#614: The Human Skills of Nutrition Coaching – Krista Scott-Dixon, PhD

0:00Danny Lennon: Hello and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. My name is Danny Lennon. This is episode 614 of the podcast. And today we're going to be taking a look at a topic that will be of interest to many of you, but in particular, those of you who are practitioners in nutrition or health fields and are aiming to help people. So anytime you're dealing with a human being in a setting where you are going to have patients or clients and you're helping them improve their nutrition, their health, etc. There is many aspects that need to be looked at. And of course, if you've been doing this for a while, you will be very acutely aware of how much that relationship that you form with the person dictates the likely success of that coaching interaction.

0:49Danny Lennon: And so this key challenge then becomes of how do we not only build those appropriate relationships and use the appropriate skills that allow for that connection with another human being. And so to take a look at navigating some of these issues and looking at some of the human skills that underpin effective coaching practice, today I'm going to be talking with Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon, who has been a longtime coach, academic, has been at the forefront of developing curricula for nutrition coaching, and she has taken a deep look at a number of these topics that relate to being a nutrition practitioner and really helping people.

1:32Danny Lennon: Not only has she experienced as a nutritionist, as well as looking at some of the research here, but has also training as a counselor and has used some of these ideas from counseling and psychology to augment nutrition and health coaching within the defined scope of practice. And beyond that, she's actually written a textbook on all of this. And so we're going to tap into some of these ideas and hopefully it proves interesting to not only of you who are nutrition professionals, but anyone else that just finds the concepts around habit change, and particularly as that relates to health changes, an interesting topic.

2:09Danny Lennon: For those of you who are Sigma Nutrition Premium subscribers, after the discussion, you will hear the key ideas segment where I'll recap some of those ideas. And you also have your detailed study notes available to you. So you can find them by clicking through in the description box where you're currently listening or just go over to sigmanutrition.com. And when you navigate to this episode, you will find all the premium material there. For those of you listening on the public feed of the podcast and are interested in getting more out of your podcast listening and really using it as an educational resource, then consider Sigma Nutrition Premium.

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3:26Danny Lennon: And then each month there is a premium exclusive episode of the podcast, which is only available to premium subscribers. So if you do want to support the podcast and you want to get more out of this listing and retain more of what you're listening to, then consider Signature Premium. I'll link that in the description box where you're currently listening right now. So without further ado, let's dive into this conversation between myself and Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon.

4:06Danny Lennon: A very big welcome back to the podcast to Krista Scott-Dixon. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me again. Well, thanks for having me back. It's nice to see you again and to chat with you and to get an updated take on what's been going on in the last while. Yeah, there's quite a lot to get to. And for people listening who maybe didn't catch your previous appearances on the podcast, can you give an introduction to your background, anything that might be relevant? So former academic, currently what I would call a coach and an educator. I focus mostly on health behaviors, lifestyle, but also mental skills for performance.

4:44And so that's evolved over the years. So in the beginning, I started it with general population folks, just regular people trying to eat healthier and get in shape and that kind of stuff. And it's evolved now to, it's evolved through nutrition, especially with my time at Precision Nutrition. And it's evolved much more now to things like professional education for coaches, teaching coaches to be better coaches. One of the groups I specialize in now is high performance people. So a lot of mental skills for high performance stuff like military special operations, first responders, that sort of thing.

5:16And then I'm also kind of moving now into consulting. So working with groups like executive leadership or academic institutions, like teaching their students mental skills and that kind of stuff. So there's a huge domain of stuff that I do, but it all falls into the bucket of some kind of coaching and education around feeling better, functioning better, performing better, depending on what somebody's better is. And I'm sure the focus today will be more on nutrition, which is sort of in my bread and butter, so to speak. But that's really kind of the general overview. And then on the side as well, my day job, so to speak, is working with an app that does AI nutrition coaching, health coaching, fitness coaching, and developing models for how to bring that human connection into something like an app for people that maybe, you know, wouldn't want to get human coaching or just can't afford it.

6:07So it just makes AI coaching like much more accessible to people.

6:10Danny Lennon: Maybe it's a nice jumping off point. And I mentioned the textbook that you've written and that I had a chance to go through and not in every bit of detail, because as people will see, it is incredibly comprehensive. But first of all, with that, what was it that you felt that you wanted to contribute with something like this formal textbook covering the types of things that you did in the way that you did? Yeah. So, So, I mean, over the years, obviously, I've developed curriculum and other certifications for organizations like Precision Nutrition, Girls Gone Strong. And so there's a lot of stuff available on nutrition in terms of what to eat, right?

6:48So if you're a nutrition coach or someone who's just interested in eating better, there's lots and lots of stuff available on what to eat, how to eat. Now, there's lots of debates within that, obviously, but there's a fair amount of stuff available on what to eat. And if you're someone like a clinical dietitian, I mean, that's something that you've been trained in for years, right? But the gap is really how to bridge what to eat and what are evidence-based recommendations for what people should be doing, how to bridge that with actually changing human behavior. Like, how do we get people to do the stuff that we think or that evidence suggests that they should be doing?

7:25And there is some behavior change. I think that the behavior change is now beginning to be taught more and more in a lot of these programs. But it's a little bit superficial. So maybe you might come to see me and I'm a dietitian and I'm like, OK, what are your goals? Let's talk about goals and maybe I'll give you a meal plan. Maybe I'll give you some steps to do. And that might work or it might not. probably won't for most people. But then even if it does work, what happens when life intervenes? As it does, as it will. Human beings are diverse. They are complicated. They are messy. And as a practitioner, you need to know how to work with them like in the real world.

