiding from the world. I was hiding from relationships. I was hiding from myself, from people, from friends, everything.

And it was just because of those sentences. It was just what was happening in my brain due to that one thing. So when I tell you guys that I’m an alpha male coach, what I’m telling you is I help men recognize what is happening in their beta condition, help recognize, help show them their own life in a more objective way so that they can start to expose that beta condition, expose those sentences in their mind, in their brain for what they really are: lies.

That’s what those sentences in your brain are. They’re lies. Your thoughts are going to lie to you. And when you recognize what those thoughts are, then with your alpha state, you can start to choose the thoughts you want. And like I said, I was functioning. From the outside looking in, all my friends, everybody thought I was this successful, powerful, intelligent, strong, confident alpha man. But in my brain, I was that child of seven or eight-year-old hiding in the bathroom.

When I coached myself out of it using the technique that I use with my students, the universal truth, the Model, and some other tools, that’s when I made these momentous leaps in my own life. And that is what I mean when I say I’m an alpha male coach.

Now, like I say, there are all kinds of coaches out there. How do you find the coach that works for you? And that’s my story, guys. If you’ve ever been to one of my workshops, you know the full story. You know the long-winded version, and if you’re going to one of my workshops, you’ll probably hear that again, but that’s my story.

Now, let’s move on to choosing a coach. How do you find a coach that works for you? How do you choose the best coach for yourself? First of all, you got to be functioning. You want to make sure you’re not injured, you’re not sick, you’re not at below average.

Now, this looks different to different people. I believe that most of us out there are functioning. If you’re getting to work, if you’re holding a job, if you’re maintaining a relationship, this is all functioning stuff.

When I say non-functioning, when I say you need therapy, when I say there’s this non-functioning piece, I’m talking about really you have withdrawn from the world in such a way that you cannot hold a job, you cannot maintain a relationship, you’re barely able to leave your home, you’re ruining or self-sabotaging everything that’s happening in your life.

You’re in and out of treatment, like somebody else has to take care of you almost. That’s what I mean by non-functioning. But if you’re functioning, it’s time to get a coach. It’s time to take your life to the next level. It’s really time to get rid of whatever those limiting beliefs are that are holding you back.

I told you what mine were, but it’s time for you to expose those limiting beliefs to yourself and get rid of those so that you can take your life to the next level and choosing a coach is something that I’m going to give you some tips on right now.

So number one, find a coach who has been where you are and is now where you want to be. That’s kind of number one. Look for a coach who’s where you are now, that person was. It’s kind of like your future self. You want to find a coach who is your future self so that you can say look, you have been where I am, you know what I’m going through, and where you are now is where I want to be. So I want to work with you to kind of guide me through whatever process you went through to get me to where you are.

That’s kind of number one. If you can find a coach that’s been where you are, then they know what you’re going through and is now where you want to be because then you can say I want that process, I want to model that, I want to find out what you did to get where you are so that I can do it too, and you can. That’s the biggest thing. You can do it too.

You can do anything you want to do. If somebody else has done it, then you can do it too. And you know what, there are some things that haven’t been done before just because and only because we’re waiting for somebody to do it.

I think about Spud Webb actually, the five-foot two basketball player who won the slam dunk competition. There were people that said somebody that size was never going to win this. We used to say in the fitness industry that nobody is ever going to be able to run a sub-five-minute mile and deadlift over 500 pounds.

And now we see it happen. Now it happened. People are able to do this. So wherever you want to go, just find a coach who is there and can take you there because they have been where you are now. That’s number one.

Number two, find a coach who has a process that you believe will work for you. This is kind of like an interview process. As a coach myself, I interview my clients. I always have my clients either fill out an application or take a 45-minute consultation with me because I want to talk to my potential students and find out where they are, find out how best I can help them, and really find out if I’m the best coach for them. Find out if I am the one who will take them from where they are to where they want to be.

