ep136 – Michael Cole

Show Notes

9:06 The Concept of Transformation

15:21 Differences Between Educating Students and Professionals

24:55 The Role of Coaching and Accountability

34:25 The Power of Pausing and Reflection

42:23 The Impact of Michael Cole’s Teachings

Complete Transcript

Chris Baran 0:00
How great would it be to get up close and personal with the beauty industry heroes we love and admire, and to ask them, How did you learn to do what you do? I’m Chris Baran, a hair stylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success. You Well, welcome to another episode of head cases. And I have to say this gentleman is a repeat offender, meaning it’s been repeated performances that he’s had on head cases, and he was a co founder of Summit salon Center. He brings to the table 40 plus years of experience as a stylist, a manager, executive chain director and multiple salon owner for 35 plus years, he’s been the founder and president of Salon Development Corporation, which is an international company specializing in salon business training, previously sponsored by L’Oreal USA. He is a global business educator, salon innovator and world renowned recipient of numerous awards for his contributions in helping 10s of 1000s of salon professionals transform their business and their personal lives. The key to his success is his unique ability to observe current and future digital marketing and management trends and translate them into systems and methods by which salons achieve dramatic growth. I’m so blessed to have this gentleman on as an esteemed guest. He is a teacher of teachers, a mentor, and, most importantly, a friend. So let’s get into this week’s head case, Mr. Michael Cole. Michael Cole, we have to stop this, because it seems the only time we’re really talking is at business or here on head cases. So firstly, welcome back. You are one of the very few that we do return auditions with the narrow return engagements with. But as the industry knows, it’s everybody wants to hear. Michael Cole, so Michael, welcome. It is such an honor to have you back here.

Michael Cole 2:24
It’s always sacred to be with you and be in your presence. I always love thinking out loud with you, geeking out. I’ve yet to have time in your presence where there’s great insight that comes that serves me. So thank you. It’s always wonderful,

Chris Baran 2:43
absolutely pleasure, and the feeling is mutual. And one of these times, you know, I’ve always had this thought where I’d love to get Mary, you know, and a lot of the ladies that you know do their amazing stuff, and they’re the ones that are really behind and helping to support and do everything that they need to do for all the people that are industry. And I’d love to get Mary and a lot of other people that supports all of us. I mean, Rita probably would say not going on. But, you know, give them the line like

Michael Cole 3:17
we get. We get way too much credit for what, as you know what they do. That’s why there are soul mates.

Chris Baran 3:26
Yeah, well, so I want to just jump, so catch me up. I, you know, there’s this, you know, I always love them, and this is not a gossip column, but we always, there’s always that rumor mill that runs around, and you always say, you, you know, you sneeze on the on the West Coast, and you wipe it up in the East. But there is this rumor going around that you are retired, semi retired. You know that you are no longer with Summit. So what give us? Catch us up. What’s going on with you?

Michael Cole 3:56
Yes, and right, it’s all true. And after 25 extraordinary years with Summit, and it summits partner, L’Oreal redkin, the brands nothing short of a glorious, glorious ride, so that came to an end in retirement and had sold my interest and had an interest in three schools, PCI, as you know, that’s a very big client of both summit and L’Oreal, particularly Redken, and I owned a piece of that, and so when I retired and sold out, it gave me, I did a pledge to not compete for a few years, and I’ve been since then, showing up every day at PCI, working a. Exclusively with the educators and the coaches and helping them to do a better job at what we call, would call, I used to say, with Summit, you know, growing people for a living. Now it’s, we’re transforming students for a living, and those that educate and coach students being the, you know, educators and coaches as well. So that, in a nutshell, is what I’ve been up to. And Chris, my confession to you is, in my 40 plus years of doing what you do, I never have had the opportunity to show up as much with the same community of people over I think, I think I was, as we were, kind of catching up. I’m going to do my 227 one hour session with a group of educators.