8:06And that's such a huge gap. But more than that, the slice of what you might get is not enough necessarily to deal with all the situations that you might encounter. You have to be very flexible, like grabbing the tool on the fly as you go, as the conversation unfolds. And so I also have a background in counseling. And so it was really weird to me that there was this lack of understanding about counseling methods, psychotherapy, social work, like all of these fields that specialize in helping humans and messy humans that really weren't being brought into fields like dietetics or nutrition. And part of that, I think, is some concerns about scope of practice.

8:47People are like, ooh, no, I don't want to do therapy. I just want to help people eat better. But what that meant was that we were not grabbing those tools and using those tools that are very good tools completely within scope of practice. And so I had this like nagging tension in my head for years and years with, again, having this counseling background. And I kind of started writing this book called Steal This Coaching, like rip off anything that works from any other field. And then when I was approached by the publisher, they were like, we're kind of thinking about doing a book on like behavior change and nutrition.

9:19I was like, no problem. I've already got it written in my head. So the driving force for this book is really to help practitioners or even just, again, people who want to eat better or people who are in some other kind of helping role. maybe a health coach, maybe you're even like a nursing or like anyone who's helping other people, but may not be aware of this counseling and psychotherapy and the social work literature, helping them help people better. So that's the driving force for this book. And of course, the focus is nutrition, but it's really applicable in a whole variety of areas.

9:54Danny Lennon: There's two things that I want to drill into a bit deeper that I think are really useful that you've highlighted. One is noting that most people that are maybe a nutrition professional or coaching in some way around people's health will probably accept the premise that behavior change and understanding some of that human psychology is important. But as you know, oftentimes it is taken ideas from, let's say, popular books around habit change, etc., without really understanding perhaps some of the more important things that actually lead to long-term change in human behavior that you've alluded to, which relates to how you actually form that relationship with that person, understand them, and make some of these changes.

10:37Danny Lennon: And that leads into the concepts that are within fields like counseling, psychology, etc., that can be really useful tools. There is a very real line somewhere for scope of practice that maybe we can talk a bit later on. But I do wonder sometimes, and I'd love for you to speak to this, Is there maybe a tendency to almost use that as an excuse not to wade into those areas where maybe it's a bit tricky or we have to have those more difficult conversations with clients and maybe we're doing a disservice to many people? Can you maybe talk about where you see that line and maybe where we do overuse the kind of scope of practice line to get ourselves out of trouble a bit?

11:17Okay, so let's talk about the line. So the line kind of exists between coaches and any other medical profession. And so I'm very clear with my clients. I do not diagnose. I do not treat. I do not prescribe. So diagnose, treat and prescribe are kind of like your trifecta of things that you're not doing. And but within that, there's a lot of wiggle room. And I'll actually use the example, not of nutrition, but of something like neurodivergence. Right. So we've now become way more aware of mental health, cognitive health, the idea that people's brains work differently. And so with my clients, I see a variety of psychological health issues or just different ways that their brain works.

11:54Now, I'm not a specialist in cognitive health, so I'm not going to tell someone, hey, listen, have you ever considered that you might be autistic, right? Or that you might have ADHD or what you're telling me is consistent with OCD, right? I'm not going to say that. But what I am going to do is work with the behaviors as they emerge in this person's life, in the record keeping, in the conversations that we're having and simply notice them and say, listen, have been noticed. In our conversations, this keeps coming up, or you're saying it in this way, or what you're describing is consistent with such and such.

12:29I'm never going to tell someone, listen, you have depression, you have anxiety. What I'm going to say is, it seems like this topic is bringing up a lot of concern for you. Every time you talk about it, you sound worried. You express being worried, right? So I'm not going to tell you, listen, you have an anxiety disorder. That's not my job. My job is to simply bring your attention to what is happening in the here and now. So that's the line between scope of practice, because as a human being, you can absolutely be curious, be compassionate, name what is happening in the here and now, or what you're seeing in someone's data, right?

13:06Oh, there's patterns here. When you don't get enough sleep, your eating is crap, right? I don't have to be a sleep specialist to point out the obvious, right? So that's what your scope of practice is. You can notice, observe, you can help people gather data. And the other thing I really encourage coaches to do, because this is a great role for a coach, help your client collect data for themselves to then go and have a good conversation with their healthcare professional. Because a lot of conversations with healthcare professionals go like this. The client walks in and they're like, you know, the doctor's like, hey, what's wrong?

13:38And the client's like, I feel bad. The doctor's like, okay, listen, I have seven minutes to nail down this diagnosis. You're going to need to give me more than that, right? So part of the reason why I think so many people have unfulfilling experiences with getting that help in other domains is because they don't clearly articulate what the issues are to their healthcare provider, right? So if you can help prepare your client by helping them notice, by helping them gather data, by helping them look for patterns, so instead of going to their doctor and saying, I feel bad, they can go in there and say, listen, I have back pain.

