Coaching… seems to be a popular topic today, but what is coaching?  Who should get a coach?  And does someone really need a coach?  So I figured I might as well have a conversation about it and I will share my thoughts and my own personal experiences when it relates to coaches and coaching. 

I am someone who did not come from money or success, but instead had to build my own success has come from nothing.  I was the person who went to an event, signed up for the program, and was determined to become successful.  Do I give credit to all of my coaches along the way… YES.  Did I also have a very motivated and driven ambition to succeed no matter what… YES!  I wasn’t looking for anyone to do it for me, but I was looking for someone to point me in a direction and show me the route on the map to follow.  I have had a lot of different coaches and focused on different coaching methods to help me get to a different point in my journey based on where my business was and where I wanted to go.  

What is a coach?  

A coach is someone who is going to give it to you straight, make you better, and is in the position you want to be in or has been there before.  Think of this in athletics… a football coach is going to make their players the best they can be, get the team to work together with the best they possibly can, and just play football and have success.  

Coaches know how to get the best out of people in whatever they are coaching them in.  As a business coach, I work with business owners to help them grow their businesses and get to their business goals. I will work with them to identify what challenges they are seeing in their business and how we can fix them.  

There is a lot of information available to business owners today anywhere you go, but a lot of people fall short on how to actually implement that in their business.  Coaches connect the dots, but the plan is in place for success, and then help adjust when something goes wrong with the plan.  An athletic coach knows the players on the team all want to win, but someone needs to direct them and call the plays.  When the plays don’t work as planned they need to know why to be able to redirect the team.

Without a coach most people will struggle to get where they want to go, they might still get there but it’s going to be a lot harder and include a lot more failure and struggle along the way.  So it becomes a choice of wanting to go the long way or wanting to go the short way to get to where you want to go.  

Coaching is like a GPS, you can choose the fastest route with tolls, the fastest route without tolls, or avoid all highways.  They will all get you where you want to go, but based on what you select will determine what will get you there the fastest. 

Who should get a coach? 

This is how I look at it, if you know where you want to go and know that you are coachable then you should consider getting a coach.  Being someone who is coachable, means that you are open to feedback, you are going to implement what your coach tells you, and you are willing to put in the work.   There are a lot of different coaches that can help in a lot of different areas, so you need to make sure you are getting the coach that can help you in the area that you need the help.  Coaches come in all shapes and sizes for all budgets so you have to see what is going to align with what you are looking for and what you need the most. 

How do you find the right coach? 

The first thing to do, and I think the most important thing, is to work with a coach that has had success in the area that you want to have success in and is still active in that area or industry.  You wouldn’t go to a golf coach to improve your swing if that coach didn’t know how to swing a golf club.  So you need to make sure that the person who you are considering as a coach can talk the talk, and walk the walk!! 

Want to know more about getting a coach? CLICK HERE for more information.