Strategic Intervention Handbook - How To Quickly Produce Profound Change in Yourself and Others

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1: Finding the Purpose
Elevation
Finding the Spark
Six Human Needs
2: SI Coaching Tools
Keys to Understanding
Connecting and Understanding
Problems & Challenges
Giving a Problem a Purpose
Getting Leverage
Self Leverage
Interrupt the Limiting Problem
Empowering Alternatives
Condition and Test
Rewards
Empowering Environment
Social Support
3: Problems, Patterns, and Triggers
Redefining the Problem
Reprioritizing the Human Needs
Changing the Definition of a Problem
Safe Problems
Fairy Godparent Strategy
Emotional Triggers
Crazy Eight Strategy
4: Community, Strength, and Life Stage
Expanding the Unit
Discovering Strengths
Overcoming Self Sabotage
Life Stages
5: Metaphors
Metaphors for Understanding
Metaphors for Success
Metaphorical Actions
Storytelling
Indirect Communication
The Three Ps: Posture, Purpose, Presence
Empowering Disagreement
Archetype Process
6: Creative Solutions
Pattern Interrupt
Positive Leverage
Creative Brainstorming
Triad
Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal
Ordeal
Memory Modification
7: Family Dynamics
Hierarchy in the Family
Loyalty in Action
Intimacy as a Boundary
Aligning Parenting Strategies
Parents as Leaders
Subsystems in the Family
Just Pick Three
About the Authors
Anchoring and Indirect Communication
Archetype Process
Condition and Test for Ecology
Crazy Eight
Creating an Empowering Environment
Elevation
Emotional Triggers
Expanding Social Support Systems
Expanding the Unit
Finding the Spark
Hierarchy and Cross Generational Coalition
Including the Family
Just Pick Three
Connecting and Understanding your Client
Getting Leverage
Self-Leverage
Life Stages
Limiting Problems
Loyalty in Action
Memory Modification
Metaphor
Ordeal
Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Meeting Goals
Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal for Understanding
Pattern Interrupt
Patterns of Self Sabotage
Positive Leverage
Pretend
Safe Problems
Six Human Needs
Storytelling
Subsystems in a Family
Symptom as Metaphor
The Three Ps
Triad
Using Visualization and Reward
When a Coach Feels Stuck
Prologue
by Magali Peysha
Why we do what we do
Every story has a beginning, and like most of us, mine begins with my family. I was raised in a rather
unusual way. As a child of the 70's, along with too much T.V. a love hate relationship with disco, and
very big hair (well, that was the 80s) I also found myself thinking a lot about just how crazy people
could be. Not the ordinary thoughts of 10 year old in 1980, but it made sense considering I was being
brought up in the tradition of Strategic Family Therapy.
My parents, who were both very prestigious in this world, ran a center where they taught Family
Therapy. They also flew me all over the world with them to lectures at conferences where they were
presenting ideas to therapists and psychologists on how to help families. This was the flourishing of
the Strategic approach to change. Following the popularization of the work of Milton Erickson, the
therapy world was on fire with strategies for creating rapid change in people by having them perform
simple strategic actions that would transform their entire family.
Since my parents were co-founders of this movement, I had the privilege and the “reality check” of
getting to know the most well-known thought leaders in this field, usually over an Italian meal. There
were constant creative discussions about how to invent new strategies to solve even the most
stubborn human problems. These therapy wizards were constantly talking about how to discover what
was and was not working in the life of an individual or a family group, so that the therapists could
create wild, and unique strategies for helping the family system change, and so that the individuals
could be happier and the relationships more harmonious.
As a child, I ate this up. It was better than TV and yummier than pizza. While my girlfriends were at
horseback riding or ballet class, I was sitting in the training room, alongside the social workers and
PhDs who had come to be supervised. Part of the training experience was to use a one-way-mirror.
There would be a therapy room with two couches where a therapist would be meeting with an
individual, couple, or family. In one of the walls was a one-way mirror, and behind that mirror, a
classroom analyzing and teaching the therapy as it took place and calling into the room to give the
therapist supervision. Seeing dramatic change in real people in real time was far more exciting and
gratifying than the regular world. Little did I know that I was an apprentice in an age-old tradition of
observation. Most weeks, I was immersed in this tradition for twenty hours or more. This went on for
over a decade and even when I was studying in college I'd come home to get my time behind the one-
way mirror.
One thing about me: as a child, I had a habit of not being able to keep my mouth shut. So, if I had an
idea, I shared it. My mom and dad were the teachers, after all, and they always encouraged me to
share my mind. Often they would use my suggestion, and I'd have the satisfaction of seeing a person or
family transform based on my idea. This gave me an unbreakable faith in the ability to create change
in people, simply by helping them look at their lives in a way that promoted action. It was an
enthusiasm I shared with my parents, each of whom developed their own way of going with my nature
and training me in their art of human change.
What still puzzled me was how the masters of human change whom I had gotten to know around the
dinner table continued to suffer from their own problems. They had invented incredible strategies for
transforming their patients, but sometimes it seemed they were immune to their own medicine. This
seemed vey inauthentic to me. How can it be? If these strategies work because they act on the patient's
own needs, social systems, and greater good, why so often do they not work for the one doing the
change? Is it that the therapist is different? Is it that the therapists become overwhelmed by the
emotional burdens of their work and can no longer help themselves? As much as I believed in the
power of the strategic approach, this puzzled and disturbed me.
Now, fast-forward with me to my first day of a master's program in social work. At this point, I've
had my years of college fun and it is time to join the family mission. I am going to help people just
like my parents. I'll take over their center and lead the kind of life I know very well, perhaps too
well. I've swallowed my apprehensions of following in the rather large footsteps of my parents. I've
overcome my worries about the stress of this kind of work has on the therapists and psychologists I've
known. I've come to terms, maybe, of the limitations of the strategic approach – it works for the
patient, although not always for the practitioner. I've made my peace with these hard realities, and I'm
ready to join the ranks.
Three weeks into the semester I withdrew. Why? Because, nearly by chance, I stumbled upon the
ancient healing practice of Ayurveda, a science of healing that integrated the well being of the
practitioner as well as the client. It seemed to answer my deepest questions about how to help people.
It was a philosophy of life whose wisdom encompassed the personal and the interpersonal, the
emotional, spriritual and physical. And maybe, most of all, it meant I could study this new frontier of
holistic healing, which was a great counterpoint to everything I'd studied before, which was strategic
and communication based. I realize that I'd rather be focusing on helping a person find balance,
strengthening their happiness skills, getting them the knowledge they need to communicate with others
but also with themselves and with their bodies.
Ayurveda felt so right, so perfect for me, that I quietly dis-enrolled myself from graduate school and
bought tickets for my fiancé and myself to go to India, the heart of Ayurveda.
For the next ten years, I integrated everything I'd learned growing up in the world of Strategic Family
Therapy with my new knowledge of Ayurveda. I finished a degree from the California College of
Ayurveda and began a coaching practice that specialized in this unique combination of Strategic
Coaching and Ayurvedic Wellness Coaching. My husband Mark, meanwhile, had gone on a different
search for meaning. He entered a PhD program at Harvard, where he immersed himself in the
integrations of cultural study, communication theory, psychology and philosophy.
These were some intense years for us. We also found the energy (thank you Ayurveda) to create 5
lovely children who have taught us more and have given us greater joy than is measurable. After
Mark graduated from his degree at Harvard, we started our work together in the field of Strategic
Intervention Coaching.
One day we got a call from my mother, Cloe, who said a man named Anthony Robbins had read her
book, loved it, and had invited her to Fiji to meet with him about a possible collaboration. He had
sent her some videos of his coaching work in large seminars. She passed them to us. We were very
excited and encouraged her to go and meet this unusual man. When she came back, she said Tony had
asked her to partner with him. She had told him about our work as well, and he had invited us to be
included in the project. Clearly there was a synergy in our interests, and so a partnership was born.
I'll never forget listening to Mark as he envisioned an integration of the different methods for creating
change in the world. Strategic Therapy had originated with the work of the Mental Research Institute,
where people like Gregory Bateson and Jay Haley were discovering what makes strategic change
happen. They spent years analyzing and understanding the work of Milton Erickson so that he could
be understood, and led to breakthroughs in systemic thinking and systemic change in individuals,
couples, families, work groups, large groups, and cultures. Entire disciplines were born from this
work, like cybernetics, strategic therapy, family therapy, strategic parts of diplomacy and negotiation,
game theory. Mark's vision was to re-integrate these findings within a set of principles and practices
that anybody could learn to create change in others. Soon Strategic Intervention was born as its own
field, an integration of change, coaching and action methodology.
About seven years into Mark and my work with Cloe and Tony, we were given the amazing challenge
to start a school for coaches that would highlight both the unique qualities of life coaching and
strategic family therapy, the goal being to synthesize a new method for helping and creating lasting
change from these rich traditions.
Now, after four years of teaching over four thousand students in the art of Strategic Intervention
Coaching and seeing their lives, careers, and relationships transformed by this model of change, I felt
it was time to take all the fantastic strategies that we use every week with clients, students and
ourselves and share them with the world. Our mission is to give you the skills, ideas, and strategies
that make it easy to create change, know who you are, and help people on every level of their being.
Every day I receive the gift of using these strategies and on most days of creating a few new ones. I
hope you use this book as a starting point and then let yourself flow with the creative spirit that is at
the heart of Strategic Intervention Coaching. Allowing healing, growth and connection to become a
natural part of your relationships, work and most importantly allow it to become the way you treat
yourself. Know that you always have a new way to see a problem, a different option that is possible,
and deep love and understanding of yourself that keeps you focused on what matters most to you.
When you approach your life and relationships from this place of knowing yourself and your purpose
every day becomes exceptional.
Magali Peysha
Introduction: Five Levels of Understanding and
Four Types of Clients
When people ask us what Strategic Intervention Coaching is, we often answer:
“What we do is take the time to understand a person, with no other agenda, understand their
objectives, dreams, goals, relationships, and world, and help them achieve what they want most in
life… that's something that most people have never experienced before.”
The Five Levels of Understanding is a framework for your first several sessions when you're learning
about your client and they are making a huge investment in you. You're going to understand and make
connections nobody else can.
It is our wish for you as a coach that you can understand your client’s mind set right from the
beginning of your work together. This is why we believe it can be useful to learn about the four types
of clients. We use the elements to explain and name these types of clients. We created the four types of
client mind sets, gathering inspiration from Ayurvedic personality types and our experience with
thousands of coaching clients. As with all “types” you may find an individual is a combination of the
types or a new type altogether.
When we begin coaching a client it is very normal for the client to not be sure of what their goals,
dreams or wishes are for the coaching process they are about to begin. This is just fine. I invite you to
put yourself in the client’s mind.
Magali:
I often find that the Four types of client mindsets cover most coaching clients and I’m going to present
you with examples of how the first level of understanding the goals/dreams and wishes level which
we call the truth level would effect the 4 types of Clients:
Level 1: Understanding the client's mindset
Four Client Mindsets
Fire Client:
The Fire Client typically says and think things like:

“I am finally taking action.” Or “I have this, this and this I want to accomplish.”
The Fire client is on fire to get things done, create results, and actualize goals or fix relationships in
their life.
This type of client needs strong feedback, directives and sometimes to be slowed down to work step
by step with the agreement that you will speed up as they need you to. Allow them to do what they are
good at, creating visual maps, ideals and goals, timing/tracking and organizational visual tools like
boards or diagrams.
Work with the Fire client’s strength to plan. What you want to avoid giving them are unorganized lists
of directives which they can’t get done. If you overload the client they may quickly decide to change
to another plan or coach.
What they like to have is clear priorities and a lot of input and control over how they will meet their
goals. They may need to be shown gently that their goals and ways of doing things could be
challenging for others around them, who are more like the other three types of client’s we will
discuss.
When the Fire Client understands this they can then find much greater satisfaction in their personal
and professional relationships. You will probably put a lot of focus on helping them with their
relationships and communication style. This is worth the time and effort because once of Fire client
can communicate well they can do almost anything to create transformation.
Air Client:
I can dream, explore and imagine with my coach. This is comfortable for me. I go to many helpers and
I love the process. The outcome part is trickier. I tend to have many unfinished projects, as well as
lots of ideas and dreams. I would like a coach that will help me get organized, efficient and focused
while appreciating the nature of sharing and expanding my perspective.
This client type just like air, space and clouds is very expansive, intelligent and free floating. They
should be admired for their great ideas and also reassured that you will hold the healing and
transformative space for them. You will guide them in forming strategic step by step plans, whether
regarding relationship, work, or specific outcomes they will need your support. They benefit from you
being the container for their expansive thoughts and hopes. As their coach you can help them to come
gently back to earth and make their dreams happen.
The Air client can have a tendency to get overwhelmed and go off to distract themselves with another
idea, relationship or dream.
Key points regarding the Air client:
Small steps
Lots of Reassurance
Lots of brainstorming sessions- allowing the process to feel good by, doing what comes naturally to
the client.
Creative- let there be room for improvisation and new ideas.
Earth Client:
This client may not have a clear agenda for coaching at all or even a lot of ideas. They do have a nice
strong energy and direction. Typically they will let you know they have an expansive general wish
like, “To bring my family closer together.” Or “To have my team at work feel united.”
You then need to get very detailed in your questions. Sometimes this feels like pulling information out
of the Earth client. Get them to tell you about each person in their family or particular environment.
Keep asking questions and elevating them through reflecting on their overall desire, purpose or
dreams.
Give one very specific directive per week. Allow this type of client to reflect deeply on each week’s
directive and explore with you what their emotions are. Emotions are usually very strong in these
clients and they really enjoy spending time with their coach acknowledging emotions like connection,
trust, and giving. As well as values and rules. Some typical values that Earth clients feel strongly
about are loyalty, honesty and conviction.
They may get stuck in the small expression of their bigger emotions. This is where you can be very
helpful as their coach. Right from the start you could give your client exact ways to express their
larger emotions and wishes to those around them. When they are able to do this, the people in their
life will tend to believe and feel the emotion quickly because there is a strong powerful purpose to
the emotions and wishes of the Earth client.
Water Client:
This client type is usually very focused on either their own or another’s emotions. What they crave is
emotion. Therefore you should make state and emotions a good and substantial goal. Remember to
really dig in and understand what a particular emotion means to them and when and how they are used
to feeling it or when and how in the future they would like to experience it. Since all our emotions
mean something different to us. It is important that as coaches we don’t assume to understand another
person’s definition of their emotion.
A typical statement made by a water client is:

“I want to feel deeply, madly in love.” When the client makes this their goal for coaching, it is
important to recognize at what a strong level they are trusting you and how for them this feeling of
love is just as urgent a goal as for another type of client the goal of finishing a project would be. So,
you will be helping your client to find a specific way to get their emotions actualized. They will also
need your help in understanding other emotions and discovering new ways of feeling events and
interactions. Often, when an emotion is the goal, the client may not understand that they have their
own specific definition of an emotion as well as rules, patterns, and beliefs about that emotion. As
you open this realization up for them you are teaching, sharing and shifting one of their core truths into
a form that they can use to meet their goal of feeling more of a certain emotion or state.
Mark:
When people come to coaching, they have a result in mind, but it's often not super clear, because it's
very emotional, and if often reflects on an area of life where they feel stuck. Most often, what they
want is influenced by the kind of language they use.
Now, here's the challenge - when clients are depressed, or procrastinating, or whatever emotions or
behaviors they have but don't like to have. They probably already know that it would be better not to
be eating that, or doing that, or talking like that, or feeling that way.
Here's an analogy from the way people use language.
So a family member of mine recently said, "I got locked out of my apartment." It's funny. She left the
keys in the apartment, then she locked the door. But she doesn't say she locked herself out, she says "I
got locked out." I could correct her and say "you locked yourself out," but it might be kind of
obnoxious - she knows she did it, I know she did it, she's using language to let herself off the hook a
little bit.
Human beings use language in this way all the time. When something isn't working, we don't say, "It
hasn't worked so far," we say "it's not working" or "it's not going to work." Say you're trying to open a
jar of tomato sauce, and it's not working, so you say, "It's not going to open." It's a funny word choice
that counteracts their efforts, so I will sometimes tease them and say "well, if it's not going to open,
stop trying. You already know it's not going to open, so relax." But I think what's really happening is
that this is their way of asking for help. It's like "It's not going to open… unless you help me." There is
usually a communication beneath the communication. When as coaches, parents, husbands and wives
we get good at hearing the communication that is beneath the communication we improve all our
relationships.
So many times when people do or feel or say things that are less than positive, it's actually that they're
making a kind of request, and are appealing to you. They say they're depressed because they want
attention and they don't know how to ask for it.
Coaches are often very positive people who care about creating value and overcoming obstacles, so
they sometimes misunderstand this dynamic and they feel that their job is to deliver the positive point
of view. Hey don't say the jar won't open. It just hasn't opened yet, but if you apply yourself and make
a good effort…" And then you're stuck simply lecturing your client or sounding like a Kindergarden
teacher asking for an indoor voice. They feel less understood.
Don’t get trapped in the literal, surface language.
Level 2: Understanding the request

What is the client really saying to me?
Coaches often over-commit to a result. I hear coaches say, for instance, that they will get you this
result or you get your money back, which is a terrible position for coaches to take, because then it's
possible that they want a result more than their client does. I was just on the phone with a coach who
was having trouble with a client who wanted to complain, complain, complain, but never do anything.
The coach was getting frustrated, because he always felt like a failure, and the truth is that there were
numerous people in the client's life who were frustrated in this way, and in this way that client has the
upper hand in many of her relationships.
The coach was approaching her as a fire client – fast solutions. She was actually a water client, stuck
in her own emotional replay.
When a coach becomes over committed to a result - more committed than the client is, then what can
they do? You remember the old cartoons where Tom and Jerry, would sometimes have a little angel
appear on one shoulder saying be good, and a little devil appear on the other shoulder saying, be bad.
You become like the little angel, and we know that in cartoons at least, the angel always loses. That is
the worst place to be as a coach- where you're working hard giving your client advice they won’t
follow.
The nightmare can go both ways. For some clients they fear having a pushy coach who tries to get
them to do things they don't believe in. I imagine there are people on this call who like to be the fixer
- when you see a problem, you naturally see the shortest distance between two points, the most
efficient sequence of actions to take, the fastest way to take care of it, but the problem is that the client
has to take care of it, not you… so you get frustrated partially because you're misunderstanding what's
really going on.
Magali:
In these cases there is usually an interesting dynamic of a Fire Coach coaching a Water, or Earth
Client.
So what you do is adjust the kind of coaching you do with the kind of client you have. In this way you
create truth, understanding, and trust.
A big part of coaching is paying attention to the request the client makes and matching that while
adding on the client's deeper request. So, if someone wants to just complain and doesn't want to take
action, maybe the request is not to change things, maybe the real request is to get sympathy and have
someone understand me. As a coach, you can have a very successful session by matching the actual
request being made, which is - understand me, sympathize, listen. And You can actually point out to
the client "Hey, it seems there's something really important here that I should listen to and understand,
and be the best listener you've ever had, and then, and only then, we'll see whether some kind of
action is needed."
Now you’re flowing with your client’s style and creating real value, and it’s really easy compared to
working against their nature.
Mark:
So many people become afraid to be coaches because they feel that they are responsible for all of the
client's results, when the truth is that you need to listen to the request, match the request, hold a
professional space where they can share their truth, and then lead them to the result step by step based
on their own commitments and actions.
When you match their request in this way you are creating trust.
What happens to make that magical bond between coach and client? When not only does the client
trust you but you trust them? Let’s break down the qualities of a client’s trust and then break down the
elements that come into play when we trust our clients.
Magali:
Level 2: Qualities of Client Trust:
The client is sharing about the past, future dreams, rules they have, thoughts they don’t feel good
telling others, fears, past fears, and both the good and the bad emotions they deal with towards
themselves and others.
The client follows through with Strategies you have suggested. They may think or even say, “I do
some silly and adventuresome things because my coach says it will work.” This might mean your
client dances at a strange time or place to break a pattern. This might mean he or she will give a gift
to someone they don’t like. You get the idea as SI Coaches we can give some pretty out there
directive strategies. When our client follows through and puts these suggestions into action they are
showing a deep trust in us as coaches and in themselves as doers and makers of goals and dreams.
A client may introduce you over the phone or in a session to their spouse, child, parent, or colleague.
If expanding the unit is part of your work with the client, these introductions are a clear expression of
trust. In the client’s mind they are thinking, “I’m letting you into my whole world. Now you will learn
a lot more about me through your conversations with the people in my life.”
Coaches Trust (When you realize you really trust your client)
If you are one of those wonderful people and coaches that trust everyone right off then don’t worry
about this section you don’t need to read it. For the rest of us, there are some pretty cool little
landmark’s you will find along the way in your work as a coach.
You share a memory or truth about your life with your client.
After your session you realize something about yourself, a relationship in your life or past, a key
decision, or a fear you have.
Your client starts to experience a new level of joy, growth or accomplishment in their life. They
follow through and do the strategies you’ve suggested. This makes you proud, happy and like the
amazing coach you are.
They trust you more and you trust them. Now you are able to get to a new layer of goals, dreams and
desires. Sometimes this means the real challenge is uncovered.
Level 3: Uplift the Client
Mark:
Once you understand a client's truth, and their request and you have created trust, it's really important
to help them now, because they have just revealed information that will make them feel very
vulnerable and which raises a very scary question for them, which is, why have they done things the
way they did? “Why did I lose the money? Why did I ignore my spouse? Why did I spend years in a
funk? Why didn't I take care of my health?”
This gets compounded when the client has an external result that they want, that is simply a longer-
term project. So you'll have the client that comes in saying, "I'm not going to feel good about myself
until I lose 50 pounds, or until I get rid of my debt, or until I get a promotion." And being a good
coach, you want to commit to the result - yeah, I'm going to get you to lose those 50 pounds, and then
you've bought into a difficult success plan for you as a coach. You can't wait 50 pounds for your client
to feel good. If your client wants to accomplish something difficult, they need all of their emotional
resources lined up and congruent. And it's just not inspiring and energizing to think I’m not going to
feel good for months while I’m working really hard. So you need to uplift, get your client to feel
what's possible, so their emotions are lined up and they are feeling their goal emotions right now.
Now here is where coaches often get their very worst advice. There is a very old-school philosophy
from the 80's where the idea was take leverage with your client by making them feel horrible about
their failures, and by showing tough love and being a drill sergeant, you will push them to do the
thing, once and for all. This gets even worse when it gets combined with a sales motivation - so
coaches are sold scripts where they're supposed to say, "If you don't solve this problem now, what
kind of pain is it going to cause for you in the future?" and they use this kind of arm-twisting to get a
commitment from their client- like, “You're going to have a terrible life if you don't hire me.” Here's
the problem with that approach. First, clients have feet. Being pushy with them one time might work
in the short term, but you need to give them something that will bring them back to you and to their
goals and desires for the long term. Second, coercion is out. It's no longer cool, and it's not effective.
Neuroscientists have shown that when, for instance, smokers feel guilt about smoking, that guilt is part
of the addiction cycle. Guilt is not the way out of addiction, it's the way back in. So when you feel
bad about yourself, feeling bad isn't the solution, it's part of the problem. Finally, to really help your
client, you need to give them something to feel good about. They don't have to wait until they’ve lost
50 pounds to feel good - you can help them feel good in this session, and that will help them lose the
50 pounds in the long run.
Magali:
Sometimes, a client’s goal is another person’s shift in state or emotion. When this is the case it can be
pretty hard to uplift the client and you need to help them repurpose their goal to one that is about
themselves. What they can do in that relationship. What is essential to remember is make it easy.
Give your client easy things to do. Sometimes, this is as simple as just saying to that person in their
life, “No matter what I love you and have your back.” The client thought they needed to take
responsibility for the other person’s emotions but you show them to just consistently show love and
emotional support, this is what will transform the relationship. This kind of support creates results in
the long term. Now you can also uplift your client by having them choose an emotion they want for
themselves instead of for another person.
This leads us into another crucial part of the uplift: the client’s Relationships.
Whatever the reason is that a client has come to you for coaching, in SI we find that the relationships
in their life are one of the greatest keys to their success, happiness, and fulfillment. One whole
session, often this is session #2, can be all about understanding the most important people in your
client’s life.
Let the client know this will be the focus. As a coach, it is through your understanding of all these key
relationships that you can find ways to help your client that they may not be aware of. You will be
learning who in their life is their greatest strength or supporter, where there are triangles (a
relationship between three people that may cause friction due to shifting alliances), who they want to
be closer to, and sometimes the types of key people they may lack in their life. As their coach, you
will then be able to help them find strength in their relationships, grow new relationships, and help
them find balance and deepen existing relationships. By learning more about what the people they are
close to may need or want and how to give and communicate in a more effective way, your client gets
a lot more of their own needs met in their relationships.
One of the Strategies for uplifting a client is Translation.
Often our challenge as an SI Coach lies in translating a need or goal our client has. Let’s look at some
examples. A client comes to you because their wife has no desire for intimacy. They may say, “I just
can’t go on in a sexless marriage.”
As their coach we need to translate what this problem means so that we can make a plan for creating
success. Could it be that the wife doesn’t feel she trusts her husband, could she feel misunderstood?
The first step in this type of situation would be, if possible, to include the wife in the coaching, but if
this isn’t a possibility, you can work with the husband to help him understand his wife and then be
able to build trust, fun and real intimacy. So what has just happened? You have translated “Lack of
Sex” to “Building Understanding.” This is now the new goal. Another example of this could be a
client who has a small business where they manage a team. They come to coaching because they need
to feel more secure in their ability to lead. You realize very quickly that they have a difficult time
expressing themselves clearly and have an even harder time listening. This means you need to
translate their leadership issue into a goal of becoming a more skillful listener and communicator.
You wouldn’t tell your client this is what they need, instead you’d work strategically to give them the
skills which you know will help them achieve their goals as a leader. Translation in these cases is
very important to your success as a coach. This is how you can create a plan for the client’s coaching
program with you. Your sessions, can focus on what will give them the best tools for their particular
situation and challenge.
Now, coaching is not just about understanding, and it's not just about emotions - it's about how to
harness the emotional system, the system of meaning, and the system of your body, into strategic
action. Through our SI Coaching we help people create wholeness.
Level 4: Strategy
Mark:
So the next level of understanding is to give the person a strategy.
Now, when you're understanding a client and their world, everything they care about, what they
believe, how they interact with others… you will often come to a gap. And that gap is where we use
strategy. An example of a gap is…
How do I help this client to feel great about him or herself today, so that they can pursue the goals
they want?
How do I help this client to understand what his wife has been really asking for, and how do I get him
to take the action so that his wife really feels it?
How do I help this client to stop the pattern of procrastination and lateness that is sabotaging his
career?
How do I help my client not only understand the past that she keeps thinking about, but feel whole
about it, so that she can take advantage of the opportunities that are right in front of her?
How do I get this teenage girl to stop reacting to her mother in this way, and to start paying attention
to her own dreams and forward direction instead?
How do I help my client make the best possible decision by accessing all parts of himself before he
commits to a path of action?
These questions represent gaps that we fit with a strategy. As a coach, you can help fit that person
with a strategy, which is really a kind of action that they take that transforms their experience so that
they are not only changing on the inside, but they're creating new circumstances for themselves on the
outside. Imagine, for example, a parent and a teenager in intense conflict. They're both so irritated that
the mother will scream and punish when the teen stays out all night. The problem is, the mother will
scream and punish equally when she finds her daughter's room a complete mess. The gap is, “How do
I help this mother prioritize, choose her battles, and enable her daughter to feel good about what she's
doing in life, so that they can both differentiate between the things that are important and the things
that are not important?” And the strategy we'd fit them with would be, for instance, the Pick 3
Strategy, where the mother says "I'll be the happiest mother in the world if my daughter will do only
these 3 things: go to school every day, not break the law, and be home by 9pm. I won't complain or
give her a hard time about anything else, because most important is that I know she's safe. This way
the daughter knows what is specifically needed for there to be peace. Usually what ends up happening
is that the teen will far exceed the parent’s expectation of what they should be doing because she has
clarity about what is important, and she and her mother are no longer in a struggle. That's a strategy
that we'd apply in many situations where there is a struggle of expectations and priorities between a
child and their parent or parents.
Three Essentials of Strategic Intervention Strategies:
1. Strategies are action based and create transformation by shifting mindset, sequences of behavior,
emotions experienced, relationship dynamics, personal meanings, and social context. You can shift all
of those things by prescribing a strategy, and having them take a specific action.
2. Strategies are cheap and come with no side effects, other than a happier person. We are living in a
society of pills and side effects - and people taking pills without thinking about how to shift a
behavior or a personal meaning. Strategies are ways to change your life in a way that is cheap, free,
doesn't take long, and does not tax your health.
3. Strategies are uplifting and positive. Strategies are not punitive or painful in nature. Pain is not a
good motivator for long-term change. People are too used to and resistant to pain! Instead, for
instance, we will expand the person's sense of self. We personalize strategies based on the specific
behavior and individual. The other day we helped a coach working with a client who had been
alternating between binge eating and starving herself for thirty years. The strategy, in a simplified
way, was “Whenever you binge eat, you also give away an equal amount of food to the hungry." So
that changes the meaning of binging because it expands the sense of self - the loneliness people feel
when they binge eat - and includes others, and contribution to others. That changes the meaning of the
negative behavior.
As teachers of Strategic Intervention coaching we teach coaches how to apply strategies skillfully to
peoples' lives and specific relationships.
Level 5: Target the Future and keep making progress