14:12It's about five out of 10. It's kind of a sharp stabbing thing on the right side. It's worse in the morning. The doctor is like, oh, hallelujah. I can work with this. So that for me is where the line of scope is. It's really about being a human being who is interested and observant and curious and compassionate and kind of running these routines in the back of their mind to look for patterns and to invite our clients to notice these patterns to and to provide information as necessary like hey you might be aware that we need to drink water let's do that right now in terms of why a lot of people don't do this part of it is simply not knowing what tools are safe and available to use but i think a lot of it is that this work is self-work and so i talk in the book one of the concepts that comes from counseling in psychotherapy is that yourself is the instrument of the work.

15:08So it is my ability to perceive you and to experience you and to resonate with you that allows me to do this work. So I got to get this stuff sorted within myself. I have to build the communication skills, the emotion regulation skills, the stress management skills, the self-awareness skills, all of these skills. And that requires me addressing my own stuff, whether positive or negative. It requires me working on my own communication, on my own emotional self-regulation. Like maybe me talking to you about your stuff activates my stuff. So I'm like sitting there all amped up or all dysregulated within myself or anxious or whatever.

15:52And now I can't be an effective practitioner for you. So I think part of it is actually that doing this work requires you to do the work on yourself. Even something like a client doesn't change. And now as the practitioner, you're like, oh, my God, my client's not changing. Does this mean I'm a bad coach? Oh, my God, what are they paying me for? They're going to think I'm terrible. And now you're like spiraling down into yourself rather than simply sitting with the non-change and being like, isn't that interesting why we're not changing? Maybe let's go in a different direction with that. So I think that, so part of it again is, is a lot of people don't have the knowledge or the skills, but I think a huge part of it is like, that feels icky in me because I don't feel like I have the capacity to deal with it.

16:38Danny Lennon: It's really interesting to think about fields like, let's say, psychology, where it is very much the norm that any psychologist is then going and talking to a psychologist and reflecting a lot on their own things, just as you've outlined. Whereas it's probably a lot less typical in health and fitness fields. And there is maybe that sense of needing to get everything right and know all the answers in order to be seen as competent, as opposed to having the much more reflective aspect that you noted. And so there's kind of these two aspects that you've raised so far. One is the human skills or the relationship part between the coach and the client in this case.

17:19Danny Lennon: and then that second part is the skill and competencies that the coach should be maybe reflecting on so i know that you put a lot of importance on that relationship development and comparing it with the therapeutic alliance which is a core part of when you look at the success in psychology generally the biggest predictor for maybe people who are just coming across that concept can you maybe talk about what we learn from that role of therapeutic alliance and from your perspective, the application of that to other fields like health and nutrition coaching? I'll start off with a story. So one of the stories I tell in the book is I had to go get a cranial MRI years ago.

17:55And I'd never had an MRI before. And of course, you know, watching like medical dramas like House, in my mind, I'm like, oh my God, there's some piece of metal hidden in my body. Like I started to wonder like, oh no, when I had my appendix out when I was eight, like, did they leave something, you know? So I had this paranoia, I think some hidden piece of metal in my body, which would then like explode. It sounds crazy now, but like, I guess that's what happens when you watch too many medical dramas. But anyway, and because they ran this MRI on a 24 hour cycle, I had to go do it like in the middle of the night.

18:26So it's the middle of the night. I'm in this darkened hospital going to get this MRI. And it's just me and this older kind of grandmotherly lady who's like the MRI technician. Like it's just me and her, this kind of semi darkened room. Right. and I'm like trying to hide the fact that I'm freaking out, but she senses it. And she just kind of like pats my hand and she's just exuding this grandmother energy. And she's like, you know, it's going to be okay. And like just her whole vibe and the fact that she took those few extra seconds to be warm with me, it was just the warmth and the authenticity and just the genuine goodwill.

19:03I rolled into that MRI. I was like, okay, if this lady thinks it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. And that completely turned it around for me.

19:10Danny Lennon: And I was able to lie in there and relax and it was fine. And so I use that as an example of like, when you have an interaction with a healthcare provider, or anyone in your life with a helping role, that relationship is the cornerstone of everything that makes the change. And I think, you know, in our culture now, in Western culture, we have this idea that change is like exclusively internal, that you change something inside yourself. Like you just decide one day, OK, that's it. I'm going to change. And then all of your thoughts and your feelings are devoted to that. And it's all happening inside you.

19:47But the reality is cross-culturally in terms of how we evolved, we evolved as a social species. So we are interdependent, not just with other humans, I mean, with the whole rest of the world, but we are wired to be interdependent, to attend to others, to resonate with others. And so we change when we are in a relationship that facilitates and supports and guides our change. so this is like a super important concept and it is the relationship the the quality of it the depth and i'm not talking about like getting super intimate with your clients i'm talking about just being able to spark that warmth and that feeling of like okay we can trust each other there's mutual respect my coach cares about what i'm going through and wants to help that is the center of everything.

20:42Safe, secure, supported relationship. And there's different numbers on how much this matters, but it's something like in terms of the factors that you can control as a coach in your client's life, estimates vary between something like 85 to 97 % of the clinical outcome is that relationship, the quality of that relationship, as well as your ability to spark hope in your client to give your client the feeling of like, we're okay, there's a solution. Someone knows what they're doing here, like to help your client feel optimistic about their future. And that data is very, very clear. And so that's really one thing I've doubled down on in the book, because I think a lot of coaches feel like, especially nutrition coaches, there's so much pressure of like, oh, I have to eat properly.

