101: From Command to Curiosity: Building a Coaching Culture at Work with Dr. Damian Goldvarg

In this powerful episode of the No Limit Leadership Podcast, Sean sits down with global leadership expert Dr. Damian Goldvarg — former President of the International Coaching Federation, master certified coach, and author of Lead With a Coaching Mindset. With 30+ years of coaching experience across 50+ countries, Damian breaks down the real reason coaching transforms leaders, organizations, and entire cultures. 

You’ll learn why today’s workforce values growth over compensation, how coaching creates an engagement-driven culture, and the crucial difference between mentoring, managing, and true coaching. Damian also shares tactical strategies leaders can use today — including how to ask better questions, how to create psychological safety, and why silence is one of the most underrated coaching tools.

And yes… we even go there: AI, coaching, connection, and whether tech can replace human-to-human development.

This episode is your blueprint for building a coaching culture that people trust, believe in, and want to be part of.

🔖 CHAPTER MARKERS

00:44 — Introducing Dr. Damian Goldvarg and his global leadership impact
02:33 — What coaching looked like 30 years ago
04:27 — What a “coaching mindset” actually means
07:01 — Coaching vs. mentoring vs. managing
10:05 — The power of silence & letting people think
14:07 — How to ask deeper, more effective coaching questions
17:52 — Bringing coaching into organizations
22:10 — Making coaching part of daily leadership
23:58 — HR + Operations: Creating alignment for cultural change
26:37 — Why leaders need their own coach
31:59 — How leaders know whether trust actually exists
33:41 — Just Culture, mistakes & psychological safety
34:43 — Coaching, AI, and the future of leadership
40:30 — Where to find Dr. Goldvarg’s work

📚 RESOURCES

• Dr. Damian Goldvarg’s Book: Lead with a Coaching Mindset 
• Website: goldvargconsulting.com
• LinkedIn: Damian Goldvarg https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiangoldvarg/

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:44)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Sean Patton. And today I'm joined by Dr. Damien Goldvarg, a global authority in executive coaching and leadership development. Damien has spent over 30 years coaching and training leaders across more than 50 countries. He holds a PhD in organizational psychology, is a master certified coach, and even served as the global president of the International Coaching Federation, of which I am certified and a member.

He's authored 11 books, including his newest release, Lead With A Coaching Mindset, a practical guide to helping leaders think, communicate, and lead like world-class coaches, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. Thanks for being on today.

Damian Goldvarg (01:24)
Great to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Looking forward to exploring together issues around coaching and leadership.

Sean Patton (01:31)
Yes, man, it's been a game changer for me coming out of my leadership experience in the military. I really feel like my entire young adult life from 18 to 32, I crammed, I feel like a lifetime of leadership lessons into that experience from being at West Point to being an infantry commander and in combat to being a special forces commander.

But I really feel like it wasn't until more recently when I got certified in coaching, to, you know, did some training and got skilled up on coaching that my true leadership ability, my ability to really influence and develop others was unlocked. So I'm such a believer in the power of coaching.

let's go way back, because you've been doing this for so long, much experience. What was the world like and your world like when you first got into coaching?

Damian Goldvarg (02:33)
That's very interesting because people didn't understand what was coaching and we had what difficult was challenging to sell the idea and to explain the benefits. Now people give it for granted. Now people know coaching works. There is a lot of research done around it. People see the results. So you don't need to explain or convince what is coaching, but even in the military.

what is an organization that is very hierarchical, where there is a lot of command and control guidance, because sometimes that's the way that needs to function. You may see more people like you who are interested in developing their people and having a more coaching approach. So you can see now that not only companies and organizations are hiring coaches, but also they are developing internal coaches training.

internally, so they can offer coaching services internally by specific professionals. But also you see leaders developing coaching skills, being more coach-like, investing, like you are saying, time in their people, people to feel appreciated, valued, that their growth, their learning is important. So this coaching mindset didn't exist many years ago, so it has been a process.

