Ep. 024 - Achieving Your Ultimate Success Through Coaching with Pete Beskas
Jul 12, 2023SHOW NOTES
What if you could transform your perspective to surmount life's hurdles and accomplish your dreams?
Get ready for an enlightening conversation with Pete Beskas, a certified coach, mentor, and best-selling author, who shares how coaching can be the game-changer in your personal and professional growth.
We explore the power of coaching in creating a heightened awareness, boosting accountability, and fuelling your journey towards desired outcomes.
Pete also shares his personal experiences and emphasizes the essence of authenticity and vulnerability in effective coaching.
- how to track progress
- set new goals
- the exhilarating concept of quick wins
Pete offers pearls of wisdom on reflection and action - key ingredients to maximize success.
Moreover, we discuss ways you can access Pete's treasure-trove of resources like his podcast and core value sheet. Get ready for a conversation that is bound to inspire and equip you with the tools to handle life's challenges head-on.
TRANSCRIPT
Craig Spear:
I know you have goals and I know you have a plan to achieve them, but what happens when you get disrupted and things get in the way? In today's episode, i'm bringing in a ringer, pete Beskis, who offers up so many great insights and strategies to help you overcome the challenges you face. Welcome to Man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. My guest today is Pete Beskas, who is a certified coach, mentor, speaker and author of the best selling book, Cracking the Rich Code. He also hosts tools for the modern band podcast, where he focuses on teaching men the tools they need to enjoy their life now, and in this episode, Pete and I discuss things that get in our way. In other words, we're talking about common obstacles and challenges we all face. We identify different strategies and tools you can use to know overcome these barriers, but use them as catalysts for growth. So, without further ado, Pete Beskas and the things that get in our way. Pete, thank you so much for taking the time to join me here. Welcome to the arena.
Pete Beskas:
Oh, I'm so excited to be in the arena with you, Craig. This is gonna be so much fun.
Craig Spear:
Awesome man. So you're a coach, I'm a coach. We obviously believe in the value of coaching. I'm sure you work with a lot of coaches. You get coached yourself. I know I do. We're part of a mentorship and a mastermind where we get coached as well. But I'm curious I want the listeners to hear this from you Like what is your coaching philosophy? when it comes to coaching, what do you believe in?
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, what I believe in and I think this is something that we all kind of get taught like foundational piece number one it's awareness, right? So my job as a coach is really to create awareness around the things that are holding you back. So, whether it's a physical obstacle, whether it's a circumstantial obstacle, or, when we really dive deep, whether it's the thoughts in your brain and your actions that are the obstacle to creating your happiness, your success, achieving your goal, so for me it's the awareness piece number one. Then there's number two, which is the accountability piece, because it doesn't matter how many people you surround yourself with In order to catalyze change. We need to be accountable and take responsibility for that, and I think a good coach pushes you to accept that responsibility. So when you have those two pieces of the puzzle you have awareness, accountability then you can layer in the third one, which is execution, and that's where the change happens.
Craig Spear:
I'm so glad you said all that. I'm in complete agreement with you And we're actually talking about all those things today, ironically enough. So that was not scripted, that was Pete just being authentic And so I'm glad he went there. And you speak about awareness. I totally agree with that. With coaching, people have blind spots. We all have blind spots that we can't see, and so a good coach is going to be able to highlight those blind spots and help people kind of see things from a different perspective. And it's not unlike a golf coach who all these professional golfers have coaches who could help them see deficiencies in their swing or technical errors and whatnot. And I know you play tennis. It's the same thing. We have coaches for certain athletic events. Why not have coaches in our lives that can help us perform better or become the obstacles we face? So, totally in agreement with you on all that.
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, that's actually one of my biggest beefs in life is that when it comes to athletic activity or something that is peripheral, we'll go get coaches for anything. But when it comes to our lives, when it comes to whether it's our finances, whether it's our relationships, our wives or spouses, whether it's our careers we are a health anything We don't actively go out and source mentors, coaches and people to help us get better at these things. We expect it to fall from the sky like mana, like, oh well, i'll just wake up one day and have the solution. And then you wake up 10 years later and you just look at you survey the carnage that you've created.