21:32I have to be in shape, whatever that looks like. I have to be perfect. I, I, I, I. That's not a relationship, right? A relationship is me and you together working collaboratively against the problems that you're having. Who gives a crap if I have apps? That's not my job. My job is to help you go in the direction you want to go. so that is is one reason why i really really like double down on that relationship and i think that's some people are naturally very good at it but relationships are skills like anything else and it's easy when it's easy it's not easy when it's not easy and that's when you really need to lean on your relational skills and if you don't have those that's when it gets tricky within that i

22:18Danny Lennon: I think some of these concepts that can be that supportive relationship building, working together in a collaborative way to try and help that client often get into these areas that we can take from fields like psychology. And there's some really useful applications there. But sometimes I suspect that are people that are maybe coming from, let's say, a very traditional fitness industry background that have this kind of knee jerk rejection of some terminology and they don't even understand what some of those terms mean. They've preconceived ideas of that. So for example, of using concepts of compassion within their coaching, there's kind of a immediate knee jerk reaction to that because they think that is describing something that it isn't or around concepts of self-acceptance within their coaching.

23:07Danny Lennon: Again, they have this preconceived idea of what that means, which has nothing to do with the actual way that it can be used. I'm wondering, can you take either those examples or others that you think may be even more useful of concepts that could have a really useful role, but that maybe you think are commonly misunderstood. And for that reason, people within health and fitness tend to maybe be a bit wary of them or don't want to take them on board. Yeah, it's funny because I actually, I made a video about this a little while back. I was listening to a psychotherapy podcast and the host's voice started to annoy me so much.

23:42Danny Lennon: It was like that very therapy kind of sing-songy voice. And now I'd like you to, and I was just like, oh, it just was nails on a chalkboard for me. Right. And so I think when we talk about counseling and therapy, that's what people imagine, that you're lying on a couch and someone's like, now I just like you to gently relax and just, You know, like feel your feelings. That's not what I'm describing, right? So for example, and it's been especially useful to work with hardcore, quote unquote, populations like military, first responders, search and rescue, firefighters, like those kinds of folks to get practice putting stuff in their language, as well as high performance athletes, right?

24:26So some people will resonate with compassion. Some people resonate more like with don't be a dick to yourself. Friendly kindness. Listen, you work with a team on your job. You don't want your team members being assholes. Like you want to work with people that are cool and collaborative and like get your back. Look out for you. Give a shit about you. That's what we're talking about here. And the other point about compassion that I try to stress is it requires honesty. Sometimes we feel like it's like, oh, no, you're okay. You're a good person. That's not compassion. Compassion requires you to be honest because you have to honestly see how someone is suffering or struggling or what they're dealing with.

25:09So with compassion, you can look at a situation together and be like, wow, that sucks. That is crap. Like, this is super hard. This is crap. This sucks. So that is also compassion. So whether it's like, hey, man, be your own best buddy, be your own teammate. Don't be a dick to yourself. Don't be the asshole in your own head. Something I'll say like, listen, the world's full of assholes and abusers. Do you want to be another one in your head? And they're like, oh, no. Sometimes I also talk about the amount of effort it takes to be an asshole to yourself. Like it's deeply effortful and it's very draining and it's very distracting.

25:46So sometimes that's how I'll frame compassion. Like, listen, let's just clear the runway for you to focus on what really matters. Because if you're getting sucked down into the criticism, it's just diverting your energy. So there's different ways to talk about it, different kinds of terms, different kinds of metaphors. Most people will somehow find one that works for them, especially something like, again, don't be the dick in your own head or be a good team member.

26:11Danny Lennon: Oh, yeah. Okay, I get that. Acceptance. Acceptance is actually very easy to communicate to hardcore clients. Because the metaphor I use, so let's say you're an athlete, I'll be like, listen, you showed up to play. The field, it's raining and the field is muddy. You still have to play. You're accepting, like, you have to face reality, right? You can't be like, you can't be playing as if the field is a perfect condition. You have to adapt your play for slipping and sliding around in the mud. They're like, oh, I get that. Or with my military clients, I'll be like, look, you've been briefed on a mission.

26:47You've been given a map. You're dropped into the terrain. And oh, crap, the terrain does not match the map. Situations on the ground has, conditions on the ground have changed in the last 24 hours. There's been a flood. There's been this and that. Are you going to sit there with your map and cry? You know, the briefing notes in the map don't match your reality. Or are you going to get busy, get down to work and start facing the reality of what you're dealing with right now? And they're like, oh, OK. so acceptance is just facing reality and facing reality and i always say like if you argue with reality you're gonna lose 100 of the time reality is always going to win and then people are like oh okay i get that and that is what acceptance is you can ugly cry all the way like you don't have to like it be mad and sad and hateful about how reality is that's your business but you have to address reality as it is.

27:45That helps make it work for people, I think.

27:48Danny Lennon: One thing I did want to return to, and you're obviously in a very unique position to answer this, given that your current role in the development of the app using AI, which we have so many useful applications for now, but at the same time, uniquely aware of the importance of these human skills and relationship building that you've just discussed. And this continues to be an ongoing discussion within all types of coaching and fields where typically we've had a human connection between them and seeing what areas can be improved, what things can AI be really useful for, what areas maybe it can or can't, and there's still maybe differing opinions.

28:23Danny Lennon: And so there's also seems to be a yearning for things that are more human, so to speak. But this is all just to say, from your perspective, when it comes to something like nutrition coaching, with the way everything is evolving and the undoubted role that AI will play in that, at the risk of this being a very overly broad question, how do you think about those two things side by side? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say is that AI has become a very broad term. And so we want to understand very clearly what we're talking about when we talk about AI. Most of what we think of in general population as AI is just a large language model.