20 years or even more to look at how, no, it's 30 years because like I was just checking back from the ICF International Coaching Federation Conference that took place last week in San Diego and they were celebrating its 30th year. And as one of the presidents for a couple of years, we have a really nice meeting with all of the past presidents and how we contributed to where the coaching profession is.

today that is a very different play than 30 years ago.

Sean Patton (04:27)
And so when you, mentioned having to kind of sell the, the benefit of a coaching mindset. So how would you define a coaching mindset?

Damian Goldvarg (04:38)
So coaching mindset is when you pay attention to people's learning, development, growth, where you have conversation with people because you understand that their learning and growth is important. And as a result of that, people feel valued, feel appreciated, and research shows that there is a higher level of engagement. And if I have a boss that cares about me, that cares about my growth and my career development, then I am more committed.

I am more loyal and most of the times when leaders do that, create work environment that are healthier, where people feel good about coming to work and where they can do their best.

Sean Patton (05:20)
I mean, especially what I've seen is, and I think it's also, I think it's everyone, but you see it with, you know, maybe the younger generations and also with higher performers, right? Like the go-getters, the engaged, the people you want in your company, they value growth more than even compensation.

Damian Goldvarg (05:42)
And this is a key issue in people who looking for jobs and interviewing and getting talent in organizations, how organizations are investing in developing their people. now people, when they go to interview, ask, what is it for me? What are you going to give me? And anytime what you're saying, learning growth is a better investment for the future. That's just a good salary.

So I think that these are different ways to look at the workforce and Gallup. don't know, Sean, if you're familiar with Gallup, they have a research every year where they measure the level of engagement and will be at work. And in 2025, the last report showed that that level of engagement is even lower. It's 23 % of the population is engaged at work. And around 60 people,

and not engaged and they are quiet quitting. You have heard something about quiet quitting means that people don't quit. They stay at work, but they don't, they do what they need to do, but that's it. They don't do their best. Their heart is not there. So they are quiet quitting. They are not committed, but there is no reason for to let them go because they're doing their work, but still they are not 100 committed to what they're

Sean Patton (07:01)
So when leaders think about, okay, well, I obviously don't want that, right? I want an engaged workforce. I want people to be excited to be here. And so I'm gonna pour into them that there's a difference between, there's different ways to do that, let's say, right? So there's different types of conversations we can have around mentoring or teaching or coaching and that sort of thing. Can you kind of explain the difference because there's,

There's a difference in a coaching mindset and a mentor mindset, right?

Damian Goldvarg (07:31)
Yeah, the coaching mindset is a mindset that creates the opportunity for reflection and learning by exploring issues, by asking questions, by the leader being curious. Mentoring is more about teaching and leaders need to do a little bit of everything. Sometimes they need to tell people what to do. Sometimes they may share their experience and be like mentors, like teachers based on past experiences, sharing best practices.

giving advice and sometimes an opportunity to say, okay, this is a coaching moment. Instead of jumping to problem solving, instead of telling you what to do, instead of giving you an order, okay, this is a coaching moment, let's use this opportunity to ask back, okay, what do you think is the best approach here? Instead of jumping to telling people what to do, it's listen, it's a different listening because it's not a listening for fixing. Most of the time leaders...

and managers need to fix issues. So they need to have that kind of listening to say, hey, how are going to solve the issue? But the invitation with the coaching mindset is looking for opportunities to have conversations with people at work, but also at home. Parents with their kids, with your own partners, with family members, with friends. It's just having conversations when you make people think. And that is much more difficult.

Making people think and making them to come out with their own resources is much more difficult than just sharing our wisdom. We think that we are going to help by telling people what to do. But the idea here is we can be of better service if we promote people coming out with their own solutions. So here, the job of the coach or the leader with the coaching mindset is to hold the space so people can do the work.

So people can come up with their own solution, where people can come up with their own ideas, with their own resources. Many times, we don't know they are there. So sometimes people ask me, ask me questions and somebody tell me, I don't know. And when they tell you, don't know, they're not lying to you. They don't know, but do you know what? So they don't know now. So what is missing in the listening is, I don't know now. But if you keep, if you stay quiet, then they come up with something.