Chris Baran 5:52
The same ones, the same ones.

Michael Cole 5:54
Yeah, so you and I, as good as it gets, we, I don’t know, in a good run, eight, nine sessions over a couple of years. This is every week for 227, so you, you, you cannot, not learn, incubate, develop, inspire, and so that’s what I’ve been up to. And it’s younging me down. I almost look as young as you do. Well, I hope they have

Chris Baran 6:23
a better influence on that than making I mean, if anybody’s watching this, just the bags underneath my eyes alone, you know is that I don’t have to take as much luggage in the airplanes anymore. But listen, you know, regardless of they always say number, but you’ve always been useful. Your your quest for new information has always inspired me, your quest for growth and your quest for finding it, and sometimes it’s just the way you find a new twist. Now, what I want to jump to is two things. I don’t want to try and give you too much at once, because at our age, we only, I always say, you know, as we’re male, so we can multitask, multitask, as long as we’re doing one thing at a time. But I want to talk to the point is that the word transformation, because I think it means so much to so many, and sometimes it’s become a catchphrase even now. So I’d like to find out, number one, what that word means to you, and how you’d like to frame it for people, number one, and then number two is, is you’re talking with educators, right? And they’re educators of students you’ve had a chance to do and see them in action. And how different is? Is there a difference you see between what those educators need to do with the students the educators need to do, and versus what we have been teaching on the road with educators that are teaching people behind chairs, etc. Give me some take. What’s your insights that you’ve got from those 227

Michael Cole 7:55
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll start with the the easy one first, and that is that in a school you you’ve always had those two parts. You’ve got the pay your tuition and come to school and get prepped for going to a state board and getting license, etc, and then you’ve always had this other thing over here called the salon part, some in some schools that call it a clinic. At PCI, it’s a salon, the spa, and they’re two different entities, and yet they they coexist. I’m working on the salon, spa and and it is it, it, if you didn’t know there are many, many times you walk around, you listen, you go, you wouldn’t know that you’re in a school, that it’s right, there’s, there are some nuance differences, and that is, students are paying a tuition to to learn, but it’s boy, it’s as close as you can get, and as somebody, right? Yeah, thank God, and yeah. So I couldn’t have said that to you, because I didn’t have the awareness three years ago that I do now. So that’s one of the things, and that works. That works for me, because, like you, I grew up in the salon world, and then number two, transformation is a very key, very important word to me now, TLC. And you know, in other contexts, tender, loving care. And wherever you go in the beauty industry today, you know, sometimes it’s under the auspice of mental health awareness, but all of a sudden, the industry seems to be we’re looking for some humanity to bring into, you know, the business we, you know, to so that people have well being, mental health, whatever you want to call it. I call it TLC, tender loving care. But when we kind of bring it down, transformational learning, uh. Coaching, transformational life career, but the word transformation is an important word to me, and I give it. That’s what’s wonderful. When you’re a teacher, you can, you can create a hybrid definition that works for you. I’ve always been like you. We’re teachers, and we want to create language. So my definition of transformation is what I call either a growth by a by subtraction. Sometimes we would even call it addition by subtraction, and the key word is subtract that we’re, we’re, we’re subtracting something from people that seem to be getting in the way of this, this very sacred energy in in us that we come we call it potential because potential sounds practical with a lot of potential in people that are unlimited. But potential is I call potential are yet to be. More importantly, our greatest yet to be discovered, developed. Let’s get more of that to come out. Well, why wouldn’t it be coming out? Now? What if something was blocking our potential? And those blocks are basically the patterns that we develop going through life, you know? And those patterns aren’t good, those patterns aren’t bad, they’re human. Some of those patterns are very they serve us. And then sometimes a pattern, after a while, can get a little bit aged and get in the way subtraction means I’m going to wake up become aware of is there a pattern in me that might be getting in the way of more of my yet to be to get discovered and developed? And if you’re going to make me aware of it, please don’t shame me. Don’t judge me. Is there a way that I can enter that awareness without judgment. And then once you wake me up to it, can you engage me in some practice, some methods, mindsets and methods that might help me to subtract that, reduce it, decrease it so that more of my yet to be comes out, and as that new, yet to be forms. Oh, my God, I’m I’m adding on to me in a different way. Yeah. So that in a nutshell is how I how I think about in the language I give to transformation.