Magali:
Part of our job as a coach is to keep in mind the target. And sometimes this target is pretty far off.
However, by having strategy sessions where we are planning far ahead, sometimes 5 or 10 years into
the future and working backwards, we are doing just this. We help our client see a world of new
opportunities, goals, and dreams that would not have been noticed if we stayed only in the present or
the particular year or month. We call this reverse-engineering and it is powerful for all your clients.
This session is pretty simple and should be used when there is already a good level of trust, you have
created shifts and outcomes together for your client and now you get to enjoy looking at the future
together.
The following is a guide for the conversation which you can use and modify:
Start by asking your client to imagine themselves 10 years in the future:
Close your eyes and get comfortable now, imagine that you can see yourself 10 years into the very
best future possible. The future that you really want for yourself, the time in your life that just feels so
right, this is the future you will create and it starts by experiencing it. So lets experience it together.
As we do this you are collecting crucial information that tells you and me as your coach exactly what
you want to have in the future…
Let’s visit your home together for a little while. Tell me when you are there by raising your hand or
saying, “I’m here.”
What are you doing at home? Who is in your life? When you get an answer either in words or an
image or a feeling write it down or speak it so I can write it down for you.
Do you see anything different about yourself? Write down or speak what you see or hear or feel.
Are you emotionally different? What do you notice about how you move, smile or feel? (What you are
doing is finding emotional and state goals, ways that ten years from now you will feel and be.) I am
here to write down how you feel and move and think. So you can speak what you see or experience to
me. (Give the option to write it themselves if they like to do this.)
Is there anything different about where you are? Look around you: are you at home? Are you at work?
Taking a vacation? Give yourself a set of wings, or a motorcycle that flies, and just go where you’d
like to go. You might find yourself at work, home, doing hobbies, being with friends, out in nature, are
you at an exciting cultural or educational spot or event? Wherever you want to go, you can go there
now. This is your magical future. When you see something, or hear something or feel something, write
it down, or speak it.
Who are you with? What is the relationship like? How do you feel? How do you make them feel?
Write it down or speak it.
Give yourself permission as the SI Coach to take as long as needed with this exercise. Keep in mind
that your client is in a relaxed, perhaps hypnotic state, and so you should respect their needs and
wishes. If they’d like to finish early or go on for quite a while this is what should happen. Their
instincts are the guide and you can simply ask them if there is another place in the future they’d like to
visit or if they are finished for now.
To create a positive closure for the experience ask your client to: Take your time to let all these
amazing moments from your future settle into yourself and let if fill you with a beautiful energized
sense of purpose.
You have just created a new compelling future. Maybe you are writing a lot down, maybe you are
feeling or continuing to see images of that future you in ten years.
When you are ready take a few deep breaths and bring yourself back to the now and here in your
body. Experience the chair you are sitting in. How your body feels, take another deep breath.
Excellent, so if you were doing this with a client you would now have a lot to go on right? The next
step would be to write it all up together and look at each life zone, family, work, hobbies, location,
vacations, contribution or community, romance, whatever life zones apply to your client and set 10
year goals for each of those zones. Then get out another piece of paper and work backwards with
your client what would 9 years look like, then 8 years, then 7 and 6 and so on. When we work
backwards we are starting from the accomplishment and learning how we can take actions to get
there, this is often much more rewarding and the client has a lot more energy to get to that goal than if
you look forward and think, ‘Oh man I want that stuff but I can’t even imagine myself like that really.’
Understand where we are going here? Help your client feel it and be it first, then work on a plan for
making progress. The reason we cover every life zone is because it is so important to have balance,
when a person puts all their focus in one area of life they usually end up feeling regret that they forgot
about so many others. Of course, there are years and months in everyone’s life when the focus needs
to be intense but it is part of our work as a coach to keep bringing our client to a place of balanced
life and priorities. Sometimes, this is very eye opening and easy. All you need to do is ask how about
friends? What kinds of people will you be spending time with on the weekend? Where did you meet
them? Do they introduce you to other friends? When we speak about the future we are also planting
seeds of intention for our clients and these seeds will help them to notice in their present reality, when
they meet this type of potential friend or are made a certain type of offer at work or in a social circle,
that could be a step towards their bigger 10 year goal. There will be a new recognition in them like,
‘Oh you are the kind of person I will be close to in 10 years.’ And because we work backwards, it
means that in the present time there is less concern or stress and we realize that it is the very small
actions we take today that lead us to the life we want to have in ten years.
Mark:
Level 6: Teach Targets
These 6 levels form a cycle in coaching, the trust cycle. The client is enabled to share their truth, the
coach helps understand their request and their result, as their SI Coach you uplift the client so they
appreciate their own best intent and the way they can take empowering action. When they feel great
they see what is needed to keep moving towards their goals. As coach and client we understand the
gap, where they need to make a new connection, and we offer a strategy, an action that naturally puts
them in a place to fill the gap, and teaches them along the way. Often, we'll meet up after that strategy
to establish another target, or cement the target they have attained as an achievement which makes
more achievements possible and easy, or we’ll use reverse engineering to create the targets and
actualize the small steps in the now that eventually build to the target.
In the Chapters ahead you will learn more specific SI Strategies, processes, and exercises to do with
your clients or with yourself. We suggest always keeping in mind this framework of understanding and
type of client mind in all your sessions with your individual clients. It is through understanding our
client’s view of themselves, their world and their relationship that we can hold the space as their SI
Coach to help them create the reality in which they will find most satisfying, enriching and joyful.
What is Strategic Intervention?
Strategic Intervention is a cross-disciplinary movement dedicated to increasing connection,
communication, happiness, and understanding in all people. SI (short for Strategic Intervention) is
used worldwide by Life Coaches, Therapists, Doctors, Psychologists, Teachers, Business
Consultants, and Community leaders. The goal of the Strategic Interventionist is to create happiness,
understanding, and harmony through helping individuals and groups to harness their inner strength,
group insights, and creative and systemic thinking. A Strategic Interventionist combines the talents of
Life Coaching with the art of deep spiritual understanding and dynamic teaching skills.
What is the history of SI and how did it start?
Mark Peysha, Anthony Robbins, Cloe Madanes and Magali Peysha coined the term when working on
a methodology for change that would encompass the work of great thinkers and leaders such as
Gregory Bateson, Mother Theresa, The Dalai Lama, Margaret Mead, Jay Haley, Milton Erickson,
Cloe Madanes, Anthony Robbins, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi.
Strategic Intervention is a project dedicated to extracting the most practical and effective forms of
strategic action and communication from a variety of disciplines: Ericksonian therapy, strategic
family therapy, Human Needs Psychology, organizational psychology, neurolinguistics, psychology of
influence, strategic studies, traditions of diplomacy and negotiation, and others. Every day students of
SI are applying its strategies and principles in new and creative ways within a variety of settings. We
have seen significant contributions with its use in classrooms to boardrooms.
What distinguishes SI from other strategic studies is the belief that certain holistic solutions “snap
into place” when more people’s needs are met, expressed, and elevated. Why? Because our solutions
are based on the principles of growth and contribution. Any change reinforced by growth and
contribution not only “sticks,” but also positively influences hundreds of other people.
How do I use this book to improve my coaching skills?
That answer depends on what kind of learner you are. We have organized the SI Strategies in this
book in an order that we find helpful as coaches and teachers of SI. We have also created an
alphabetical index of the strategies so that you can quickly find a strategy when you need it.
Is there a correct order for using SI Strategies in
Coaching?
Yes and no. All the strategies will work regardless of the stage of coaching you are in with a client.
However, we recommend certain strategies for the first few sessions and others that are important
towards the end of a session or coaching pathway because they help integrate the work your client has
done.
What are the top five Strategies every Strategic
Interventionist should know?
The strategies we use in every session with every client are Elevation (in its basic form), Metaphor,
Strength Building, Six Human Needs, and Self Leverage. Wow, it was hard to choose five. Each
Strategic Interventionist’s top five might be different. We recommend making your list and also
noticing what you turn to again and again. The strategies you rely on are most likely connected to your
personal coaching strengths.
Table of Contents
1: Finding the Purpose
Strategies:
Elevation
Finding the Spark
Six Human Needs
2: SI Coaching Tools
Strategies:
Seven Master Steps
Keys to Understanding
Connecting and Understanding
Getting Leverage
Self Leverage
Interrupt the Limiting Problem
Condition and Test
Rewards
Empowering Environment
Social Support
3: Problems, Patterns, and Triggers
Strategies:
Safe Problems
Emotional Triggers
Crazy Eight Strategy
4: Community, Strength, and Life Stage
Strategies:
Expanding the Unit
Overcoming Self Sabotage
Life Stages
5: Metaphors
Strategies:
Metaphors for Understanding
Storytelling
The Three Ps: Posture, Purpose, Presence
Archetype Process
6: Creative Solutions
Strategies:
Pattern Interrupt
Positive Leverage
Triad
Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal
Ordeal
Memory Modification
7: Family Dynamics
Strategies:
Hierarchy in the Family
Loyalty in Action
Aligning Parenting Strategies
Parents as Leaders
Subsystems in the Family
Just Pick Three
Strategies Index
About the Authors

Chapter 1
Finding the Purpose
Beliefs, Thoughts, and Emotions

Elevation
Magali & Mark:
The idea of elevating a client through your conversation as a coach is an ancient practice of helping
others. We coined the term Elevation Strategy as a foundational principle of how we help clients to
create a more productive emotional state during coaching. Some schools of coaching teach that you
should use pain to prompt a client’s motivation to change. Instead, we focus on taking clients to their
higher level of intent and to a state of perceiving what is good in them.
Magali:
In our work as Strategic Intervention coaches, one of the most important skills we use during our
sessions is called Elevation. If you imagine yourself going up into the sky in a glass elevator or a
really cool hot air balloon, you’ve got it right. But what we are really doing is elevating the spirit of
our clients through our perspective, our belief in them, and our view of the intention behind their
actions. Through Elevation, people start to see the purpose behind their communication, their desires,
or a problem they are facing. This is Elevation at the deepest level.
Elevation is also a mode of being that the Strategic Interventionist communicates through during every
conversation. So let’s say I’m working with a husband who is complaining about his wife’s need to
control him. He keeps telling me, in different ways, about how she interrupts him at work to share
something silly. She texts him constantly and calls him on his phone. She can’t stand when he goes
outside in the evening to take care of their farm animals. The interpretation he has made is that his
wife doesn’t value his need for focus at work, and she doesn’t value his desire to maintain their
property, animals, and home. When you’re in the Elevation mode as a SI coach, you see what the
husband is experiencing from a higher place. This gives you the courage to interrupt his story about
his wife and ask a question, “Do you think she needs a lot of connection?”
What has just happened? You’ve begun the process of elevating a negative belief or view your client
has about his wife. Pretty cool, isn’t it? Then you go to the next step and ask, “Does she like having
your focused attention?” or “She isn’t a cold person, is she?” If you know the wife, you might say, “I
know it’s annoying when she interrupts you but it’s because she misses you and craves closer contact
and check-ins. You know, she is really into you. That is really amazing since you’ve been married for
20 years. How do you do that? How do you keep her so interested?”
What has happened in this coaching conversation? The conversation has gone from the lower-level
problem of a wife who interrupts her husband to the higher realization that this wife loves her man
and craves connection and communication because he is doing something very right. You could go on
to strengthen all the ways that he keeps her so interested by discussing and listing those ways. Then
you might ask him if he’d like to make her feel so connected that she doesn’t need to interrupt him.
This client now wants to give to his wife, and he will see that giving also creates the relationship he
wants.
Through SI, you can help people understand how to influence and guide the people around them. You
don’t need to be harsh and painfully honest or to even set personal goals. Instead, you simply use
Elevation. Explain and reframe the motivations and actions of your clients and those in their
relationships. This is a little like Tai Chi for relationships: you go with the need and force of the
interaction to discover its quality, purpose, and hope. Then you give on your terms, so that the energy
coming to you is desired and timely.
I’m going to walk you through how you can use this strategy in a session. This process originates from
an Anthony Robbins intervention.
The use of Elevation as a standalone strategy has a very specific effect: to find the greater meaning
and purpose of the client.
Start by asking your client to be exact about the emotion or behavior he or she wants to change.
Sometimes, clients share an important truth with you about what they want to change and then they
immediately forget it. You may need to remind them of the words they used.
Understand:
When you have the emotion or behavior in a complete sentence, rephrase it to be, “I want to
understand ________ behavior or ______________ emotion.”
Locate:
Ask your clients to touch the place on their bodies where the emotion or behavior starts. Always
encourage clients to trust their first idea of where or what something is. Then let them know to be
there in that place where it is for a while. Remind them to just be with it, feel it, and appreciate it.
When they fight it, it fights back; so for now encourage them to be with the emotion or the behavior.
Thank:
Ask your clients to really thank that behavior or emotion because it is there to serve them and help
them understand more; just trust that behavior or emotion now. Be very kind and gentle as you are
speaking to your clients’ deepest selves. Tell your clients to let you know when they’ve done this.
They could speak it or raise a hand.
Reveal:
Now, ask your clients to ask that part of them to reveal its positive intent. “How were you serving or
protecting me?” This is the first layer of understanding. Keep reassuring your clients that they are
doing a great job.
More Important:
Once your clients have found a purpose for the emotion or behavior, ask them if that purpose was
already being met. For example, if they said, “I’m guarding you,” then ask them to ask that part of
them, “If I’m completely and totally guarded, what is more important than being guarded?” Whatever
your clients say now is their truth, so appreciate it. Compliment them, for example, if they say
“Feeling peace.” Let them know that is wonderful.
Thank Again:
Tell your clients to thank themselves for wanting peace (or whatever they said to you).
More Important:
Now ask again, “If you are experiencing total peace, what is more important?”
Your clients may say experiencing another emotion or giving to another person. Ask them to repeat
their answer or you can repeat it for them.
More Important:
Ask them again if they were totally experiencing _________ (the new emotion or behavior). What is
even more important for them to experience?
Reinforce:
Let your clients know that this is their highest intent. Repeat to them the process they went through,
what they understood, and what each level of greater importance is for them.
Feel:
Now ask your clients to really feel that highest intent. Guide them to make a sound of that feeling. Feel
whatever it is and experience it.
Thank Again:
Ask them to thank that part of them that allowed all this to happen and be experienced.
More Important:
Guide your clients to “Now ask that part of yourself, if that part of me was totally and completely
experiencing, what is more important than experiencing?”
Your clients’ answers tell you what the next level is for them. Now, it is time to move it backwards.
Keep going to the previous intent and allowing it to have an effect. So you might say, “Bring this
experience to your ________ emotion. What’s happened to that emotion?” Keep going to the previous
emotion this way.
Guide your clients by reminding them of the emotion or behavior before that one. Remember to keep
notes for yourself. Your clients may realize they don’t need to guard themselves or do that behavior.
Your job is to congratulate them for their discovery of their highest intent.
You may want to ask them to experience this highest intent now in a situation when they would
normally feel or do the behavior they don’t want. So if it was overeating, you could say “Now, think
about that time of day that you eat what isn’t healthy.” Bring this higher intent; repeat it for them to that
time. “What will you feel? What will you say to yourself?”
Or let’s say your clients want to find a lover. Ask them to bring that higher intent into the next time
they meet someone they like. What would they feel? What would they say or do? This imagining will
help your clients use the discovery in their daily lives and in their relationships.
You can reinforce it in many ways by asking them to bring it into their morning. How will it feel when
they wake up? I think you get the idea. Now remember, your clients have been in an altered state, and
they may need to chat for a while and get grounded before leaving your session together. So it is
important to plan time to let this happen. Also, focus them on their breathing; the chair they are sitting
on is their connection to the earth. Breathing and visualizing helps to ground back into their body the
day before they leave your presence.
I suggest you do this process with yourself first before you try it with a friend or client. Go through
the steps, experience them, and then write down your answers. Practice being kind and supportive to
yourself.
Probably 90 percent of the time when clients come to you for help, they will be in a low emotional
state. A low state of mind is responsible for a majority of the problems that people have. Problems
with fear, apprehension, panic, dread, and even procrastination are emotions involving a focus on
certainty.
The Elevation strategy has to do with a quirk of the human mind. When you become associated with
big picture priorities, the larger purpose of your life, and the high level of intentions that you can
bring to your life, lower-level problems suddenly appear manageable and can be solved right there
and then.
Finding the Spark
Mark:
I coined the term “Finding the Spark” to describe a guiding principle of Strategic Intervention
Coaching. Every great interventionist has to begin with a vision of who their clients can become or
who their clients might already be underneath their problems or lack of self-esteem.
Having a vision for your client’s success is essential to helping the person create an effective change
in their life. Holding this space of possibility, strength, and belief in your client is at least 50 percent
of your job.
Strategic Interventionists see the person inside the other person. So let’s say you are working with a
person who is sad all the time. She or he has learned to be sad, get rewarded for it, and use it to
connect with themselves. As a coach, ou see tand understand this pattern, but you don’t accept this
version of your client.
Instead, you see that behind that person, who is used to “doing” sad, is someone who has all kinds of
emotions. The pattern or habit of “doing sad” is only a top layer of identity and emotions.
When we use the Finding the Spark strategy, we should ask a lot of questions. If your client seems to
be stuck in an emotional rut it, then allow that conversation by asking the following detailed
questions:
When do you feel this way?