So it's about knowing that many times things are not in awareness, but if we wait, we bring into awareness. And when we say, don't know, yes, I don't know right now, but if I wait and start thinking, something may come up from the past, from my experience, and some planning may be possible.

Sean Patton (10:05)
Hmm. Well, for my, you know, I've been coaching less than you have, but in my coaching experience and in hearing what you're saying, what I've found, you know, even doing not just my own coaching, although it's my own experience, but also trying to train other leaders in coaching is that holding that space and being comfortable in the uncomfortable silence,

is maybe one of the hardest parts of coaching for people to get because we're so not used to it because we're uncomfortable. do you find that too and let's get tactical with maybe some managers or leaders out there that want to bring more of a coaching mindset and coaching practice into their leadership. Like when they ask that question, someone says, I don't know. what do they do next? Is it literally nothing? Are there prompting questions? Like how do you coach leaders to do that?

Damian Goldvarg (10:59)
Well, there are two possibilities. need to, each situation is different, but let's say that in general, if we stay quiet, people will share something. But for leaders, very difficult to be quiet, you know, and wait. It's like, and there is this being uncomfortable with silence. So like I train coaches and they train leaders. And one of the skills that I train people is to exactly do that, to embrace being uncomfortable.

And sometimes I do trainings in companies and I train leaders and there are people from human resources and say, no, no, no, no, don't make people be uncomfortable. I say, why not? You're too comfortable. Where is the learning going to come? You need to be uncomfortable to stretch yourself, to go to new edges. So being uncomfortable is what can help us to go beyond what we know.

And many times when we train, you think we don't, we are not great. So I also train people to be compassionate. You know, it's like at the beginning, it may not sound good and look good. So if you are not trained to do it, if you're not used to have this coaching mindset and ask questions and embrace silence and be comfortable with being uncomfortable, it takes time. just be compassionate. say, your time, one step at a time to be able to get there.

Sean Patton (12:16)
I love that. I had one coach one time and we were working on something and

you know, when someone got really stuck and what they would always say is like, okay, yeah, that's really tough. Okay, well, I'll tell you what, help me out. If you were me and you were coaching you right now, what would you ask? And then they're like, I would probably ask me why I haven't done that in the past. Like, that's a good question. Why have you done that in the past? You know, like putting it on them. It's like such an interesting thing.

Damian Goldvarg (12:44)
That is a good

question and depend on the context because sometimes it's that lazy work for the leader too or the coach so they don't have to do the work. They don't know what to ask and they say, okay, what question would you like yourself? Okay, so there is a positive side, as you're saying, I agree with you. think that there is a positive side that make people to go to great places. But when I train coaches, be careful with that because that can be...

Sean Patton (12:55)
Yeah.

Damian Goldvarg (13:10)
when the coach does not want to ask us a question to have that. but any questions that make people think are valuable. And so when I train coaches, ask them, how effective are you at asking questions? When you're thinking your life, how effective are you at asking questions to your colleagues, to your family members, to your friends, to anybody?

Sean Patton (13:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's, I think that's, let's, let's stick on this for a second because I think this is such, again, we now we're getting sort of like tactical on the coaching, you know, not just the coaching mindset, but the coaching, you know, the skillset, right? Of like, you know, practice you mentioned when you first started, it's going to be hard. like, would you, uh, are there any certain like protocols or, um, suggestions for like new coaches or people that want to bring coaching in now they can practice working on.

They can work on develop the skill of asking great questions in all areas of their lives so they can get those reps in. What advice do you have for people to do that?

Damian Goldvarg (14:07)
Well, first we need to be intentional because most of the time we don't go to asking questions. We go to share our wisdom and try to fix it and try to help and try to support somebody. And intentions are good. We want to be helpful, but sometimes being helpful and giving advice or sharing best practices be appropriate. Sometimes it's appropriate. And sometimes we may say, okay, this is a coaching moment. Let's help people to think about that. So the kind of questions will depend on the situation.

