So I would just link to take a short break and say to the section though and share with you our story
and the reason I want to share this story with you is because it's just relevant and appropriate to
do so.
This section of the course we're now looking at are core beliefs.
And when we start working with clients on a belief level well we're dealing with the foundations that
our clients have pretty much built and based their life's upon to date.
All right so it couldn't be dealing with some pretty sensitive stuff.
Now we've had a couple of conversations with Karen know and we've developed some good rapport and obviously
mean Karen are married.
All right.
So we have that level of connection and rapport and trust between us.
Anyway you're not always going to have that in the context of a coaching relationship especially in
the early days.
But in fairness in the early days of a coaching relationship you're not always going to kind of go in
for the kill and start working with people on a police level anyway.
All right it takes perhaps a couple of sessions for us just to to get there.
You've got to have Aaron's clients trust first and foremost.
And this story is really going to hopefully help me to emphasize this point.
The story is Operation hearts and minds and it was a lesson that I learned when I was still serving
as part of the British Army.
No I think it was 2003 and January 2003 when I God's word I was I was given around about 24 hours notice
to pack my bags and prepare for Operation talent which was the second Gulf War.
Now I was around about twenty three maybe 24 years old at the time and to be honest with you this is
kind of what I join the army for to go to war a little bit of action a little bit of adventure and I
was quite looking forward to it.
But to be honest with you it wasn't like I was you know part of the part of the infantry that was a
part a member of the Royal Engineers so I would roll going across there was very very different from
their military.
We went across there to murder death kill instead we would actually cross there to to build back up.
We were part of the humanitarian aid team was what was referred to back then anyway.
Now when we first arrived in I think it was Kuwait an airport called early al Salaam.
If I remember correctly we arrived there and we had around about six to eight weeks preparation time
before the war actually started.
And when we first arrived in all the Al Salam the airport we were met by some Air Force high ranking
officers who introduced us to this concept of operation hearts and minds and they just reminded us in
fact explained to many of us for the first time why we were actually there.
Yes this was war.
Yes we were across there and you know partnered up with the British and the American infantry units.
They were going to go in and do what they had to do in Iraq.
Then we were going to go and pretty much start rebuilding as soon as the initial bombardment had ended.
So this was our role.
Our role was to build a water pipeline from Kuwait over the Iraqi border into our port town called Al
Salaam and then from here the water would be the fresh drinking water would be distributed throughout
the nation by.
By war tanker.
No the principle was this all right.
And if you want to win the trust of a people you're not going to win the trust of off off anyone by
coming in aggressively you're not gonna win the trust of people by correcting them or by debating with
them or telling them that they are wrong and that we are right and engage them with them on an intellectual
rational academic level and the right.
Which kind of contradicts many of the helping professions today some of the psychological disciplines
and much of psychiatry where you have you know helping professionals will work with clients and they'll
ask them all about what they think and how they feel when all the rest of it is kind of like you know
professional working with someone down here and if you've ever watched any of the TV shows I was watching
it was Agents of SHIELD.
All right I'm gonna be honest I quite like all the superhero movies especially all the Marvel stuff
and I was I think watching season three of any of them Agents of SHIELD and there's a psychiatrist there
who's working with some of the that in humans.
All right.
This rare breed of human beings that have newly evolved superpowers and he's there working with them
all and obviously me being me you know having been doing what I've been doing for the last decade or
so.
I'm just watching this psychiatrist speaking with his clients and just thinking to myself my goodness
how impersonal This is just so closed and I actually saw patronising em speak into people as if they
are broken as if they are damaged goods as if they genuinely do need my my help and my support and I
guess I've never really found looking down on people as being broken or damaged goods or not as good
as me a particularly effective way of building rapport with people and ultimately and developing and
nurturing trust.
So Operation hearts and minds.
The idea was this when you can meet a person's needs and a very very practical level i.e. you can give
them something that they genuinely need or something that they genuinely want.
And then if you can do that again and do that again then ultimately you're me in there.
They are core physiological practical needs on some level which means they're going to trust you for
greater more important things.
And this is it.
If you can win a person's heart you can win a person's mind.
And what we've found was that when we first went into Iraq obviously there was quite a lot of hostility.
We were building this war pipeline were both and all these all these kind of these these barriers around
the water pipelines so that it wouldn't get blown up or shot and I can remember whilst we were working
with just you know hear pot shots being taken artists and bullets flying through the air but it wasn't
until after the war pipeline had finished being built and we started distributing the water that people
like the locals were actually able to see that we were there for them.
We weren't against them and to be honest with you I actually ended up connecting with a few a few locals
and near there people are people the world throughout.
We all have the same needs.
We all have the same degrees of limiting unhelpful belief and doesn't really matter what our skin color
is doesn't even matter what our what nations we we we we live in we're world kind of made of the same
old stuff and this is pretty much just the the idea that I wanted to share with you here that when we're
working with people especially on a beliefs level if we are wanting to influence people in terms of
making modifications and you know in terms of how they think and what they believe we're only ever going
to be able to do so once we have fundamentally won their trust we're not going to have earned the right
to challenge people on our thoughts or feelings or beliefs level if they don't trust us and know that
we're fundamentally there for them.
So how do we win the trust of people is when they are talking openly and honestly about what they actually
believe and what they actually think and how they actually genuinely feel.
We're here to treat them with unconditional positive regard and unconditional accept and simply being
for them the kind of people that we would hope other people to be to be for us if that makes sense.
So just a quick relationship principle here.
I wanted to build on the reason why it's important we just acknowledges here is because if our clients
aren't able to see that we are 100 percent there for them practice in all of the beautiful attitudes
that I mentioned right back at the start of Section 1 they're not going to trust us.
And if they don't trust us they're certainly not going to be open and honest with us.
And if they're not open and honest with us then you know they might find at this stage difficult to
be open and honest with themselves as well.
So if we genuinely do want to coach and serve our clients on a police level it's imperative that we
win their trust first and foremost which we're only going to get if we're focusing on winning their
hearts not winning and and changing their their minds.
Make sense with me.
Fantastic.
We'll move on to the next clip where we're going to look at an interesting idea called Lucas off control.