How to Fully Embody the Value of What You Do - Interview with Coach Harrison Moore

Coaching is largely process-driven similar to therapy and although our clients receive real benefits, those benefits can be subtle and hard to articulate.

For this reason I often find myself reluctant to ask people to pay me. Or when prospective clients push back on the price I quote, I cave pretty quickly.

From the many conversations I’ve had with coaches, this is a common challenge.

It’s also a common challenge for other process-centric professions: creative services, healing services, therapy and consulting just to name a few.

For this reason I was fortunate to meet Harrison Moore. 

Now here’s what fascinated me about Harrison and his coaching practice.

From the beginning I never had the slightest doubt that Harrison absolutely believes in the value of his coaching. 

His belief is not from a place of arrogance. It comes from a place of humility and an almost reverence for what coaching can create for his clients.

He also holds coaching as a kind of sacred practice; that he has learned from and is passing on what he learned from his own coach.

This humble but deep confidence in his coaching made a huge impression on me. I wanted to hold my coaching practice in the same way. 

I want to bring this level of professionalism and respect for what I do.

In this podcast conversation, Harrison and I discuss his journey as a coach and what has helped him embody the values of his gifts and work.

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My mission is to change the way small business owners market themselves and it’s very important to me that I reach as many people as possible.

Transcript

09.17.25 [MRW Podcast] Harrison Moore Original
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[00:00:00] Judy Murdoch: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Marketing Root Work podcast. I am your host, Judy Murdoch. And today I am so happy to introduce Harrison Moore.

[00:00:10] Harrison Moore: Thanks, Judy, for this opportunity. I wrote myself a quick bio here, , in, just in preparation so that I wasn't floundering around. So, um, my name's Harrison. I'm a, I'm a writer, artist and, and, and coach.

[00:00:23] I studied the Royal College of Art in London. , Exhibited my art internationally, and I once presented my sculpture to the Queen of Norway, which was terrifying. , I later founded a construction tech startup, , that grew to $2 million. And I was part of the core team at David Perez's renowned Rite of Passage School, which was a, an amazing online writing school, , that took the world by storm.

[00:00:45] I'm now working for an organization called Act two, which is a creative accelerator where I'm helping to develop the coaching and support experience for students so that they can get unstuck and build creative projects they're proud of. And together with my wife, Karina, I'm now looking enough to travel full time.

[00:01:02] And although I'm from England originally, we're currently in New York City, which is very, very exciting.

[00:01:08] Judy Murdoch: Cool, thanks. And Harrison, I had no idea that you had, you were involved in so many different things. You've already, alluded a little bit to your past. And so it sounds like initially your focus was on cre, like doing some sort of creative service writing or art.

[00:01:27] I know you do both still. What led you to coaching? 

[00:01:32] Harrison Moore: Yeah, good question. I ended up coaching people just very organically. It was wasn't something that I could have planned, but of course. Uh, it's a bit cliche, but looking back, it's clear to me that , there was thread that led to coaching, running all the way back.

[00:01:48] I've been lucky enough to have powerful coaches in the past, so I learned quite early on in my career that coaching can be transformative. If I go back even earlier to, early teenage years, I was a huge Tony Robbins fan. I binged all of his tapes and, his, , he was really the first truly inspirational, uh, I almost wanna say father figure as well.

[00:02:12] . Because like, my, father wasn't in my life that much back then. Tony Robbins was it for me. I was like 18 years old, driving in my new car, my first car, listening to his voice, and it was something just. Woke up inside me and I was thinking, I was like, finally somebody, some older person that is kind, is wise.

[00:02:36] Finally somebody is telling me how it is and telling me what's possible, and telling me that these thoughts and age that I've been having are not weird, but they're actually really healthy. So I have to name check Tony Robbins in any explanation of how I've ended up coaching.

[00:02:51] But having said that, I'm in my late thirties now. I haven't listened to any Tony Robbins for a while. But in between then and now, I've had a bunch of different experiences where, different people have helped me, teachers, mentors, therapists as well. . And I, found through being creative as well, that questions are one of the most, like powerful tools in the world.

[00:03:17] I really do. I I don't usually go in for, one size fits all silver bullet type solutions. And I know that the world's money nuance than that, but if you backed me into a corner and said, come on, Harrison. What, one, one thing in the world that you think could be a genuine silver bullet that can help people in any domain, any situation?

[00:03:36] I would have to say it's questions, power, powerful questions. Yes. Knowing, how to ask really good quality questions at the right time, is so powerful that I arrived at that insight myself through being creative. So I suppose seeing, powerful questions, in their element in the creative spaces. I was spending time in.

[00:03:59] And seeing questions in coming, in their element in the coaching space and in in the therapeutic space, in the self-help space. . 

[00:04:05] It occurred to me that there's something going on here, there's something truly profound about these, about these simple statements and things that we ask each other.

[00:04:12] Yeah. So this is a long-winded answer to your question, but, coaching for me brings together a ton of things that either interest me or fulfill me. So it's, it's highly impactful and personal. The feedback loop from the work you're doing with people is very short. I can do it from anywhere in the world now that we have Zoom, which is important. To me. 'cause I want to be able to travel and be, location, independent.

[00:04:39] It's incredibly creative. Like, I, I genuinely don't, this might seem a bit strange to some people who haven't spent time, in creative domains very often, but I , I don't really see that much difference in the work that I was doing as an artist. Or a writer or a coach. It's, to me it feels very simple.

[00:04:56] Judy Murdoch: That's fascinating.

[00:04:57] Harrison Moore: We could talk more about that, but it coaching brings together all these things that I'm either good at, I enjoy, I can make money from. Is highly impactful and has a social and political impact connected to it.

[00:05:10] Yeah. And it just was a role that I found myself naturally in, um, over in more recent years through the organizations that I've been part of. So I decided to just formalize it. What if I could have my own

[00:05:23] and that's what I'm doing right now. I'm building that coaching business. 