How often does it last?
What usually happens before the feeling?
What causes you to shift away from the feeling?
What could or has suddenly jarred you out of that feeling?
If that state was your friend, what would it be doing for you or telling you (secondary gain)?
Now that you understand the feeling the client wishes not to have , you can guide the conversation to
good states that lead to uncovering the person’s spark. You can introduce the conversation by finding
out the opposite:
During which activities and times do you experience a state of flow?
When have you felt victorious?
When have you felt understood and accepted?
When do you feel most excited or optimistic?
You can ask them to tell you about recent or daily experiences or times in the past. Remember, you are
part Sherlock Holmes, and all information is good information.
What you are discovering is the spark in your client. You will see clues in the client’s body posture,
eyes, and breathing. You don’t have to listen to a whole story. You can guide the conversation and say,
“Great. Now, take me to a time you felt peace (or victorious or very healthy or funny). Explain to me
what it felt like for you and what led to it.”
It can also be useful to say something that sounds rather strange. You might tell a client, “I see the
confident man inside you.” Then joke with him about how you know there have been times when
women were flirting with him. Ask him to tell you about those times.
You could say, “I know you love your kids. Tell me about the ways you show them.” What you are
doing is Elevating and Searching. The conversation during Finding the Spark is a really pleasant
experience of stacking up a lot of good moments until you notice that spark.
So, let’s say you are speaking with a young woman who is searching for a new career. She has told
you that she doesn’t know what she is really meant to do. You may ask her to tell you about the times
she is at her silliest and freest self. Then let the conversation go from there for a while.
She might start talking about a friend who makes her feel unself-conscious . Explore how that
relationship is unique, what they do together, and how they communicate. Ask her to tell you the ways
they are similar and ways they are different. Then you can say, “Tell me about the times when you are
able to focus completely.” Ask her to explain the place, the feelings, and the things she is focused on.
You will probably find yourself discovering pockets of heightened emotion and meaning - spark.
Sparks are the emotions, activities, and relationships where we lose our holdbacks. What we want to
know more of and what we want to live are sometimes areas that we feel so much about but are afraid
of failing at. A person who loves teaching, for example, may actually fear going to school to become a
teacher because he or she feels great inner pressure to be an outstanding teacher.
So if your client’s spark is also dragging a lot of fear along with it, then take some time to understand
the fear. How does it help her or him? This may be the perfect opportunity to do the Elevation strategy
from the previous chapter.
If there is no holdback, then let your client know you think this is special and it gets him or her really
excited. Now you can help the client create a plan. Tell the client, “This is your spark, gift, talent.”
Explain that when one discovers that true spark, it is essential to plan out how to use it every day.
You suggest letting the spark be the guide for future plans. How will this interest, talent, and emotion
impact the client in one, two, or five years? How will he or she experience it in the future as well as
this very week?
Remember that your first impression of a client is always woefully incomplete. Nobody is “just shy”
or “just scared” or “just angry.” They come to you with temporary limitations that you can release for
them by finding and cultivating their spark.
Six Human Needs
Magali:
The study of the human need to experience a variety of emotions and identities was developed by the
authors John Burton, Paul Sites, and Abraham Maslow. Anthony Robbins added his work to the
theory of needs and created the concept of human needs psychology. As we use the Six Human Needs
in our training of SI, we model our teaching on Anthony Robbins work, but we do so in our own style
and with a slightly different emphasis on the different needs and the ways that a coach and client can
best benefit from this paradigm.
The Six Human Needs tool is central to Strategic Intervention because as soon as you understand
which need someone is used to meeting, which need he or she wants more of, and which need is not
getting met, you have a tremendous amount of insight into someone’s situation and the kinds of
solutions.
Clients learn to understand themselves at a very deep and useful level. They can also understand
others and pass less judgment because they understand the cause of a behavior or attitude.
The Six Human Needs, which are certainty, uncertainty and variety, significance, connection and love,
and growth and contribution, interact with each other in different ways.
There are different ways the Six Human Needs can express a central conflict in people. People may
want to have certainty: a feeling that they are safe and provided for and that they know what will
happen to them in the future. They may also want love: to be in a relationship or to make their
relationships better.
Here is a sample script for working with a client using the Six Human Needs Strategy:
STEP 1
Today’s session will focus on the Six Human Needs. These are needs every person has. This is also a
way of understanding yourself better. One of my teachers, Tony Robbins, came up with this way of
working with people. Tony actually developed his Six Human Needs after studying the work of
__________ who, my guess, learned his philosophy of needs from another great thinker. So I want
you to get that this is really a living tradition, and I like all of my clients to feel empowered to share
these models of thinking and understanding themselves with others. You get it at a deeper level when
you share it.
What just happened with the intro of the Six Human Needs is the client went into a mild trance of
expectation, feeling part of a bigger lineage, seeing themselves as learning and then teaching. Now the
client is more receptive to learning.
The Six Human Needs are in all of us but we experience them uniquely. At certain points of life, we
need more of one or another. Also, based on who we are, we tend to really value and focus on a
couple of the needs.
The First Need is for certainty. This is there for us right from the time we are born. We need to be fed,
we need our mom, and we need to sleep. This changes as we get older and we need to know what
will happen in the day. We may need to know who our friends are or what we like and how we are
perceived. Then, as adults, we start to need certainty in a new way. We want to be certain of a variety
of things. Let’s make a list now of what you need to be certain about on any given day. Write down
what you need to feel and who you may need to interact with. There may be rituals you need to feel
certain about or you may need others to do things in a certain way.
The Second Need is for variety or uncertainty. Think about what makes you feel excited as though you
were an adventurer. At times, we all need to feel this sensation of not knowing and get in touch with
our inner explorer, our inner seeker. What do you do now or what have you done in the past to feel
this way?
The Third Need is for significance. What makes you feel important, necessary, unique, well-thought-
of and appreciated? We all have this need. During what activities or in what relationships do you
seek more of this feeling? How do you ask for it? When have you felt it the most? Are there certain
people who make you feel more significant? Are there people who you would like to give you more
appreciation and recognition? Are there activities you do for this recognition or feeling of
importance?
The Fourth Need is for love and connection. We all have different definitions of love and connection.
Explain to me the times, activities, and relationships which make you feel the most connection and
love. These could be moments alone, experiences that you have had, daily activities you do, or
conversations you have or have had. Connection and love can show itself to us in many ways. Let’s
come up with a big list of how it presents for you now and in the past.
The Fifth Need is for growth. When we grow, we are expanding our feelings, our knowledge, our
experience, our interactions, and our inner peace. It is really endless all the ways we can grow. Let’s
dig into how you like to grow. Tell me the ways on the inside, outside, with others, and on your own.
Have there been times of life when you experienced more growth? When and how did you feel about
it?
The Sixth Need is for contribution. We all need to give. Through giving, we also receive and grow,
and we feel connected, secure, and uncertain. So through contribution, we often meet all our needs at
once. Tell me about people, places, and ways that you contribute. Sometimes, contributing is a very
inner process that gives us only inner significance; sometimes, contribution is very overt and
noticeable. There is no right or wrong way to give. Let’s figure out all the ways you have given and
some ways you want to give in the future.
Now that we both understand how you experience your needs, I would like you to write down how
important you think each need is for you, on a scale of one to10.
STEP 2
Step two is to discover which needs are in conflict. When most people have a dilemma, they are
trying to decide between two different needs and which one is more important. Sometimes, the
conflict is between certainty and growth.
A client may think he or she wants love but the conflict comes from wanting a certain love and love
that feels like growth. How would this play out? Let’s imagine a woman who has two kids she
adores. She spoils them, nurtures them, and teaches them. This is a very certain love when they are
little and it satisfies her for a long time.
Then, they get older and they start pushing the boundaries with their mom. She starts questioning all
the ways she gets love and the ways she doesn’t get love. She may start thinking her relationship with
her husband is terrible. She may complain she has no certainty. She wouldn’t blame her children
because they gave her so much certainty when they were young. As she starts to complain more and
more to her husband, she begins to realize it isn’t just comfort and reassurance she needs.
She asks herself, “Is my relationship stuck? Is my marriage growing at all?” So now, she needs
certain love and another kind of love, the love that she experiences as growth.
When you explain to her that these are two different needs and that her husband can help her feel both,
it will be a huge breakthrough for her. What you are doing is elevating her problem into an
understandable framework of Six Human Needs. Love has the ability to give us certainty, growth,
variety, and contribution when it is in its highest form. This is when we get to experience a great,
loving, passionate relationship. By making sure that you meet each other’s needs through your
relationship, you are able to experience this highest level.
STEP 3
It is very important to give people healthy expectations, meaning, how they can expect progress for
themselves and how they can expect to meet their needs and feel good.
This is when you look at what they told you their vehicles are and what they need to do to fill their
needs. You should focus on their two top needs.
STEP 4
The fourth step is to identify the opposition and personal belief systems and relationships that your
client feels blocks his or her ability to take action to get those needs met. This could be another
relationship (like an in-law, best friend, boss) or it could be a behavior (like gaming, masturbation,
Facebooking, working on a car, going to the gym).
In the individual, this can be habits or old patterns that get in the way of doing what’s required to meet
those needs. The person does what is easy to get some level of certainty and connection. An example
is going on Facebook to get connection, but it isn’t the live relationship connection he or she wants.
The real need is to be in love, give love, and go to the next level of passion. Facebook is a pretty
poor substitute, but it is easy and the person is used to it. So instead of going on a date, he or she
spends several hours a day liking things and helping Facebook friends.
The same could be for the person who needs growth but is stuck in a pattern of procrastinating by
organizing or cleaning. The cleaning isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but when it replaces a higher
level activity like writing or school work to meet the need for growth or contribution, it works against
the individual.
As an SI Coach, it is crucial to understand the parts of life your clients are opposing and the
relationships in their lives that they are opposing . By understanding the energy that goes towards
feeling negative, hurt, fearful or angry, you understand the clients’ daily habits and patterns. You can
start to understand the people, relationships, and emotions in their life through the Six Human Needs.
This allows your clients to experience their own breakthroughs without self-blame or lecturing.
STEP 5
This is when you are working with a person whose challenge is linked to a triangle with others.
The fifth step is to identify the person’s primary loyalty. If someone is stuck in a triangle, whether it is
a family triangle or a professional situation, the person has a loyalty to someone but is in a conflict.
When you point out this loyalty and how it ultimately hurts the people the person is loyal to, it helps
your client have a breakthrough about relationships, motivations, and triangles.
STEP 6 (When Working with a Triangle)

The sixth step is to understand the triangle. Who is really creating a block in the client? This could be
a very loving block because of a person’s need for connection or fear of losing the other. It can also
be because the person feels insecure and doesn’t know how to explain his or her needs or how to give
so the other will feel it.
Often, we find a triangle existing in a family. Parents may love their child deeply but have their own
rules, expectations, beliefs, or fears. The result of their unique ideas could create a stifling
environment for the adult or teen child. Another family member tries to help out by taking the side of
the overprotected child and a triangle is born.
The triangle has three points, three people, and each person has their own beliefs, intentions,
expectations, rules, and needs. By using the Six Human Needs strategy, you can guide your client to
understand in a compassionate way all five aspects within each person in the triangle. The problem is
the person’s needs and vehicles, not the person’s intentions or beliefs. This is a very graceful and
elevating way to transform a triangle into a source of strength, understanding, and love.
STEP 7 (When Working with a Triangle)

Point out how staying in the triangle is unsustainable and how it hurts everyone when anyone is in any
type of triangle, whether it is a young person leaving home or any other kind of triangle. When people
feel stuck, it is often due to thinking they need behaviors that are not long term. These behaviors might
help someone; they might protect in the short term but limit in the long term.
An example of a person who is protecting others by staying in a triangle could be a teen who
misbehaves to keep his or her parents together. The teen will learn that the grown-ups need to focus
on their relationship and make it better. The teen is giving the parents a poor substitute of focus.
Instead, the adults could understand their needs and create real solutions and growth.
STEP 8Clients need to have a vision of who they are when they meet their needs at the highest level
by creating the life they want. When you are working with a couple, team or family, clients need to
understand the others’ true desire to see them grow and move forward. This can be very powerful in a
couple. When you simply ask the spouse to share with the wife or husband what each hopes the other
can have and how he or she imagines the person being at the highest level of strength, fulfillment, and
joy, a natural breakthrough occurs on an energetic if not also an intellectual level. Simply ask,
“Please, tell _______ what you most want for her or him.” And “Explain to ________ the way you
see her or him when at his or her best and happiest.”
STEP 9
Reinforce the new feelings and identity of the client. Any time someone has been compelled to make a
big shift, it is important to find the identity of the person that has been transformed. Ask your client to
create a new name. Ask the client if there is a physical move he or she can make with a hand that
expresses that new self.
STEP 10
Get a commitment from the client or the couple or family or team, a commitment to a new way to meet
their needs. This is how to ask for the emotions they want, the way they practice feeling the emotions,
the actions they take to create the experience they need to fulfill their top two needs or the needs that
they wish to focus on.
To meet my need for Connection