Chris Baran 12:35
You know, what I love about you is you always have these, what I would call little golden nuggets that you come out with, like subtraction from and even when you said that, in my brain, I’m going it’s represented by, you know, in mathematics, not that I was really good at it when I was in school, by a negative sign, yes. But when you were talking about it, that addition via by extraction or by subtraction, is that sometimes, if somebody’s got a negative thing that’s going on, you’ve got to pull them out. And it’s interesting. We were just talking about that today, about that the universe abhors a background, a vacuum. So if you pull something negative out of somebody, and then you can put back in the piece that was missing. So in other words, I’m pulling out bad habit. I’m pulling out an improper mindset, and then giving them the tool that that gives them the correct way so that they’re now, they’re becoming whole, they’re becoming better. I just think that’s, that’s an amazing part of what we do, and you’ve always had that gift for being able to take a very complex subject and simplify it into a nugget.

Michael Cole 13:56
Thank you. Yeah, I and you, we’ve geeked out about this before. The essence, I think, of true simplicity. I should say the essence of genius is simplicity, the ability to take something that, at face value, looks overwhelming, it looks scary, it looks complex and real language. Now I’m, you know, codify it, put it in a simple model that it, it looks less difficult, that there’s a simplicity in it. And it’s, it looks compelling, just the idea that I can have an awareness of something in me that’s getting in my way, and I can have that awareness without feeling judged, shamed, embarrassed, humiliated. That’s a pretty radical idea, yeah,

Chris Baran 14:54
especially, especially that that’s an you know, shame and guilt has been. A built into our school systems. It’s been in. It’s been built into, and I always say that people train the way they were taught. And if you were taught with shame and guilt involved, unintentionally, you’re building it into what you do. And the moment that you can take that out of your repertoire, because I when you were talking, because I wrote down the words motivation versus inspiration. And I think that you can Mote like fear is a motivator. It’s not a real good one, and it doesn’t last really long, versus what you can do to inspire. Now I’m not saying motivation is bad, but what I do say is that, and I hope people that are listening don’t take this wrong, because there’s so many people that will say, I’m a motivational speaker, and I would say, Oh, that’s too bad, because motivation is a very short time. But you know, Michael, you’ve always inspired people, and I think that’s the difference, is you can motivate, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to move them forward, but you inspire them to be able to move forward and actually have the knowledge number one, to do it. Number two is they don’t feel shamed and feel guilt, and they can so they it’s like, you know? It’s like, it’s a good boy, here’s a treat. It’s a good girl. Here’s the treat, you know, and you’ll always perform and for the reward,

Michael Cole 16:26
yeah, yeah, no, I’m loving the conversation, because it that where I live, showing up every day, that this is the language, and we, we are engaged in a conversation now with our faculty about that, that distinction between motivate and inspire, I would call it the difference. One of my words is to entice, not sell, not motivate, but to entice. And a very practical example of this is in school the students. It’s not uncommon at all that a student, there’s, there’s fear around setting goals, yeah, so the idea that, well, you know, I didn’t come to school to do that. I just want to come here and, you know, put in my hours in this and so then when I get my state board and get my license, but I’m not into the goal thing, and there’s a whole narrative around that. I don’t want to go into that now, but the idea that one of the our slogans in TLC is that one of the potentials in goal setting is that if it’s done right, it entices us to become something that we might not become if we didn’t have a goal to seek. And sometimes I’ll even say it entices us to become what we would need to become to achieve the goal. So, an example, something, you know, that retail service, whatever it is that setting that goal, if I engage, it enticed me. What? Whether I hit the goal or not, did I become anything? Yeah, well, yes, I I became more confident, I became more courageous, I became a little bit more organized and focused. And that becoming that quality, the development of that potential. I’m going to take that with me in the next you know, you’re working with somebody that’s 1920 years old. I’m going to take that with me for the next half a century of my life. So you that’s an enticement, where somebody would go, Oh, wow. Can you say that again? Because I I’d never, I’ve never had a no one’s ever told me about that, about goal setting. But, you know, and it entices me, and all of a sudden, I’m two minutes ago, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, because I missed my goal, and somebody yelled at me, and, you know, this or that. But you You gave me another Mindset, you gave me another take, a healthy narrative on that. And boom, goes to dynamite, yeah.