Craig Spear:
Yeah Well, I think there's this common sort of idea or belief that we should just be able to manage our lives Like we're humans, right? But it's clearly not the case, right? So You know that's your coaching philosophy. I want to know what is something that you struggle with or you're challenged by, that you've brought forward to a coach, maybe something that you couldn't quite figure out, and then how did that coach help you see things differently and help you achieve a more desirable outcome?
Pete Beskas:
You know it's interesting. You say that because I think that the best coaches are the most authentic and vulnerable coaches. They're the ones who go and get help with their problems and they test everything on themselves first. We're like that crazy Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, we're like we'll take the serum first before we apply it to anybody else. And you know I can give up two or three different examples of how I was helped through coaching. One was how I talked to myself, and this was a big one for me, especially this year. It was one of those huge light bulb moments about the narrative and the story I tell myself about how productive I am, how valuable I am, and I was noticing and got coached on this is that I speak to myself in a very negative way, and this is not unique to Pete Beskis. This is something we all do And I think that this is prevalent in our culture. The do more culture, the expect more culture, and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves first. What was really shown to me through coaching was not just how it affected me and my results. It was the kind of the wave that emanated from me After I beat up on myself. Who is the next person to get beat up, and it was shown to me that it's the people I love the most, the people in my inner circle. It's my wife, it's my kids right, they're the ones that I become hypercritical with, but it started with me. So having the flashlight shown on that part of my mindset, on that part of the way that I motivate myself, really helps to pivot how I approach my relationships with people I love, but also the relationship with myself, and it's something I'm heralding quite a bit in the last little while here. It's the idea of the critic versus the cheerleader, and that came through my own coaching, of being coached is that we need to eliminate the critic from our life and we need to amplify the cheerleader. You were one of my influences from our last talk And I used that as an example. I think you told me about the locker room chat where you had a quarterback who was a critic but then you had teammates who were cheerleaders and the effect that that had. So if you go and listen to that episode to your ears, that is really where I started to get this idea and it helped me evolve.
Craig Spear:
Yes, you had this kind of flashlight, you know, sean, on this and from there now you're able to kind of correct that, now you're able to take action towards changing the way that you think about yourself or speak to yourself. And then, yeah, like you said, i love that analogy of how this kind of ripples out and affects the other people in your life. Right, and without the impact of coaching, who knows? like maybe you don't get to that place, maybe you just continue living your life, you know, beating yourself up. So this is the power of coaching And I hope everyone listening to this, if you've thought about working with a coach, you know hear from two guys who are coaches and who have done coaching, received coaching ourselves, like just how impactful it is. You get to see those blind spots, raise awareness and then execute from a way, different place.
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, if I could just highlight on that, it's like we're not just coaches, we're men, we are fathers, we are husbands, we are in our community And we use these tools. I think first and foremost on ourselves. And when you learn these tools from a coach, you can apply them in every aspect of your life, but you don't have them because they weren't taught to you, and that's what's missing.
Craig Spear:
Totally, and one of the things that I've changed in my coaching recently and I heard this from someone else, a therapist, actually was this idea of judicious self-disclosure and sharing more with what my own personal experience is, what the challenges I'm facing, how I'm overcoming those, how I'm working on myself, because sometimes people get into coaching and there's sort of this relationship where it's like, well, a coach is holier than thou, or the therapist is holier than thou. It's like, no, we're all part of the same culture, we're all impacted by the same things, and so we're in this together. Right, we're all invested. And so that's something that I think is really valuable when you work with a coach is how do you connect with them, what are their experiences, what have they worked through? And so that's why I kind of wanted to ask what your philosophy is, what challenges you face, just so that people can relate and say like, yeah, pete's just like me, he's a guy like me and he's doing the work. So, yeah, i think this is a really important discussion to have.