29:05And the best way to think about that is something like it's just glorified autocorrect on your phone. You type something into your phone, it's like, did you mean to say this? And so it has this sort of prediction. It's a prediction engine run by math. And so it's just a series of mathematical predictions on like, what does this person normally talk about? And what are they likely to say? And how can I help them say that if I think that they've made a typo? That's kind of how LLMs work, just at a larger scale. So it just predicts. It's largely designed for telling stories. So it will tell stories in a way that sounds very convincing and fills in the data.

29:41Right? So for example, let's say you're like, hey, listen, what does the research say about such and such? It'll be like, oh, I gotcha. No worries. Research says it's good to eat rocks. And here's some citations. And you're like, I don't think that's right, but it sounds good. it. So it's designed to present things authoritatively. It's also designed to sound human, like a lot of these LLM models. It's designed to sound like a chatty human, and our brains are like instantly glomming onto that. Like we are like, oh yeah, I'm talking to a person. Even if we know that we're not, our brains grab onto that and do it.

30:15And so it's designed to present stories to us very authoritatively. Wrong, right, that's not its concern. That is how it's design. So knowing this, like how do we use these models effectively? And of course, the other role for AI is just automation of basic tasks, right? So my Gmail knows, listen, emails that look like this in the past have been spam. This one promising that your penis will be enlarged is probably also spam. So I'm going to put it in the spam box. So that's an example of automation or like once a week, some routine runs of some kind, right? My bank automates messages telling me, hey, listen, you have this much money in your account, whatever.

30:55Danny Lennon: Okay. So these are effective tools if we understand how to use them correctly. So for example, like automations, right? If you're a coach and you have a fairly high volume of clients, you can automate things like adding someone to your mailing list, right? Someone comes to your website, they sign up for your mailing list. Cool. Now their email is automatically in the mailing list and then periodically they will get emails magically. right? Every few days at a cadence that you prescribe. That's a great example of how to automate. You can automate calendar bookings. You can automate all of that stuff that's just kind of like monkey work.

31:27That's a great use for automation. However, where this starts to break down is humaning. Having conversations that are not repetitive. So you have an initial conversation with an LLM and you're like, gosh, that sounds pretty good. I feel like this thing's really getting me. But the more that you talk to it, the more you're like, this is becoming repetitive. Yesterday, I told it that I liked watermelon and it didn't remember. Like one of the challenges that we are finding with the AI coach that we've got is it doesn't remember basic things that a coach would remember. It forgets that you have a knee injury.

32:04It forgets that you have a shrimp allergy. It forgets that you just went on vacation. Whereas this would be very easy for even the least trained human coach to remember. And it's these little cues of being seen and heard and understood and recognized that AI really does not do well, but humans do well, right? So Susan comes into the gym. You're like, hey, Susan, how's your dog? I know we had to go to the vet. AI doesn't do that. It doesn't remember that well. But in those two seconds, as a human to human, you've been able to create that human connection. So basically, the way I say it to coaches is recognize what is truly human connection relationships creativity right not giving rote repetitive answers being able to innovate being able to think laterally all of these things llms can't do llms can only give you the average of what they have already been trained to know they can't spark new ideas whereas in a client situation you guys might be vibing and all of a sudden you're like oh my god I have an idea.

33:06We could do this, that kind of stuff. So double down on the humanness in the human domains and then automate the things that are just busy work, repetitive monkey work, especially in a machine to machine interaction. Like, does my calendar need to talk to my email? Cool. Let's bring them together with an automation. And I will say like the app that I work at, so it's now 2026, they've been working on this AI coach since 2024, I think, maybe even 23, with a whole team of really smart people. And even still, we have customers saying, this feels robotic, this feels repetitive, this thing doesn't understand me, I'm frustrated, it's not remembering.

33:46So again, even a coach on their first day is probably gonna be better at many things than an AI coach.

33:53Danny Lennon: So for people in a coaching capacity, there's obviously then a decision now that they will need to be making ongoing of what things fall into that bucket around automation or that I can use these certain technologies for? What things should I spend more of my time doing, not only working, but also developing themselves? And one of the things that I think you alluded to in the book relates to the skills that practitioners can start building. And in particular, you talk about certain skills that can be applied across multiple different things, these kind of meta skills. I'm wondering, can you could speak to this a bit for the moment and what advice you might have for people to start down that path of thinking of, okay, if I want to develop competencies, I'm going to look at these meta skills.

34:40Yeah. So let me use a metaphor for that. So meta skills are the skills, like big kind of life skills that help you do other things. And so an example of like a meta skill, let's say you're a volleyball player. One of the meta skills you're going to need in this sport is being able to generate power, jumping, right? You're going to need to jump. You're going to need to have some hand-eye coordination to like make your hand contact the ball when it's in motion, right? These are both meta skills. And so once you're able to develop power, you don't have to stick to just playing volleyball. You can go play basketball.

35:13You can go be a sprinter. You can go do like literally anything that involves power production from the lower body. Same thing with hand-eye coordination, right? Now you can go do archery. You can play baseball. Like you can do all of these things because you have a meta skill of some kind of physical ability. And so meta skills and coaching are the same way. They don't rely on doing a very specific sequence. So like one of the examples I use in the book, which follows on our AI conversation is when I was in high school in the eighties, I learned how to type on a typewriter. That was the hot skill at the time.

