How To Get To The Real Problem In A Client’s Story

Author: Rodney Daut

In the last lesson I shared with you a way to make sure that you are working on beliefs that will really make a difference in your client’s lives.

With what I shared you can avoid a lot of frustration that comes from working on beliefs that won’t make any difference at all.

That distinction … between a belief that describes a pattern and one that causes it … is one of many useful distinctions that Morty made and which he shared with our students.

It’s because of ideas like this that we heard so many people over the years saying

“It all makes so much sense.”

 

But still …

Every so often, someone who observes a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator do a session thinks …

“I’m not sure I could ever do that.”

Or

“They make it look so easy.”

If they only knew how many of us struggled in the beginning … and how simple distinctions we learned eliminated that struggle … they might not be so impressed.

For example, every one of us has had the following problem:

You start working with a new client.

You ask “What would you like to change in your life?”

Then the client throws an entire smorgasbord of of “stuff” at you.

My wife is leaving me.  

My kids are acting up.  

My business is in shambles.

My car is breaking down.  

I’m drowning in debt.

And on and on.

As you listen, you start to wonder …

“How can I find some beliefs in all this?”

“Where do I take the client next?”

Before I tell you what to do, I want to explain that this kind of response is often caused by the very question we asked.

“What do you want to change?”

In response to that question the client will often tell you about all the things that are wrong in their lives.

They’ve got problems with money or relationships or their business and they want those problems gone.

That’s the stuff they really want to change not their beliefs.

The problem for us as facilitators is we don’t deal directly with these types of issues.  

They are external problems.  Things the client can only affect indirectly.

What do we deal with?

We deal with internal problems — behaviors and emotions.

And that gives us a big clue as to the question that will often allow us to transform the conversation into one that helps us find limiting beliefs.

So instead of asking “What do you want to change?” we instead ask “What behaviors or emotions would you like to change?”

The client may still bring up the same problems but now they do so looking for the behaviors or emotions that are contributing to those problems.

The client who brings up problems in his business can now be looking for what behaviors he would change that would help his business turn around.

The person with relationship difficulties now has to look at what he or she is doing or not doing to create those difficulties.

The person with money problems now has to look at spending habits, saving habits or even behaviors that limit earning power.

All this comes from framing the conversation with a different question.

“What behaviors or emotions do you want to change?”

By asking it you get the client to do the hard work of finding the behaviors and emotions that need to change to better deal with the external issues they want solved.

After asking this question, you’ll know the behaviors or emotions the client needs to change to move life in the direction they want … but how can you go from what needs to change to finding their beliefs?

That’s the subject of the next post, which will be available in a few days.