On Coaching…
How have I been able to coach others to reach their career goals, even through my own experiences with corporate?
There’s a beauty in the coach-coachee dynamic that a coach is able to see the coachee’s situation objectively.
I guess that’s the case with most partnerships like it: doctor and patient, mechanic and car owner, home builder and home owner.
I also draw some personal inspiration when working with my clients because they’re all focused on their own goals, and determined to get there in a way that feels right for them.
Like when I was coaching people who worked for me, I’m able to separate helping them achieve their personal goals from the problem of how I had to achieve mine.
Some of this comes from past experience and knowing that people will do what they want, no matter what you say. That’s part of why I struggle with the sales techniques I’m taught. So many of them focus on “handling objections”, and I wonder whether it’s ethical to steer someone to a decision they wouldn’t have otherwise made. Having worked in retail for years, I know people will just return what they didn’t really want in the first place.
It also comes from me taking the advice of people I trusted to have my best interest in mind…only to realize later that it wasn’t the right decision for me. And I “returned” my situation, course-correcting back to what I thought I should do in the first place.
And every time the outcome was better after the course-correction.
The few times I benefited from “external counsel” wasn’t when I got advice, but when someone described my situation objectively and in a way I couldn’t see because I was too personally connected to it.
Or when I was asked just the right question in the right way to see my situation objectively myself.
That is what I strive to do for my clients, long before we get to the step of figuring out what they should “do”.
It’s also why I stopped trying to work with everyone who inquires about coaching—because not everyone wants (or needs, I suppose) what I have to offer.
It was a hard decision to make (to not push the “coaching sale”)…especially when it feels like leaving money on the table. Or when so many business coaches reinforce that “you have to make offers to everyone” and “it’s your job to solve their doubts”.
But do I and is it?
I don’t know yet.
What I do know is I would rather help people who want my help and benefit from it.
Than force a partnership that wasn’t meant to be.
It’s not the way to make millions.
But I would rather build something amazing with a few people than create a business focused only on making a sale.