35:48And you would put typing on your resume, right? Not such a thing now. And so like meta skill, but because I have the meta skill of like, okay, I can use my hands to make words. Okay, that transfers into other things. I understand what a keyboard is. I can move my fingers to make letters and words, right? Very useful skill. And so it frees us from getting stuck in very narrow technical domains. Oh, I can only play volleyball. I can only use a typewriter. And it frees us up to feel like, oh, once I understand the broader principles by which things work, I can take this from here and apply it over here.

36:31So an example of a meta skill that's very useful for a coach is learning, like being a good learner. Because as nutrition information evolves, for example, GLP-1 types of drugs were not on the menu at all 30 years ago, right? That was not a thing 20 years ago. And now all of a sudden they bust onto the market place, multi-billion dollar industry. And now everyone's talking about them, right? So if you're someone who doesn't know how to learn about these new things, now you're going to be sitting there going, I don't know how to serve clients who are taking these kinds of medications.

37:04Danny Lennon: You've already given some really useful examples, but particularly with a nutrition practitioner in mind, are there any that are maybe not so obvious to those practitioners that you think as a skill, whilst maybe not directly related to their work, that might have some particular payoff. So learning is definitely one, like learning how to learn. Another one is critical thinking and reasoning. And this is, I think, really important in the nutrition domain because there's so many fad diets, there's so much crap, there's so much influencer, there's so much misinformation, disinformation. There's just so much information, but yet not a lot of regulation of quality of information.

37:44So you need to be a good critical thinker to be able to evaluate evidence, nutritional claims. Does this make sense? Is this valid advice to give to a client? So that's one critical thinking. Another one is practice, like practicing your own craft, using these feedback loops of deliberate practice, like a musician learning to play an instrument, or learning to ride a bike or learning to any kind of sports skill, using feedback loops of deliberate practice in coaching skills to get better as a coach. That's another one. Another one I talk about a lot is self-regulation. I mentioned it already, self-structuring.

38:22So self-structuring is kind of like, how do you organize your time, your energy? How do you structure sessions so they're effective? Self-regulation is more like, how do you handle yourself like when you feel stressed or when tricky things come up in a session or when you feel anxious about your own performance or when you're just really bored at this client right how do you regulate yourself to get your level of emotional activation into the right zone where you

38:50Danny Lennon: can be effective speaking of feedback this is an area where i think there can be huge utility in all domains of life but i think maybe sometimes it can be difficult in a coaching situation of not only accepting feedback from past clients or current clients, but also knowing how to get that in a way that ends up being valuable, right? In terms of getting really useful feedback that would actually lead us to improving as practitioners, what, again, advice might you have around how to go about getting the best quality feedback you have using that and actually making sure we're refining our practice based on what we've done with previous clients?

39:30Okay, so yeah, one of the first things I will say is you have to be willing to go into the cringiness. Like you just have to. There's no other path. And I know that all of us hate to hear ourselves on a recording or see ourselves on video. We become instantly like super self-critical like, oh no, my hair looks weird. Why am I looking like that? Why am I making that noise or whatever? so there's no way to get around the cringiness and the awkwardness and feeling self-conscious and all of that so like when i was doing my counseling training they literally took a three-hour class and made us spend a whole time on just the first minute of a counseling interaction we practiced and practiced and practiced and then presented it to the class and got input and then went back.

40:17So like the amount of feedback that you will require to become a good coach and a good practitioner is probably way more than you would prefer to receive. So just want to put that out there. You're going to need to really practice again, just as much as you would practice an instrument or learning a language or getting really good at a sport. It's exactly the same. Now, in terms of how to get good feedback, one of the first things is creating an environment where not just at a verbal spoken level, but at a felt sense level, clients feel comfortable. There's trust, there's respect. Clients feel like, yeah, you know what?

40:53I could be open with this person. And it would be a hard conversation, maybe, I don't know. But it would be okay. That's the space that you create through your words, but most importantly, your actions, how people feel around you. And it doesn't mean you have to be in like a quote, I'm putting this in finger quotes, like a nicey, nice person. There's a lot of coaches out there that are maybe a little bit scary, but yet because there's a relationship of warmth, trust, authenticity, a basic level of support, like they still believe in you, even if they're like chewing you out, that's an environment where you can feel open to give that feedback.

41:32So kind of that nonverbal felt sense is really, really important. But then also it's important to structure the feedback in very clear ways. So a lot of the time people are like, so what did you think? Was that okay? That's not a question. The question is something like, did we focus in this session on what was important to you? Like something more specific. Did I address your question just now about this thing that you just asked about? Was that enough of an explanation? I'm going to pause here and you tell me if there are questions that have come up for you or areas that are still unclear. Like making this feedback as specific as possible.

42:11And along with that, if you're doing something like coaching exercise, try to make it as real time and have as tiny a feedback loop as you can. Because a lot of the time it's like, oh, I'm going to send out my annual survey. So I'm like, how am I going to fill the survey out? I can't remember what happened like last week, right? I can't comment on that. But if we're within a session and you're doing something, you're doing a movement and I'm like, okay, I want you to attend to these two cues for how you feel. Pay attention to, I don't know, what your arm is doing, what your leg is doing, whatever.