Like I wrote a book for coaches, it's called Professional Coaching Competencies, and I use that book to train coaches. And one of the International Coaching Federation competencies in their framework, there is a framework with eight competencies. One is about creating awareness. And the idea that you create that awareness by asking questions. One of the ways that you create awareness is by asking questions. And that's also by sharing what you notice, by making observations or sharing interpretations or comments.

but one of the ways is asking questions. So how do you ask these questions? So first you need to be intentional, but second, you need to be curious. And I also talk about that in my book, Lead with a Coaching Mindset, that is for leaders. The other one was for train coaches. This is to train leaders on a coaching mindset, but to have a coaching mindset, a way to look at your job and to your people. Also, you need to develop skills and competencies. And this is one.

It's about also having a chapter about learning and creating awareness, where I tell people that you need to, in the moment, the way that you ask questions is first by telling yourself, okay, I need to ask questions. I need to be intentional. Second, what questions in this moment may help me to go deeper? So I use the metaphor of the onion, how we can go deeper when we hear something and we see something many times there are things underlying.

So what is underlined? So we're seeing just like the top of the iceberg, another metaphor. Like I love working with metaphors. So in the one way to open the onion or look at the iceberg. So what is in the top is what people are bringing. So we want to be curious what is underlined and what is underlined are beliefs. What we believe that may be possible or not possible, maybe emotions, many times is fear.

So we want to go to these places. We wonder what may be in the line to what people are bringing. when I train coaches and leaders, say, we need to go all the time in two directions. We need to go from the present to the future, to where we are, to where we want to be. So asking questions that help us to understand that gap between the present and that desired future.

So horizontally, where we are now and where we need to be. So you may ask questions about that, for example, if you resort decision, what will be different? Or in this situation, what do you think is an ideal outcome? Is everything works well? What will happen? it's identifying the difference between where we are and where we want or need to be. And vertically is what is the top?

What is the surface and what is underlying? So question that help us to understand what are you afraid of? What is the world that can happen? What do you think is limiting you? are you, what, sometimes about values? What is important to you in this situation? So these are all questions that help us to go deeper. So from horizontally gap between present and future deeper from surface to depth.

So these are two places that we can ask questions, two sources of way of looking at asking questions.

Sean Patton (17:52)
Hmm. I love that. And you, you mentioned bringing this into organizations and, and, training leaders and that's what your book is focused on. So when you get brought into a new training on this with organizations, do you, are you welcomed by all levels of management with open arms or, is there a little resistance sometimes? what, do you find?

when you start trying to, when you start doing some training on this with different levels of managers inside organizations.

Damian Goldvarg (18:25)
Really? I am receiving open arms. I get the open arms when it's self-selective. When they offer the program and people sign up for the program and they want to be there. So when people are already self-aware and they know they need to work on decisions and they want to, and sometimes they're good coaches, but they want to be great coaches.

Sean Patton (18:27)
You don't get the open arms? They don't high five you as you walk in? They're ready to change? They're ready to grow?

Damian Goldvarg (18:53)
So when I go from good to great, these are my favorite clients, you know, where they're ready to go and open to learn and willing to take risks. And when it's mandatory, I do find resistance because people may not want to be there because they may think sometimes the pushback that I get is I don't have time. That is the most common pushback. Okay, that sounds great, but I don't have time.

So sometimes it depends also how the companies and how leaders in the organizations are positioning the program. If the leaders in the organization are positioning the program in a way that, we want to change the culture here. This is not a learning culture. This is not the culture that appreciates coaching. We want to change that.

And there is research that shows that, and this is done by the International Coach Federation and the Capital Human Institute, where they compare organizations that invest in learning and coaching and ones that not. So they want to invest in hiring coaches, training internal coaches, and training leaders with coaching skills compared to the organizations that do not. They have higher level of well-being, engagement, and performance. There are results in performance.

So many times companies want to go in that direction, but if the leaders at the top are not buying into the idea and it's human resources, the one who are willing to do it, but the top is not interested, then it's challenging because you really need to have buy-in from the top so it trickles down to the whole organization. So that helps for the ideas to be accepted.