Pete Beskas:
Ultimately, Yeah, and I look at where I support myself right now and where I like to focus my energies. And I've got a mastermind group that I'm a member of that's for fathers and for men, And then I've got another one that we're in which is for business owners, but it also expands to our mindset and really high level evolution of thought. So when I look at those, then of course there's therapy and then there's one-on-one coaching that I engage in. So it's really it's a multifaceted approach to handle the areas of my life that I need support. Right, Because we don't go to a car mechanic and ask them to fix or plumb.
Craig Spear:
Right, yeah, it's got to be specified. So kind of shifting gears here. One of the things that I teach in my coaching is the importance of being intentional. You make decisions. You make these decisions ahead of time And then, specifically because I'm a weight loss and health coach, it's around what you eat, how you exercise, your sleep or hydration, these sort of things, and this is a great tool that a lot of my clients have success with. But you know, and I know, that inevitably things come up and disrupt our best intentions and our plans. So, as the host of tools for the Modern Man podcast, what tool or tools do you have that you can share with people who find themselves in this position where they've set their intention, they've made a plan, but ops tools come along and disrupt them. So can you share any strategies or tools that you have?
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, i think that when we get knocked off course and this is something because you know I'll be fully transparent I'm not as disciplined as a Craig sphere, right, i mean, in some ways I'm very disciplined in other ways, but I think that where it comes back to for tools, it's just reconnecting with the reasons why you're doing things. So one of my very first exercises that I run through every single person with and you know I just give it away for free because I believe everyone should have this tool in their toolbox is a core values exercise And I think it's one of those foundational exercises where you go and you run through what matters to you most, because as we get older and as we you layer on different responsibilities, you know we value certain things. Where we get into trouble is when we start to adopt other people's values that aren't an alignment with our own. When that happens, it's really easy to take on challenges, to take on new goals that you're not really bought in on. So, you know, checking in with yourself when you're feeling like you're gearing from your path is really what helps you realize and create that new star. So, for example, if health and fitness is your core value, well, when you find yourself gearing from it, you can check back in and you can ask yourself is this decision that I'm making in alignment with what I truly want? And that is, i think, the easiest, simplest way to get back on track is to do a gut check and say hey, is this the right thing?
Craig Spear:
Yeah, I totally agree. And just you know, staying connected with your purpose, staying connected with what you value, is going to help turn what might have normally been sort of a longer term slide into a much shorter term slide. right, Yeah, And so I love that. So one of the things you do is you help people get really clear on what their values are And just by virtue, like now, they're not going to. maybe they do still have hiccups, but they're certainly not going to last as long right, Those obstacles.
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, and I think that really the power in support. Like we said earlier, the first part of having coaching is awareness. So the first, i think, few months when you're working with a coach, it's about cleaning out the closet, bringing all of these things out into the forefront. The second part is the accountability. Right After that it's about checking in with somebody who can bring you back online before you go and destroy all the good work you put in. So what might take you three months to come back to alignment might only take a couple of weeks with a coach. Right, you've minimized that backslide. And I just had a client this week with same thing. We were going really great And then there was this life happens, backslide happens, but it took one session to reset.
Craig Spear:
Return things around. Yeah, I've noticed that too. The longer I coached guys, what usually was a month long like multiple months long sort of slide, can they catch that more quickly. They come back to their core values and their purpose and totally see that happening too.
Pete Beskas:
And if I could just add one other thing, One other thing we do and you see this in the fitness world too, when you have the trainer is when your coach sees you plateau, they crank things up a little bit, They turn the heat up just to make you start to question are you still on the right path and is this still in alignment with what you want?
Craig Spear:
Yeah, exactly, exactly, and knowing when to pull back as well and offer recovery And then also, like you said, push for it and challenge Great, because we're constantly evolving, so you want to set new goals and then go after those goals as well. So we know the importance of having a plan being intentional. We know that that's half the battle We have to take action and execute. We have to execute that plan. So what are some strategies that you have or that you coach around in order to get people to execute at a higher level?