I commit to do ….
To meet my need for Variety

I commit to do….
Magali:
This means developing yourself personally. Becoming a great coach is also about becoming a great
person. This doesn’t mean you are a person without problems or struggles. What I mean by great is
that you are incredibly curious about others, concerned for them, desiring of their outcomes, and
knowing at the deepest level that your clients are good, capable people with their own answers.
You are your first client, so dig in and learn everything you can about yourself. Be incredibly curious
about why you have the emotions you have, the rules you make, and the strengths that are unique to
you. Make sure that you nurture yourself, offer yourself rewards, and respect yourself just how you
would respect a client.
When a Coach Feels Stuck
Mark:
Imagine that you find yourself in a situation where you are working with someone who needs
something completely different than they have had before. . The person may feel stuck and may be
open with you about it. Maybe the person is resisting you and is acting like no change is possible.
Sometimes we just feel like giving up. Sometimes when you are working with someone difficult, you
might just get that feeling of, “Oh, this person is just too stubborn, or too weak, or too unreliable, or
too aggressive” or whatever it may be. The person has put up a wall to you and you are saying, “Uhh!
How am I going to make a crack in this wall?”
Even though the required change may be relatively small, you may be just asking the person to try one
small thing differently. But because the person is stuck or they are resistant, you feel like giving up.
For example, I was working with a guy who was on the verge of breaking up with his girlfriend. He is
a very logical, organized guy. When they fight, she gets emotional while he argues with logic as if it
were a formal debate. Of course, that makes her feel misunderstood and more emotional; he responds
by retreating and getting into more logic.
Basically, in this kind of dynamic, he needed to bring a different kind of energy into the conversation
to make things better with his girlfriend so she could feel the other part of him. So she felt like he
loved her\. An emotion was needed.
That’s the situation where you need to be able to help the person bring out the part of the self that he
or she may be underusing but which can change the conversation completely. That was a game-
changer for him, and he prevented a break-up by doing that. That would be the example of “finding the
spark.” If someone is approaching a situation or a relationship with cold logic, then you should find
the part of him that is warm or passionate that he can express to her. Right?
When a client is stuck with a problem or an obstacle, the real reason they're not moving forward is
that they have not figured out how to tap into their deeper strength, energy, and resourcefulness – their
spark. Maybe they don't believe in a solution. Maybe they don't believe in themselves. Maybe they
haven't been shown how to harness their emotional strengths and talents. So your job is to be a
“treasure hunter” and find those parts of your client that are emotionally powerful, committed,
congruent, and self-caring. If you want a client to trust you and reveal the deeper levels of their life,
elevate them every time they share a new truth. If you want a client to perform in their peak state, find
their spark. If you want a client to understand that they can be happy and fulfilled, explain how the six
human needs work, and how everyone can get their needs met. Use these core principles, and you'll
become a master at bringing out the best in your clients, so that they can overcome obstacles, heal
themselves, and become a greater force for good in their own lives.
Chapter 2
SI Coaching Tools
Every coach benefits from having tools to turn to in coaching sessions to take the client to the next
stage of positive change. Here are some of our favorites.
The Importance of Understanding
Mark:
If clients don’t feel understood by you, they will not open up. If they do feel understood, then they’ll
often let you in further and express an even deeper problem. This is important, because often working
on this deeper problem or holdback will transform your clients’ lives.
Often people will come to you with one problem and then once they are talking to you, they realize,
“Oh no, this is the real thing.” You need to be able to adapt to that, and understanding will give you
that flexibility to figure out what is the most important thing.
When you are working with a client, always look for what is the most important thing. A question we
often get from our students is, “Hey, do I have to interrupt people’s patterns? Do I have to be fast,
funny and dramatic?” No, you don’t.
Your job is to understand and work with your own style. Let your strengths guide your coaching. And
decide to look for what is most important to your client and strive to understand the client as much as
possible.
So when you are coaching someone, you will be asking a series of questions and understanding not
only the person but also his or her key relationships. By doing this, you are expanding the unit.
Just because some coaches work very quickly and dramatically doesn’t mean that you have to work
that way. In fact, if you are one-on-one with a person it’s probably better if you don’t. It’s better if you
take your time to really understand the person to make the person feel understood.
Magali:
Trust your intuition when you are in a coaching conversation. Earlier this year I was coaching a very
sad man. He told me over and over that he didn’t know how he would ever get beyond the painful
emotions that were making him suffer. He had to leave his girlfriend because their past had been so
volatile.
Now, when things were good between them, he kept reliving the painful past. I knew that, in this state,
he would never be able to value the love he felt for her, or who she was. He was choosing to
prioritize his memories of pain, betrayal, and jealousy. Instead of working on these memories, I
trusted my intuition, which was screaming at me to get this guy to see all the good he could offer
women.
I took a chance. Knowing he was a yoga teacher and that he had hundreds of female students, I asked,
“How many of the women at your studio flirt with you?” Of course, this question changed his state
instantly and he answered, “Lots of them do.” Then I asked him if he had an easier time getting close
to women than to men. He did. How did I know this? He had expressed to me an extreme connection
to his emotions. A man like this is very appealing to women and usually enjoys friendships with
women, where he can talk about feelings.
I saw this as a strength and wanted him to feel this strength in himself. We spoke about how many
women might be after him if they knew he was available. Then we talked about his children. He had a
daughter and son in college. They both depended on their dad much more than their mom, who was a
little unstable emotionally.
I asked my client, “How do you connect with your kids?” He told me all the ways that he made them
feel special. He constantly communicated with them and told them how important they were to him.
By having this easy coaching conversation, he was feeling stronger and more confident. We had just
found a spark, used Elevation, and gained understanding. Now, we both knew that he was a person
who others trusted and depended on, and he was very attractive to the opposite sex. Now I could
tease him about his heartache.
I never advised him to take steps to get back together with his girlfriend. Instead, I planted the
unconscious dialogue within him (an inner truth or spark) so he knew that he was a good and
attractive man.
Next time we spoke, he told me all the ways in which he was giving more love and appreciation to
his girlfriend. They had gotten back together, and he wanted to work with me on stopping his negative
memories and fears about her.
Connecting and Understanding Your Client
Mark: Understanding is most effective when it takes place on three levels. First, you have to
understand the individual and what needs and values that person holds most important. What are the
vehicles for meeting those needs? What is his or her model of the world?
A person’s model of the world is composed of needs, core beliefs, the vehicles they use to meet their
needs, and their particular values. You should try to understand what brings the person pain as well as
to understand the person's relationships. What needs are being met in those relationships? How are
those needs being met? What are the rules of the relationship? What weapons are usually used?
Second, you have to understand the system, the social system, in which a person is immersed. Who
communicates with whom and how? Who has power over whom and in what way? What is the
hierarchy that the person is living in? When you understand all of these, you put it all together into a
real understanding of the individual and his or her situation.
How do you know clients feel understood by you? They will be opening up to you. They will be
telling you more about themselves. They will be letting you in and asking, “Yeah, help me with this
thing.” If they don’t feel understood by you, then they will be resisting you, and they will be holding
back information.
One great way to establish rapport is just to mirror back the person’s words. For instance, if a client’s
top need is for significance, ask “When do you feel significant?” “Oh you know, when I win a tennis
game.” “Great, when you win a tennis game.”
When someone gives you a concrete example, you’ll want to keep that concrete example in mind, in
its exact wording. You don’t want to translate what the person tells you into your own language. You
don’t want to refer to “winning at a tennis game” as “victory in sports.” Why? Because what your
client told you is that he or she feels great about winning at a tennis game – the person probably has a
specific context and memory in mind. Realize that the specific things the client cares about, and the
language and images he or she uses to represent them, are precious and powerful. Treat them with
care.
If people give you information about themselves, try to respect the exact phrasing or exact words they
used and just bring it back, “Oh, so you like it when you do this?” By doing this, you will help them
feel more understood.
Magali:
Another technique for connecting with clients is to mirror their physical posture. If clients lean
towards you, resting their elbows on their knees, then lean forward as well. If they look out the
window, then ask them what they see. You want to do this with the goal of connecting, not calling
them out on their focus.
You could say, “I’ve noticed that you like to look outside. I also do this. When I look at a tree, I feel a
lot more grounded in my conversation.” Or “Do you see that bird? The birds seem to like that one tree
out there.”
Another technique is to share truths about yourself and your journey of personal discovery. You may
want to speak about your teachers, coaches, or good friends. You may want to explain a time when
you were stuck in a pattern and overcame it. These parts of conversation may sound confessional, but
they are really invitations for sharing inner truths. Often, people need to feel that you trust them before
they can trust you.
Mark:
Sometimes finding the real challenge or problem a client faces is not so easy. I’m not able to count
how often the problem that is presented as the reason for seeking SI coaching is only a cover
problem. Sometimes it takes three sessions, or even three months, before the big issue, dilemma, or
relationship problem comes to the surface and becomes the new objective of the coaching.
Your client may have been wrestling with the same problem in the same way for some time, and the
client probably developed a resistance to other solutions and to solving the problem. Why is that?
When people have been struggling with a problem for years and then someone comes in and gives
them another solution and the solution is too easy, or it makes it seem like the problem was useless to
have around, they get defensive. They feel regret. They say, “I didn’t just waste seven years of my life
with that problem, right?” This is just a part of human nature that you need to work with.
At times, clients need to feel very safe and sure of the relationship with the coach before unveiling a
deep pain or situation they may be scared of, ashamed of, or have given up hope of finding a solution.
A fundamental question for every coach, then, is “what am I going to do with the meaning of this
problem?” The truth is that problems are very flexible. We help our clients at the most profound level
when we are not only helping to create solutions but also helping to form more quality challenges and
goals. In the following chapters you will learn how to give a problem a purpose, use leverage to help
your client create the desire for change, redefine a problem, and create empowering alternatives.
Magali:
Remember, problems are a lot like children. You know how loving parents feel that their child is
special and unique. They cherish each drawing, word, and talent their child expresses. This creates
attachment to their child.
Think of your clients’ problem as if it were their child. They may have spent years nurturing and
connecting with this problem. You can’t just yank it out of their arms and set it on fire or simply say it
is irrelevant and serves no point.
Give that problem a purpose. Let it be of use. Let it take a vacation but respect and honor it. After all,
it did serve your client at some important level or he or she wouldn’t have had it for so long. Usually,
our problems serve many purposes: a distraction, protection from bigger problems or life situations, a
connection with ourselves, a way to love ourselves, the feeling that we or it is important, a
connection with others, or the ability to be special. After all, problems make us human and imperfect
(which is another form of protection and service).
Mark:
People are very liable to blame themselves for things that they haven’t done. They may be very
sensitive about past decisions or relationships and carry a level of guilt or self-blame. One of the
most effective things you can do is to reframe the problem as something that is much easier to solve
and separate from them; something that they haven’t thought of before; or something that clients can
solve in real time by making a decision right there in the coaching session.
If a person has been dealing with the problem the same way and defining it and wrestling with it the
same way, you can reframe the problem into something that is new, put a new spin on it, and lead them
to where they want to go. Make it something that the person can take action on during the coaching
conversation or in life that very day or week.
Magali:
I’d like to share with you the example of a client who came to coaching for herself. However, it soon
became clear that her focus was on how to help her sister. She judged her sister quite severely for the
infidelities she carried out and told her about.
Of course, she also loved her sister and met many of her six human needs through the drama of the
sister’s life. We discussed how she had options in her interpretation of not only the sister’s actions
but also the brother-in-law’s response to the actions.
My client relaxed; it was a visible difference. She had been thinking in a black-and-white way up
until then. Now, she could examine the secondary gains that her brother-in-law attained through his
wife’s affairs. She could also see how she was using the strong feelings she had experienced about
her sister’s life to meet her own needs for variety and significance. Together, we made a plan for how
she could get more variety and significance in her own life and how to express love towards her
sister with a new understanding of how the affairs may be meeting her needs.
Getting Leverage
Mark:
Now the real heart of leverage means you have an understanding of what the person cares most about.
Leverage is often seen as somewhat of a heavy, aggressive tool that has a business implication to it,
but SI leverage does not need to be heavy-handed.
Magali:
Leverage can be as simple as defining who will gain benefit from a problem, action, habit, or change.
For example, I was talking with a loving mother of a two-year-old baby girl. Denise had a troubled
relationship with her husband who had violent outbursts several times a year.
During these violent episodes, Denise had been physically injured and feared for her life. She
explained how, for years, she had been in a pattern of leaving and returning to her husband. She was
again considering reuniting with him.
Instead of entering into a conversation that would answer her question of whether to go back to him, I
took the following steps to gain leverage through my questions and suggestions:
1. How would you rate the violence on a scale of zero to 10 (10 being the most life-threatening)?
Denise answered “eight.”
2. Is your daughter at risk for being hurt physically? “Yes.”
3. Is your daughter going to grow up thinking that violence towards her mother is okay or that her
mother doesn’t love herself enough to leave and stop being hurt? Will she fear that her mother doesn’t
love her enough to protect her? Denise answered, “Most probably one of those things will happen.”
4. Because you love your daughter, I want to ask you to do something a little different this time. I
would like you to focus on loving yourself. Whenever you can during the day, stop and think about
how you love yourself. You will take actions to treat yourself and connect with yourself.
5. Especially at night when you hold your daughter and help her go to sleep, focus on how you
love yourself. Focus on all the ways that you are good: what a good mother, friend, and person you
are. Will you do this? Denise answered, “Yes.”
Through this coaching conversation, Denise created a change in how she would view the problem
pattern of abuse from her husband. The issue was no longer “Did she love him?” or “Would he ever
stop being violent?” The new question is “How would her daughter be affected by this pattern and
how could she love herself more?”
By asking her to give herself this love while holding her child, double leverage was applied. To love
herself was linked to holding and even protecting her child.
I heard from Denise a couple of weeks later. She had been sad for a few days and then experienced a
huge breakthrough. It was hard to describe it to me, but she had told her husband about how she loved
herself and needed to take care of herself and their daughter. For the first time ever, her husband came
to her a day or so later and told her he was going into treatment for dealing with and overcoming his
problem with violence.
Self-Leverage
Magali:
I created this term to clarify what the highest form of leverage is in our opinion. We believe that the
best leverage comes from within. When clients have taken the step to go to you as a coach, this is one
degree of leverage. If they are paying you for the coaching, this is the next degree of leverage. When
they understand themselves better, with your help, now we are getting a lot of leverage.
Next is when they consciously decide to listen to their unconscious or true self. You don’t need to use
the word or talk about the “unconscious.” Instead, you might say it as, “what your spirit tells you” or
“how you really feel” or “what you know is true.”
If people feel understood by you and accept the real truth of what they can do, be, or feel, and if they
take a step forward and say, “Yes, I need to do this,” then they have self-leverage. This is, in my
opinion, the most important type of leverage.
Your job is to encourage that self-leverage and build them up through understanding, Elevation,
Finding the Spark, uncovering their strengths and needs. Be their witness to change and discovery so
they can do what they need to do, to be what and how they are meant to be.
Mark:
In my opinion, leverage is basically a level of trust. When you have leverage, it means that people
have spoken to you about what is important to them. They feel understood. If they understand what
needs to happen, then leverage means, “I am going to do something about it.”
Leverage is getting the person to understand the laws of cause and effect; there will be consequences
if actions are taken or not. When a client doesn't trust you, he or she may resist your suggestions and
make them all about you. When you have leverage, the two of you are aligned, and you're considering
the cause and effect of the client's actions in the world and how to move forward in the best way.
You may be working hard trying to see if something has leverage and find, “Oh, that doesn’t work at
all.” Try something else. Then you will find something that does work. Often, it is a family member
that the client cares about. This is why we constantly expand the unit. You should include people your
client loves and cares about. Just talking about them brings leverage into the conversation.
Magali:
You can do this in a heavy-handed way by asking, “If you don’t solve this problem now, how will
your daughter see you five years from now? How will your husband see you?” Or you can simply ask
them, “How does your daughter feel about your health?” or “Is your husband concerned? What are his
worries?” See the difference?
Remember, your client has the answers inside his or her being. The unconscious mind wants to be
understood and wants to help create change. Through understanding and valuing the person’s
uniqueness, the SI coach unlocks this key within the client’s inner being. This allows the client to say
and feel, “Yes, I am going to change for them, for me, for the world. This is why… This is how…”
This doesn’t always happen in the session with you. I’m sorry if you were looking forward to the
joyful and dramatic moment. Sometimes, the session is when you set the stage for your clients.
Then outside of their work with you, they realize exactly what has to happen and why. Hopefully, they
call you and let you know. Often, they return for another session and their life is radically different.
Change happened quickly and it is almost like you are being introduced to a new person.
This new person was the one you had believed in all along. Now you need to support clients in this
way and keep expanding the unit. Learning how you help your clients supports the people in their
lives as they get to know this new person.
Redefining Problems
Mark:
We teach that it's important to listen carefully to your clients and pay attention to the specific words,
expressions, and metaphors they use when they talk about their interests, passions, relationships, and
strengths. On the other hand, people tend to define their problems and challenges in ways that are
habituated and that now meet their needs. So when you redefine a problem, you're giving clients a
way to approach it with the power of a fresh perception.
For instance, you'll often find people who have self-diagnosed themselves with a psychiatric
diagnosis like ADHD or depression. These diagnoses are used as pop-culture metaphors, but they
also tend to impose disempowering limits on the user. So if clients come in and say they're depressed,
you should take the time to understand more about their lives, and you may redefine the problem by
saying, “Frankly, I don't think you're depressed. I think you're bored. I think you need a more exciting
life.” When clients think of themselves as depressed, their emotional life is difficult to change. When
clients think of themselves as bored, you have an easy and fun problem to solve. This new
perspective shifts clients out of their habituated ways of struggling with (and perpetuating) their
challenge.
Magali:
Sometimes to redefine the problem, you may need to go into details that are uncomfortable for your
client. This could be talking about food in a way that makes a client with an overeating problem go
into alert mode. This could be an example of what happens to chocolate or fat in the intestines. You
could speak about how another person feels when your client does the destructive behavior – how
will this affect children or parents?
Mark:
Once your clients have accepted the importance of taking a certain path of action or a new decision,
they may feel vulnerable and scared. At that point, it's important to speak in a very encouraging way
and give clients many ways to succeed. It's also important to present many creative options and
empowering alternatives. Clients often have told themselves that they've tried everything, and this
thought makes them feel helpless. Showing them a variety of possible solutions breaks their pattern
and gets them to realize they just need to pick a direction, take action, and feel great about it.
Magali:
You can also give clients just one important thing to do. I often find one important step works best.
What matters is that your presentation of this step is done with confidence and that you know or
imagine that taking this action will create lasting change for your clients.
You know that if clients see themselves as powerful, they will step into a new confidence and shift a
destructive problem. You know that certain behaviors are the result of not being in touch with their
true self that is powerful, smart, etc. So make the strategy easy.
An example would be to tell your clients, “Just do this one thing. Say to yourself that you are
powerful every day. Be exact about your power and be clear about how you will use your power.”
Help your clients construct their lists. Then in the next session you have together, you will hear about
how that power worked for them, what shifts naturally evolved, and the way others have treated them
differently or noticed a change in them.
Rebalancing
Once clients have made a new decision, practiced a new behavior, or empowered themselves in any
way, they will soon be heading out into the world where they will encounter challenges and obstacles
to what they have just learned. Imagine for instance that a client has committed to practicing
something to work on at a set time every day, but people tend to interrupt and throw the client off
track. Rebalancing is a way to dress rehearse the situations that will throw you off balance, so that
you can learn how to get back on track.
You can practice rebalancing by giving people many small ways to succeed at demonstrating their
new decision. These new things that they have learned how to do are like little tests. This may mean
teasing your clients and getting them to resist your teasing to show they can stand up for their new
decision, their new way of being.
You can also do that in terms of hypothetical questions. You can say, “So, what is going to happen
when you go home?” or “What will you say?” or “Pretend that I am the person insulting you now.
What are you going to say?” You basically take clients through some examples of future situations. In
the session, have them rehearse coming up against a little bit of adversity or someone questioning
their action or asking them a question. Help them figure out how to do this several times. The testing
part is where you say, “Okay, we have just talked about it. You are feeling good. Now, let me test to
see if you can keep this up.” This is a way to help them become a little more robust and sure of their
new attitude.
Using Visualization and Reward as Conditioning
Magali:
Another way of doing this step is through visualization: guiding the person to visualize all the good
things that are going to happen in the future after making the change.
You can also use positive conditioning of the change by thinking of rewards every step of the way. If
the person accomplishes a certain thing, then there will be this reward. Then there will be another
reward and so on.
Even Better Rewards
Magali:
Knowing your clients’ rewards is a wonderful way to understand them better. Find out what would
really work for them. Find out their ideal way to make themselves feel better versus what they are
now.
So often, we have low-level rewards for ourselves because we haven’t had help understanding what
our incredible rewards could be. We settle for patterns of reward. I made it through the day so now I
get to eat ice cream, watch TV, go on Facebook, or drink another glass of wine. You can assume that
most of these types of rewards are second best. Allow yourself and your client to discover what
would be a really incredible reward, one that would meet more of the client’s needs and help the
client feel connection, growth, certainty, and variety.
Expanding the Social Support System
Magali:
We often focus on who is already in a person’s life. This is an extremely important and unique aspect
of Strategic Intervention coaching that grew from Strategic Family Therapy and Systemic Models. At
times, we need to help our clients create more social connections and better social environments.
You can start by creating a plan for introducing new ways to connect with the world each day, or
every week. Sometimes, this means increasing interactions with the people who are their natural
positive support system.
I always ask clients, “Who is the person that you feel most supported by when you are feeling your
most natural self?” Then I plan with them how to reach out to that person. I like to think of these
people in my clients’ lives as their true coaches. I am temporary; my goal is for my clients to have
relationships that support, motivate, and drive them to have all that they want in life.
Often, I learn that a person doesn’t have these types of friends or family members. In this case, we
focus on the types of friends the person could make, friends who will provide support. We might look
back also and consider what made a certain friend or lover special. I want my client to learn to
evaluate and understand what gives him or her support and connection.
Together, we figure out clients’ life stages and what they need now. So if a woman is looking forward
to having children in the next two years, we plan all the ways for her to meet other parents. I would
include her husband in this session as well.
This is a new opportunity for the two of them to create a community of supportive young parents. I
always encourage people who are considering starting a family to find others who are in this stage
and enjoying it. They need to start experiencing little things like changing a diaper, holding a baby,
listening to stories of birth, and so on.
Another example would be people who want to become healthier. Who do they consider to have a
healthy lifestyle? They need to be with that person more often. How can they meet more people who
model that healthy lifestyle they are entering? This would become a planning session together.
One of my favorite pieces of advice on losing weight comes from an Ayurvedic Book by Vasant Lad.
He suggests, “If you would like to be thinner, spend all your time with skinny people. Have all your
meals with skinny people.” I think this can go for any goal we have. Try to fill up on that reality – be
it people, pictures, readings, or whatever it takes – so that you are immersed in this new way of being
and relating to the world.
One of the greatest skills a coach can have is flexibility and creativity – the ability to see and develop
alternative solutions in the client's life. Most people do not systematically try multiple approaches to
solving a problem – they make two or three attempts before they start to lose confidence and stop
taking further action. As a coach, you can be that second pair of eyes that enters the situation and
quickly generates options that will excite your client and bring about unexpected results.
Chapter 3
Problems, Patterns, and Triggers
Problems
When people feel capable of creating the meanings that they want in life, they feel happy and
empowered. When they feel incapable of creating the meanings they want – they call it a problem.
Remember that all problems originate with meanings, and therefore they are flexible. When you
understand this, you become an incredibly powerful force in your client's life, because you can help
them work with any life conditions to meet their needs and create greater benefit for those around
them. Next time you come upon a problem or an obstacle, ask yourself, “What are the meanings
behind this problem?”
The following is a story by Cloe Madanes, a master of redefining problems.
Let us imagine that you have a nerdy type of young man who is shy and afraid of approaching
women and feels that he just cannot approach a woman. So the way that I redefine the problem is
that I like to say that it is not that he is nerdy or shy. It is just that he has a fear of rejection and
the way to overcome fear of rejection is by getting rejected so many times that if you become
accustomed to it, it doesn’t matter anymore.
So what I want him to do is to find at least three women that would reject him each day.
Sometimes, I make it five women and I actually direct them how to do it.
For example, go to a large department store where fashionable women usually shop. I remember
where I had my office. It was near a store called Bloomingdales. It is very fashionable and it has
an escalator inside the store and so I direct the young man to stand at the bottom of the escalator
and as women are coming down and it is a perfect place to speak to a woman because you cannot
turn around and go up when the escalator is coming down so you have to face the person at the
bottom of the escalator and then say to the woman, “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me?”
or something like that. And of course the woman will say, “Get out of my way. I don’t even know
you.” That counts as one rejection and when there are five rejections, you can go home and do this
every day. Of course, I am counting on the fact that some woman is going to say, “Okay, let us
have cup of tea” and then you start a different relationship. Now this does not apply to women. You
don’t send women to approach men to be rejected because they will not be rejected.
-Cloe Madanes
Magali & Mark:
So you have helped your client understand his or her top needs. Along the way, you realize these top
needs are really not helping your client with his or her current life stage or challenge.
Your client is thinking a lot about certainty and significance, for instance. So, let’s say you are
meeting with a guy who is having business and financial problems, and he is thinking, “Oh, my God. I
don’t know how I am going to do this.” Basically, he wants to know how he is going to be saved.
Right?
And while you are talking to him, you might say, “Hey, what do you do for fun? What is something that
you have done over the last couple of years that was just like stupid crazy fun?” You might find out
that he was a snowboarder or a motorcycle racer. Or there is something that he does that just makes
him laugh and it is a crazy pursuit. He really does value variety and adventure in some way. Now, you
can use these other needs to help him.
Once you know about this other part of the client, the part that is fun and full of adventure, you have a
resource in that person that you can bring to bear to solve the problem. You start off with a guy who is
shut down because he is worried about his certainty and his safety. Then you find the adventure within
that person just by asking that one question. You can think of it as part of the person that meets the
opposite needs.
So if someone is preoccupied by certainty, for instance, he or she has an opposite need for adventure
and uncertainty that used to help. Now, you can reconnect that part of the person and it will give him
or her a state shift, which provides the space and emotional strength to solve other problems like
needing more certainty.
Mark:
When people come in with a complaint or a challenge, one reason they have had trouble solving it, is
that they define it in a way that is not solvable. For example, a client comes in and says that he or she
feels depressed. Depression is not that easy to solve. What is the reverse of depression? Being un-
depressed? Not being so depressed? However, you can redefine that emotional state in terms that is
easy to solve and reverse – if you say “I think you're bored,” well that's relatively easy to reverse. We
know about the reverse of boredom – excitement, and that's a feeling that can be acquired. . Another
example – someone suffers from anxiety disorder. What is the opposite of anxiety disorder? Well, it's
not very clear... but fear is a feeling all of us understand. What can be making you afraid? Let's figure
it out.
We all have our own definition of words like depression, anger, and love – basically all emotional
words. Some clients are very attached to using a certain word to describe themselves. You should
find out what that word means to them. Get all the details. Find out the timeline for their meaning and
focus on a certain state.
Ask your clients, “What does this mean to you?” or “Did it always have this meaning?” or “Do you
know anyone with another meaning?” Then you can lead in to an alternate way of looking at their
word and its meaning. You can say, “In my experience, what you are calling ______ is really
______.” Then the conversation will move towards a larger arena of opportunity and the ways to
look at an emotion or situation.
Safe Problems
Magali:
Most of us have a Safe Problem. A Safe Problem is a problem that we never seem to give up, like
feeling dissatisfied with where we live, needing to lose 20 pounds, thinking that our spouse is not in
love with us, worrying that our child isn’t achieving enough, or that we aren’t good enough as a parent
or friend, or in our career, etc. There is an endless supply of safe problems.
What makes these problems unique is that we do not actually want them solved. We enjoy their easy
level of comfort. They give us a way to instantly connect with ourselves, to share with our close
friends, and most importantly, not to think about real problems.
For example, let’s say I always worry about losing weight. My worry slot gets taken up with this
dieting area of my life. I am then free from worrying about my financial goals or my relationships.
Losing weight has become a safe problem for me. I also don’t take action to lose the weight because
if I do, then what would happen to my safe problem?
Sometimes, safe problems are much harder to figure out than a great relationship. So we cling to them
and keep them around. After all, they are always close to our heart and a source for connection,
significance, variety, certainty, growth. They can even give us a chance to contribute to others with the
same safe problem.
How do you know when you or your client has a safe problem? One, the problem doesn’t ever get
solved. Two, the client seems satisfied when he or she talks about the problem. It is a subject the
client has spoken about often and enjoys returning to. Three, even when great effort is taken to solve
the problem, it is a temporary solution and the problem returns. “The cat came back the very next
day.”
For example, if the safe problem is anxiety attacks, the client may learn to use coping strategies that
work, but the client still likes to talk about the anxiety attacks. The client uses the memory of the
attack in the same way a child would hold onto a blankie. The safe problem provides significance,
reassurance, and connection.
The reason why we need to realize and face our safe problems is that they often keep us from
overcoming other more urgent challenges. Let go of one problem and a better problem presents itself.
By better, I mean a challenge or issue that, when overcome, will bring more quality emotions and
happiness into our life. For example, one safe problem is my spouse doesn’t appreciate me. If a wife
focuses on a new challenge like my husband and I need to share more exciting moments together, the
couple is now able to go to a higher level of love. Having exciting shared experiences will also result
in more feelings of appreciation.
Whenever you talk to a client, try asking yourself, “What would be a better problem for this person to
have?” Sometimes I will ask this question directly; sometimes I present a new area I’d like the person
to focus on for a week. I do this by saying, “I think there is another part of your life that isn’t getting
enough attention. This area is like a skill that you haven’t been given the opportunity to exercise. So, I
want to help you grow in that area.”
Notice that I don’t talk about it being a problem. Instead, it is an area of growth. This is useful on
several levels. For example, when we switch our focus from the need to have a romantic partner to
the need to be good at interviewing strangers, we are helping our client develop a key skill for
relationships. However, we haven’t put it in that language.
Another example of this would be a client who is in a relationship that began as an extramarital affair.
The client’s life is about secrecy. The person’s identity and issues are what to tell whom, what I think
about myself, what I deserve, and how much I should judge myself.
When you shift the focus to “needing more friends in your life,” then you shift the skill base to
learning to be open with others, sharing yourself, and looking for a variety of different friends to meet
different needs. Your clients not only benefit from having a greater social circle, but also they learn to
have greater compassion for themselves as they fill up with the life stories and mistakes of others
who are now their friends.
You have also helped them shift from their very significant and safe problem of being adulterous to a
very useful problem of needing a larger social circle and more variety in friendships. When a person
can have a new problem that he or she can quickly and easily improve in, then the client is in the
mode of improving and progressing. This will also affect the person’s safe problem. What happens is
the client puts the wheels in motion to become a problem-solver and change-maker. It is similar to
cleaning a house. Most women know that if they straighten up one part of a room, they are unable to
stop there. I’m sure a few men experience this too.
Magali:
This strategy was developed by Cloe Madanes. When clients feel that their past was lacking in role
models, this could be the result of distant parents, abuse, or an unhappy childhood story that they cling
to and keep replaying. When coaching this type of client, you can let the fairy godparent do the work
for you.
When asked, all people can remember an adult from their childhood who was kind to them. This
could be a very close family member or it could be a teacher who taught them for only several weeks
but left a lasting impression.
The goal is to help your client find a person from the past who was kind, loving, or a wonderful
example. For some people, there was a fictional character they related to so deeply that they now ask
themselves, “What would _____ do in this situation?” I will give you the steps to use this
intervention. If a client has mentioned a relative (or other) who was kind, you can explore that
specific relationship first.
Ask, “When you were growing up, was there a person who taught you a special skill or who was kind
to you, or maybe was someone you hoped you could be like?”
Whoever the client mentions, continue from there. If for some reason you feel the relationship was
very complicated or that it would be helpful, explore another fairy godparent. The number of fairies
can be endless.
You can ask, “How did you feel around this person?”
“What did you do together?”
“Tell me about the person?”
Then ask, “How would the person want you to live now? What would he or she hope you were
focusing on? How could you honor the person’s kindness to you?”
Let the client know that it only takes one fairy godparent in life. The client can think of this person as
a spiritual parent, role model, or hero (whatever feels right).
Ask your clients to decide what moments in the day or what types of emotions or activities help them
remember their fairy godparent.
Practice feeling the fairy godparent’s presence and asking the client a question. During the coaching
session, practice this experience. Ask your client how it feels to know that this person is there for the
client, inside of them whenever the client needs guidance, reassurance, or support.
Congratulate your client on all the love or reassurance he or she can create and how good the client is
at allowing this spirit and emotion to enter. Your words will give the client positive association and
strength to do this again and again when needed on his or her own.
Whiteboard Strategy to Overcome Interpersonal
Emotional Triggers
Magali:
Are emotional triggers a fact of life? We all have them, right? They might happen when our husband
asks us about our spending or when our wife calls her sister. Whatever your client’s emotional
triggers are, they are worth figuring out and minimizing.
I’d like to share a story with you about a very talented young couple I coach. I created this
Whiteboard Strategy personally for them. However, it then became one of my favorites and can be
used with anyone: a child, friend, colleague, and so on.
First, let’s get into a little personal history about the couple. The young man, Tyler, is a healer and a
very mellow person. However, he has a trigger and it is when his wife Julie, a beautiful artist,
complains to him about his family.
Having known this couple for a long time, I can tell you I’ve tried many ways to overcome both
Julie’s complaining and Tyler’s reaction to it. As is often the case, Julie was justified in her
complaints. Tyler was also instinctively deeply protective of his need to view his family as good and
caring people.
So now, through coaching, instead of fighting daily about their different opinions, things stay calm and
happy between the couple for weeks and even months. Then something triggers Tyler, like a small
comment, the roll of the eyes, or just realizing it has been over a month since they saw his family.
When this happens, he follows Julie around the house trying to have a fight. Tyler stacks all his
worries and complaints together and feels that he needs to talk with Julie to feel better. However,
Julie is triggered by Tyler’s need to share his concerns with her. She reacts by wanting solitude, and
she hides and waits out Tyler’s dramatic escalation.
This is pretty common in a couple: two people are attracted to each other because of their different
styles of coping with emotion. This gives the couple a spark and polarity.
However, the different styles of wanting to grow or process can also create a lot of backpedaling and
hurt. So how do you coach clients to dive into their trigger, to own the trigger, and to avoid letting the
trigger own them? Planning, planning, and planning. Julie, after 10 years of living with this pattern of
mutual triggers, is feeling strong enough to shift the dynamic forever.
I created this strategy to work in a similar way as the practice of Tai Chi. You allow the
overwhelming force to exhaust its own energy, which in this case is Tyler’s energy to reinvent,
explore, and question his relationship. So instead of helping Julie set boundaries and personal space,
I encourage Julie to go with Tyler’s need to rehash, share, and question their relationship, differences,
views of his family, and processing styles.
Planning in advance of any argument or trigger: Julie must purchase several large white boards like
the kind teachers or presenters use. On the board, Julie will write notes to herself of typical questions
or statements Tyler asks that trigger her. She will be ready for each trigger with a preplanned, loving,
purpose-focused response. If a new challenge or statement is thrown her way, she will read her
purpose or Mission Statement.
The Mission Statement about their relationship, which she will put on the back of the board, could be
something like this: “I love you. I love how we are together, and I want us to grow, learn and
understand each other more every day.”
Putting the plan into action: just like an athlete who visualizes success every step of the way, Julie
needs to visualize what might happen and how she will react. You can walk your clients through the
steps that they imagine happening.
Tyler seeks out Julie, saying he really needs to talk with her. He tells her he is upset that she doesn’t
welcome his sister to the house anymore.
Past response: Julie was triggered and she would tell Tyler why she thought his sister was so difficult
to be around. Then they would start to fight. He would follow her, and she would lock herself in their
bedroom.
New strategy: Julie tells Tyler she wants to understand his concerns and asks if he can give her a
minute to get prepared. She finds her board, checks her notes, and reviews her Mission Statement.
Sitting down with Tyler, she explains to him that first she just wants him to know how much she
appreciates his ability to share his feelings. Then she lets him know her Mission for their marriage.
She tells him that in order to understand him better, she wants to write all of his concerns down on the
board.
She repeats Tyler’s concerns back to him to make sure she really gets them and then writes them on
the board. She also writes Julie’s Purpose or Mission at the top of the board, stating her highest intent
for their relationship.
After writing Tyler’s concerns, she asks him to help her brainstorm ways to make him happier
regarding his need to see his sister and have her over. Julie writes down all of Tyler’s suggestions.
She never tells him it won’t work. She never criticizes his concerns, ideas, and suggestions. Instead,
she lets herself get in the flow and she writes more and asks more, making sure to document all of his
concerns, critiques, and ideas.
She exhausts the creative, critical, and emotional force in Tyler. Julie asks again and again for more
information and writes it down. When or if she feels triggered she says, “I need to remind you and
myself of my love for you. That I want more than anything to grow with you every day. I am so happy
you can share your feelings with me.”
Results: Tyler feels heard and understood. The couple gets through the challenging and emotional
episode. He understands Julie’s purpose. This makes Tyler want to give back and share his purpose,
dream, or mission for their relationship. Julie has created the tone of the conversation. She has shifted
the meaning of it. No longer is she defending; now she is learning, exploring, and getting creative.
Tyler wants to give back to her and hear her wishes.
Importance of waiting: It is important after the success of hearing Tyler and being present for him that
Julie doesn’t say, “OK, my turn” and then give Tyler her concerns, fears, frustrations. She must simply
thank him for sharing with her. She can let him know she feels his love in this very moment and feels
how amazing they are together. When she needs to share with him, she will.
Instead she’d like to take a quiet walk together or go to dinner or watch a movie – any pleasant, easy
activity that will not trigger either of them. Julie’s final work is to feel Tyler’s appreciation and love
now that he has been heard. If he continues to ask if she has changed her position, she answers, “Now
I understand you so much more and love you even more. I will think about what you have shared.”
As a coach, you can and should walk through the whole scene with your client. Have your client
practice stating his or her purpose or turning to the board to write down concerns and actions. Instead
of avoiding a trigger, you are empowering your client to be a leader and to set the tone and purpose
for what could have been a fight.
The Crazy Eight Strategy
Magali:
Anthony Robbins developed this very helpful strategy to describe and change the emotional swings
that keep people in an unproductive state of emotional turmoil.
Emotional Mood Swings
We all have them: those mood swings that leave us asking, “Why do I do this?” or “What’s wrong
with me?” When we work with a client who goes between sadness and anger regularly, we want to
help the client understand what this emotional roller coaster is all about and how he or she can end it
by understanding it.
Part of having strong emotions is that they lead us to take action. For example, when you love a
person, it leads you to want to commit to the person. When you want to learn how to do something, it
leads you to study that field. When we are blocked to take action on our emotion due to a deep fear, a
belief from our past, or a rule we have created, we often experience a Crazy Eight emotional pattern.
Our emotional roller coaster takes up the void left by our lack of action. For some people, this starts
with a question they keep asking themselves. For others, they go right into moods that they don’t
understand but that keep reoccurring. The heart of the Crazy Eight is two emotions that are opposite of
each other; these take turns triggering and relieving each other. The pattern can go on infinitely if not
understood and modified.
Crazy Eight emotions usually follow the pattern of sadness that creates connection with the self, and
then frustration and anger at the self or others that must be relieved by sadness and connection.
I feel sad ----------------- I feel mad
Our goal as a coach is to help our client:

1. Recognize the Crazy Eight pattern and identify the emotions on either side of it.
2. Identify any fear, belief, or rule at the core of the emotional back and forth.
3. Discover what the client’s secondary gain is because of his or her Crazy Eight.
4. Find alternative emotions, actions, and states that enable the client to take action. Use the Triad, 3
Ps, and Pretend Strategy.
5. Realize triggers and have a plan at hand for choosing an action instead of losing time and energy
in a Crazy Eight pattern.
Mark’s Notes on the Crazy Eight
The Crazy Eight is a way for our psychology to be very emotionally preoccupied about some action
we're afraid to take. On one side of the Crazy Eight, we focus on action (which is usually getting very
aggressive, motivated, angry, upset, indignant about how things are going).
At that point, your physiology will actually switch. Your body will actually say, “I can’t handle too
much tension so I have to relax,” and your emotions go to the other side of the Crazy Eight, which is
self-pityconnecting with yourself feeling sorry for yourself; this is a more relaxed state.
When you get tired of being in self-pity and commiserating with yourself and connecting with
yourself, you flip back into the Crazy Eight of saying, “This is not okay. You know it’s got to be better
than this.” Then you get frustrated and angry again. The Crazy Eight goes back and forth like this.
Imagine a figure eight in the air and your emotions following the pattern. When you hit a curve in the
eight you switch emotions. This makes you feel stuck in a loop.
The Crazy Eight is usually about a decision or a risk. The way out of the Crazy Eight is to either move
to the next level; take yourself to the next level where you are not going back and forth and you are
actually making a leap and taking a risk.
The other way that people deal with the Crazy Eight is they go down by medicating themselves in
some way. They eat, do something that distracts them, or do something extreme that takes over the
nervous system so they don’t need to think or feel.
The Crazy Eight is basically a way that people deal with internal conflict. There are two different
sides of emotions. One is more driven and the other side is more relaxed and self-pitying. The way
you get out of it is you figure out what it is all about.
As a coach, you help your client understand what he or she needs to do or decide to stop the
exhausting pattern and limit the ability to have quality connection in life.
Chapter 4
Community, Strength, and Life Stage
Expanding the Unit
Magali:
This concept was invented in the 1950s in Systems Theory. In the 1970s Gregory Bateson expanded
this model as he discussed human relationships.
One reason that Strategic Intervention Coaching is so unique is that we believe in a systemic
approach. What is a systemic approach? It is founded on the idea that, as people, we are interrelated.
When I am in a family, my changes, patterns, moods, beliefs, and actions affect everybody else in my
family system. This is similar to what we see in nature as we witness how an ecosystem works.
Let’s explore what happens when your client experiences a huge shift in his or her feelings of self-
worth.
This is a story of a wonderful young woman I had the honor to coach. This young woman, we will
call her Vicky, came to coaching for a very specific behavioral problem. Pretty soon, I realized that
her behavior, which was compulsive and hurtful to herself, was the direct result of feeling that she
wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or really lovable. She didn’t see her strength, intelligence, or
kindness. However, she was sad because she felt very criticized and judged by her husband.
Through working together, Vicky soon started to feel much more powerful and proud of herself. As a
Strategic Interventionist, I knew that her new attitude and sense of self would affect her relationship.
However, not knowing exactly how her husband might react, I made sure to prepare Vicky. I asked
Vicky to increase her compliments and sincere expressions of support and love to her husband. This
is what we call Expanding the Unit. Now, not only is Vicky showing her husband that she values and
loves herself, but also she is transforming the way she expresses her love and appreciation towards
him. Had Vicky not taken care to preserve his feelings of importance, what could have happened?
Often, when a coach helps a client like Vicky but doesn’t help the client’s greater system, spouse, or
family, the spouse will feel threatened by Vicky’s new attitude and view even her positive mood and
new self-esteem as a threat.
This often happens when people go to a self-help event. They feel great, and they have a plan, a new
vocabulary, new friends, and a better way to relate to the world. However, when they get home, their
families don’t understand and may feel threatened.
This is why as a Strategic Interventionist you are always expanding the unit. You can do this in three
easy ways: make sure to help your client give appreciation to the people in his or her life, know who
the six most important relationships are for your client, and help these relationships through your
work with the individual.
Prepare your clients to explain what they are learning to their family. Part of their work is to teach
and help their six most important relationships.
Including the Family

Another crucial element in expanding the unit is to invite a client’s family to speak with you. This can
be done in several ways. Every SI Coach will have his or her own ways to expand the unit. Most
important is that you never give up. You can email a client’s family (with your client’s permission).
You can call the family members to have a quick chat about their views and opinions, always
elevating them to the position of a caring helper. Make sure that they feel appreciated by you and that
they understand that their opinions matter to you and will be valuable for your client. You can invite
individuals or the whole family to a group session. During this session, give each person a turn to
share his or her support, wishes, and desires for a better relationship or to see the client succeeding
or happy. Always end a group session on a high emotional note where you recap the incredible
kindness and support given and received during the group session.
Don’t give up. In one instance, I emailed the wife of my client every few weeks for six months before
she agreed to participate in the coaching. It was worth the wait. Only when she joined the coaching
did the real truth come out about her needs. Then solutions were found. The wife was so surprised by
the type of coaching we were doing that she then wanted private sessions as well couples sessions.
Magali:
Most of us haven’t spent a lot of time discovering our strengths. We may hold on to some words in the
back of our minds, something that our mom told us that was great about us; for example, you are a
great friend or a fantastic musician. However, our education and our culture don’t support us in
understanding what makes us special in the realm of interpersonal communication. So when you have
the gift of working with a client using SI, you can give the client a great deal of insight and spiritual
strength by discovering the person’s unique strengths and gifts. This concept of human strengths came
to us through the work of Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath.
The idea of a strength can sound very general. This is why I like to explain that a strength can be a
skill we’ve learned like giving a compliment. It can be a belief we hold like “all people deserve to
be heard,” or it can be an emotional mood we find easy to experience like excitement or peace.
I think the best way to learn to work with a client’s strength discovery is to figure out your own
personal list of strengths. So let’s do this together, right now. Even if you think you know your
strengths, it never hurts to remind yourself and possibly uncover a new strength you hadn’t thought of.
Answer the following questions quickly and in handwriting, if you can.
The emotion of ____________________ is easy for me to feel.

You should be writing out the whole sentence for yourself. You can make it more casual now.
I’m good at feeling…
Repeat and finish this sentence over and over. I want you to consider that some feelings that have a
bad reputation can actually be enormous wells of strength. Some that come to mind are being critical,
worried/concerned, and protective.
How do these feelings help you get things done? How do they help you to feel even more emotions?
Just like gateway drugs, we all have gateway feelings. So if we feel jealous, for example, it could
lead to feeling love for our mate. If we feel protective of our child, it could lead to feeling connected
to him or her. If any of your feelings have a bad reputation, ask yourself with an open heart what that
feeling allows you to feel on top of it and write it down.
Now, let’s get into your beliefs. Beliefs can be simple and they can be complicated. I want you to set
a timer and time yourself for five minutes. During these five minutes, you’re going to write anything
you believe. Here are a few examples.
I believe being kind is important.

I believe that my smile can make a stranger happy.
I believe in my child’s creativity.
I believe that people always have something special about them.
I believe art is beautiful.
I believe that nature brings peace.
Your turn:
I believe….
I believe…
I believe…
Now, keep writing. Write fast and don’t take any time to think – just write. When your timer goes off,
if you feel like it, then write more or write a few of your beliefs over again. Don’t worry about
anything that sounds weird to you. This happens when we are in the flow and writing from our center.
Afterwards, you can always change a sentence to sound truer to your belief.
Did you know that your beliefs are also your strengths? When you know what you believe, your
thoughts and actions have an easier time expressing themselves. Therefore, our beliefs often create
our strengths. So when we believe we are kind and loving, it is easier for us to express our love and
kindness. This realization is a wonderful gift to give to your clients.
More questions to ask:
What do I already do that is a strength?
I want you to discover how you do things that may be habits, such as easy, joyful acts, difficult chores,
or anything else; but underneath them is a living strength.
Hidden Strengths:
I take care of the family’s pets, even though I didn’t want to have pets. This statement doesn’t sound
very joyful or positive, right? However, it is a strength. The person who takes on daily responsibility
because it brings joy to the family is using a personal strength. And you know what? Even if the
person complains about it, or has a story about it, it is still a strength. Write down how you would
describe this strength to a client. You will be reframing his or her story.
Now write for three minutes about what you do every day. Are there people you check on? Is there a
way you support others? Do you do something emotionally, physically, or spiritually-empowering for
yourself? Write it down. Are you learning something daily or weekly?
Every day, I grow when I….
Every week, I grow when I…
Every year, I grow when I…
Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Meeting Our Goals
Mark & Magali:
Let’s talk about an incredibly common problem that all coaches encounter. It is probably the number
one request that coaches receive. People go to coaches largely to gain support in meeting their goals.
One of the most typical patterns that people run up against is self-sabotage and self-restriction; they
suffer from an inner conflict that prevents them from harnessing all their energy and ensuring that they
have success in whatever they are trying to do. These conflicts may come from something in the past
that they blame themselves for. It can come from a lack of certainty to take a step forward into a new
phase of life or opportunity. It can also come from a fear of rejection by someone whose acceptance
they want.
In each of these cases, the conflict will often present itself as a hesitation, a turning back, or a giving
up. Self-sabotage sounds like a kind of complicated term, but what it basically means is that you are
stopping short of finishing. You are hesitating in the steps that you need to take to reach your goal.
In the case of a woman who is struggling with her weight, she might actually be a totally kick-ass
businesswoman and very successful, but in her personal life she is miserable and her relationships
are unfulfilling. She feels empty. She worked hard but thinks she has very little to offer people on an
emotional or spiritual level. She feels that she has made little or no progress on two of her goals,
which are to be healthy and strong.
You can help coach this person to focus on what she wants as an experience, an emotion, a value, or
something that she can hold up and feel. This needs to be compelling.
When you do this, it needs to meet the goal and should become much more than losing pounds. The
emotion is the driving force that supplies energy to take you to your goal. If you want results, you
don’t want an inner conflict diffusing or distracting that energy.
By choosing the emotions as the focus and creating concrete activities and actions that create the goal
emotion, the client overcomes self-sabotage and starts to feel successful. Every day, the client is
living the desired goal. From this new emotional state, it becomes easier to follow through with tasks
like exercise or healthy eating. The emotional goal is the road that the person has built; now, walking
down that road is easy.
It can be very helpful to see our own types of self-sabotage. We all have self-sabotaging patterns. We
all have times where we are weaker or stressed or tired, and we fall back to a lesser way of doing
things.
We all have emotions that we want to avoid, but we have very specific ways of putting ourselves into
those unwanted emotions. They don’t happen by chance. We may think we don’t want to feel
overwhelmed, but we find ourselves thinking about things nonstop that make us scared or nervous. We
even stack up our thoughts to give them more of an overwhelming feeling. Sometimes, what we want
to avoid paradoxically becomes where we keep finding ourselves emotionally.
Think for a moment about something that you have wanted to do for a long time, whether it is a career
thing or a business thing or a relationship thing or a parenting thing, something that you feel like you
really should do or have to do. You tell yourself that you are going to get to it but it is not happening.
It could be something that you want to take action on, but at the last minute you pull back or you do
something stupid. Some people prepare for an important meeting for two months and then show up ten
minutes late. Right?
In any of these areas where you are not meeting your goal, I can promise you that you have a self-
sabotage strategy. You intend to do something, but then you change your mind or you let another
priority take precedence or you have a thought like “I shouldn’t exercise now but I will be too
sweaty,” or you simply fall into a lesser mindset and you are burned out and you are not thinking
about your outcomes. You are just thinking about doing the things that you usually do.
There is a specific sequence. In weight loss, the very typical one is that you probably have certain
triggers that make it okay in the moment to eat even though it wasn’t in your plan. Therefore, you
destroy your weight-loss plan.
If it is a career, it is usually something that you are not getting around to. Often, this thing is critical
like paying your taxes. You are procrastinating or you haven’t gotten around to it. Eventually, it has a
harsh consequence. There could be a new thing that you have to focus on that you are not comfortable
with like marketing your business, and you might think “Oh, I can’t do marketing; that is not me,” and
you never feel certain enough to do it.
If it is relationship-related, there is something someone in your environment does that throws you off
and discourages you from doing what you feel you have to do. You may have certain programming
inside that relates to certain people so there are things that you do not do.
One of the keys to self-sabotaging behaviors and inner conflicts is that they prevent people from doing
what they have to do to ensure success. In other words, when you are fully aligned to make something
happen, you take precautions. You have a plan B or a contingency plan. If it is a task that takes two
hours to do but it is important and critical, then you allocate five hours to make sure that the two-hour
task is completed.
If you are going to a meeting that is critical, you show up 30 minutes early and you wait, right?
Because it is important; you have to be there just in case there is traffic.
If it is important that a certain client is pleased with your work, you aim to make sure the client is
thrilled with your work and is out-of-mind happy. That way, even if he or she is having a horrible,
rotten day, the person will still be pleased with your work at a minimum. Right? So this is like
thinking big. You have to take massive action.
When you see self-sabotage in your client, you witness conflicting behavior with someone who keeps
failing or having all those plans fail or the person is doing something that is the opposite of taking
massive action. The person puts in 90 percent of effort and hopes that it comes out at 100 percent,
right? The person should really be putting out 150 percent effort to get 100 percent. He or she shoots
for arriving at the meeting on time or even two minutes late instead of being there thirty minutes early.
The person allocates two hours to do an hour-long task and then asks for forgiveness when arriving
half-an-hour late.
The point here is that you should distinguish between massive action thinking (thinking BIG) and
adequacy thinking (just enough thinking).
Examples of Self-Sabotage:
This was written to us by a student we were training and is a good example of self-sabotage. When he
was very young and growing up, he was a good student, successful, and much loved by his mother.
But he feels it makes his father jealous so the father was not as loving to him as he could have been.
To this day, this man continues to either seek the father’s love or take revenge on the father for not
loving him – I am not sure which. He feels that he cannot succeed because the father will be jealous
and not love him. On the other hand, when he looks at his father, he realizes that the father is in pain
because he is not successful and that the father actually would like him to succeed. Whether he is
taking revenge on the father or he is afraid that if he succeeds the father will not love him, he is still
thinking about his father.
This is a grown man. A time comes in your life where you have to decide that you are not going to
live in reaction to your parents anymore. Part of the work of the coach is to help the person realize
that and help the person to make the transition to being an independent adult.
Another example is that, for many women, it is difficult to be happier than their mother or sister. They
arrange to mess up an aspect of their life, their career, or their intimate relationship, or their
relationship with their children just so they will not be happier than the other women in their life.
Men do the same in relation to their father.
The reality is that all parents want their children to be successful and to be more successful than they
have been. Even for parents who have very negative traits and negative emotions towards their
children, ultimately there is a part of them that really wants their children to succeed. That is the part
that the coach has to help the person to understand, develop, and encourage.
Life Stages
Mark:
Life Stages are the different points of life that you go through. We are always growing, we are always
moving forward, and there are transition points along the way; these are what we call our Life Stages.
If you want to quickly understand what is most important for clients to focus on, it is important to
understand their Life Stages. This concept of Life Stages is influenced by the work of Jay Haley and
Milton Erickson.
Let’s look at some of the Life Stages. For instance, one of the transition points is being a child, being
a teenager, and then being a young adult where you leave home. That is a very dramatic life stage.
When you switch a Life Stage, you often have to scrap everything that you’ve been doing in terms of
being dependent on people or living in a family, and then you move on to a completely different
situation. So you experience the transition from being a teenager at home to living on your own. This
is a pretty huge shift into the next Life Stage.
Sometimes when you get stuck entering the next Life Stage, people tend to regress and develop a safe
problem that takes up more of their energy and attention, and it tends to take up other people’s
attention as well.
So many of people’s biggest problems happen during these critical juncture points in life.
Unfortunately, in our culture, this is a time when people tend to just medicate or get divorced or do
something that takes them more off-track because they want to be distracted. Many of these problems
are actually just a crisis of jumping to the next life stage, but as Strategic Interventionists, we know
that you can clarify three or four big priorities for that life stage for anyone. Those three or four big
things will require growth and effort if you can accomplish the transition, and they are going to mean
the person is moving forward and growing.
Magali:
A life stage may coincide with an age or with an event like one’s first job, marriage, the birth of a
child, a shift in responsibility, the loss of loved one, or a career change. Based on my personal
research, this is what I find to be very important in any particular Life Stage.
The following is a list of typical Life Stages with typical questions that are asked:
Child (0-13)
Am I safe?
Am I loved?
Am I special?
Will things happen the same way tomorrow?
Teen (13-18)
Is this real?
Are my parents telling the truth?
How can I be more me?
Why is everyone else how they are?
What do I care about?
What is my unique style?
Young adult (18-25)
How or what can I learn?
Will I find a romantic partner?
What will I do to take care of myself?
Who are my people?
What is my passion/calling?
Young Couple (25-30)
Do I/we want children?
Is my career on a path of growth?
Does our work complement each other?
Does he/she value me enough?
How do we love our families and be our own family?
30-40
Is my path relevant?
Does my family support who I am as an adult?
Am I taking care of others?
This life is real; it isn’t a dress rehearsal?
Do I have goals?
Time might be spent looking back at childhood and 20s
New relationship with parents is formed
40-50
No question this life is real.
Are my relationships strong?
What have I accomplished?
How do I enjoy life?
What has happened to my relationships?
How will I have certainty?
How will I contribute?
50-60
I need fun, is it too late?
Planning my retirement makes me feel old.
I made mistakes and need to start over in some life areas.
How do I get along with my adult children?
Significance is sometimes a big player at this life stage.
2nd or third career may be at center of a person’s challenge or goal.
2nd or third marriage may be making a person question his or her past.
I can’t mess up again.
I need skills in areas that I ignored in the past.