And then people who maybe said negative or maybe not believe on this, if they try it and it works, maybe that may be a change. Sometimes they can never have in their lives a leader that was a coach for them and they are still successful. So I say, never had that in my life. I'm still successful. Why other people would need it? But I do believe that that makes a difference when leaders are my coach.

Sean Patton (20:55)
Yeah, it's funny and I haven't used it for several years. When I first started working with companies, had these like four leadership truths. And it was this idea of sort of my values of like, if the company agrees with me on these four things, we're a good fit. And if we're not, we're not a good fit. And the first one was, is it top-down driven?

You know, it's the highest level of leader bought into this, you know, this leader training or this coaching program, because if you're not, you're right, man. It's just, that's what I found too, was like, it is, it's a struggle because if it's not the priority for the boss, that's not a priority for me. Right. And you don't get that, that effect in this. And then the other part that another leadership truth of mine is that, you know, leader development coaching needs to be a part of day to day operations, right? Like it can't be.

It can't be like, leader development coaching is like, that's a thing we do. We have time. It's like an extra thing we do. It has to be like, how do you, you know, inculcate that into the data into every meeting, to every, to every interaction until like the DNA of, of the, of the organization. Because if it's, if it's an extra thing you get to, it just never happens.

Damian Goldvarg (22:10)
Yeah, that's a great point. also if it is part of a, it's included in the evaluation is early is expected to coach their people. It's like one of the competencies that is included in performance management. When it is there are more possibilities that may happen. That may still not happen, more possibility because people know that they're to be evaluated. If coaching and developing your people is part of your performance management process. But I really like what you're saying.

because coaching shouldn't be happening once a year or a special format. Coaching can happen in conversation, walking from meeting to another, driving in a car. It's about conversations. A coaching mindset means that you are paying attention when you're having conversations to bring these behaviors to your conversation. So the idea is that coaching happens always in conversation. How effective are you intentionally?

you in your conversation. So the invitation is, okay, pay attention, look for opportunities, ask questions, be curious, be genuinely curious, and people may come up with their own solutions.

Sean Patton (23:14)
How do you find, you mentioned, know, hey, if this is like an HR initiative and the top executives aren't involved, but I do find in organizations as well that maybe not tension, but there's needs to be a strong partnership between the organizational operational level leaders and your people leaders in order to successfully transition or drive.

cultural change in any way, but especially in a coaching culture. So what have you found to be effective for HR or people leaders to partner effectively with operational level leaders to make coaching part of the DNA of leadership in a company?

Damian Goldvarg (23:58)
Well, I think first they need to get some training. And here one of the challenges is training if these people are in mandatory and they don't want to do it or they don't think it's valuable or they don't have the time. So how to this contract make this, what is the right word, dissipate these ideas that are negative and can be in their way.

The idea is to what is how you can start in the right place. Because many times when I go to train leaders on these coaching skills, my success in the training will depend on the setup. How is setup? And the setup means is human resources and leadership aligned and supportive. What they told people before you show up.

People are going to think, can I trust this guy coming to do this training? You know what? it's another, okay, we need to waste here a couple of hours and then we move on to keep doing everything that we do every day. You know, it's like, this is, when you do this for a long time, you know that this is in people's minds. So I try at the beginning to challenge people. So I think that part of our job as coaches is to challenge our clients and not all clients are willing and interested.

Sean Patton (24:59)
Mm-hmm.

Damian Goldvarg (25:15)
to dance with us, you know, it's a dance, you need to tango. If the other person is not willing, cannot, unfortunately, you cannot impose it. So it has to be invitational. Now some companies, and that's just at a different level, if they are not coaching the people, and people are complaining about that, sometimes not coaching may also mean that they are not communicating well or caring about people or providing resources.

that eventually some of these leaders are also pushed out of the organization because they are not following the values and the culture of the organization. So it will depend also to what extent the organization's values are lived by people. And in my case, I say not only company because I work for company, but I work for a governmental organization like the UN and...