[00:05:26] Judy Murdoch: That's so cool.

[00:05:27] Thanks for sharing, that, Harrison. I just, the creative and coaching piece that is very intriguing to me. Very, very intriguing., Because I too love coaching and doing creative work and I'm always wanting to bring those two areas together because those are two things I love as well.

[00:05:46] . One of the things I really wanted to ask you, because I, I don't see many other coaches doing this, so you have gifted me some coaching sessions. Which has been wonderful. And something that I see you doing, and I don't see many other coaches doing this is when you talk about coaching and when you talk about offering a gifted coaching session, I have absolutely no doubt that you understand and embody the value of what you are offering.

[00:06:27] There is no doubt in my mind. You just so very much own the value of what you are doing. I understand you love doing it, but you also own the value of it. And one of the challenges that I see, and this is in myself too, is I think with coaching, but also with creative services. When we're doing something that we really love to do, there can be a tendency to feel like, well, I would do this for free because I love doing it so much.

[00:07:10] Or it could be a hobby. Right. I mean, a lot of people not coaching so much, but certainly in the creative and craft realm, lots of people do those hobbies. It's a very, it's really popular. And so I am just intrigued in terms of, because I think this is just a real challenge for coaches in terms of how do we fully hold, embody, and value what it is we are bringing into the world as an occupation, as a, metier.

[00:07:48] I think that's, it's a French word for. A calling, if you will.

[00:07:53] So is it just kind of who you are? Do you, how do you think about coaching and how do you hold the value of what you are offering and in a way that you, people who are listening might be able to also think about things how can we help other coaches value deeply value what it is they do?

[00:08:21] Harrison Moore: Okay. I've got a lot to say here. You might have heard me just making a few notes. 'cause there's a lot that I want to, there's a lot of reflections that I want to share. They're all, they're, I think they're all valuable. Thank you. Just backing up to the start of your question.

[00:08:31] The first thing to say is that I also experience the same doubts that you just described as well. So, , although I might appear to you to be, showing up and owning the value of my coaching, of course I still have moments, I still have whole days where I'm questioning that. So that's the first thing to say, but I'm doing it anyway.

[00:08:50] That's the first thing that I wanted to say. Now why am I doing it anyway? This, this goes to the second thing. , I couldn't give you a sincere answer to this question without also, mentioning the work that I'm doing with my coach.

[00:09:02] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:03] Harrison Moore: So, I'm being powerfully coached myself, and I'm lucky enough to be learning, among many other things, about the methods. And particular tactics that my coach. Who's very successful in his practice, has, has used over the years and found what works. So there, there's an element of me imitating, his methods as well.

[00:09:25] So, great in terms of the way that I invite you to a connect call to a discovery call, and then to gifted coaching sessions and how each of those calls is structured. It's not all my doing, it's heavily influenced by advice and coaching that I've had from my coach, so that's worth saying as well.

[00:09:42] Which is the beautiful thing about coaching as well, by the way. It's like if people coach with me, they're not only getting the benefit of my own personal approach to coaching, but they're also getting vicariously, my, coach's coaching and Yes. And his coach's coaching. Right? So it goes all the way.

[00:09:59] Yeah. 

[00:10:00] Judy Murdoch: It's a beautiful, that's 

[00:10:01] Harrison Moore: beautiful, beautiful mental image of everyone being locked in this like network coaching.

[00:10:05] But to return to your question. So that, that's the second thing the third thing I would say, and this is really interesting is, and again, this is work that I've only been able to do by having a coach.

[00:10:19] I've. Recently learned about the distinction between declarations and asserts?

[00:10:27] I didn't realize what the difference was at first until I had several conversations about it with my coach and others in the . Coaching communities that I spend time in, so when somebody first asked me what's the difference between a assertions and declarations, I thought about it.

[00:10:42] As a, , writer, I, you know, I really wanted to answer this question and get it right. I didn't get it right in the end. I don't remember why, but it turns out that the difference is this, so an assertion is a statement of intent based on evidence. I'm going to do this because I have proof that X, y, Z will happen.

[00:11:00] That's an assertion. Or, it might be a scientific assertion about some experiment that was conducted, or it could be anything, but an assertion is based on evidence, basically.

[00:11:09] A declaration by contrast is a statement of intent based on no evidence. And you can see this in the Declaration of Independence, for example.

[00:11:19] You are, in the us I'm in the us. So let's talk about that. Independence had to be declared before it was realized otherwise, if they hadn't done it like that, they wouldn't have been able to mobilize people towards getting it done, right? Yeah. Yeah. You, see this everywhere. A, declaration of war, a declaration of Peace is declared before peace is established.

[00:11:42] So why, is this important? Well, it turns out that like. In the same way that nations and organizations make progress in this way by not waiting around for the declaration, but declaring it upfront and then finding a way to make it come true. It turns out that that human psychology works very similarly because yes, organization, and nations are made up of individuals.

[00:12:05] What that looks like in practice 

[00:12:07] Judy Murdoch: interesting 

[00:12:08] Harrison Moore: Is like when I first start out as a coach, I know that unless I believe in the value of it, no one else will. But I might still have lots of doubts. If I'm, inexperienced, I'm gonna have doubts about it and I'm nervous, and I might fuck it up.

[00:12:25] So, God, you know, all this pressure, how do I get past that? , I have to make a declaration. I have to declare who I'm going to show up as in spite of those fears. This is, where it starts to get interesting. So I declare in advance , how much my coaching is worth.

[00:12:42] And I write affirmations that I read out, I read out aloud before every session. I have, I have countless conversations with people about how valuable my coaching is. And , some people might call it fake it till you make it, but I don't quite like that phrase because it, it misses a lot of the nuance here and the agreed, the meaningfulness of this 

[00:13:02] Judy Murdoch: agreed.