I will die some day.
I’m anxious about my health.
60-70
How do I give?
Who really matters to me?
Who do I matter to?
How do I solve long-term bad patterns/habits?
What can I still learn?
I’m not where I thought I’d be; how do I get there?
70-80
Discovering and sharing my life story would be nice.
I want more for my children and grandchildren.
How do I give to my friends?
How do I take care of my health?
I can’t be anxious anymore; it will kill me.
No more time for bad days; my emotions need to change now.
I’m too old to change.
Now, life stages are not a standardized experience – they depend on gender, culture, your health and
aging process, your type of career, and of course your individual beliefs and choices. There are also
other situational factors that affect us strongly: getting divorced, having financial crisis, having health
crisis, having a housing crisis, or on the other hand, sudden wealth, sudden fame or popularity. These
types of situations can “hijack” a life stage and take up much of your focus.
So, next time a client is confused or upset, and you want to bring them greater clarity and priority,
think about what life stage are they in? Are they making a transition? What would need to be in place
for them to comfortably move into the next life phase? How can you help them understand the benefits
and rewards of their life stage, or the next life stage they will transition to, in order to help them get
the confidence and momentum they need?
Chapter 5
Metaphors
Metaphor
Magali:
Metaphors serve an important purpose for us emotionally. They connect us visually and emotionally,
giving us strength and reassurance when we use them to serve ourselves or others. The way we use
Metaphor as a strategy was greatly influenced by the work of Milton Erickson. Here are a few quick
examples of metaphors: “He is my prince charming.” A child taking karate is asked by his teacher,
“Do you want to become a Ninja?” When we were kids saying goodbye to each other, we would say,
“See you later, alligator.” The goodbye became fun and loving.
What typically happens with metaphorical communication is that the person who is using the language
doesn’t realize it. Often, this happens when people are upset or emotional; they just have to speak in
metaphors. It is part of being human to use metaphors. We are often unaware that we have control
over our metaphors.
Change an action related to a metaphor. If you see a challenge ahead of you and think or say “It feels
like I am climbing a steep mountain,” then you are using a metaphor. If you want to change your
metaphor to make the task at hand feel much easier and more enjoyable, you could think or say, “I will
dance across a bridge to get to that mountain.”
Some of us are visual and may see our metaphors. An example of this is seeing and experiencing
others as animals. People will even call someone an animal. They will say, “That guy is a wolf.”
They may even see a wolf when they think of him. I’ve heard women describe themselves as a cat or
a bird. When looking in the mirror, people may identify parts of themselves that resemble the animal
they identify with.
How do we help a client by using metaphors? One way is to give the client a new metaphor that we
create. Once, I was working with a young man of eighteen who was always very negative and critical.
I told him, “When I look at you, I see a golden retriever who loves everyone.” He immediately shifted
his posture, laughed to himself, and his eyes became watery. We went on to talk about what he really
wanted out of life. I took a chance in that conversation by using a metaphor that was the opposite of
how this young man was trying to present himself. What proceeded was a quick jump into the desires
and goals that lay right under the cynical, critical banter he was used to engaging in.
Often, it is worth it to sound ridiculous. I’ve also learned that people who appear to be negative or
hurtful are often hiding a huge heart that is afraid of being disappointed. When a coach sees this heart
and focuses on the good in his or her clients, the clients can be that light, better part of them and see a
better future or speak about their real desires, hopes, and dreams.
Have you ever noticed a grumpy person who melts around his or her pet dog or cat? Some people
have a lot of warmth and energy in reserve. They are able to share this special loving energy with
animals. Is this because animals are so different from people that people are less afraid of being
rejected? Is it because, though animals might bite or scratch, they won’t yell or say anything hurtful?
We know that we can easily give people a pet that will make them purr or lick. I took this observation
and applied it to couples coaching.
Some fun you can have when coaching a couple and using metaphors is to ask them to see each other
as a cute, small, or baby animal. You can say to your clients, “Right now, if she were an animal, what
would she look like?”
I do this with a loving couple who needs to have a better, more loving connection, and not be with a
hurtful individual. The husband might see his wife as a little lion cub. When he shares his image with
her, she can relate to it or give him a picture of how she sees herself.
I then ask the couple if, the next time they feel frustrated or disconnected, they could take a moment to
see the other as a cute animal. Then you should ask them, “How would I approach that animal? Where
would it want to be petted? What tone of voice would I use to get its attention?”
This shifts the metaphor about the other into a realm of cuteness, affection, and action. Of course, this
can also lead to fun in the bedroom, but it doesn’t need to in order to increase the love and
connection.
Financial metaphors and couples. Most of us have a strong visual, experiential tie to the idea of our
bank accounts. Even though money is now just a number in a system representing what we have, most
of us grew up with the idea of a piggy bank, or we actually used a real piggy bank or jar. When we
think of our savings, we see a bank as a physical place where money is stored and withdrawn.
This can apply to how you see your relationship. So when you tell clients to consider every
appreciation they give to their mate as a deposit in their relationship bank account, you are using a
strong metaphor. The couple understands what this means immediately. You can then help them come
up with many creative ways to make deposits.
Also, create a list of withdrawals so it is clear what takes love away from the couple’s relationship
bank account. Allow the couple to create the list of deposits and withdrawals. Appreciate their
individual genius and ideas. This will anchor, elevate, and reinforce the metaphor.
Elevate a person by using a metaphor. Just like in the story of the teenage boy Golden Retriever,
you can also tell a client he or she is Superman in the eyes of the person’s children. You might explain
that an aunt is really a girl’s Fairy Godmother. Now the dad who is Superman feels more able to be a
real hero to his kids. The aunt feels that she can create a magical relationship with her niece, and the
niece feels this towards her aunt. To connect with my son Jesse when he was six, I would spend entire
days pretending he was the captain of a ship and I was his mate. Wherever we went, we talked pirate.
Now a decade later, he plays with his younger brother using a ton of brilliant metaphors. Just like
learning to draw, sing, or act, when we get skilled at speaking and imagining metaphors, we become
an active metaphorical artist. This helps our relationships and our ability to have fun in all of our
creative pursuits.
As you can see, metaphors are effective with everybody, but they can be especially powerful with
children. For instance, imagine that you have a four-year-old boy in the car and you need to go into
the supermarket, but he doesn’t want to get out of the car. He is sick of driving in the car. He is sick of
going in and out of the car. Can’t blame him, right? Who wants to be stuck in a car seat all afternoon?
What choices do you have? You can physically pick him up and you know he will be screaming.
Carrying him may hurt your back. No fun, right? You think, “Maybe I need to bribe him. I need to give
him candy,” or something like that. Metaphors are extraordinarily effective with children. So you
open the door and he says, “I am not going out.”
You say, “Oh, you are not going out? I think you are Batman and you will help me. What are we going
to do? How are we going to stop the Riddler? The Riddler is in there. If Batman doesn’t get out of the
car and go into the store, then who is going to save the people in the store?” If he feels like he could
be Batman in that moment and have fun with you because you are Robin, then you are going to have
his cooperation. This is the way that you can use metaphor to creatively control the meaning and
mood of a situation.
Change the meaning of a relationship by using a metaphor. The following is an example by Cloe
Madanes, my teacher and mother. She uses this example when training students in Strategic
Intervention Coaching.
Let’s suppose that you have a brother and sister who fight all the time and the parents are
concerned about this. You might observe that "the children fighting" is metaphorical of the parents
fighting with each other. The children fighting with each other not only expresses the parent’s
fighting, but also it distracts the parents from fighting. So the children have learned that when
things get tense between the mother and father and the children fight with each other, the parents
stop their fighting. The attention of the parents at the moment shifts from each other to their
children’s problems.
The action here is to change the original relationship: the relationship that is the root cause of the
metaphorical effect. In this example, what you have to do is focus on why the parents are fighting
and on how to improve their relationship. Then as the parents’ relationship becomes more loving,
more caring, and more giving, the children’s fighting will also change into more playful, more
loving, and more caring communication. - Cloe Madanes
Symptom as metaphor: Metaphors can also serve us by becoming a real symptom we experience.
For some people, this means just saying, “Your emotions are like a pain in my side.” For others, just
saying this isn’t enough and the person actually feels the pain he or she is speaking about. This is
common with anxiety. A person could say or think, “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster.”
Or people can feel the experience in their body of fear, nausea, overwhelm, fast heart rate, etc. A
person may create a physical metaphor for his or her own feelings or thoughts or for another close
person. An example of this would be a child who hears his parents fighting and then throws up or has
a panic attack. He doesn’t know that they are expressing through their body a metaphor for the
emotional pattern between the parents. This can be very destructive to the well-being of a person, so
it is important to change the metaphor and give the person a positive action to take.
To help a person who makes his or her metaphors real physical experiences, you often need to use
real physical experiences. This is where pretend strategy meets metaphor strategy. You can tell a
child in this situation that she can take that fight she hears and turn it into a picture she draws or a
song she sings. Let the parents know that whenever the child hears them fighting, they need to go to
her, apologize, and ask to please draw or sing the fight she heard. It would be good for the parents to
do this as well. This way, they are taking responsibility and modeling a better way to express their
emotions than fighting with their spouse.
Using improv is also very helpful. The parents could say, “You know what? We had this fight and to
get it out of us, out of our body and spirit. We will act it out for you but we will make it silly and fun.”
Then the parents would need to act out their fight in super fast speed for one minute and then in slow
motion for one minute. Or they could wear funny fighting hats or hold toy swords or paint lines on
their faces. Their child could hold a stop watch or time them on the phone. The child could also do
this improv redo of a fight when arguing with a sibling or other family member. This will bring humor
and lightness into the environment of a home with lots of fighting or shouting. Usually, people who are
good at fighting are also good actors and can be very creative.
Using Metaphors for Success
Magali:
Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are working constantly to help us in the form of metaphors. They
come to us as pictures and images. The Merriam-Webster definition of metaphor is a word or phrase
for one thing that is used to refer to another thing to show or suggest that they are similar.
Our unconscious mind is using metaphors all the time, often building our associations, desires, and
reasons through these words and pictures. As SI coaches, we are able to glimpse our clients’
metaphors through the words they use. We can also help our clients create new empowering
metaphors, which will move them towards their desired emotions, relationships, and goals.
A typical situation using a metaphor is when a client says, “I’m stuck, I’m against a wall, and I’m
trapped.” The person has used a special metaphor to express a lack of being able to change. We
constantly use metaphors as part of our language.
One theory for why we use metaphor is that we turn all words into pictures when we speak. The
metaphorical words then work to make us believe the feelings behind the words are true instead of
being an expression of our emotions.
I’m going to share the story of a man named Kevin. Kevin is one of those sweet, nice guys who are all
about connecting, understanding and supporting. If you are a single woman, you might be saying, “I
need some Kevin in my life.” However, Kevin never dates. He is constantly put in the “Friend Zone.”
After having been told several times by girls in high school that he was such a good friend and such a
nice guy, they couldn’t date him. After watching those same girls date some real jerks, Kevin started
to create a view of himself as being only a friend to women. When he came to coaching, he wanted to
know what was keeping him from being able to have a romantic relationship that lasts beyond the first
few dates. He would inevitably be told by a woman he was attracted to that there just wasn’t any
chemistry, but she’d love to stay friends.
When Kevin spoke about his problem, he used metaphors to express his feelings and beliefs. “I’m just
like a happy and sweet puppy to them.” He also questioned his masculinity saying, “Because I’m nice
and I care about them, they can’t feel turned on by me. I know they try, but it doesn’t ever work.”
Then Kevin would make a bigger world view or explanation metaphor like “I could be that guy who
they want, but then I wouldn’t be me. And I don’t want to be an asshole or play games. I’d rather stay
single and be a good friend.”
Now Kevin is expressing a larger metaphor: to be attractive romantically, he’d have to be a player or
untrue to himself. This disempowering metaphor shows his belief is that nice guys don’t get love.
This belief has put him in what we call a double bind. The double bind is created by Kevin’s
personal metaphor; it isn’t a real situation he is facing. However, the metaphors that we strongly
believe in can work like a double bind except that they come from within us.
Our challenge: how do we help change Kevin’s metaphor and his belief? Take a moment now to write
down some of your own ideas before turning the page.
I want to use Kevin’s metaphor to help him. When Kevin imagines he is trapped by his identity, he
creates a barrier to getting the love he wants. He also uses this “problem” to feel love and connection
with himself, because it is a very significant problem to have: my good personality blocks me from
getting love.
The great thing about a metaphor is you have several ways to change the picture or metaphor that
Kevin has created. You can do this both directly and indirectly. Here is a story you can use to help a
man like Kevin; this is a real story from my college days.
You can buy into the metaphor and repurpose it. This is like the art of Tai Chi: you use the person’s
own energy and metaphor to break free of its restraints. This is what I would tell Kevin to do:
Kevin, I’m going to give you some really bad news. I think you are right. Most women don’t really
want a good friend to be their lover. They want some kind of challenge to overcome in order for
them to feel alive and passionate. I hear what you are saying about being true to yourself, who you
are, and not wanting to play any games. So, I’d like you to use the truth.
First, I want you to know something about masculinity. When a man is really powerfully
masculine, he isn’t hiding. He is totally present and truthful. This means he isn’t hiding behind a
theory, a game, or a past. Women feel that presence from a man. They feel uncomfortable, unlike
being with a friend, because the really masculine, present man is so there, so honest, and so clear
about his intention to love the woman. She can’t hide or easily reject that kind of masculine
presence.
Now you are going to use the truth to find passionate love. You may need to date 21 women before
finding the one who is honest and present enough to meet your truth with her own honest truth and
passion.
I think this is excellent because if you were using a player’s tactics and sleeping with many
different women, you wouldn’t be able to sense a really truthful and present woman, one who
would be good enough for you.
On your first date, and I want you to commit right now to three first dates a week. I ask for this
commitment because I know from your past, how you look, and your skills that getting three dates
a week with women you are attracted to isn’t a problem.
However, no playing around here. You need to be really attracted to them. I bet in the past, you’ve
dated women who you weren’t totally attracted to because you thought looking for another person
who was also “friend zoned” would work. That never works. You need to be honestly and
completely into the women you date. You are also going to need to be brave and courageous. I
think that will be easy for you since you have been so brave here, and you have been so honest in
telling me your truth.
In the first few minutes of sitting down with these women to eat or talk, I want you to tell them
about your challenge: to overcome being put in the friend zone because you are such a good, kind
person who cares and doesn’t play games. You need to look them straight in the eye and tell them
the truth. And this is crucial: you need to look them in the eye with complete honesty and tell them
you find them off-the-chart attractive, and that you want them completely. Use your own words and
be honest and clear.
Remember: no games and no hiding who you are, or who they are to you. Can you do it? If you
can’t do this, I think there are lots of coaches and therapists out there who would be happy to talk
with you for hours about your blocks and issues, but I only want to talk to you about your
experiences with these three women per week. Let’s put it in writing here and now if you are
completely in.
What has just happened? We have used Kevin’s metaphor that served him through keeping him safe in
his identity as a good, honest friend, and we used honesty and truthfulness to make him more
passionate and attractive.
When Kevin tells a woman his true attraction to her right off the bat and tells her his true past of being
friend-zoned, he is presenting himself as a masculine, present, sexual guy. He is making it clear to her
that he wants her. He is also making himself very vulnerable because he can’t hide behind friendship.
Some women will reject him; some will try to help him; others will find him disarmingly sexy. There
is no doubt that after 21 dates, Kevin will be a different man. Will he find true love? I can’t predict
that. I can, however, predict that his metaphor about himself will change.
He will no longer say, “I’m a puppy” or “I’m too kind to be seen as passionate.” So here is my goal
when coaching Kevin: through actions (dates and conversations), he transforms his beliefs about
himself romantically. I used Kevin’s own leverage, his own metaphors, and elevated them into what
is really powerful, courageous, and masculine.
Magali:
Now that you understand verbal and visual metaphors, let’s get into metaphorical actions. Notice I
wrote “get into.” Am I using a metaphor to help you enter into a realm of discovery? Absolutely. As
we write, metaphors naturally rise out of ourselves and onto the page because the action of writing
triggers our mind to think and express itself in images. So in real life, what is a metaphorical action?
Have you ever known a person who appeared one way on the outside but did something that
expressed a very different inner person?
In my own life, I’ve known a close relative who had a terrible time expressing her love. She couldn’t
even tell her children she loved them. Instead, she baked. There were always cakes, cupcakes,
blondies, and biscuits not just available but also delivered personally to her friends, relatives, and
schools for parties and anytime an opportunity presented itself.
When she spoke about time spent with her family, she would describe how and what she fed them and
how they would react to her meals or desserts. She would repeat the exact words they used to
describe the food she had made them. My relative used the metaphorical action of cooking and baking
and then giving the food to others as a way to give love. Love equals cooking, presenting, and
experiencing the food.
In similar situations when a person only expresses love through a metaphorical action, the receiver of
the metaphorical action may or may not take it as an act of love. It is important to recognize our own
metaphorical actions and bring them into the light. My relative should tell her children, “This is the
way I show my love; you can taste it. Pretty cool.”
I have my own funny metaphorical actions that I can’t seem to overcome. The more uncomfortable I
am or the worse I feel, I giggle. This can lead to my children telling me I don’t care.
However, my very wise nephew, who has lived with my family and is like an older brother to my
kids, was quick to explain my giggles to the rest of us. “The more uncomfortable Magali is, the more
she laughs.”
How and when did this metaphorical action begin for me? I’m not sure. I know that as a kid, I would
quickly break into tears if I felt misunderstood, upset, or embarrassed. So now, I express my
discomfort through laughter, often at inopportune times. Luckily, this doesn’t happen when I’m
coaching anyone. Or I don’t think it does.
Sometimes, our bizarre and quirky metaphorical actions are reserved only for the ones we love, who
are our closest family or friends.
I bet you or someone you know rolls his or her eyes unconsciously. Am I right? Again, being guilty of
that crime myself, I like to say that it is cultural, being an Argentine-American woman. Is this just an
excuse? Can we eye rollers change our ways? Of course, we can. If our metaphorical actions cause us
enough pain, we then have the impedance to create change. We apply our own self-leverage and we
grow. Now, what if we want to change another’s metaphorical actions?
Let’s enter Margie’s world. Margie has been married to Chris who is the love of her life, the father of
her three children, and a constant source of emotional support to her and to their families and friends.
Chris has a metaphorical action that really gets under Margie’s skin. Chris takes his cell phone out
during meal times, on dates, and even at the movies. This drives Margie crazy. She thinks this is a
metaphorical action that shows Chris is more interested in the world than in her or their family.
He has proven to her that he isn’t having an affair and doesn’t text friends; he just likes to check on
things quickly. Chris has the need to check on a sports game, where they could go later for fun, what is
happening that day or weekend in their city, and if he has a work email. The list of what he may check
is endless. He usually catches himself checking within a minute and slips the phone back into his
pocket. His own recovery from the action is fast enough that Margie only feels comfortable discussing
this behavior with a coach. She works very hard not to be overly controlling like the way she
witnessed her own mother behave towards her father.
So how do you help Chris and Margie? Do you break Chris from his metaphorical action? Do you
need to know what this action means to Chris? Does it matter that, culturally, this action is rampant all
over the world?
What you can do to help both Margie and Chris is take Chris’s metaphorical action of checking his
phone and use it as a trigger for him to show Margie love. First, you want to find out Margie’s
preferred ways of getting love and attention from Chris. Margie has shared that she can’t get enough
physical attention. She likes kisses, hugs, and hand-holding. She likes it when Chris plays with her
hair, strokes her arm – anything involving touch – and she loves public displays of affection.
In the session, ask Chris if he is aware of how Margie experiences his checking of his phone. Do not
ask Chris for his side or reason why he does it. Let him know that his reason isn’t important and you
understand his intentions are good. It is clear that he is a very loving husband. Ask him if he’d like his
wife not to interpret his checking as an act of hostility towards her. His answer is, “Of course not, it
isn’t how I mean it at all.”
Ask him if he would like her to feel loved, special and the center of his world all the time. Again, he
would say “Of course.” Let the couple know this will be easy. Every time he checks his phone, this is
a special alert to himself to remind him to show his wife love. Have them practice in the session. Ask
Chris if he could make his gestures of love larger with every subsequent time that he checks his
phone.
So that if, for example, he checks more than three times during dinner, he will either make love to his
wife that evening or give her a half hour of physical attention. Ask Margie if she could text him when
she notices three checks. There will be no nagging, only a text with the number three. The number
three will mean, “I get you tonight.” Let Margie know that what may start to happen is he checks the
phone on purpose to get to have sex with her that night. What is important is that Chris will never tell
her if he is checking so that he will need to make love with her. The only action she will take is to text
the number three. She must promise to always text the number three when she notices he has checked
his phone three times.
What has happened? A new metaphorical action has taken place. The texting of the number three by
Margie is not an act of nagging: instead it is an invitation. Chris’s checking of his phone is a way to
“have to be intimate with his wife.” By letting Chris know, he might sometimes be doing this on
purpose and no one but him will need to know or should know. Chris is staying in control of the
metaphor. He gets to be “bad.” But bad is now also sexy, giving, and loving.
Storytelling
Magali:
Stories work by bypassing the logical reasoning part of the mind and entering the spirit of a listener.
What happens when we hear a story? We create visual images in our mind’s eye. We choose a
character to identify with. We also try to create a meaning or lesson from the story we hear. Most
importantly, with the right storyteller, we are transported out of our own reality, identity, and way of
thinking into that of the character.
I’d like to ask you a serious question. Do you want to understand people better? Do you want to know
what makes them think and act differently than you would? Or would you rather just get them to think
like you do? My guess is you want to understand their points of view, world experiences, feelings,
and beliefs. The fastest way I know to get you this outcome is by having you read and listen to stories.
I recommend you choose writers and storytellers who are also artists. They care about how their
words are crafted, the inflection of their voice, and the deeper meaning within their stories. What I’m
trying to say in a nice way is: don’t read crappy books. Instead, seek out classics and well-reviewed
authors over the latest crime or romance novel. Did you know that science has now proven that
people who read classic works of literature have increased levels of compassion? Pretty cool, right?
Similar to the ability to gain more compassion through reading, tell your clients a story where they
will learn to understand a different point of view.
Magali:
I’m sure you have heard that 90% of all communication is nonverbal. This claim has been under some
scrutiny lately, but no one is arguing we communicate a great deal nonverbally. As a Strategic
Interventionist, your nonverbal communication and your ability to decipher your client’s nonverbal
communication is paramount.
Beyond nonverbal communication is an even greater tool called indirect communication. Does it
sound tricky? It is a bit tricky. When we communicate indirectly, our words, nonverbal cues (tone of
voice, gesture, and posture), and our intent and meaning come into play. I have created a little trick to
help you out when you get stuck not communicating in a relationship at the level you want. You can
teach your clients this trick as well. This SI Strategy was created by me to help remember the three
most important focus points during a difficult interaction. For the sake of memory I called it the Three
Ps.
The Three Ps: Posture, Purpose, and Presence
Magali:
The Three Ps are ways you can quickly check in on yourself when you are getting the nonverbal and
sometimes very verbal feedback from another person or from yourself, saying that you are screwing
up communication.
Relationships and communication are tricky. Sometimes we leave a conversation saying, “Oh no, that
came out all wrong” or “They didn’t understand what I really meant.” Even worse, we stay up all
night replaying how we might have said something differently or what we could have added. Whether
we are replaying the words we used, the tone of voice, or our meaning, it is an ache in our psyche.
Many of us have a deep wish to be better communicators.
Since I work with a lot of couples who I know love each other deeply and want to express themselves
in a loving way, but continually fall into the pattern of sounding defensive, angry, blaming, irritated or
cold, I came up with the Three Ps. Next time or better yet, before the next time your communication
starts to go down that nasty, old, familiar path full of ugly roots to trip on, remind yourself of these.
P1: Posture
Ask: What is my body doing? How can I make myself more open physically to this communication?
Check in on your eye contact and your shoulders. Are you crossing your arms or turned away? Have
you been rolling your eyes? Correct yourself. Get good at going into instant, open listening. Take in
the other person through your posture and expression. There is nothing fake about this; it is coming
from your intent to listen effectively, so you can communicate effectively.
P2: Purpose
Ask: What is my bigger purpose? An example would be for your wife or husband to know that you
love and support the person? Remind yourself of what the big purpose is for the relationship.
Remember, the big purpose overrides the small purpose of this interaction. Looking at our big
purpose guides us in our smaller communications so that they build towards the great emotions and
experiences we want to share. What happens when we think about big purpose is that all the little
stuff starts to bother us less, and we can keep it in perspective. Getting your hurt across or being right
doesn’t matter in the end if you don’t have the love, trust, and support of your friend, child, husband,
or wife. The magic of thinking about big purpose is you find a way to express small concerns with
love and caring. This builds more trust and eventually gets you the intimacy and passion you crave.
P3: Presence
Ask: Presence? Am I here right now with all of myself? Am I open to this other human being? Getting
to this now moment with the person is often the main key. We spend a lot of time guessing at the
future. We prepare for an emotion we could have or a fear that we wish to avoid. Instead say, “I’m
here. This is now, this is us.”
When you find yourself thinking about the past and using it as ammo, you think, for example, “This is
exactly how he or she always blames me. The person is so stuck. Last time, the person tried to get out
of it with this excuse.” Or you find yourself thinking about another person who reminds you of the
person or issue you are dealing with right now. These thoughts and associations move you out of the
present moment and back to another you from the past.
This is the now, this is the present moment, and right now is what matters. Remember, now matters
more! You can change the now. The past and the future are no longer in your control. They are
versions of you and of a relationship that no longer exists. So be here with your whole self, and you
will feel such relief and courage that it allows you to realize your bigger purpose. Show through your
posture and expression the emotions that will guide the meaning of this communication.
Indirect Communication & Anchoring
Magali:
In our work as Strategic Interventionists we are always elevating the conversation; this is a form of
indirect communication and anchoring. We move the client and the topic towards emotions and
actions that empower the individual, the family, or the group. Anchoring is a concept used in
hypnotherapy. An anchor is a word or anything that simply acts as an association to a memory or
word or combination of many memories.
When a client says something truthful, warm, caring, and positive, we give a verbal or nonverbal
show that the person is moving in a powerful direction. This can be with words like “Yes!” or
“You’ve got it!” or “Excellent!” This can be a touch on the shoulder or a thumbs up. Your client is
taking in your feedback very quickly and on different levels of consciousness. Your feedback is an
anchor, just like the person’s past associations to words and memories are also anchors. When you
think of a rose, you remember its smell, touch, and look, and these are anchors – that is to say they are
sensory information related to your concept of a rose. We all have many anchors, and this is why it is
often useful to understand your client’s definitions, culture, and memories associated to a word.
The reason this feedback is indirect is that you don’t need more than a word or gesture to give it.
There is no need for a long speech about the client’s new power or perspective. By using small and
frequent shows of support, the client can build on his or her own flow, understanding, and direction.
Magali & Mark:
It is a fact of life that from time to time, we all have limiting beliefs about ourselves. As a Strategic
Interventionist Coach, you can use the art of disagreement to empower your client. Very often, a client
talks about his or her challenges in a negative or limiting way. The client either thinks of the problem
this way or tests you to see if you agree. Mark coined the term, Empowering Disagreement, to teach
you how to disagree effectively with your client’s self criticism.
When you pick out those things and disagree with your client, you empower them. The cliché version
is, “Do these pants make me look fat?” Some people understand this type of communication and
others don’t. You will be challenged by your clients. Remember that under every limiting belief, there
is a sparkling hope diamond that your client wishes you could see.
Let’s imagine a client comes to you with an anxiety problem. After some conversation, you learn that
the problem isn’t evident to your client’s friends or family. The client functions well most of the time
when around other people. You can see that the anxiety isn’t a real problem, and you refuse to accept
the client’s view of his or her anxiety as being the big issue. Now it is important that you aren’t too
empathetic; you need to state your argument and use elevation and reframing.
You might say, “I don’t agree that anxiety is an issue for you. I can tell that it is sometimes a break,
though. How else do you give yourself some time off to connect and relax?” Now, you have shifted
the focus and goal to relaxing and taking time for one’s self. You used both elevation and reframing.
The client can now find a solution for finding good ways to take breaks. Also, feelings of anxiety can
be viewed as warning lights for time away or self-care.
Your work is not done. Sometimes, your clients will speak very critically and meanly about
themselves. When this happens, you need to pick these statements apart for them and make them
understand the purpose or reason why they have this pattern in a positive light. This is also a form of
disagreement.
Archetype Process
Magali:
The way we use the Archetype Process in Strategic Intervention is strongly influenced by Anthony
Robbins Archetype Process that you see in his intervention films. The concept of Archetypes was
popularized by Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth, in particular explaining Jungian Archetypes.
In our work as SI coaches, we use this archetype process to help clients receive answers and
breakthroughs to key questions.
This strategy is all about integration. Most of us have different parts of ourselves, which are
experienced differently during life stages or through a specific relationship or an area of our life. For
example, as a child, we might have been imaginative and free. When we think of that little girl or boy,
we may see ourselves in the realm of fantasy where gardens are full of fairies, pools may contain
mermaids, and it is always an option to have a super power. Then there are the life zones or areas in
which we must be more logical or pragmatic, like at work, or we must be more caring and protective
as parents, or we must be brave and forward thinking as a traveler. When we are with our lover, we
are more focused on enjoying pleasure, our senses, and touch; this is different from our work self or
our family self. When we use the archetype process with a client, we invite the different archetypes,
such as The Lover, The Magician, The Warrior, The Sovereign, The Goddess, and The Wise Man or
Woman to have a conversation with us (the client) and to help the core self to understand or to answer
a key question.
I use this process to help a client who would like to gain more access to a part of themselves like The
Lover or The Magician. We begin by finding a key question and refining the question until it is going
towards a solution instead of away from one. For example, the first question a client asks might be,
“How do I act more feminine around my husband?” The coach could help make this a better question
by suggesting a change to, “How can I feel more feminine?” We have removed being feminine
towards another, and we have replaced it with a feeling that is at the core of the experience.
First, we breathe deeply and become centered. This is what I call neutral. I explain to the client that
neutral is a place that is easy to return to at any time, just by breathing deeply and remembering this is
our core, relaxed, neutral self.
Second, we choose an archetype to start the process. Some teachers believe there is an order that is
helpful to use, which would be: The Warrior, The Magician, The Lover, and The Sovereign.
However, I trust my instinct with a client and go for the archetype that is either very easy to enter or
very complementary to the question. So as an example with the question, “How can I feel more
feminine?” I would first ask The Magician. I think of The Magician as a close friend to The Lover,
which would be most directly related to the feminine. You begin by asking the client to take the
position of The Magician. It may be helpful to describe The Magician or to ask your clients about
what they see when they think of their Magician. I have had clients tell me very clearly, “Oh I am just
like this fairy in the movie Lord of the Rings; I can see the mountains around me and feel the air.”
Then, ask your clients to find the part of their body where The Magician lives. Tell them to breathe
into this part of themselves and make a sound of The Magician or to allow their arms or hands to
move like The Magician. Clients may be standing, sitting, lying down or moving during this process.
If you’re guiding them through this on a phone coaching session, it is fine for them to hold a phone
while doing the process.
Third, when you get clients to be the archetype, ask the question they have formed, speaking directly
to this archetype. You might say, “Magician, I would like to ask you a question today. Your help is
greatly appreciated. Our purpose is to help (your client’s name). Magician, how can (name) feel more
feminine?” Then as The Magician answers your question, allow there to be a natural conversation
with the archetype you are speaking to. When you have spoken long enough (usually this is two to five
minutes long), ask your clients to sit again in neutral and breath regularly as they return to this neutral
space, which is the core of the person.
Fourth, let your clients know you would like to speak to their Warrior (or whichever archetype feels
right to you). Say, “Warrior I would like you to stand and take the position of strength and power that
is unique to you, Warrior.” When clients have done this, ask them again to find a place in their body
or a gesture they make, and then ask them to make the sound of The Warrior. You may ask them to
repeat this sound to help them get into the state of The Warrior. Now, go through the steps again of
having a conversation with The Warrior, starting with the main question, “How can (client’s name)
feel more feminine?” You may want to ask The Warrior how he or she protects the client or if The
Warrior worries about her. Throughout all of your conversations, remember that archetypes are
always working for the good of the core person. As the coach, you are requesting that clients help the
core self, and at times reorganize to allow new experiences or emotions to be felt by the core self.
You may want to ask one archetype like The Warrior to take a holiday. You may ask The Magician for
a way that your clients can easily call to them and feel their unique and relaxed magic.
Keep in mind:
You may want to go straight from one archetype to another or you may want to rest in neutral. I like to
return a client to neutral to create time for integration during the process. This is similar to returning
to deep breathing between yoga poses or resting for one minute between weight-training rep cycles.
Fifth, you may then repeat the question and conversation process with all the archetypes. Often it may
be helpful to return to the most opposite archetype, like The Warrior for The Lover, to get the deepest
agreement and suggestions. This process should have the spirit of fun, relaxed play. If it feels right,
you can ask in neutral if there is another archetype the client would like to speak to. Sometimes a
client has a different word or idea for an archetype. Some examples would be, “The Comedian,”
“The Jester,” “The Spiritual One,” “The Leader,” or “The Seer.” The list could go on and on, but you
get the idea. Remember that throughout the process it is important to consistently elevate, thank, and
integrate through the breathing neutral position.
Sixth, when answers have been given by all the archetypes, it is time to integrate and rebalance your
client. Ask them to sit in neutral and spend a long time returning to even, easy breathing, feeling
gratitude for all the parts of themselves that spoke through the archetypes. Remind your client that he
or she can access these parts at regular times in the day, when the client may need a little more of a
particular archetype’s strengths. Give yourself plenty of time to speak with your client after the
process. This time is important for grounding back into the core self and physical body. You may want
to add a meditation that focuses the client on feeling grounded. A simple example of this would be to