Pete Beskas:
So it's funny because you mentioned my book When I wrote for that chapter. In that book I wrote about planning and the importance of planning and having a framework to work within. I think that's critical in the execution process because we do need to have these bite-sized actionable pieces to attack. The engineer in me always says the metrics, We got to measure things And then we got to go back and audit it. So it's like set the plan based off the intention, What are the steps? Do it measure it and then analyze it? And then you get to see oh, where did I screw up, Where did I succeed, What did I do really well? And then you balance those and then you just do another iteration.
Craig Spear:
Totally agree. Right, you get a narrative process. It is And same thing with weight loss. Right, you got to set a standard. You got to know where you're going. You got to measure that right, and so weight is a pretty easy thing to measure. Am I losing weight? Assess that, why, why not? And then just iterate Like you're going to reach plateaus. You're going to reach kind of these sticking points where you're not seeing the same level of progress. All right, reiterate Like change things up, right, but constantly doing this from a curious standpoint where you're looking to learn, you're looking to gain new insights that you can then apply right.
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, and what's interesting is the concept that I've been exploring in the idea of the first dominant of all. Right, and I think we as coaches are always looking to give our clients a quick win, something that they can really get fired up about and see that this change is possible. And you know, in weight loss and fitness, I hate to say, it's a little bit easier because there's a number. There's. Mostly most of us have a weight goal or a strength goal or a waist size goal And where I coach with men in terms of creating the life they want, it's more challenging to identify something that's a quick dominant of all, because that could just be improving your communication with your wife, it could be having the confidence to ask for a raise right, and mine that I see as an overarching one is the getting a grip of your emotion, getting a grip over your impatience, anger, and I see that as a first dominant. And this is also an interesting iterative process because you can start to measure how many times in a day do you yell at somebody, how many times in a day do you get frustrated, and that's where I like to challenge myself to see how can I coach someone in these non-measurable. I guess that you call them.
Craig Spear:
It's less black and white, for sure, but it's not unlike weight loss. You know people will say, oh, now, people are noticing, i can see it in your face, i can see it, you know, in your body and whatnot, and it's same with like, you know your mood, i guess, and what you're feeling. Other people will comment well, yeah, you're not as volatile or you're not as emotional and these sorts of things, dad, you don't yell as much as you used to. Exactly, You call them Yeah, yeah. So, pete, this has been fantastic. You've offered so many great insights, so many, you know, great strategies and things for my listeners to think about here. What are some final words of wisdom that you can share with everyone listening, that they're going to take away and just kind of ponder for the rest of the day?
Pete Beskas:
Yeah, i think that the question we all should ask ourselves is pick one area you want to improve in your life, just one. Right, because we can sit back and we can overwhelm ourselves with all the things that are going wrong And I do it myself And I know you know, that's why we come to our groups with it But for anybody listening today, sit down, hand this around and say you know what, what's one thing I would like to improve, and just focus on improving that Brilliant.
Craig Spear:
Keep it simple, keep it focused. That'll make you way more disciplined, see results faster, see wins faster and just build momentum overall. That's what it's about. That's great wisdom, great advice. Well, thank you so much, pete. How can people find you? contact you, get in touch and learn more about what you're doing.
Pete Beskas:
They can find everything at www.petebeskas.wwwpeatbeskiscom, which is my website. I have, you know, some free resources there. There's access to my podcast as well. If they haven't listened to our interview on my podcast, your listeners definitely should. But if you want the core value sheet, you can download it there as well. It's, you know, very simple, easy way to get going, but that's how they can reach me.
Craig Spear:
Try to keep it simple, correct, keep it simple, love it. Thank you so much, Pete, really appreciate it. Thank you, if you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to thespearmethod.com and download my free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.
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