[00:13:03] Harrison Moore: Because if you look throughout culture, throughout history, anybody that did anything remarkable and powerful, and impactful, nine times out of 10, they had their own version of making a declaration. So a great example I like to use is Beyonce, right? I mean, we could choose anybody, but I'm just choosing her.

[00:13:24] 'cause most people are likely to know who she is. Right? Like for sure she has an alter ego called Sasha Fierce. Ah, now, before she goes out on and does any kind of performance, she, she does a little, I don't know what it is, but she does a little jig. A little ritual 

[00:13:40] Judy Murdoch: Wow. 

[00:13:40] Harrison Moore: To, to embody Sasha Fierce. That that's her, yeah.

[00:13:44] That's her way of saying, I declare myself as Sasha Fierce. 

[00:13:49] Judy Murdoch: Wow. That is really cool. 'cause like when you see Beyonce. You just have no doubt of her power. She's so powerful, yeah. And she so fully embodies who she is, what she believes. Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons people love her Absolutely.

[00:14:07] The way she shows up.

[00:14:09] Harrison Moore: . Yeah. It's, this is, this is quite common among high achievers. It's, it's 

[00:14:13] Judy Murdoch: interesting, huh? 

[00:14:14] Harrison Moore: If I go back to, I mentioned Tony Robbins earlier, so I'll mention him one more time. He did the same thing, I don't know how many times he's been on stage, how many millions of people he's been out on stage in front of, Tony Robbins has a little declarative ritual that he does before he goes on stage.

[00:14:30] And gets him into the right frame and declares to himself and others in advance who he's gonna show up as. . So. To bring it back to your question, the reason you've perceived me as owning the value of my coaching is because now I've been doing it a while, so now I know in a cellular level how valuable coaching is, and so , I can own that.

[00:14:53] But if you'd have had this interview with me just a year ago, I was in a very different place where I was having to heavily rely on my declarations back then. 

[00:15:02] Judy Murdoch: Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing that, Harrison. 

[00:15:05] Harrison Moore: Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's great to if, to make it super practical for people.

[00:15:10] You can do this exercise, at home anytime. So if you're a coach, a, a fledgling coach that wants to, create more value for yourself and for your clients and to own it more, I would say, the question I would give you is. If you picture the world's best coach, the world's most effective coach that you know, that you can think, possibly think of.

[00:15:30] How, ask yourself, how would they show up to your next client meeting? And really go deep on this. Pull out a piece of paper, draw a little spider diagram, write their name in the center of the page, and then think about , how would they show up physically, right?

[00:15:44] Like, what would they wear? How would they breathe? How would they be standing? Would they be sitting? Would they be in a quiet room? Would they be outside? Where would they be physically?

[00:15:52] How would they show up emotionally? How would they show up spiritually?

[00:15:55] How would they show up intellectually?

[00:15:57] What would they be doing beforehand that gets them in the right frame of mind? What principles would they be honoring? What rules would they have? What questions would they have? You know, go really, really deep on this. It might only take you half an hour.

[00:16:10] This is what I did. And I ended up with a page full of random things and I looked at them all and I thought, yeah, this is how an amazing coach would show up. And then all I did was turned each of them into an I am statement. So it became, wow. It became, you know, I, I am creative. I am prepared for every session.

[00:16:32] 'cause I turn up early. I am, being powerfully coached myself. 'cause I believe that to be a coach, you've gotta be coached. I am, intelligent. I am enough, I am the full expression of my potential or whatever it was. I just ended up with a long list of I am dah, dah statements. And that's it.

[00:16:49] I haven't tried to embellish it. Polish it. I haven't published it. I haven't, I I won't share it with anyone. It's my personal document. But right before every session. I didn't do it before this, but I didn't think this was a coaching session. Um, but, but I would've liked, I should, maybe I should have done it before this interview.

[00:17:03] It would've been interesting. Right. Certainly before any coaching arrangement, I spend at least five minutes rereading that document out loud to myself. 

[00:17:12] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:12] Harrison Moore: And I challenge anybody, I don't care how inexperienced you are, I challenge you to do what? To do what I just described and read that document aloud to yourself.

[00:17:23] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:24] Harrison Moore: One week, every day for one week. 

[00:17:26] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:27] Harrison Moore: I shall I I guarantee your life will be different. 

[00:17:32] Judy Murdoch: Yes. I do something similar. It's not specific to coaching, but it is a list of things that I want to create that do not yet exist. 

[00:17:43] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:43] Judy Murdoch: And I can absolutely agree that when I write it and when I read it aloud, I read it aloud to what I call my web of kinship.

[00:17:52] It's like a little promise or a commitment that I'm making to myself and to the web of kinship that supports me. And it is surprisingly because I used to try out affirmations and they didn't work very well for me. But when I do make these statements and I feel like I'm making this, I am making these promises, not just to myself, but to this web of kinship that surrounds me, whatever different spirits or beings support me in the world.

[00:18:27] And I do believe that it's pretty vast. Just the action of take putting pen to paper and watching those words appear. 

[00:18:38] Harrison Moore: Yeah. 

[00:18:39] Judy Murdoch: It's pretty profound. 

[00:18:41] Harrison Moore: We're both writers, so we nerd out on writing. More and more as I learn more as a coach and read more coaching books and speak to more coaches and just have more coaching experiences, I am coming round to the idea more and more that the really the only creative tools each of us has are our words.

[00:19:03] We have easels and computers and cars and chairs and planes and all that stuff. And of course they're useful, but when you really boil it down, each of us is one thought away from sadness or frustration or anger. That also means we're one thought away from anything we want to create.

[00:19:22] Right? And everything we look at in, out in the world began as a thought in somebody's head that we, we all know that, but when you stop to, when you really think about it, like our words are all we have to create with or destroy with. 

[00:19:34] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. And so true. 

[00:19:36] Harrison Moore: I think that there are lots of different ways to kind of substantiate what we've been talking about.