have the client imagine his or her body as a tree with strong roots in the earth. Make sure that before
you send a client to drive home he or she is in a relaxed easy state and is back to feeling himself or
herself.
Chapter 6
Creative Solutions
Pattern Interrupt
Magali:
Patterns can be longstanding, something a client knows and wants to overcome, unconscious patterns
in our words or beliefs, physical gestures we make, associations that we know about, and
associations that are unconscious. Milton Erickson developed many techniques for interrupting all
different forms of patterns. Many schools and traditions grew from his work, including our work in
this area.
How do we break people’s long-standing patterns? How often do we hear people refer to a problem
they have as a pattern? What does this word mean to them? Usually, when clients or friends tell me
they have a pattern, I’m instantly on alert. I feel their attachment to their problem and their comfort,
and I notice how often they may be referring to the pattern like a favorite object they would never
leave home without. After all, isn’t a pattern just a regular behavior, belief, thought, or action? So,
why do I always find myself in alert mode?
The reason I’m emotionally and mentally hurling myself forward and searching for a way to help them
break their “pattern” is that I know people not only repeat this behavior that they claim to not like, but
also they are very attached and accustomed to it. They are at its disposal. It is theirs and they are
owned by it.
I want you to imagine a young child for a moment clinging to her worn out bear, hugging it tight. “No
one gets this bear; he is mine.” The bear doesn’t know or care about the attachment the child feels or
the projections of warmth, safety, and love that the child experiences as she embraces her bear. This
bear represents the patterns that your clients hold dear to them.
We’ve all seen different ways to break a pattern. Sometimes, a person is shamed into hating the
pattern. But I want you to consider whether that ever works or just creates a new self-loathing pattern.
Don’t we crave even more of what we are shamed into disliking? I think so. We have seen our friends
use willpower to break patterns like overeating, smoking, and even loving someone who they think
isn’t the right person for them. Does this work in the long run? I’d say it never works.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Same shit, different pile”? I know that isn’t very pleasant to
imagine but it is true. How many people do you know that leave one person only to find themselves
faced with the same destructive relationship pattern with a new guy or gal.
My favorite SI way to break a pattern is with humor and by being ridiculous. Imagining scenes
between people you are creating in your mind and heart is a great way to recognize all sorts of
patterns.
Let’s imagine the following scene for a minute. (This directive was used with my very real clients.)
There is a young couple having a romantic dinner. They have both sipped their wine. He is drinking
Merlot and she has ordered Pinot Grigio. They look into each other’s eyes. You feel the mood
suddenly turn icy. What should be a moment of love or attraction is filled with pain. She says to him
in no more than a whisper, “I can feel your hostility.” The man is momentarily shocked. He brushes
his hand against his trousers. She knows this well; this is always what he does when he is angry at
her. He almost screams, “No, I’m not,” in an infuriated tone but he stops. This moment is what he has
anticipated during his SI coaching sessions. This is the pattern between them. His wife tells him that
he is angry, and, of course, he becomes angry. This is his chance to change the pattern.
He rests his head on his joined hands, elbows wide on the table, and looks into her eyes. Feeling his
heart beating, he consciously inhales and thinks, “She is so beautiful, so mysterious.” Then he says,
“You’re right. You know me better than I know myself. Now I’m going to break this pattern.” He
stands and in front of a room full of well-dressed strangers, and he hollers, “Cock-a-doodle-do!” and
dances in a circle like a crazy chicken. His wife has held her breath watching as he dances and makes
a complete and utter fool of himself. Then she begins to laugh uncontrollably, thinking, “This crazy
bastard loves me this much.” He sits down also laughing. Their eyes meet as the maître d’ crosses
over towards them baffled. “Sorry. I’m better now,” the husband tells the maître d’ and then looks at
his wife, his gaze full of love and amazement.
What has he just done? He has broken both his and his wife’s pattern. Will the pattern repeat? Most
definitely, but now there is a new pattern at play. Next time, the husband will catch himself even
faster. He may not even feel any anger. Instead, he will feel anticipation and a rush of exhilaration as
he knows he has the guts to make a total ass of himself for the woman he loves and the marriage he is
saving.
Positive Leverage
Magali:
Definition of Leverage: influence or power used to achieve a desired result.
So why have I added the word positive before the word leverage? Why have I decided to teach this
as an independent strategy? To tell you the truth, I’m not even a fan of the word positive. It is a little
overused in my world. However, I insist on not using power plays, pain, or shame in my SI Coaching
Practice. Why? I don’t believe that type of leverage works. I also like my coaching persona to align
with my spiritual and personal nature, which is loving, creative, and supportive. My guess is you
would use some of these same adjectives to describe yourself. I hope you like this new type of
leverage too.
There are many ways to achieve and use positive leverage with a client. Here are a few:
Feeling understood and safe: If the client feels understood and safe, then he or she listens at a heart
level, taking in and experiencing a new view of the situation, problem, or relationship that you
presented or the person uncovered. It creates a desire in the person to make this new option happen.
Sometimes, this may take action days or weeks after a session. The coach’s viewpoint or elevating
explanation begins to emerge in the client’s thoughts and actions.
Seeing and rewarding positive reactions: Every time you notice a subtle, positive shift in your client
– this could be a smile, the opening of the hands, relaxation in the shoulders, a tone of voice change,
or the softening of expression – and you comment on it with enthusiasm, you are applying positive
leverage. What is happening within your client is that he or she is absorbing your reaction to that state
at a heightened level. Unlike ordinary communication, the client and coach are working together
towards change. When you use positive leverage in this way, a change is happening instantly in real-
time through the client’s experience of himself or herself kinesthetically. Most of us are unable to
recognize our own positive shifts in state or understanding, so when our SI Coach shows us the way,
the positive results are enormous.
Creative brainstorming
Magali:
Sometimes, positive leverage is merely an influx of ideas and possibilities. SI Coaches who use
creative brainstorming sessions are effectively applying positive leverage. The client gets to
experience and learn the art of options. The client no longer feels stuck because the coach has opened
dozens of doors that the client may have thought were painted shut. Who can creative brainstorming
help? Everyone. Try it on yourself. Think about a challenge you face in life, work, relationships, or
behaviors. Now write it down.
I ….
Next, remind yourself, “When I use creative brainstorming, I am not looking to solve my problem or
make a decision. I am merely creating multiple possibilities and ways of seeing the problem. I am
brainstorming ideas that I may want to explore. My body is loose. I am excited and my thoughts are
fast.”
Whenever possible, write using a pen and paper. When you think you are done, know that you have at
least ten more ideas. When using creative brainstorming, always reward yourself and acknowledge
the gift you have given yourself. Guide your client to do the same at the end of your creative
brainstorming sessions.
Triad: Focus, Language, and Physiology
“There are three forces in the world that determine what you feel. These forces are called the
Triad. Together, these three patterns create any – and every – emotional state.
Whatever you feel, you’re not feeling it because you have to feel it. You’re feeling it because you’ve
chosen from the Triad. In order to master your emotions and consciously choose the emotions you
want to live in, you need to understand these three forces and how to use them to your advantage.”
Anthony Robbins
Magali:
Anthony Robbins' Triad work is very useful for coaches and individuals who want to help understand
and choose their emotions. I am writing from my experience working with the Triad. Whenever you
are experiencing a strong emotion, a Triad of elements contributes to your state. When you work with
clients who get triggered by a certain situation or person, or they complain of being depressed,
stressed out, or overwhelmed, you will help them through understanding their Triad and creating a
new Triad. You can even help your clients create a new name or identity for the new Triad; this way,
you help anchor the new state the clients have chosen over the old state they no longer wish to
experience.
The power of the Triad comes from its three main supportive elements. The Triad is like a tripod for
a camera. If people want to quickly shift their Triad, all they need do is replace one of its legs. The
earlier Triad is replaced with a new Triad of experience.
The Three Elements of the Triad
Magali:
The triad is a great coaching strategy developed by Tony Robbins. It consists of three parts:
Focus: What is the person looking at? Is it in front of the person or in the future? Is he or she focusing
on a time in the past or a memory or idea from an earlier time? Does the focus center on himself or
herself or on another person? Is the person operating from an internal, emotional experience, or from
an outward results-driven focus?
Physiology: Look at what the body is doing. How is the body breathing, standing, showing tension,
and showing relaxation? Is there motion or stillness? How does the body react to certain topics of
discussion?
Language: What is the key language being used? Are there phrases being repeated that indicate a state
of mind or a pattern? Does the language indicate things the client does or that have been experienced?
Does the person talk about what he or she can do or what he or she can’t do? Is the client speaking
metaphorically in strong images?
By changing one part of the Triad, you change the emotion or state the Triad represents in its three
parts. Usually, the fastest piece to change is the physiology. When the physiology changes, the focus
must change. When the focus changes, the language changes as well.
It is very effective to create a new Triad for your clients’ patterned behavior or challenge in a certain
situation. You can rehearse this new Triad with your clients in the session. They will be prepared to
use the new triad when they are in the world and under the conditions that normally lead to their
negative Triad or emotional state.
Related strategies are the Pretend Strategy, and the Pattern Interruption.
Pretend Strategy
As Strategic Interventionists we love to get creative and pretend. Cloe Madanes popularized and
developed Pretend Strategies in the fields of therapy, coaching, and education. Here are some of the
ways we use pretend as Strategic Intervention Coaches.
Magali:
Remember being a little kid who could imagine another world? I often pretended to be a mermaid in
the pool attending grand balls underwater. My kids have spent thousands of hours being puppy dogs.
The Pretend Strategy is a little like being a kid. When you enter the world of imagination, the reality
of a belief, behavior, or pattern changes.
Let's look at the life of Ben. Ben is a phone sales person. He used to be very good at his job. He was
even a top seller for his company. The economy has become more competitive and so have the
number of sales calls Ben needs to make. Now, he finds that he avoids making calls altogether on
most days. When he does start a cold call, he is overcome with anxiety. He asks himself, "Will they
hang up on me?" He tells himself, "They think I'm a bad person." Soon, his heart is racing and he has
broken out in a cold sweat. He comes to coaching to solve this behavior that he believes is destroying
his ability to make a living.
He can't wrap his head around what has changed for him. It seemed to happen gradually and, one day,
the job that was easy and successful became a terrible, fearful place that he wanted to run away from.
This is a perfect time to use the Pretend Strategy.
Ask Ben if he can pretend right now that he is about to make a cold call. Ask him to make his feelings
more intense and then less intense and then more intense. Ask him what he says to himself and what he
does to avoid the call. Now ask Ben if he'd be willing to pretend to be afraid like this at some other
time during the day and in different environments. Let's imagine that Ben is dating a beautiful actress.
During their dinner date, Ben must excuse himself and go outside the restaurant. There he must
pretend to get afraid of calling someone for one minute. Remind Ben this is him pretending to get
anxious; it is different from really getting anxious. When he pretends, he isn't really feeling afraid or
panicking. Just like his girlfriend, he is acting.
Ben tells you he is a good actor. “Okay,” you say, “I want you to fool me.” Pretend or actually have
those feelings – I won't know. Ben does this in front of you but you don't ask him if it was real or not.
Instead, you ask Ben if he can commit to pretending that he gets panicked and afraid of making calls
every day for 14 days. This should be during non-work times, in the middle of a movie, a date,
checking Facebook, or walking his dog. Let him know he should always tell himself, “You are a great
actor,” both during his pretend time and when he is done.
What will happen is that Ben will take an unconscious fear reaction like anxiety and turn it into
something he controls. In just 14 days, Ben will be able to pretend his symptoms like a pro. As a
coach, you need to build up the importance of daily pretending. You can explain how it works and that
it always works, but only if the person does it. It is like exercise: if you exercise every day for 14
days, then whatever kind of exercise you do, you will feel results. This is exactly the same but it takes
less than five minutes, it is a lot easier than exercise, and it has far-reaching benefits. It not only
changes people’s emotional intelligence, but also it adds years to their lives, making them a better
partner and friend.
Precautions: Don't use the Pretend Strategy with a client who is seriously depressed or with a client
who you worry will not pretend but will really have a panic attack or other symptoms. It is key that
you practice together before giving the person this strategy to do on his or her own. Also, ask your
client to email you or call you after a few days so you can discuss the pretending and answer any
questions about the strategy.
Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal for Understanding
Magali:
When couples are locked in a standstill because they each cannot see the other’s point of view or
understand the other’s emotional reality, Role Reversal is a very helpful strategy. I will explain my
way of using it to help a couple better understand and connect with each other. This strategy is used in
many of the arts as well as the helping professions.
When a person changes place with his or her partner, the person understands the other and develops
greater compassion. The person also demonstrates through words this new understanding.
Example of working with a couple:
You might say, “Paul, I want to have a conversation with you, but you will be Jennifer. I’m going to
ask you as Jennifer what Jennifer needs, feels, and cares about. Then I will do the same with you
Jennifer. You will be Paul, and I will interview you as Paul. I will ask you about what Paul needs,
thinks, intends, tries to do, etc.” Immediately, the couple goes into a mild waking trance state.
I like to present this strategy as a game we are going to play. For the more serious client, it is as a
crucial strategic experience that will not allow the client to return to his or her ordinary perspective. I
have used this strategy with a range of couples, sometimes working with only a husband or a wife,
and it is always successful. I give this strategy credit for bringing couples back together after long
separations.
STEP 1:
Explain that this exercise helps both participants understand each other at a very deep and emotional
level. This leads to a breakthrough in being able to experience love, trust, and intimacy without
forcing the feelings or blocking other emotions.
STEP 2:“Kenny, I’d like you to be Cheryl, now, and I am going to interview you as Cheryl. Please
answer every question I ask as if you were inside Cheryl. Okay, Kenny, I mean Cheryl, but you know I
mean Kenny-as-Cheryl, let’s start.”
With this introduction, both the wife and the husband are confused, and the confusion translates into an
altered state that makes each person more receptive to the experience.
Then I proceed to ask Kenny (as Cheryl), “Tell me what you appreciate most about Kenny.” Kenny
goes on to tell me things as though he were his wife. “Cheryl, tell me what you’d like to do more of
with Kenny?” and “Cheryl, tell me what you think Kenny loves about you.” Now Kenny is pretending
to be Cheryl imagining what Kenny loves about her. This is different than what Kenny knows he loves
about Cheryl. He must step into his wife’s experience and try to understand what she perceives he
loves about her.
This exercise works on a very deep level. Cheryl begins to feel understood by Kenny, or at the very
least, she feels his effort to understand her. The coach should keep her or his questions on the positive
side and not ask for a list of complaints that Cheryl has. Instead, ask Kenny (as Cheryl) to share what
Cheryl would like to experience more of or what she would like them to do together. You can also
ask, “Cheryl, what does Kenny do that makes you know he loves you?”
Remember, as you interview one spouse, the other is also answering these questions internally and
wondering what do I need, how do I… He or she experiences the spouse’s attempts at understanding
the other, and both feel affection and warmth at the effort it takes to be interviewed as the other
person. Often, each partner also realizes how complicated each other’s rules and tests are and how
confused the partner is.
STEP 3:
Congratulate the first interviewee and the spouse. Explain how well they did with such a complicated
and difficult strategy. Next, interview the spouse in the same way. Afterwards, you should also
congratulate the person for outstanding effort.
You should never ask the couple questions like, “Do they understand you?” Instead, allow the process
to continue working. Explain to the couple that this exercise continues to affect them for days, weeks,
and even months later. The couple should not overtalk it. Instead, watch what will happen.
Often, a person is drawn to repeat the experience when alone and this is fine to do. The person should
feel free to ask himself or herself questions as if acting as the spouse, whenever the person likes. The
person should also feel free to ask the other as many questions as the person likes.
I like to tell the couple, “What is important to remember is that today, you both tried something
difficult and new. You did the best job possible, and you should feel great about your efforts during
the interview with me. Not only did you both experience being inside the other’s heart and mind, but
also you stretched your feeling self in a new direction and proved how deeply you care. The details
are irrelevant; it doesn’t matter what you got right or wrong. The goal was accomplished in a brilliant
way by both of you.”
If you wish to explore more or understand more, it is always good to ask (point to both people) for
more details and information. You can preface these questions with your intention, “I want to
understand you more. Can I ask you a question?” Then you can add, “Whenever you hear him or her
use this intro, remember he or she loves you, and you should do all you can to explore the questions
and answer them so that the process brings both of you closer.”
Ordeal Strategy
Magali:
Ordeal Strategies are some of the most fun, weirdest, and most exciting of the SI Strategies. They can
vary from scrubbing your floors, standing up to read, purposefully screwing up at work, to giving
your money away. The range of ordeals can be as diverse as all the different personalities in the
world. I'll tell you about a few very different examples of Ordeal Strategies.
One story about using The Ordeal Strategy was told to me by my father Jay Haley, one of the founders
of Strategic Family Therapy and the author of the book Ordeal Therapy. Jay was seeing a client in
Washington D.C. who was a successful journalistic photographer. This was back in the day of film
cameras. Do you remember loading film into the back of a camera? You must be close to my age if
you do. Back then, you had to actually change your film every 36 pictures.
The photographer who came to Jay was desperate; he was ruining his career and reputation. He had
recently destroyed film by opening the back of the camera and exposing the most important roll of the
shoot.
Another day, he had forgotten to show up for an important client who was now working with another
photographer. He knew D.C. was small and his unprofessionalism would get around. The man was
desperate. Jay could have discussed his feelings or asked why the man was self-sabotaging his
career. They could have connected over the fear of success and looked into the client’s past
relationships with his parents. However, Jay liked to use the simplest, fastest strategy. He knew that
this man really did want to succeed in his career. So Jay used an ordeal.
He first told the photographer that if he followed the instructions exactly, he would never be forgetful
again, and his career would be saved. Also, he'd never unconsciously destroy a shoot in the future.
However, the price of this type of rapid solution was going to be a little painful. It was an ordeal, and
even though it would hurt, it would work. He told the photographer he needed a full commitment no
matter what he asked him to do. The man was in and said “Yes.”
Jay asked him when his next scheduled big shoot was. The photographer opened his camera bag and
pulled out his paper notebook. (Yes, I'm painting a retro picture. Feel free to see it in grainy B&W.)
He told Jay that in ten days, he was scheduled to shoot a magazine layout of a fashion show.
“Perfect,” said Jay. “What you are going to do is take all the pictures for that shoot without any film in
your camera. Can you do this?” The photographer made a face as if he had been slapped. "Can you
physically do this?" Jay asked. "Are you serious about wanting this career and stopping all your
forgetful unconscious behaviors?"
"Yes," the photographer answered and sat upright. "I want my career."
"OK, great." said Jay. "You will never have to worry about this problem again if you do this." Years
later, Jay told me this story as I became a photographer myself. It was one of his favorite cases. The
photographer later let Jay know it had been the hardest day of his life, taking an entire day of photos
with no film in the camera. Knowing he'd never be hired again by that magazine, he did it anyway.
And yes, he never forgot or screwed up another photo shoot.
Memory Modification
This strategy is playfully referred to as Memory Modification. A founding and influential example of
this type of strategy can be found in Milton Erickson’s book called The February Man.
Magali:
Have you ever wanted to stop remembering an event, a moment, or a thought? Well, this strategy is for
you. Get relaxed and pay attention to your breath for a moment. Where are you breathing? Are you
sitting as you read this? How does the chair and your posture feel? Change nothing; just notice it.
Now, instead of talking, we are going to start doing.
Pick a memory that you want to stop remembering. It can be anything at all. I want you to see it and
hear it, just like you're watching a movie. Close your eyes and go there. When you have it, let me
know. I can hear you through space and time that connects all readers and writers.
I want you to see, hear, and watch the memory. But now, you are going to see it in sepia tone, just like
an old faded photo that has gotten brownish pink. When you have it, I want you to add a song. What
song do you hear? If you'd like a suggestion, then try Yankee Doodle Went to Town. Let me know
when you've got it. Okay, next snap your fingers and be back in the here and now, sitting in your chair
and feeling your breath as it flows in and out.
Great! You are good at this. Let's go back to that same memory. Now, I want you to change the
background and experience the memory, but you're going to be at the beach. The sun is shining and the
waves are crashing. A seagull flies overhead. You are in the memory and you are seeing and hearing
it, while being at the beach. Feel the sand, the wind, and the spray of the sea as the waves crash.
Great! Now snap and you are back in your chair. You can feel the way you sit and the way you
breathe. Back to the memory. This time everything is happening at super speed. First, you see it in
sepia color; you hear Yankee Doodle Went to Town. Next, you're at the beach. Now, everything is
moving very quickly like animation, and Donald Duck interrupts your memory by saying, "What's up,
Doc?"
Snap your fingers and you are back in your chair in the here and now. Experience how you are sitting.
Listen to your breath. Sit up a little and focus on the connection between you and the chair and the
ground that supports you. Imagine a tree is growing along your spine; its roots anchor you to the
solidity of the earth. Feel the branches of the tree reaching and growing while the roots connect you to
the Earth. Listen to your breath. Let it become easy, slow, and relaxed.
What we just did was memory modification. I suggest that you reread the strategy from the
perspective of how you will instruct your client. You may want to read this out loud to another person
to get the flow and hang of the process.
Chapter 7
Family Dynamics
Hierarchy and Cross-Generational Coalitions
Mark & Magali:
My guess is that as a coach, you will have some clients who are married with young children. When
working with a couple who have young children, there are four priorities to keep in mind. These are
four areas of life and behaviors that are important for the togetherness and effectiveness of a couple
during this life stage. Our work in this area comes from personal experience and concepts in
Structural and Systemic Family Therapy.
Four things you can do as a couple to make life easier with young children:
1. Teamwork - Division of time and labor. This means having time together as a family so that free
time isn’t thought of as only time away from the family.
2. Leadership - Giving the mother the ability to call the shots regarding a baby or young child. Teach a
young father that his role is to support his wife in her instincts and desires as a mother. She has just
gone through a biological shift that a man can’t truly comprehend. So the best way for him to support
her is to be present, loving, and nurturing towards her. Then she is freed up to better take care of the
baby, asking for his help when needed. Of course, some couples are masters at navigating this area.
They both work, take care, and feed the babies. You should never argue with what works for couples.
Instead, applaud this part of their marriage.
3. Romance - It’s very common for romance to take second place to the needs of caring for and loving
an infant. Each partner needs to take responsibility for showing physical love and passion to each
other. Often, a wife will need to be appreciated and reminded of her physical beauty after having a
child. A husband will need to be reminded that he is loved and important. Even if the couple has
decided to let the wife lead when it comes to caring for the baby, the coach can help the wife give
significance and importance to the husband. Daily reminders of appreciation are essential to keeping
the flame of romance burning.
It is essential to create rituals for meeting each other’s needs and understand each other’s Six Human
Needs so that you can hit the bull’s eye with your partner more often. This is because you’ve got less
leisure time to figure things out. You need to be more targeted about what really meets your partner’s
needs. If you know that your wife loves you to make her a cup of tea every morning, do that every day;
that’s an important ritual. These are rituals where you can understand how to meet your partner’s
needs and let him or her know that you understand the partner’s needs and how precious the partner
is. You should take good care of the person. As a coach, you can help the couple figure out what
really works. This is when understanding the top needs, modalities for experiencing love, and self-
leverage can really help.
4. Loyalty and Boundaries - The third priority for this stage of life is to manage your loyalties. Again,
this is another part of reinforcing the couple. Let’s say he and she have been together for years. They
have done great and do not have to deal with a lot of extended family issues, but suddenly they have a
child. Things shift dramatically because when a new baby is born, it is a magnet to extended family.
Suddenly, in-laws are involved, in-laws who want to come over and hold the baby. Now, there is a
new set of challenges. Everyone wants to give opinions, and in-laws all have heightened emotions
about how to properly take care of the child. Everyone wants to teach the parents how to do their job.
The young couple may have had a lot of independence from the extended family previously, but once
there is a baby, there’s a greater chance that they will be reconnecting with family. Often when the
extended family is brought in, the couple has to deal with the family’s baggage. As the coach, you
need to help him and her set boundaries and learn to communicate their needs together to the extended
family.
We often find there can be a tremendous amount of judgment of either a wife or husband by the in-
laws. This will probably interfere with the couple’s relationship quite a bit, so it is essential for the
husband and wife to manage their loyalties and take every opportunity to strengthen their relationship
in the face of whatever criticism might be going around.
Here are three ground rules for the in-law situation. The first one is that you don’t take another family
member’s side against your partner, and you don’t agree with a negative opinion that he or she may
have. If a mother-in-law is in the house and she’s talking about how the house can be a bit better taken
care of, the husband and wife will need to acknowledge that the parent is judging the spouse, and they
need to take a strong, loving stance. You don’t go and agree with this mother-in-law and say, “Yes,
you know, she’s not doing a good job,” or something like that. You should always coach the husband
or the wife to take the partner’s side. We have to say that, in our culture, there is a huge double
standard when it comes to evaluating young parents. Very often, it is the female who is thought to be
responsible for the child’s well-being, the husband’s well being, and the household work. Even if she
also works, she is still often held more responsible. So, if you are in the first few years of taking care
of a child, in many cases, the household will not be as impeccable. It will not be as perfect as you
want it to be. It is very easy to make a young mother feel bad, especially if she is already very hard on
herself and striving to become the perfect mother.
On other hand, the standards are often very lax with the father. If he just holds the baby on his lap,
everyone is really pleased and thinks it is cute. I think these double standards come from the older
generations that are at the grandparents’ age right now. It is time for the young father to be protective
of the young mother. If someone points out something that is a veiled criticism of his wife, even if it is
a criticism he agrees with, to preserve loyalties he will need to take his partner’s side. He can then
talk with his wife at another time about the issue.
As a couple’s coach, it is your job to help the couple decide to try to make these four priorities part of
the relationship. You will help the couple stick together and also understand his and her parents
better. Ultimately, everyone can grow a lot and find a new strength in the relationship as co-parents.
Another ground rule that applies to older children is you don’t take a child’s side against the other
parent. Children are very sensitive to what we call triangulation. They feel everything; they feel all
the emotions and subtle shifts in the relationships around them.
They can discover that if they can make Daddy wrong or blame Daddy for something, Mommy gets a
little excited and gives them more attention. They discover this out of their own innocence. They are
really just getting oriented to the dynamics of relationships and emotions.
The children learn language and behavior not by what things mean but by what they can make happen
with it. So obviously, crying makes people bring you what you want. Crying was designed to do this,
and parents need to listen to the child’s cries and demands. What is important is that a parent does not
promote a child’s negative reactions or favoritism. Both parents should desire that their child loves
the spouse as much as he or she loves them. A child just wants to be loved and taken care of. When
you have parents trying to get the child to take a position against one of the other parents, it’s a very
malignant kind of triangle to create.
The third ground rule of preserving the right loyalties is that if there is family criticism to your partner
or anyone, including a friend, family member, visitor or even a doctor or a medical professional, the
rule of thumb is that you praise your partner loudly and effusively in public.
So, if people are giving a little jab or pushing a little criticism at your partner, it is important to
interrupt them by giving your partner a passionate kiss or a hug and saying, “Isn’t she the best? Isn’t
he amazing? You know, I just love him,” or “I just love her. She’s amazing.” You need to interrupt that
kind of thing. It helps create this bubble or circle of protection around the couple, and it will actually
strengthen you in the face of people who want to create triangles.
Examples of Loyalty in Action
Mark:
In every organization, there is a hierarchy that means that some people have more power than others
in terms of organizing behavior, and some people will have more power to dominate and control, but
they also have more power to love and protect. What we now know is that when there is a cross-
generational coalition, that is, when there is an alliance for example between a husband and his
mother against the wife or between a mother and a child against the father, these coalitions tend to
repeat across generations. For example, if the mother sides with the older son against the father, the
father will side with his mother against the son, and so it will go on across family lines involving
many people and many relatives.
When you see a family with serious problems, you have to assume that there are many cross-
generational coalitions involved. This is just a phenomenon of systems and family organizations.
These coalitions are never a good thing, and they are almost always associated with disturbing
behavior. A good way to help a young couple from the beginning of the marriage is to draw the line
and to establish that the couple is now part of a separate family and that the spouses – not their
parents – are now number one.
A wedding ceremony means my loyalty is now to my spouse. Certainly there is still loyalty to the
family of origin, but the primary loyalty is to the new family. However, many people go through this
wedding ceremony and never transfer that loyalty. A man might stay loyal to his mother over and
above his wife or the wife might stay loyal to her father over and above her husband. This can go on
for years and years and create a great deal of pain.
One thing you can do when this happens is, for example, to have the husband call his mother on the
phone in the presence of his wife during your coaching session and have him tell his mother how his
wife is the best wife in the world, he married absolutely the best possible woman, he worships her,
and he adores her. You can have the wife do the same with her father, for example, and just note the
reaction. It’s usually not a very happy reaction and the parents may say, “Why are you calling me to
tell me this?” Let the couple know to just make a note of this reaction.
Another thing you can ask the young couple to do is visit the parents and during the visit, tell the wife
to sit on the husband’s lap and tickle him, nibble at his ear, whisper little things in his ear, and kiss
him passionately. Then watch how long it takes for the older couple to say, “I think you should go
home now.” . By taking control of the presentation of love to the extended family, the couple is joining
together in a new, more unified, and playful way.
Magali & Mark:
Public displays of affection otherwise known as PDA are great natural boundaries. Affection and
intimacy naturally repels people away from the couple. If you have a couple who is being bothered or
dominated by other family members, simply instruct them to practice being intimate around others.
The other family members will move away like magic! This works wonders with relatives, teenagers,
and friends who are not respecting the relationship with the spouse as being the most important
connection for their relative or friend.
You can also instruct the couple to call their relatives and let them know how good the marriage is
and how much they love his or her wife or husband. Tell them to be dramatic; the stronger the
message is, the stronger the boundary and example of respect will be. Even the most jealous in-law
usually wants a marriage to succeed. Also, be as public as possible about your declarations of love
or apology. When you say something in front of witnesses, especially those you are related to, it
carries much more weight and allows your partner to feel it at a deeper level. The partner
experiences that you not only love him or her, but also you are willing to make this love public.
Aligning your Parenting Strategies
Mark:
When we become parents, we shift in almost every possible way – our priorities, our sense of time,
our personal freedom, our loyalties, even parts of our personality make an enormous shift. People
who used to be risk takers or career obsessed can now become obsessed with the child's safety and
comfort. Whereas before you were able to lose hours of your time in your favorite activities, when
you have a child, you account for every minute that the child needs to be watched. And where you
could relate to your family of origin and in laws in a casual way, when you have a child, they tend to
be attracted to spend more time with the baby and to give you more advice and guidance. Also,
having a child brings out elements from your own upbringing that can surprise everybody.When
people are young, they are often in rebellion against their family of origin. They have often taken a
completely different direction in life. When you have a child and you observe them growing up in
your care, it can trigger off all kinds of memories and impressions and cultural biases of your own
upbringing. It will actually trigger, in your subconscious, the way you were raised, and it can be
disconcerting because you’re a couple and you have both been against the establishment, and you may
have even been opposed to your parents’ values.
Suddenly, your spouse is talking about child-rearing exactly like the parents do and has the same
habits and tone of voice with the child that you’ve heard before. You may find yourself repeating what
your parents did when they were raising you, and it can bring out the culture of your family of origin.
When coaching couples with these kinds of disagreements, you will need to help them make
adjustments. It’s important that you teach them to do this together, either alone or in coaching sessions
and apart from their children. You can help them create a new mission for themselves as parents.
Have them focus on what is most important to them.
First, they can create topics to manage together. . Each couple will have its own topics, and then the
couple can decide what matters most within these categories. Topics could include: the child's diet,
scheduling family time, how we give the child corrections, communicating with daycare or
babysitters. When the child gets older, this could be expanded to include: talking with their school,
managing child's homework, setting play dates, spending time together on the weekends. The couple
should identify topics that are important, and then they need to discuss how they will manage each of
these. For instance, the topic of teaching the child day-to-day skills and giving the child corrections.
The mother may be a little more patient at teaching the child how to clean their room, while the father
tends to get more flustered or upset. Perhaps the mother should “lead” in handling that topic. By
discussing it, the couple can raise each important topic and make a structured decision. If your co-
parent has more experience or is talented in this area, or if it's a topic that is very important to him or
her emotionally, it is wisest to let him or her “lead” in it, with your support. This can be a family-
saver. We have known families which have nearly split up because the mother was a vegetarian and
the father loved bacon – the mother would forbid bacon, and the father would sneak it to the child
when they ate out. One of those families was saved when they decided that the mother would be in
charge of the child's diet 6 days a week, and the father could take the child out on Sunday morning for
breakfast, including two slices of bacon. Sound trivial? This agreement became the basis of the way
they co-parented.
Family Zones
Magali & Mark:
Communication – We believe in always being open, receptive, and non-judgmental about each other’s
feelings and opinions.
a. Never cut off a person who is talking.
b. Model polite conversational attitudes for our children.
c. Show respect through words we use and nonverbal communication.
d. Never use a digital device at the dinner table.
Education – Allow our children to pursue what they love, whatever that is, regardless of what we
wish they would do.
a. Provide them with extra classes.
b. Support their interests and never criticize their ability, talent, or effort.
c. Mom and Dad share driving, homework, and participation in kids’ classes, schools, and social
life.
Parents are the Leaders of a Family
Magali & Mark:
When coaching a couple who needs help establishing leadership in the family, be very specific with
the couple about how to say things to each other. It is important that the parents show a unified front.
If a problem comes up in front of the kids or others, tell them to say something like, “You know I’d
like to talk to you about this tonight,” and then discuss it alone together later. Let them know that these
discussions are for the two of them alone because they are the leadership team in the family. Why?
Because when parents fight, the child feels they have to get involved and take a side, which
complicates the conversation even further. When the couple contains their disagreements and
discussions to themselves, the child can relax, knowing the parents are in charge.
If a couple is experiencing serious never-ending debates or arguments on parenting or the home,