Los Angeles County in the Department of Health here in Los Angeles. So I work with different kinds of organizations, educational organizations. work for USC, University of Southern California. And sometimes you see these patterns no matter where you go. So when people work in teams, in organizations, no matter what kind of organization, I also work in nonprofits. You see similar patterns. To what extent the leaders of these organizations are willing.

to commit, support the people, to grow and learn.

Sean Patton (26:37)
What I'm also hearing is, you know, an alignment in terms of priorities and supportive and messaging. But, you know, it's interesting because I actually brought this up, in another podcast with another coach and she had a slightly different opinion, close, but I sort of hold the opinion that. The best thing you can do if you're saying is you're a leader, whether you're operational level, HR, you know, senior leader.

is get a coach yourself first. Right? Like if you don't, yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, ⁓ well, yeah, yeah. I, ⁓

Damian Goldvarg (27:06)
course. How can she not agree with that? How can not agree with that? It's like, sometimes,

particularly if you don't have a leader who's coaching you. So many times, if you have great leaders and managers and they're coaching you, you may not need a coach. But if you don't, you may want to have one. It's interesting because many times I get calls from Sansevier, we need you to come and work with my colleague here.

Sean Patton (27:17)
Mm-hmm.

Damian Goldvarg (27:31)
And these are the issues and I started to realize that the person who needs coaching is the boss, not the person. That is where the challenge is.

Sean Patton (27:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,

yeah, a hundred percent. mean, and that's why I think, you know, for almost all senior leaders, C-suite executives, I'm sure you see this as well, like, or, you know, executive directors at a nonprofit or whoever president of the university is, you know, there's those coaching conversations that time and space to do introspection and challenge and question, like no one else in their life is going to do that.

Damian Goldvarg (27:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (28:02)
Right, like they answer to the board of directors, so that's their boss. They're not having those types of conversations, not a free space. Other people answer to them, so they're not creating that space for them. And what they, just gonna go home and count on their spouse to coach them up and give them a free space to chat? There's no one, when you get to those higher levels of leadership, I think that's why coaching is so critical because there's a lot of times...

no one else that is going to give you the space to do that, even if they have the capacity. And I don't know about you, but I have learned, I learned a lot from my, you know, I did a year of grad program at university, Texas, Dallas to get ICFs. I did my ICF certification. I've done other coaching certifications and I learned a ton from that. But I would say what I've really learned the most from is having great coaches, like being coached well.

Damian Goldvarg (28:56)
Yeah, I agree. When I do my leadership trainings, I ask people to do an exercise. I have that in my book. I just came up with this book, Lead with a Coaching Mindset, that came out last month. So I some of the exercises that I do in my training. So I ask everyone to consider the best leader they have in their lives, who has been the best role model for them. And when they identify the person, definitely have been a coach.

definitely have treated them as human beings, not just object for their goals. Sometimes people see others not just as a human being with needs, but they see the person, okay, how is this person helping me to accomplish my goals on production or whatever it is? So that makes a big difference.

Sean Patton (29:41)
makes a huge difference. So I love that. what we've covered here is like on the org level, making sure you've got buy-in from the top down, demonstrating that through self leadership, leading by example by at least have currently or have had coaching. Because I mean, what a difference when the CEO comes in and be like, no, I've worked with a coach and here's the results I've gotten. then it's like,

How can, I guess they can, but it's a lot more difficult for that senior manager or director to be like, well, I don't need coaching. I'm good to go when the CEO has a coach, right? I had this actually very recently. have a client of mine who is in the financial services world, had an eight figure exit from one company, has another company he's growing. We worked on a lot of things over the last year. He's got a team of advisors that works for him and there's like 35 of them.

you know, coming in, I'm doing a workshop with them and he's, he believes in it so much that he's buying an initial discovery call for all 35 for coaching for them. Cause he's like, you all need it. But he's saying that from someone, they look up to someone they see have success who has a success that they're aspiring to have and he's investing in a coach. And so if every leader to every org does that, I mean, talk about, you know, impact.