[00:19:40] You could talk about it from like a neuroscientific point of view and say that the subconscious is really in charge. And so if you're constantly saying negative, disempowering things about yourself or to yourself, the subconscious is going to listen to you and that's not gonna create the life you want.

[00:19:53] That's one angle you could say. 

[00:19:54] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:55] Harrison Moore: You could talk about it from a more, more spiritual, philosophical standpoint. You could talk about it from a creative standpoint saying if my words are what I create with, then why not be more intentional about what I'm saying to myself and what I'm writing about myself?

[00:20:09] Judy Murdoch: Yes. 

[00:20:11] Harrison Moore: I think there's another angle to this as well around, I think it's something to do. I'd have to look it up, but it's something to do with mirror neurons. 

[00:20:20] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:21] Harrison Moore: This is more of a scientific angle on this, but the, essentially the brain doesn't know the difference between reality and make-believe, which is why if I, describe in great detail you walking into your kitchen, opening your fridge,

[00:20:38] reaching into the bottom drawer and pulling out a bright yellow waxy lemon, and then putting the lemon up to your nose and smelling that rich citrus smell. And then sinking your teeth into it and sucking the juice into your mouth. That's why. 

[00:20:53] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:54] Harrison Moore: Your mouth might be watering right now, or your, some of your listeners mouths may be watering slightly right now.

[00:20:59] The brain literally doesn't know if you're biting into a lemon or whether you're just listening to some dude on a podcast describe into a lemon. And that's really flipping profound. 'cause it means that when people say, when incantations and affirmations and I am statements don't work, they're silly.

[00:21:14] It's like, no, they're not. Your brain does not know the difference. So if you spend a week telling yourself you are a world class coach, or you are a world class artist, or you're a world class doctor, fill in the blank. By the end of that week, your brain will literally believe you are a world class doctor.

[00:21:32] Okay. 

[00:21:33] Judy Murdoch: So I am going to bring up a question for you on this. Because one of the issues that I have run into personally so this is a good opportunity for you to stand in your coaching space, is that I know that when I try to do, when I've done affirmations in the past, one of the things that happens is it has a tendency to trigger a lot of cautionary voices inside of me that, that start piping up and saying, uh, well, you can't have that and here's why.

[00:22:06] And, and I wanna really be clear that these voices are not, they're not against me. They're not trying to hurt me. Generally 

[00:22:17] Harrison Moore: speaking. They're trying to protect you. Yeah. They're 

[00:22:19] Judy Murdoch: trying to protect me. Correct. They are trying to keep me, usually the way I will say it when I talk to clients is they are, they're trying to keep us small and invisible.

[00:22:28] And not making waves because there are parts of our human self, right? Like our very get along with the tribe self that are saying, but you gotta get along because if you don't get along, hmm, right? In a hunter-gatherer world, if you're kicked out of the tribe, that's a death sentence. So we have that, that's very, very strong evolutionary wiring in us.

[00:22:53] And so I bring this up to you because I partly agree with you because it's been my experience and I am also aware that I have found that I really have to befriend and chat with these other voices who are piping up immediately and saying, are you crazy? No, you can't. You know, people will laugh at you, they'll mock you.

[00:23:21] Everybody will think you're weird. You know, there's, there's a lot of that social programming. So I'm just sharing this with you because I agree and I need to account for, I mean, maybe that works for you, but I have to also account for those little gremlins in me that are like, they have a lot to say.

[00:23:44] They have a lot to say, and it's all very negative. So I just want you to, I'm, I'm asking you if you want to, to perhaps, uh, address that as well. 

[00:23:54] Harrison Moore: Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's, let's slow down on this. This is very, uh, important and urgent as well, I think. Um, so. When you were, when you were describing these cautionary voices?

[00:24:07] At first, my instinctive thoughts, which I couldn't, I couldn't control. They just came up for me. Um, so if you don't, if you don't mind me sharing them, 

[00:24:15] Judy Murdoch: go for 

[00:24:16] Harrison Moore: it. Um, my, so the first instinctive thoughts that came up for me were, were Oh, it sounds like unfortunately, um, uh, at some point in Julie's, in, in Judy's past, she was told, um, that it was bad to sh you know, shine brightly or be, or be creative.

[00:24:36] Absolutely. You bet. Or rock the boat, step outside the line, you know, whatever. 

[00:24:40] Judy Murdoch: Right. I mean, to be clear, I was the granddaughter of a lot of recent immigrants to the United States, and they were, I mean, in some ways they were pretty, like, they took a huge risk, but they also had a deep desire to fit in and be successful and to look successful.

[00:25:01] Harrison Moore: And 

[00:25:01] Judy Murdoch: so I was, you know, no, I was never encouraged by anybody to like, get out there, take a risk, you know, do something that was not, those were not the values I was raised with. 

[00:25:14] Harrison Moore: You know, that makes, and it makes so much sense. There's a kind of inherited logic

[00:25:19] . That literally saved your ancestors' lives. Yeah. This was a life of death for them, right. This is likes, right. So, absolutely. So actually for them it was the, it was absolutely the wisest thing to do. Right. Um,

[00:25:39] my, I think if we were going to, be in a coaching partnership together, and , this was something that you wanted us to explore together, I'd be really. Curious to have more conversations with you around, around just trying to differentiate between the voices that are genuinely, still useful, and those that perhaps could be, could be questioned as being unhelpful now for you.

[00:26:06] So that, that would be a, an avenue that we might be able to go down, I think. 

[00:26:09] Judy Murdoch: Right, right. 

[00:26:10] Harrison Moore: The my favorite thing about what you said in all of this was befriending the voices. 

[00:26:15] Judy Murdoch: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:26:16] Harrison Moore: Right, 

[00:26:17] Judy Murdoch: right. 

[00:26:18] Harrison Moore: So, but wait a second. Before I talk about that, , I do wanna just quickly go back and go to, just to pick up on what you said about getting along with the tribe.