suggest having a leadership meeting once a week for one hour.
At this meeting, each partner will take turns presenting concerns, wishes, hopes, and observations for
half-an-hour. The other partner should take notes and ask for more information. Never disagree or put
down the partner’s sharing. The goal is to understand what each person is thinking, feeling, and
hoping. The couple will experience tremendous benefit from these meetings. After the meeting, the
couple should do a joyful, easy activity together when time permits.
Subsystems in a Family
Mark & Magali:
Strategic Intervention is a systemic approach to coaching. So to really understand and help the
individual, family, or couple, we need to understand all the subsystems in the family group. This work
comes from Family Systems Theory, which explains that a family is always composed of its
subsystems.
These are some typical subsystems in many families:
Parents – a traditional family

Parent & Step-Parent – Couples with a mixed family
Mother & Step-Mother – The two women who both love and care for the same children and are either
married to or divorced from the father.
Father & Step-Father – The male role models and caregivers to the children who are either married
to or divorced from the mother.
Children – This could be all the children including step-children. It could also be two subgroups of
older and younger children.
Grandparents – Depending on the closeness of the extended family, there may be an important
relationship between two sets of grandparents or between one or more children and one grandparent.
In any family unit, it's important that there be a boundary around the couple. It is crucial as a coach to
teach your clients how to create this boundary and how to respect and elevate the many subsystems in
the family.
When one has little children, it’s very important to protect the relationship between the parents. The
parents should have something of which the children are not a part.
We live in a child-centered culture and find many families in which the parents never go out together
on a date without the children, where the children are part of every single activity of the parents, and
where they don’t even have a lock to the bedroom door.
When coaching these couples, it is important to help them establish early on in the family life that
there is a relationship between the parents of which the children are not a part.
Similarly, there should be a relationship among the children, between the children, of which the
parents are not a part. It's a wonderful feeling to know that your children are able to navigate and
negotiate their own relationships, which will serve them all of their life. The parents don’t need to
constantly monitor their children’s relationships with each other. The same goes for the children’s
relationships with grandparents and other relatives.
Every generation constitutes a subsystem in the family and should have a boundary around it that
protects it to a certain extent from intrusions from other generations. It’s very important for the
children to see this boundary and understand that there is a relationship between the parents that
cannot go through them.
“Normal development in childhood is to go from one problem to another, from one challenge to
another.” - Anna Freud
Just Pick Three Strategy
This strategy is a favorite for SI Coaches working with parents. Cloe Madanes created this strategy to
help the child become more successful, to unite the parents, and to increase harmony in the family.
Magali:
In most cases when it comes to parents and teenagers, you will find that a parent can speak to you for
hours about what his or her teenager could be doing better, how the teenager is totally off the mark,
and how worried and stressed out the parent is about the teen’s poor attitudes, lack of initiative, lack
of perfectionism, lack of direction, poor choice of friends, weak academic performance, partying,
rudeness, and so on.
So what is a Strategic Interventionist to do? Just Pick Three. This strategy will simplify, elevate, and
transform the relationship between the teen and parent, the parents, and the teen’s or child’s inner
motivations. What more could we want from a strategy, right?
I want you to remember that the most important thing here is agreement between parents. I also want
you to understand that people are only able to focus on three or four issues at a time. This is why we
call this the Just Pick Three strategy.
Magali’s Seven Steps to the Just Pick Three strategy
1. Decide together what the three most important issues are for the child or teen.
2. Parents need to understand that their agreement matters more than the focus (actions or behaviors
they choose for the teen.)
3. What they are asking of the child or teen must be concrete. For example, the child or teen should:
a) Never talk back to either parent. The child or teen must write a letter explaining the behavior
instead of yelling or talking back.
b) Complete all homework assignments each day.
c) Babysit every Friday evening for three hours.
4. The result will be happy parents. Parents need to make good on the result and be genuinely happy
about the child or teen when they do the pick three items.
5. This strategy should also be used with single parents, grandparents who raise a child, or other
guardians. It is helpful to choose another adult who the partner partners with to explain the Just Pick
Three strategy to the child.
6. The child or teen feels incredible relief that there are only three issues to focus on. The child or
teen immediately improves and focuses on the three because he or she can experience success. It is
important to make the three items doable for the child or teen.
7. Explain to the child or teen that eventually the parents will mess up and ask something else of him
or her. The child or teen should keep a notebook for these times and let the coach (you) know when it
happens and what the parents are asking for. Then you will talk to the parents and remind them of their
commitment to the Just Pick Three strategy.
Mark’s Notes on the Just Pick Three strategy:
The purpose of the Just Pick Three strategy is to create baseline agreements that give consistency and
stability. The point is not to define your highest goals – it's to determine a baseline. The real magic of
the Pick Three takes place when the teenager has a clear understanding of what they have to do to
keep peace and make their parents happy, and that the parents can relax knowing they have consensus
on the most urgent priority – for the teenager to be safe and happy. When this happens, hierarchy in the
family has been restored – because the child is complying with the parent's policies, and the parents
are not in conflict with each other. Very often, the teenager will be insulted that what the parents
require of them is so easy – that's okay. It means the teen can act on their higher standards for him or
herself. So in order for this strategy to work, three things need to be very concrete. As a parent, you
don’t want to say, “Hey, I don’t want any more of your attitude,” or “You have to be polite.” That’s
too general, too complicated, and too subjective. You know, kids and teens can feel accused by all
sorts of things. You want to make it very clear what you are asking of them so that they can very much
toe the line in the literal, concrete way on these three requirements. These issues could be as simple
as I’m on time or I’m not on time, I make it to the school or I don’t go to school, or I do my homework
or I don’t do my homework. It’s very clear.
Just Pick Three Strategy in Reverse
Magali:
It is very common to have a client ask you to help him or her become a better parent. I recommend
using the Pick Three strategy in reverse when this happens. Remember that kids are people and they
have priorities and really good ideas too. They may know exactly what they want or need more of
from their parents. All you need to do is ask them.
Often, a parent turns to the coach to find out what he or she should be doing for the child, instead of
asking the child. Just like with the Pick Three strategy, direct your client to ask the child or teen what
the most important things are that the parent can do to support the child or teen in his or her goals or to
be a better Mom or Dad.
Also, ask the child or teen what Pick Three issues would help. This could be the goal to get good
grades, have friends, or get along better with brothers or sisters. When we ask children for their
advice and opinions, we are showing them they matter, we value their insight, and we acknowledge
that they know more than we do about what works for them.
When we ask a child how we can show up in the best way for them, we may be surprised. A child
might say, “Make me have a bedtime, let me go to sleepovers, and go on my school field trips.” The
parent may have been beating himself or herself up about never getting the child into sports or not
being able to afford the latest technology. If the parent doesn’t ask, he or she won’t know what matters
most to the child.
Children and teenagers will shift how they feel about themselves when they know that their priorities
and needs matter. Asking for their guidance is a great way to help. A parent who does this is creating
an atmosphere where children have control to change their reality and choose their goals.
Strategies Index
1. Anchoring and Indirect Communication
2. Archetype Process
3. Changing the Definition of a Problem
4. Condition and Test for Ecology
5. Crazy Eight
6. Creating an Empowering Environment
7. Creative Brainstorming
8. Crisis Leadership
9. Discovering Strengths
10. Elevation
11. Emotional Triggers
12. Empowering Alternatives
13. Empowering Disagreement
14. Expanding Social Support Systems
15. Expanding the Unit
16. Fairy Godparent Strategy
17. Finding the Spark
18. Giving a Problem a Purpose
19. Hierarchy and Cross Generational Coalition
20. Including the Family
21. Indirect Communication
22. Intimacy as a Boundary
23. Just Pick Three

24. Connecting and Understanding your Client
25. Getting Leverage
26. Self-Leverage
27. Life Stages
28. Limiting Problems
29. Loyalty in Action
30. Memory Modification
31. Metaphor
32. Metaphorical Actions
33. Metaphors for Success
34. Ordeal
35. Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Meeting Goals
36. Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal for Understanding
37. Pattern Interrupt
38. Patterns of Self Sabotage
39. Positive Leverage
40. Pretend
41. Redefining the Problem
42. Reprioritizing the Human Needs
43. Safe Problems
44. Seven Master Steps
45. Six Human Needs
46. Storytelling
47. Subsystems in a Family
48. Symptom as Metaphor

49. The Three Ps
50. Triad
51. Using Visualization and Reward
52. When a Coach Feels Stuck

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mark Peysha
Magali Peysha

Strategic Intervention Handbook - How To Quickly Produce Profound Change in Yourself and Others

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Table of Contents

Level 1: Understanding the client's mindset

Four Client Mindsets

The Fire Client typically says and think things like:

Key points regarding the Air client:

A typical statement made by a water client is:

Here's an analogy from the way people use language.

Level 2: Understanding the request

One of the Strategies for uplifting a client is Translation.

So the next level of understanding is to give the person a strategy.

Level 5: Target the Future and keep making progress

Start by asking your client to imagine themselves 10 years in the future:

1: Finding the Purpose

Finding the Spark

Six Human Needs

Seven Master Steps

Connecting and Understanding

Problems & Challenges

Giving a Problem a Purpose

Interrupt the Limiting Problem

Condition and Test

3: Problems, Patterns, and Triggers

Reprioritizing the Human Needs

Changing the Definition of a Problem

Fairy Godparent Strategy

Crazy Eight Strategy

4: Community, Strength, and Life Stage

Expanding the Unit

Overcoming Self Sabotage

Metaphors for Understanding

Metaphors for Success

The Three Ps: Posture, Purpose, Presence

Paradoxical Strategies: Role Reversal

Hierarchy in the Family

Aligning Parenting Strategies

Subsystems in the Family

Just Pick Three

About the Authors

Beliefs, Thoughts, and Emotions

When do you feel this way?

STEP 6 (When Working with a Triangle)

STEP 7 (When Working with a Triangle)

To meet my need for Connection

To meet my need for Variety

2. Is your daughter at risk for being hurt physically? “Yes.”

The following is a story by Cloe Madanes, a master of redefining problems.

Emotional Mood Swings

I feel sad ----------------- I feel mad

Our goal as a coach is to help our client:

Including the Family

Answer the following questions quickly and in handwriting, if you can.

The emotion of ____________________ is easy for me to feel.

I’m good at feeling…

I believe being kind is important.

More questions to ask:

What do I already do that is a strength?

Will things happen the same way tomorrow?

Are my parents telling the truth?

How can I be more me?

Why is everyone else how they are?

What do I care about?

What is my unique style?

Young adult (18-25)