Chris Baran 19:20
And you know, while I take my hat off to you, especially talking to you know, we spend so much time with either our age group or people that are just down a couple scales on age wise. But we all know that it’s if you’re getting out of your age group like me as a baby boomer, I’m just going to say me, and talking to a 19 year old, they see you as different. You came from a different tribe, a different era, etc. And I, I remember just a while back, and I was we were coaching someone, and we were talking about goal setting, and I remember one person in particular got. Very, very standoffish, just like you were talking about, you know, the fingers crossed, the X pattern. I don’t want anything to do with that. And after I felt a little how would you say defeated? Because, you know what I was talking about, didn’t go over that well. And then I was talking to a business coach, and they said, Why don’t you substitute the word goal with want? What do you want? And I went, Well, okay, well, yeah, pretty much means the same thing. What do you mean by that? And this person said, she said, You know what happens to people when they’re if they’re goal setting, or they’re they’ve never done it, or if they have done it and something has happened in the past where they didn’t get their goal, they put all of the emotion that they had on the failure that they did, that they didn’t have the goal, and it becomes about the past, yeah, or it becomes about the future. I well, I don’t want to think that far down the road, but she said, What do you want? Makes it present, makes it right now. And that’s what I love about what you’re telling those kids, where you switch them from future or past into now, present right now. He is a 19 year old. That’s just sensational. I bet we have something in common. I have this love hate relationship. I hate paying for something that I’m not using. I hate working in a small, cramped box, yet I love working in a cool salon that impresses my clients, and I love the culture and synergy of a team while enjoying the freedom of being my own boss. You too. What if all that was available to you at the salon you rent from meet artist on go, a game changing way to rent salon space with artist on go, you only pay for the time you’re behind the chair. You can choose a salon that fits your vibe, location and amenities with artist on go, you’re a part of a stylist community, not hustling alone. Plus, you get to enjoy perks like clean towels and back bar supplies. Check out artist on go, built for stylists serious about their clients and growing their brand without the hassles of managing a space. Here’s the kicker, you can save more than 50% on your rent to find out more. Go to B, I T, dot L y slash artist on go, C, B, that’s B, I T, dot L y slash artist on go CB