[00:26:27] So you are absolutely right, like your instinct for this is absolutely correct. Us human beings, we have this. Um, unsolvable tension in life between standing out and fitting in, right? Like, yes, we've all, we've all experienced this in our own way and it's, yeah. 

[00:26:46] Judy Murdoch: It's, it's like a fundamental tension, right?

[00:26:48] It is. And, and it's, uh, it, it comes, it's like standard operating equipment that comes with being a human being. Yeah. Um, which is always what, in my opinion, makes people so interesting is because we are these creatures of not just one, but multiple opposing tensions. 

[00:27:07] Harrison Moore: Yes, exactly. So there's the way I've, the way I've benefited from thinking about these tensions and , there are several of them, right?

[00:27:14] So there's, we've mentioned. Fitting in, standing out. That's one. Um, you might think of like exploring versus exploiting, and I don't mean exploiting in the negative sense, I just mean, the opposite of exploring. That's one. You've got like certainty and surprise, right?

[00:27:31] These are things that we need it all as human beings. We know this, right? We need all of these things at different times in different contexts. The challenge then is when to switch because it's not as if this is a problem that we just need to solve once and for all. That's silly.

[00:27:45] Right. And also it's not as if we want to get stuck at one end of that Correct. Of one of those, of one of those polarities. 

[00:27:52] Judy Murdoch: Right. The word that comes to mind for me is, always looking for kind of a point of equilibrium. Yeah. For us at a particular time in our lives. 

[00:28:04] Harrison Moore: Yeah.

[00:28:04] Judy Murdoch: Right. Yeah. So we're always on different spaces, places on these, you know, these continuums. 

[00:28:10] Harrison Moore: Yeah. 

[00:28:10] Judy Murdoch: I think what came up for me as you were speaking, was I think oftentimes if when you're coaching somebody, oftentimes the issue they're bringing is that they were on one point of that continuum. It's not working anymore.

[00:28:25] Mm. 

[00:28:26] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. Right? 

[00:28:27] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. And, and so they're feeling that tension of this isn't working, but I don't know what I should do otherwise. 

[00:28:35] Harrison Moore: Right. Exactly. 

[00:28:35] Judy Murdoch: And oftentimes that is, that's a real gift that coaches offer their clients, is to help them figure that out. 

[00:28:42] Harrison Moore: I think so. I think that's a good way to put it.

[00:28:44] 'cause I think coaching, I think one, one really neat way that I've come across for describing. What do coaches do? What's the relationship of the coach to the client? I, I like to think of it as, uh, the client is, is the subject matter expert of their life. 

[00:28:59] Judy Murdoch: Yep. 

[00:29:00] Harrison Moore: And the coach is maybe a process expert, right?

[00:29:03] They're working with lots of different people. They've been through lots of personal development transformations themselves. They're skilled in, in understanding the patterns, how human beings work overall, how the world works overall. And that's really useful, oversight to be able to bring to somebody's subject matter of their life, which is often very complex, very nuanced.

[00:29:23] 'cause as we all know, being in the middle of our lives is complicated at times. 

[00:29:28] Judy Murdoch: Very always.

[00:29:31] Harrison Moore: But the thing, just, just back to what I was saying, the thing that I loved that you said the most was befriending the voices. Yeah. This is, this is absolutely key. Right. So I would. Again, it's, I can feel myself wanting to flex into coach mode, which I don't wanna do here, but if we were working together, I'd be super excited to explore what it would mean for you and how it would feel.

[00:29:58] Forget about what you think. Right. 'cause thinking is thinking, but feeling is never wrong. Right. Thinking can be wrong. I think feeling is never wrong. Um, I would be really interested and curious, like to know how it would feel for you to actually love these voices. Like Yeah. Really standing 

[00:30:17] Judy Murdoch: there, 

[00:30:18] Harrison Moore: but I, yeah, I mean literally what would it mean for you if instead of, um, feeling affronted by the Yeah.

[00:30:29] And wanting to shoo them away, or ignore them or cover them up, or just, you know, getting frustrated. 

[00:30:33] Judy Murdoch: Right. What 

[00:30:34] Harrison Moore: would, what would happen if instead you sat for a few minutes with them and turned on them, the type of love that you would turn on a favorite pet or maybe your partner, 

[00:30:45] Judy Murdoch: right, right. 

[00:30:46] Harrison Moore: Or, or a child.

[00:30:47] Judy Murdoch: That's what I call them, gremlins Harrison is because I think it's a, it, it, um, it, it makes them a little friendlier. And I have also thought, you've reminded me of a idea where I think it would be really fun to paint them or draw 'em. And they're, it's actually a company that you can send your paintings, drawings, doodles to, and they will turn them into stuffed creatures.

[00:31:08] So I think that would be a really fun thing to do. It would. Yeah. And it would be, I think, a really very healing process too. Um, I could talk so much more about this because, you and I both really love these developmental Yeah. Things that we help people with. Um, I, what is something that I'm, I'm gonna change, um, I'm going to change the conversation a bit.

[00:31:35] Harrison Moore: Yeah. What is 

[00:31:35] Judy Murdoch: one thing that you wish other coaches would do more of or less of and why? 

[00:31:44] Harrison Moore: Hmm. It's a really good question. I feel a bit uncomfortable, answering the question on behalf of the coaches, but I can tell you what I wish I'd do more and less of. Okay. If that's okay. 

[00:31:55] Judy Murdoch: Fair enough.

[00:31:56] Harrison Moore: That's, if that's all right. Um,

[00:32:04] I know it is. See, I close my eyes. I try and not stay in my head too much. I just think about my body, my feelings, my emotions, and I quickly connect. And the answer comes to me. It's stop trying to over prepare. So I'll just explain what I mean. So I notice I'm noticing a pattern in myself as a coach.

[00:32:25] Usually about an hour or two before I'm due to have a coaching session with somebody. I have these, this same thought loop in my head, and it goes something like this. Oh shit. You are seeing David in two hours. Shit. You haven't, spoken to David for two weeks.