42:47so creating small moments small feedback loops and then once you've performed the exercise let's take a moment how was that did you feel like you were balanced let's try this adjustment you know and then at the end of the session how was that session did we cover this this and this how was your knee feeling right so creating like a fractal right teeny feedback loops slightly bigger feedback a slightly bigger thing. So you're constantly in this feedback loop and seeking feedback as at as granular a level as possible. Now we're not hounding our clients, them going like, how do you feel? How do you feel?

43:23How do you feel? Right. But constantly being aware of them, inviting them to be aware of themselves, and then getting that awareness out on the table as a talking point for your work together. So for example, this morning, I had a conversation with a guy who's struggling around priorities and time. And our conversation was like, okay, we're going to put your calendar up here. I'm going to put your list of priorities here. And we're going to look at these together to see how these map on. That's also a feedback loop, right? It doesn't require me hounding him about how he's using his time, but we can just put these two things together and let the conclusions emerge spontaneously.

44:01So the main thing is that this is purposeful, that it is structured somehow, and that you actually take the feedback. Like when you tell your coach, this sucks or this good, or this is good, or I like this, please do more, please do less, do it. Take their advice and show that you're doing what the feedback is as much as possible.

44:23Danny Lennon: I wanted to return to this concept around this collaborative approach you mentioned earlier, and really trying to give people the ability to take some control in this process to be part of that and i think sometimes where the difficulty may lie for coaches is saying well how do i hold these things in tension of having this person have a lot of autonomy over their choices them being in a kind of driver's seat and guiding them along when maybe some of the beliefs they have some of the goals they have some of the ways they would like to do things are actually in kind of conflict with how I would ideally do it myself in an ideal world.

45:04Danny Lennon: And of course, we're dealing with the client. We're not dealing with ourselves. And so we may have a bias or a certain way, even technique from an objective sense might actually be a better way to do something, or we might think something they want to do is unwise. How do we hold these two things in tension in that sense to maintain that collaborative approach, give that person autonomy, whilst noting we may have some reservations about some of the things that they have alluded to or stated to us? Yeah, it's such a great question. And at the basis of the collaborative approach is a belief in the client's autonomy.

45:39And just to be clear, like, when we talk about autonomy or we talk about client-centeredness, it doesn't mean that we've

45:46Danny Lennon: created the situation where it's like, oh, you know, client, like, whatever you want, or like, I don't have any opinion. I'm just here to vibe. That's not what we're talking about, right? Being client-centered means that the client's agenda is front and center in this relationship. Like, this relationship is not about meeting my needs. It's about meeting your needs. Okay, cool. But what your needs are can be very, very different. The needs for coaching of someone who's in a high-performance job that has very stringent objective standards for performance is quite different than someone who's maybe navigating a serious health diagnosis or an end-of-life situation or someone who's just starting out and is a beginner, right?

46:30To be client-centered in all of these requires quite different approaches, but all of it is client-centered. So I just want to be really clear about like what we're talking about here, that collaboration can look very different.

46:42Danny Lennon: Like it can be telling a client to get their shit together. That can be collaborative if that's the right thing to say at that time. Now, in terms of autonomy, there's kind of like a fork in the road, right? If the client is doing things in a way that's not how I would do it, we have to ask ourselves, is this objectively a dangerous protocol or problematic, or is it just wrong, or is it simply not my preference, right? So if the client is like, oh, I've decided to hydrate by, I've decided that my ears are the best route of transmission for getting fluids into my body, So I've just been pouring water into my ears as a way to hydrate.

47:15You're like, okay, that's wrong. Just factually wrong. But most of the time it is a preference. Like unless your client is doing something that is demonstrably by all available evidence and the general scientific consensus incorrect, most of the time it's just a preference issue. And even if sometimes it is not ideal, we can still give them the freedom to experiment. All right. So the client is like, listen, I'm going to try this stupid fat diet. You're like, oh, God, right? Like, they're not going to be talked out of it. You're like, OK, cool. Tell you what, let's do an experiment. Let's give it a time limit.

47:52Let's take a week or two weeks or whatever. Here's what I would like you to observe as you do this experiment. Here are the data points that we're going to focus on. I'd like you to focus on how easy is this to do within your life? How much energy do you have? How do you feel? How's your mood? How are your gym sessions? Is this expensive? Like, do you have to buy a bunch of crazy, weird food to do this? Let's pick all of our data points and key metrics that we're going to track in this experiment. And now you're the scientist and you get to come back to me in two weeks and report how it went. That's a very helpful approach because then the client has their autonomy.

48:28But then when things start to fall apart, there's very clear data that they have created for themselves, that they have observed for themselves. Kind of like looking at this client's calendar and saying, okay, walk me through how your stated priorities are manifesting on this calendar. And now they're like, ooh, okay, well, this is my data that I can immediately see that it is not necessarily aligning with what I said are my priorities. So sometimes it's a matter of kind of like lining up the data and all of the things that they think are important, their values, their priorities, their goals, their life, their routine, all of that, their needs, putting it out on the table figuratively or literally in front of them and saying, how does all of this align for you?

49:15Here's what I'm seeing. And this is where we provide the guidance, right? Here's what I'm seeing as the patterns. Here's what I'm noticing immediately. The whole time of this, you did this fad diet, you ranked your energy as two out of 10. What do you make of that? Right? So you can provide that guidance and navigation and direction, but ultimately they are the ones reporting on their own data and their own metrics and coming to their own conclusions where they're like, yeah, you know what? This cabbage soup diet is stupid.