Michael Cole 22:45
station, yeah, I’m getting goose bumps as I’m listening to you, so that we all know I have virtually no contact with students. All of my contact are with educators. And to your point, an educator is 2425 years old, 30 years old, because when they when somebody that’s 19 or 20 see somebody that’s 25 or 30, and depending on how much presence that coach shows up with, I hope I can be like that when I grow up, but I don’t want them to see me because I’m older than probably their grandfather, right? But as I work with a 2530 year old coach, and I listen to the language somebody that’s 25 I was just interviewed her the other day, and she said to somebody, that’s 20, you went from 15 to 20. Oh, yeah, when I was 15, I was in the ninth grade, and now I’m 20. I’m a year, two years out of high school. And she said, I your coach went from 15 to 20. So we both went through the five years. I’m 25 I went from 20 to 25 you’re at 20 about to go to 25 What’s your point? It’s there’s both five years. Yeah, so the same five years from but I’m here to tell you you are going to live that, how she put it, and I just love it, how she you’re going to live more life in the next five than you did the other five that and she called it life lived. You’re you’re gonna, if what happened to me happens to you, you’re gonna live 15 years of life in the next five. And if you want, while we’re hanging out, we can have that conversation. And all of a sudden this 20 year old is going like she knows she’s she’s a few months into getting a life, and she’s already intuitively figuring out I’m not in Kansas anymore. I’m not in high school. I’m not, you know, so there’s a lot. And so all of a sudden I see two people. So dancing. The other thing I want to say, and then I want to get your take on it, is five years ago. 10 years ago. You know, coaching one on ones is not front page news. We’ve been playing with that now a while. But when you ask a coach five years ago, when you sit down to coach someone, and you spend a half hour, an hour, what percentage of your time is really going into coaching? Goal setting on retail to Gee, the person that you’re coaching is a little bit upset today, and we need to talk about that issue, because it’s getting in the way. You asked that five years ago, prior to covid, I don’t know, 90% of its coaching. We just got to the 10% Yeah, we got to stop the process and see if we can get to today. You asked that same question, they’re going on? Are you kidding? 90% of my time is I got people in front of me. They can’t see my lips move because they’re, they’re they’re stressed. They’re looking for, you know, mental health awareness now has become a watchword. So when I took on the mantle three years ago, it was like, oh, boy, boy. I’m not at a loss for learning, you know, some some new right answers to help stabilize that and then get that back to where people can be truly productive and enriched without exploiting them, loving them. Yeah. So anyway, I hope that made sense to you absolutely.

Chris Baran 26:35
You know I want to. You know, there’s not often that you and I disagree on anything, and I want to, I only want to say, with all love and respect that I disagree with just one thing that you said is that they don’t want a the part that I agree with is, if you’re walking around and nobody’s seen you or knows you, they’re going to see you and I as a grandpa, probably older than their grandpa, and they’ll go, Yeah, whatever. But I think once they know you, once they’ve seen all the stuff, if they’re following you on your on your site, and they’re seeing the nuggets that you have to me, the numbers, the wrinkles, the gray hair floats away and you become an equal. Oh, I agree, and not until that happened. So I certainly don’t want anybody ever saying that Michael Cole is seen as No.

Michael Cole 27:29
And I was talking to somebody at pivot point the other day, and they were talking about you, they were talking about me, and they said, You’re seen as a legacy hero. They use the word legacy that some but you know, you’re a couple of genres or so ahead, so to your point where there’s a difference between being a Jedi and being, you know, Yoda, you know, so and I watch every year Chris camp, and I’m seeing educator, Jedi is going to Yoda, and so we’re talking metaphor here. And then it’s interesting, because the 20 year old, once they’ve interacted with the Jedi. They’re going, okay, who’s your teacher, you know? So every now and then, you know, you’ll do a drive by where all of a sudden you have a class of, I mean, what did I Jens, Gen Zs, and I’ll say something. And I just showed up on a zoom a couple of days ago, they were graduating from fundamentals, going on the floor, and I did 15 minutes with them and try to honor their teacher, and just you know that they love you and it’s an honor to be with you and them, etc, etc. So thank you for saying that. That kind of cleaned it up. I was being a bit cute on myself.