[00:32:43] Yeah. What was it that you and David were talking about us? Oh, shit. I need to go on my computer and look at my notes. 

[00:32:50] Judy Murdoch: Okay. 

[00:32:52] Harrison Moore: This is all happening very quickly, but this, yeah. 

[00:32:53] Judy Murdoch: Uh, yes. And I can relate. So 

[00:32:55] Harrison Moore: yeah, then it's, like, you know, then I go back and I check my notes and I get reacquainted with where David's at and where I'm at, and I can get back into it emotionally, connect to it, and I feel a bit better, but then that raises more questions.

[00:33:06] It's like. How many coaching sessions have I had with David yet? Okay. Three of six. Okay. Shit, we're halfway through the thing. Has he? Yeah. How, how close or far away are with him achieving his overall goal? Yeah. Oh, if he, I wonder what David's thinking about the coaching experience. Does he think it's actually not very useful?

[00:33:23] Um, oh my God, what if, what if David will, uh, you know, finishes with me amicably walks, goes his separate way, and then tells 10 people in his life that coaching's pretty shit. I had a pretty lousy coach once called Harrison. Right? So this is, this is like, 

[00:33:36] Judy Murdoch: yeah. Yeah. I, I have a feeling that a lot of people, other coaches would hear this and they would be like, yeah, Ahuh, 

[00:33:43] Harrison Moore: this is literally the spiral that happens and it happens super quick, you know, but 

[00:33:47] Judy Murdoch: the thing too is right, we care.

[00:33:50] Oh yeah. That's like a big piece of it, right? We care. I think maybe the question that comes up for me then is when does caring turn into. Being overly attached, right? Like being overly attached to the client's outcomes, for example. 

[00:34:06] Harrison Moore: Yeah. Well this is a really good, this is another very, important point that anybody that's coaching or learning to coach will definitely come up against pretty quickly if they read any of the coaching literature or try and train under somebody else is, coaching, like any discipline.

[00:34:20] We, we've already talked about several paradoxes in life in any discipline, as we all know. It has. There are some just inherent paradoxes that are just infinitely fascinating and unsolvable and just like strange and, but great to talk about. Coaching is no different. One of the paradoxes of coaching is that, nobody wants a needy coach.

[00:34:42] That's not a paradox. That's just a fact, right? No, nobody wants that 

[00:34:45] Judy Murdoch: is yes, you are correct. 

[00:34:47] Harrison Moore: Just imagine it. Imagine. Speaking to someone that you were considering it to hiring as a coach and you, just could tell they were needy, they really needed your business, it'd be 

[00:34:55] Judy Murdoch: cringe-worthy you'd never hire.

[00:34:57] Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I wanna say too, Harrison, one, thing is just with a put from a place of compassion. 

[00:35:06] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. A 

[00:35:07] Judy Murdoch: lot of people are in a needy space. Of course. So not saying like, but I mean not saying that's like, that's the part I hear what you're saying. Totally. And at the same time, ugh. You think to yourself, well I wish someone would coach them or help them or guide them because it's really normal to be needy 'cause we're human.

[00:35:30] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we also have to be able to be capable of self-observation and catching ourselves and saying, I'm needy, and okay, so like, what do I do to take care of myself? So I'm not bringing this into the coaching conversation 

[00:35:49] Harrison Moore: is so right. I just want to, I just wanna say here that what you are talking about now is the paradox I was referring to.

[00:35:57] Right? So we, we don't wanna be, need a, that's, that's standard. But the paradox is that we are always need a, how can we not be, right? Yeah. So how do you deal with it? I, how do I deal with it? I, there are, I think there are two things. There are two ways I think that I've approached it and it's been successful both times.

[00:36:16] One , is to think. Look, I don't wanna bring this into the coaching space with this person. I don't want this to be part of this, equation at all. And it's about getting out of my own head and into their head. It's like, 

[00:36:29] Judy Murdoch: yeah, 

[00:36:30] Harrison Moore: It's getting past my ego forgetting about myself, not being attached to the outcome and actually just immersing myself in their words.

[00:36:38] What, where they are trying to imagine that I'm them. What am I going through? What's it like to be them? And I obviously, the more that you can get out of your own head and into somebody else's, the less needy you become. Agreed. 

[00:36:49] Judy Murdoch: No, absolutely agree.

[00:36:51] Harrison Moore: So sometimes that works and, but that only works if my preexisting needy level wasn't like at its maximum, right?

[00:36:58] Now what happens when I'm just like, I remember earlier on in my coaching practice when I had barely any clients at all, and I knew that somehow I need to spend more time on this to get clients, but. Um, I'm not earning anything yet, so how am I gonna spend more time on it when I don't earn anything?

[00:37:15] There was a paradox there for sure. I, I remember particularly in the beginning, I was very needy for money. Yeah. Literally. And it wasn't a greediness, it was a, if I don't make, if I don't make a sale this month, I might have to quit this for good. Yeah. It was like that kind of neediness.

[00:37:31] Now how did I deal with it then? It was too, the neediness was too strong to be able to dampen down and pretend and get out of my own head. It was just too strong. So I think, again, it's about noticing yourself. How strong is it in me? Is this a 10 out of 10 neediness or is this a six out of 10 or a four out of 10?

[00:37:48] A four out of 10? Or maybe even a six out of 10 I can sort of deal with by forgetting myself temporarily and putting myself in their shoes and nine or a 10. I don't know. I, I don't know about anybody else, but I can't hide that level of neediness. So, um, the solution was just to be honest about it, right?

[00:38:04] So it's like saying to clients, , I don't remember the exact words, but like something along the lines of, you might notice a certain pushiness in me today, John. Um, and I just want to point that out in advance so that you're not wondering about it. The re the reason for the pushiness is today I've woken up and I'm just aware that I'm FI have feelings of neediness in me and I dunno where they're coming from, but, they're there and I'm do, and I'm cracking on anyway.