But you, as a client looking for a coach, you want to do the same. You want to interview your potential coach and say look, what is your process? How are we going to work together? How do you get your clients to go from point A to point B? What is it?

And have them kind of explain that to you a little bit so you understand. Now, like I said, you can do anything. You have the power to accomplish anything as long as you believe it. I’m a cognitive coach, I’m a causal coach, so truthfully, as long as you have belief, as long as your mind believes, it will create an emotion that will drive massive action and get you the results that you want.

So you can believe in any process, truthfully. But listen to the process and make sure it makes sense to you. Make sure that what is being told to you is something that you are into, that you’re down with, that you’re like okay yes, I hear what you’re saying, I think that’s a good way to go, I know I can do this, let’s work together. That’s number two. Find a coach who has a process you believe in.

Number three, find a coach who talks about benefits, the benefits of working with them. So benefits are what will be accomplished at the end of the coaching. That’s point B. What are the benefits? What is the end result?

A lot of coaches will tell you about what it’s like working with them. Like they’ll say okay, we’re going to get on the phone once a week, we’re going to talk for 45 minutes, we’re going to go through – that’s basically number two. That’s the process. But make sure that you also get a coach that talks about the benefits because number one, it’s the benefits that you want. It’s the results that you want.

But number two, it’s a way to verify that they know what it is that you want and they have been there, that they are there or have been there. Because that means that they can get you there with some of that guidance. If they’re just talking about their process, if a coach is just talking about their process, make sure you ask them about the benefits as well.

And then number four, take action. If one, two, and three are working for you, if you believe that the coach was where you are and is where you want to be, if you believe in the process they have and they’re talking about the benefits that you want, sign up. Hire them. Take action. Do it. Don’t procrastinate because your life – this is your life.

You deserve to have everything that you want, and that’s the purpose of working with a coach. Getting those results, breaking through that glass ceiling and getting to the next level. Take the action. Take the action and then move forward.

Now, those are ways to choose a coach, but I do want to end with this. Once you take action, commit to the process. And I know that this is a cliché but I’m going to say it anyway. You get out of coaching what you put into it.

You see, a coach is a guide. A coach is someone who gives you instruction and guidance and teaching and concepts, and they kind of steer you in the direction that you want to go to get you the results that you want to have. But you are the one that still has to walk the path. You’re still the one that has to get from where you are to where you want to be, so commit to the process.

Do what the coach tells you to do. If after five, 10, 20 sessions, wherever it is that you are and you’re thinking, this isn’t working for me, I’ve put in 110% and it’s just not working, then maybe it might be time to change coaches or switch coaches. But commit to the process. Don’t just hire a coach and then not do anything or hire a coach and not do anything and then say that coach didn’t help me out. You have to commit. Commit to this process of being coached.

That, in fact, guys is one of the things that I talk about when I am on a consultation call or looking at an application is I make sure that my students, my clients are coachable because I want to be able to help themselves. It’s you that has to take the steps. You are the one that has to walk the path.

So be coachable. Commit to the process. Do the work. And I guarantee it, I promise you, you will take your life to the next level. And there are limitless levels, my brother. There is never a top. You will continue to break through new plateaus as long as you are hiring the coach that has been where you are and is where you want to be. You believe in their process, and they tell you what the results and benefits of their coaching are.

That’s what I got for you today, my friends. Therapy versus coaching. Everybody needs a coach. I’ve got three of them myself, I highly recommend you get one, and you can work with me by going to my website, thealphamalecoach.com and signing up for a 45-minute consultation or filling out an application.

I will take either and I will get back to you and I look forward to working with you as long as those three things are happening. As long as we’re jiving, as long as you are in the right mindset to achieve, to grow, to develop, to do the work. And I know you are. I know you can do hard things. You can do anything because you are the man. Until next week, my brother. Elevate your alpha.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoy what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash Your Alpha – your guide to shifting to the alpha mindset – at thealphamalecoach.com/unleash.