Chris Baran 29:02
Yeah, well, we always have to be a little self deprecating. You said an interesting word there, and that sparked a thought when you said, drive by and you talked about coaching. And I think if there’s a couple of things that I’ve learned, especially since covid, especially since our Gen Z’s have got involved in our business and start to take it over, is that is, if you can mix those two things. Because I think that there’s when we talk about coaching, they think of sit down, and it should be, you should have some sit down, one on one time. But I keep telling people, keep it brief. They shouldn’t be long, arduous meetings. You shouldn’t be shamed. Be shamed. It should be what factual. But then I talked to people about, if you’re going to be an accountability partner, you need to have, I call them drive bys coaching. Drive bys, you know. So you do your coaching, and you help to set your goals, your wants, and all of those things in your meetings. You. But that’s not where you should do your catch ups, because they always say, we just want a five minute meeting, and they go in the office. Then that sets a different tone. But if you do a drive by, you’re doing a cup of coffee, or you’re just having a walk down the hallway and going to whatever staff room, break room, and Michael would walk by me as a new kid that he just coached and said, Hey, Chris, tell me how it’s going. You had set this XYZ of a goal and a want, or what you want to do by the end of week. How’s it going? Oh, good. I did it. Great. Give me high five. You know, I’m not quite there. Well, what do you need to do? Okay, well, I need to do XYZ. Okay, great, awesome. Give me a high five and just, you know, drive bys that, no matter whether they’re something they accomplished or didn’t do, it’s still a celebration at the end of it. So what I think that that way, I don’t care of your age group, but people respond to rewards, and the more that we reward people, and I’m not saying reward them for doing stuff wrong, reward them for what the decision they made of how to move the needle forward if they didn’t do something

Michael Cole 31:01
I love what you’re pointing to. I want to I want to share with you what came up as a result of you talking to me. What you use the word drive by. I call it check in, just checking in. And whether it’s I’m good to go, you are one of our coaches. Give me, give me a thumbs up if you’re good to go. And then if there is something that’s in the way, let’s chat. But to make sure, I think the art of coaching today is if you’re going to help somebody navigate something that’s disturbing them, and you’re going to teach them a principle on how to navigate that. Make sure that you take and show them how they can use that same principle to navigate the achievement of something that pertains to why they’re there. Yeah, so that it doesn’t it doesn’t look like you’re in a clinic, or you’re doing therapy, or we never, ever forget where we’re at. And it is a business. So I think the art of this is, if it’s a principle that’s going to help you to navigate something personal, let’s get that out of the way and then take that same principle and get back to the task, the business that takes some rigor and that I’ve had the time over the last three years to Okay, how’s that work? What? What’s the language? What are the let’s get granular about that process.

Chris Baran 32:34
You know, I would one day love if I could get in Michael Cole’s brain after, after, after, you had a conversation, and you, I know you well enough to know I’ve seen you in action. I’ve seen you in when we’ve had our mass meetings together, and I saw everybody else, and I’m just talking about you the other day, and I use this analogy as I sit sitting in this room and we’re trying to figure out our code of honor, and everybody was just stand up immediately and they’d talk about the first thing that came to their brain. And then I remember where I was sitting, and you were sitting, like, literally, about three feet away from me, at a different table, just side by each and I watched you go through and let everybody talk. And then I would see at the very end, you know, your hand would go up, and then the person leading would say, you know, Michael, and you would stop for a second, and then you would come up with this summation of what would happen, and everybody would go, Oh yeah, that’s it. That’s it. And I That’s why I’d love one day if I could only get in your brain to see what your brain does, or what you ruminate over, to take all of those thoughts and put them together and then come out and espouse, espouse, this, this incredible piece of information. Now I I’m not saying that as a platitude to you. I say that you over years, and you have this way of getting taking everything, put it into us, you know, into a little summary, and then letting everybody else know what that was. And everybody goes, yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