[00:38:32] You know, kind of just just telling people the truth, like 

[00:38:34] Judy Murdoch: Yeah. And 

[00:38:36] Harrison Moore: John John's, John's gonna be like, cool, man. Like, I, yeah. Slightly odd, but I get it. 

[00:38:41] Judy Murdoch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's great. I love that. I so wish there was, I mean, just to the question I just asked you, I so wish there was more of that ability among other coaches.

[00:38:58] To just kind of own where they're at, whatever that happens to be. 

[00:39:02] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:03] Judy Murdoch: Um, because being able to share your humanity with another person, it's very powerful. 

[00:39:10] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:10] Judy Murdoch: It is so powerful, you know? And, um, I mean, it gives them permission too. 

[00:39:16] Harrison Moore: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:39:17] Judy Murdoch: And it gives them a sense of acceptance and compassion.

[00:39:23] That's really powerful. That is powerful stuff. 

[00:39:27] Harrison Moore: It's really powerful. Yeah. Yeah. And like any significant or powerful quality of a skill or a domain, I think it does demand a level of, intention and awareness and care. Right. Because Totally agree.

[00:39:45] You can go too far, like. I'll come back to what I said earlier, John, even if I'm being honest with him about my neediness, he doesn't want a needy coach. That's the truth. So he might be willing to be open-minded with me and think, I'm really glad my coach is so honest with me.

[00:40:01] That's an amazing thing. It means I can be honest with him. That's great. And at the same time, I just need to make sure that I'm not showing up like that too often. You know, and I'm not over venting to him about my own neediness because it's not about me. It's about him.

[00:40:12] Understood. 

[00:40:13] Judy Murdoch: Yes. Understood. With, 

[00:40:14] Harrison Moore: with all of these things, it's just a trial and error thing. You, make mistakes, you learn from it, you get a little bit better, you gain a bit of wisdom. 

[00:40:22] Judy Murdoch: Yeah.

[00:40:22] Something I just wanna say, this is an observation on my end, it's, is I, early in my coaching career, one of my coaches told me that when you're making a choice between like working on yourself.

[00:40:41] Or learning a skill. She said, you should, you always want to be working on yourself. And by that she meant you always wanna really be thinking about what kind of a human being am I, and how am I showing up in the world? And, um, I think at least for myself, coaching really has forced me to be a grownup.

[00:41:05] Harrison Moore: Yeah. 

[00:41:06] Judy Murdoch: You know? Yeah. Sometimes I use the Sherpa analogy that because I think there's a lot of similarities in that you want a Sherpa who knows the mountain and they know the path and they know the dangers, but they don't climb the mountain for you. They accompany you. Right. Nice, 

[00:41:27] Harrison Moore: nice metaphor.

[00:41:27] Yeah. 

[00:41:28] Judy Murdoch: Yeah. I, I just think that, and I think that's a good thing that. Coaching is a a career that really demands that you learn to show up as a better version of yourself and to deal with your shit. 

[00:41:44] Harrison Moore: Totally, totally. Here's, here's, here's one of the other great paradoxes within coaching that you are touching on here.

[00:41:51] It's the, I said earlier, it's nothing to do with me. It's about them. I'm talking about the client here. Right. That really is true. Your client is is working with you on their life. And all of this shit that I'm bringing to the equation in my head about show, not being this and not being that, that's all my baggage.

[00:42:10] That's, it's nothing to do with the coaching relationship actually. So that's, that's one truth that we have to hold as sacrosanct. At the same time, there's this strange way in which all of the coaching. Partnerships I have are all for me. Yeah, of course. Me as the coach, me as the coach, I'm learning just as much.

[00:42:30] Judy Murdoch: Yeah, for sure. That's always something I remember people, coaches would say to me, I learned more from my clients and they learned from me. And this was early in my career and I was kinda like, yeah, okay, whatever. But so true. What we learn is different from what the client learns, but like, man, I, I learned so much from my clients.

[00:42:50] It's always good. Always good stuff. 

[00:42:52] Harrison Moore: There's one other way in which that truth, exists as well, which I think about it slightly differently, but it's very much related.

[00:42:58] It's the old, oxygen mask analogy from being on a plane. You know on a plane, they always say, make sure you put your mask on before before putting it on your kids it's self-evident why that's a wise thing to do.

[00:43:09] And it applies in personal development as well it does human psychology, . The more that I can help myself overcome big obstacles and go through big transformations, the more I can help other people. So, that's right. One of the things I find really fascinating about coaching is that, the answer to the question, how do I help my client with this crazy X, y, Z problem is almost always, well, how are you going to help yourself with that problem?

[00:43:35] And that's nearly always the the right answer. 

[00:43:37] Judy Murdoch: Yes, you are absolutely right. Usually the more. Triggered we are by a client issue, the more it's our issue to deal with. 

[00:43:45] Harrison Moore: Right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:46] Judy Murdoch: Yeah, 

[00:43:47] Harrison Moore: it's all really symbiotic and beautiful. And I think it's what people mean when they say, it's difficult to help people through a transformation.

[00:43:56] We've not been through ourselves. 

[00:43:58] Judy Murdoch: Agreed. 

[00:43:59] Harrison Moore: I don't buy into that fully because I don't like absolutes in black and white statements. I just think that can be true in many situations in, , scenarios, but sometimes it's not true. Or sometimes there's a truer thing that's more relevant. I 

[00:44:14] Judy Murdoch: It doesn't necessarily have to be that exact situation. 

[00:44:18] Harrison Moore: Mm. 

[00:44:18] Judy Murdoch: What comes to me is that you need to be somebody who. Can I, think, create a container for the client to have their experience.

[00:44:29] Which means that, I just feel a sense of responsibility to kind of hold the client and give them a safe place 

[00:44:39] Harrison Moore: mm-hmm.