49:39Danny Lennon: I felt like hot garbage. I was farting all the time. This is just a no-go for me. And that can be scary for coaches. And let's talk about the extreme end of the situation where the client clearly really does not want to change. Like they say they do maybe, but it's so clear from their behaviors, from how things are evolving over the long term, that change is not on the table for them. I think one of the hardest things for a coach is just to be like, okay, like if we can talk about your competing priorities, we can use motivational interviewing to surface. Like maybe there's some deep ambivalence here for you.

50:16Maybe this just isn't realistic. Like there can be lots of reasons why change isn't happening. But I, as the coach, am okay with you not changing because you came to me for change. So this is like your agenda. I don't give a crap if you don't. And that is really hard to practice that non-attachment. And that, though, I think is the paradox of where you really earn your money as a coach, because coaches always feel like, oh, no, I have to push someone to change. But it's only when you can be completely OK with them not changing that you're able to give off the vibes of like, yeah, do what you want.

50:52And the client's like, well, now I'm changing. Whereas if I was like, you have to change, they're like, no, you can't make me. Right. So it's kind of this funny paradox about acceptance that sparks change.

51:03Danny Lennon: Before we get to the very final question that we end the podcast on, can you let people know anything you've got going on, any place on the internet you'd like to send their attention to, a bit more about the textbook specifically, if you wish, and anything else that you'd like to bring to people's attention? In terms of the textbook, it's available now. So if you're in the US, you can buy it right from the publisher's website. If you're outside of the US, you can either get the ebook version, you don't have to get the big hefty textbook, or you can order it off Amazon or any of those kind of the usual places where it might be.

51:31So that's one thing. I'm also noodling on putting a course together for professionals working in the field to teach these concepts because a textbook is great. But when you're staring down a 700 page wall of text, it's really hard to know, like, how do I work through this? Or how do I get some real human interaction around like how to even start or how do I talk about the client scenarios that I'm experiencing. So I'm in the process of developing a course slash certification for this textbook. So that'll be the next step. So stay tuned for that. And yeah, people want to find me, they can find me at ChristaScottDixon.com, all one word, social media too, Facebook, Instagram, and the usual places.

52:15And the other side project I have going is called the 1 % Better Academy. And so we run little coaching programs and courses for mental skills for regular people. So I've taken a lot of what I've learned from working with high performance populations and translated it into like regular people stuff. And so a lot of people find that very useful. It's like, oh, cool. I didn't learn this as a regular person, even though they would teach it to someone like a first responder. So we run courses on mental skills, stress and resilience. So I'll share all of these links so that people can find me and learn more.

52:48Danny Lennon: Fantastic. That will be linked up in the description box where everyone is listening right now. And so with that, Krista, we get to the final question I always end the podcast on, which can be completely outside of what we've discussed today, if you wish. It's simply, if you could advise people to do one thing each day that might have a positive impact on any area of their life, what might that one thing be? The research shows this, my own experience shows this, and we've already talked about it, which is practicing compassion with yourself because that is the root of everything. Fundamentally, one way to think of compassion is a relationship with yourself, a healthy, affirming, supportive, caring, kind, friendly relationship with yourself.

53:35It's like, you know, you have all these dating shows out there and everyone's like, I'm looking for love and I'm looking for the perfect mate, all this kind of stuff. it's compassion is being a good partner to yourself for life a good spouse to yourself for life and so practicing that mentality of what would be like the coolest person in my life like the kindest the most caring the most supportive and honest right still realistic what would that relationship be like if i had that person in my life great that person is you so have that relationship with yourself because it unlocks so many things.

54:11It unlocks learning. It unlocks growth. Again, it clears the runway so that you can develop skills, that you can explore new things without being immobilized by shame and self-criticism. Oh no, I did that so bad. Oh my God, now I'm frustrated. Like all of the self-criticism just blocks you. Whereas when you can be a good partner with yourself and you can be encouraging and friendly, now the world is your oyster. You can literally go and learn anything. And you can feel like a dumbass as you're doing it. You can sit there going, oh God, like why am I so bad at learning the trumpet or whatever? But that compassionate part of yourself will keep you going.

54:51And it's, you know, the research shows compassion mediates everything. It improves your performance. It cuts down your risk of mental and physical health issues. You're so much more likely to do daily life health behaviors if you have compassion towards yourself. So like it improves literally every outcome that we could possibly come up with. And it's free and it's inside your own head. So like, why wouldn't we do this? So yeah, be a good partner to yourself. That's what I would suggest.

55:20Danny Lennon: Fantastic. With that, Krista, thank you so much for all the information you've shared here today and all the great work that you have done and continue to do. It's been a real pleasure chatting to you. Thanks for having me.

55:43Danny Lennon: Thanks so much for listening into today's episode. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you about Sigma Nutrition Premium, our subscription for those of you podcast listeners who want to significantly deepen your understanding of nutrition science and become truly confident in your knowledge. For full details on this, then check out the link in the description box wherever you're currently listening right now, or just go to sigmanutrition.com and you can see all the details there. And of course, your support is what keeps Sigma Nutrition going. We don't run ads, we don't sell supplements, anything like that.

56:16Danny Lennon: So your support is what allows me to continue to do this. So thank you for that. I hope you do come back for the next episode regardless and until then have a great week stay safe and take care