Michael Cole 34:21
Well, we, Will. I’ll give you a one minute answer on that, because, again, that’s why I love listening to you. You always inspire. You invoke something that comes up. There’s a quote by one of the great teachers of the past. In between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is the power to choose the response, and in that choice is our growth or something to that effect, I, first of all, I’m very moved by that that is worthy of a lot more reflection than we have time. But Michael polarized it that in. In between when I get triggered and when I react, there’s a space. So some people, most people, there is no space, the trigger and the reaction are like conjoined twins. And if there’s a space, I’m going through that damn thing like going through a red light unseen, but there is a space. And to me, that space is the awareness. So awareness is just the space between the two. And if I can just have a little bit of time in that space, while I’m listening to people, something comes up in me from that space, and I’ll know, I’ll know when it does, because there’s like, this visceral, you know, say, Oh yeah, that’s what people call the OMG. And I’ll go with that. And more times than not, it’s, it’s close enough to the bullseye that it’s useful so people, how come you listen? How come you’re always the last to speak or the What are you doing? What’s your trick? And it’s well, I’m I’m staying in the space as I’m listening to you, knowing that if I stay in that space long enough, and I’m not thinking you’re going to say something that’s going to invoke and inspire something in me that might be useful to both of us. So there you go. That’s, that’s my secret sauce.

Chris Baran 36:29
Yeah, I remember, I think, I don’t know if this was the time when it become ingrained in you, but I remember God like it’s 100 years ago.

Michael Cole 36:40
We go back to the 90s, you guys, I think I met you at redkin while first friend and was together in 95 Yeah, I remember

Chris Baran 36:48
you and I still, I think somewhere here, I still have you gave me. I gave you, all of us, these, these tapes that we could play in our Walkman and listen to, and we, our family would listen to them in the car when we were going on holidays. My son is producing this right now, and he’s listening in the background. I know he’ll agree. And I remember the time when you you talk to our whole group. I’m not going to go into the long recitation, but you talked about quiet mind. And you talked about how, how that, that there’s this space in your brain, if you if all you’re thinking about is all the clutter. And what I got from what you just said was when you talked about the trigger. And then, like, we all know, people have agendas, whether that’s to be right, to be you know, to be heard, to be comfortable, whatever, but you get this response, this visceral, like you called it visceral response. It’s going to come out rather right away, and that’s where sometimes harm can be done. And if you just wait, and I keep hearing you say that, just wait, and in that quiet that quiet mind, it would allow your brain to calm down and to be able to take the information, and then wait. It shouldn’t be said. It shouldn’t be said, what? What’s my response and what it should be rather than react, okay, yeah,

Michael Cole 38:09
my word. Now it used to be wait. Now it’s pause, living in the pause. And I turned pause into an acronym of P, A, U, S, E, practice awareness, which is basically staying in the space until seeing emerges. Well, all of a sudden, you’re seeing

Unknown Speaker 38:30
something, yeah,

Michael Cole 38:33
that you didn’t see a nanosecond ago, and more times than not, as we get skilled at pot now, now that my class is calling it, Michael, you, you do more than pause. You pause with purpose. You’re pausing with with the purpose of seeing something that that will serve other people. And you, you’ve been doing it, you like a Jedi at pausing. And I’m going, yes, it’s, it is a skill, and it’s still worth developing. And when you’ve developed it, there, you bring a presence into a conversation that that does something to that conversation, and people in it that wouldn’t be done. And you go, But how’d you do that? Pause. Practice awareness until seeing emerges, and it’s again, the essence of ingenious is simplicity. How do you simplify the complex?

Chris Baran 39:33
Yeah, you know what’s going through my brain right now is, does this take everybody years and maturity to figure out? Or is this something that, when we tell people like, do they have to go through the crap that we had to fling through before? Sometimes it makes sense, yeah?

Michael Cole 39:57
Well, just some, yeah, some, sometimes we just have. A, you know, you know, the self imposed crisis that kind of beats us into a state of willingness sure doesn’t necessarily mean. What came to my mind is, I listen, if a handful of art my coaches were here from PCI, the educators, there we go. Oh, my God, are you kidding? I, you know, I’ve been part of this group for three months, and we come for an hour a week. And you know, this has changed me in some way, shape or form. I’m able to do something with students. Get to a place with my students as I wasn’t before. But the gift with purchase is when I go home tonight, there’s a presence that comes home with me that seems to be serving my family, and I wasn’t here for 227 meetings. This is only my 14th session, because I was hired six months ago. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it can be. I’m really committed to the notion that we can to some degree collapse time where people can get to these places sooner with the right TLC than they then they would otherwise.