Damian Goldvarg (31:01)
Well, that is the consistency. Now we have to see 35 people working for him, how they embrace this. ⁓

Sean Patton (31:07)
I'll

give you an update. I'll let you know how it goes. Yeah, see how many people actually show up to their call, right?

Damian Goldvarg (31:11)
It depends

on what he has cultivated over time. If over time this leader who wants the best for his people is committed and has shown over time interest and care, it will work because they will trust them. This is another key element in the conversation is trust.

What is the level of trust? And this is part of it. There's a chapter in the book about that. It's like you cannot coach if people don't trust you. So what have you done over time for people to trust you? Because no trust, no, no, you cannot coach others. You can tell them what to do, but they will not listen to you or take you seriously if they don't trust you.

Sean Patton (31:53)
How does a leader know that they have a culture of trust in their organization?

Damian Goldvarg (31:59)
When people can be vulnerable and talk about what they think without fear of being rejected or having a negative consequence for speaking their mind, that's a great way to look at it. When people are willing to, when I say vulnerable, I mean authentic, not weak. When people are able to share what is in their minds without fear of retaliation, without fear of being judged negatively.

This is an example when there is trust. People are willing to do that. It's interesting because I was trained to work at the LA County Department of Health. They are working on building a Just Culture. Just Culture, J-U-S-T, Just.

just sharing something because of my accent, just to be sure. It's a culture that embraces learning and that embraces authenticity and embraces accountability and wants people to own their mistakes versus hidden them because most of the time if we make a mistake we don't want anybody to learn about it. So one of the key elements of this

Sean Patton (32:43)
Yeah, yeah.

Damian Goldvarg (33:06)
cultures, people are willing to share what they make a mistake. So everybody can learn from that. And of course, there is a sense of, okay, they had to take responsibility. If they did something wrong, it may be a consequence, but instead of hidden the mistakes, being able to be accountable and make that a learning for everyone. For that to happen, there needs to be a lot of trust. And you create that trust with integrity.

with consistency between what you say and what you do. If you invite people to share their opinions, you embrace them versus getting defensive. Sometimes people say, okay, share what you think. And then when people are doing it, they get defensive. No, you cannot be defensive. If you're asking people to share, even though you don't like it, or maybe they may be wrong, just need to listen.

Sean Patton (33:53)
Nice. I, yeah, I, that's a great description of how you build trust and great example. you know, we're the world is in technology is changing AI, all that stuff. But it's really, what's interesting is, that, you know, I saw a, report that, from last year to this year, the number one use for generative AI is.

And they put it, they lumped it all together as therapy, coaching, companionship. That's the, that's the number one use of Chad GDP, which says a lot about the world we live in. But, as people look at that, what are, I guess, are there benefits or to that is what can go wrong there? You know, when it, we look at AI and the coaching space and people looking at integrating that as maybe a coaching partner.

Damian Goldvarg (34:43)
Well, let me share a personal experience. My mother was a psychologist. Like I follow her and my father, both of them are psychologists. So I follow them to be like them. So I studied psychology. I was a clinical psychologist and then I learned about coaching and I became a coach and they followed me to become coaches. my mother is a master coach like me, we're master coaches. We wrote, I wrote 11 books and three books I wrote with her. Coaching books. Yeah.

Sean Patton (34:59)
wow.

that's so cool. Wow.

Damian Goldvarg (35:10)
And why I'm sharing that because my mom, and just giving you a context, she was dealing with some health issues and she was a little bit down and she went to a therapist and she didn't like the therapist. And then she went to Chachi PT and my brother suggested her to try Chachi PT, my brother who is also a coach. And she loved it.

She loved it. She felt that this chat GPT conversation was more compassionate, supportive and empathetic than the person that she met. So, and then she was worried too because she loved it but she was worried because she said, well, my God, this is concerning me that I can't get that experience. It was concerning too. So what I mean when sharing that story, because I do believe that people say no.