[00:44:40] Judy Murdoch: Be where they're at. And it doesn't necessarily mean I've been through what they're going through, but maybe like in the terms of emotional intensity or challenge or whatever that happens to be, I've had experience with it and I can handle it.

[00:44:56] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. 

[00:44:57] Judy Murdoch: If that makes sense. I think there's wisdom too, if your client is experiencing something and you honestly don't think you can help them, I think it's really okay to call in somebody else. 

[00:45:08] Harrison Moore: Mm-hmm. 

[00:45:08] Judy Murdoch: Who has that experience. I think that's just due diligence really, again, because I think of our, it's a profession and we have, in my opinion, we should hold ourselves to a pretty high standard of integrity in what we do.

[00:45:25] Harrison Moore: Absolutely. And, there, there's a few things I can say about this. One is that it comes back to the neediness bit. So earlier on in a coaching practice, it's tougher to say no to someone that you just don't quite feel the connection with. Something's not, quite right. You might not be able to explain why, but your instinct is telling you, you are not the coach for them right now.

[00:45:48] Right. Yeah. And you, you have to say no, but when you, early on, early on in your career and it's, and it's going really well and you really need a sale, that becomes really hard to say now. 

[00:45:57] Judy Murdoch: Yes, it does.

[00:45:58] Harrison Moore: And then the other thing I wanted to say about , was that there's a real, relationship between owning your worth as a coach that we discussed at the very start and being more selective with your clients.

[00:46:12] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:46:13] Harrison Moore: So it's like as as your self-confidence in the value of your coaching grows.

[00:46:18] So too does your confidence and clarity about who you want to help and why 

[00:46:24] I like telling this story 'cause it's a really great insight into, the coaching dynamic. But more importantly, it touches on something that's so crucial to a good coaching partnership.

[00:46:35] And that's commitment from both sides. I've been in this situation a couple of times now. I'm not gonna give any names or share anything confidential, I've been in a couple of conversations. These conversations have not been coaching conversations.

[00:46:44] They are what I call offer and decision conversations. So these conversations take place after some coaching has already happened. And it's the 30 to 60 minute call in which the prospect and I get to reflect on their experience of coaching so far, what they wanna do in going forward.

[00:47:00] It's where I share an offer with them and where they decide whether they want to hire me or not. That's the nature of this one conversation. 

[00:47:06] Judy Murdoch: Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:07] Harrison Moore: That's the context. So I've, I've been in a couple of these now where people have said yes.

[00:47:12] In the past I would've just been like, great, here's my bank details, let's put it in the calendar. Because of the training that I'm getting. I know that a really important step after somebody said yes, is to test the yes, right?

[00:47:26] Now I spend time saying, what are you actually saying yes to, right?

[00:47:30] Judy Murdoch: Interesting. 

[00:47:31] Harrison Moore: You can see on, on client's face they're shocked.

[00:47:36] I think they're like dude, I've just said yes. I'm ready to pay you and you are.

[00:47:39] I'm not stalling. I'm No, I get it. I, I want to know that they, I, I want to know how motivated they are. I want to know that they're clear on what we're gonna do together. And I wanna know that they're not just like people pleasing because

[00:47:52] There are literally times when people say yes to something because they think they're scared of saying no or something. Right. 

[00:47:58] Judy Murdoch: Right. Yes. 

[00:47:59] Harrison Moore: And so I put a little bit of healthy pressure on people in that situation and say, what are you saying yes to? And then the next step is how are you going to talk yourself out of this between now and the first session? And they cannot believe I'm asking them that. 

[00:48:10] Judy Murdoch: I love that though. I think that's great.

[00:48:12] Harrison Moore: And then it, and they might say, they might say, I'm, I, I won't talk myself out of it. I I'm gonna pay you tomorrow.

[00:48:17] It's gonna happen. And I'm like, no, come on. Look, it's gonna be two weeks before I see you again. 

[00:48:21] Judy Murdoch: Right, 

[00:48:22] Harrison Moore: right. Your brain, your brain is gonna come up with all kinds of reasons why you don't do this. What are they? And we have a very interesting conversation about I'll bet. Yeah. What ways they're gonna talk themselves out of it.

[00:48:33] And then I say, you know, is there any way I can support you through 

[00:48:37] Judy Murdoch: That's great. 

[00:48:38] Harrison Moore: Through, so the reason I'm telling this story is because it goes to the heart of, I think, what a good coaching partnership is, which is it should be somewhat confrontational. Yeah. Because that's what people actually need.

[00:48:51] They don't need another yes man or yes girl. They need somebody to be like, hang on a minute, let's slow down and get this right.

[00:48:58] Most importantly, it's about making sure that they are saying yes for the right reasons. Because if people, say yes for the right reasons, then it will be transformative for them. 

[00:49:09] Judy Murdoch: Yes. Well said. Well said, Harrison. That's, that's quite brilliant. I could talk to you for another two hours about this. This is such a great topic, and you're so thoughtful and you have so much to say about it.

[00:49:21] For people who want to learn more about you, how do they find you? 

[00:49:26] Harrison Moore: Yeah. Thank you. I think the best thing to do is go to my publication, which is, called Creative Thought Partner, which you can find on Substack, type in creative Thought partner and substack.

[00:49:37] Alternatively, you can search for, um, Harrison Moore, that's M-O-O-R-E on LinkedIn, uh, or Substack as well. I think it will, my name will come up on Substack. Everything. I produce and share comes through that publication. 

[00:49:52] Judy Murdoch: So you, through Substack, right? 

[00:49:54] Harrison Moore: Yes, exactly. We met through Substack.

[00:49:56] Yeah. Good. Yeah. It's a great place to meet great people. 

[00:50:00] Judy Murdoch: Yeah. It's been fun. Harrison, thank you again so much for everything you brought to our conversation. 

[00:50:06] Harrison Moore: It's a pleasure. I can't wait to have another conversation.