Chris Baran 41:11
Yeah, and you know what see there in to bring us back to the beginning, lies the transformation. Because what you’re talking about, what we’re talking about here is not coaching skills. It’s not a it’s a life skill. You know, these are all life skills that we go through so

Michael Cole 41:30
transformational life and career. Yeah,

Chris Baran 41:33
and I just, I mean, I’ve got copious notes here. I don’t know what the word copious means, but it makes me sound really cool, but I

Michael Cole 41:40
it’s wonderful. I just love talking to you, yeah.

Chris Baran 41:44
I heard this talk about, you know, we were transforming people for a living and for growth. We talked about the the TLC, the transforming, about the life and the caring I loved, the growing through so, through some subtraction, attraction, yeah, yeah. And the the yet to bes, because we always talk about potentials, but it’s such a broad word that yet to be as if it could happen to more might happen in a few, in a few weeks or a few years, but it’s the potential that we have. And I loved how you talked about if you can coach without shame and guilt, because I think that’s been rampant in our industry. And I just, Michael, you know, I wish we had two more hours to talk. I want you back on again. I think we need to talk more about this. And I I want to talk to you a little bit more about this, about how we can do this. And I just want to say this for right now. I just want to thank you so much. But before we kind of wrap this up, if people want to talk to you, get a hold of you. Learn from you, whatever. How can I do that? Yeah, or should they

Michael Cole 42:57
right now, right now a very simple, safe way, because I want to keep my commitment to my previous partners, summit and again, thank you Summit, and thank you L’Oreal and thank you redkin. The ride was nothing short of glorious to do, but to hang out something simple is I have a page, a community page on Instagram. Michael Cole inspires, and it’s really a labor of love. I do these little one minute reels of the stuff that we’re talking about here. That’s and what makes it, I think, ingenious, is it’s safe and it’s simple. So love to have people there. And I get DMS all the time, and I answer them all it, it’s become a labor of love.

Chris Baran 43:47
Yeah, well, I think that I’ve heard one of my coaches say that, you know, people will respond to coaching, but they and they will respond even more to the coach, but what they respond most to is the responsibility to community. So I think the fact that you have a community that Michael Cole and I want to say that again, Michael Cole inspires. I was on there again just before we talked, and I saw your nuggets on there. And I highly encourage everybody to go there, if you, if you don’t go on Michaels and follow Him, then you are missing out. So Michael, you’ve been a friend. Well, let me, let me start it in order, you were you were a teacher to me. You were a mentor to me. You’ve helped me grow, as you have done with 1000s of others and but what’s I find that I cherish most is yours and Michael yours and Mary’s friendship that I’ve had. So I just want to say thank you so much for giving up your time and being with us here.

Michael Cole 44:55
Thank you. You’re you are, and anytime I’m with you, I learned, but you’ve taught meals. Whole bunch over the years about you’re going to forget more about how to facilitate in a way where your learners have mind blowing experiences. I mean, so I’m always taking notes when I’m in your presence as well. So and your content is chock full of timeless wisdom. So thank you.

Chris Baran 45:20
Yeah, thank you buddy. And in the meantime, we must get to their next time in Minneapolis area, we’re gonna we’re gonna break bread.

Michael Cole 45:29
I’m gonna hold you to your promise.

Chris Baran 45:31
All right. Thank you, bud. All

Michael Cole 45:33
right. Thank you grace. Cheers.

Chris Baran 45:37
Thanks again for watching this episode, and if you liked what you heard, remember to smash that like or follow button, depending on your preferred platform, and make sure to share it with anyone you know that might be a fellow head case. Head cases is produced by cut action media, with Marjorie Phillips doing the planning parts, Lee Baran on the video bits, and Adrian Taverner mixing the audio jazz you.