JGPT cannot be empathetic or, well, they don't have emotions basically, but some people don't care about that. I do believe that we can have good conversations. So to say that when I'm I ask, hey Siri, open JGPT. You'll need to unlock your iPhone. Yes, just hear me.

Sean Patton (36:15)
There it goes, it's listening.

Damian Goldvarg (36:17)
You're listening so you know, you got to be careful. And so then I start having conversations. And I very interesting conversations. So like I ask about anything and it's about getting information. Sometimes I ask, ask me questions. I want you to coach me, but I don't want you to tell me what to do. You need just to me questions that make me think. And it does. you have to, it's like we need to learn prompting. I think this is something.

then only to become experts in prompting, acting the right prompt. So I do believe that the GPT may replace some coaching, some therapy, some companion. And even I wrote an article about that in my last newsletter about AI offering companion to people who may not have company because they live in places that are far away or they don't have access to social contact.

When that's the case, it can be a good source of companion. So it works for all of that. Now, of course, there are things that AI may do better than people. And I do believe that they're going to replace some of these at one point to some extent, but I still believe that a lot of people would rather talk to a human being than to such a pity. So there are options. So I don't think that we should worry about losing work or we're going to not have clients because people...

Now listen to this, I also supervise coaches. Some of my work also is, and that's something new too, that I have to deal within the coaching organizations, give this idea of the importance of supervision as a way to reflect on your coaching and on your work. And when coach brought the supervision that was working with the client and refer the clients to Judge GPT to continue doing the exploration. And in the next session, the client said, thank you Judge GPT.

answer my questions, I want to continue working with Judge GPT, I don't need you any longer. You know, so this is, so this is the right supervision. So I say, am going to do about that? And you know, that's an extreme, like the other extreme, sometimes you hear people saying that Judge GPT had somebody to commit suicide because Judge GPT want to be, want to be, support anybody is very supportive and challenging. So the...

Sean Patton (38:14)
⁓ wow.

Damian Goldvarg (38:35)
LGBT may support somebody if they to commit suicide, we'll help them with that. So that is the extreme that some people like to use. And I don't like to go there because it's an extreme situation. It's not a common situation. But I do believe that most people would want to work with a non-human being rather than with a software. But many people would rather work with LGBT and that's okay. And now what you are bringing to is the integrating.

This is like what this coach was doing, was saying, okay, we're working together. then as a resource, go to Chachi PT and get some ideas. because for brainstorming, for resources, Chachi PT may be a good place to go, but to have a conversation, a human conversation, some coaches think that that can not be replaced. So they may think that whatever you do with AI that's not coaching, it may be.

call something else because for coaching to happen, you really need to be with a human being. And this needs to be a human interaction. I don't know. I share with you different thoughts for food for thought, know, different ideas, places to go.

Sean Patton (39:41)
so interesting. Yeah, yeah definitely.

Yeah, I

think we're all trying to you know, wade into this brave new world and see how it is changing all aspects of our existence and business and coaching and where can it be useful? Where can it go wrong? we're, think all learning as we go right now on how it can impact our lives. So that's a very interesting perspective. appreciate that. Dr. Goldberg, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate the work.

that you do. We've you know, we've mentioned your your book leading with a coaching mindset a few times, we'll definitely put that in the show notes so people can find the link for that. If they want to get in contact with you or read more, you know, you mentioned the newsletter, that sort of thing, where should they go?

Damian Goldvarg (40:30)
They can go to my website. It's www.golbertconsulting.com and there you will find the links to past newsletters, to sign in if you want to receive the newsletter, articles I have in YouTube, more than 500 videos on coaching and leadership, half in English, half in Spanish. So for the people who are bilingual here may benefit twice from all of them.

Sean Patton (40:55)
Yeah, awesome, perfect.

Damian Goldvarg (40:58)
And I also have a LinkedIn profile. So people want to be in touch with me. LinkedIn is such a great way to follow me. I post two, three times a week. So that's another way to in communication.

Sean Patton (41:10)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. I enjoyed our conversation. This was awesome.

Damian Goldvarg (41:14)
Thank you, me too.