You know what it feels like when you achieve something that you have worked hard for. You know what it is like to succeed. You know what it is like to be properly listened to. You know what it is like to be supported and motivated. You know how good all these things feel. Now imagine having the skills to be able to share these gifts with other people.
We can all achieve without a coach. After all it is the client who has the problem, and the client who has the solution. It is the client who takes actions, and the client who gets results. But working with a coach the process is more likely to succeed, will be less difficult, and you will get results faster.
The skills of a coach are essential life skills and can be applied in a variety of contexts.
Family & Friends
Parenting is a lifelong and demanding undertaking. And I am not saying that I am an expert in parenting, nor am I saying that my children are perfect over achievers. What I do believe is that having the coaches tool kit has empowered me to be a better parent. It has also helped me to be a better brother, a better son, a better grandad, and a better friend. As a parent you start off 100% responsible for the well-being of your child. And then over time this responsibility is bit by bit surrendered to your child. As this process evolves you are aiming, as best you can, to transfer skills and abilities to your children so that they can thrive, maximising their potential without your constant interference. As your own parents age this process of responsibility can reverse, to a degree. Friends and other family members need support and encouragement. Above all others your partner needs a listening ear, true empathy, and unstinting support.
Education & Business
Your students can be at school, in higher education, or even in the workplace. No matter what the context is, you are aiming to transfer skills to them and to help them to release their own innate potential. Knowing how to coach this potential out of others is essential.
And so it is in a business context too. If you can get more out of your people, you will get more out of your business. And the business will demand more of you too. You can find yourself in a positive, symbiotic, upward spiral simply because you choose to coach not tell.
Self
Coaching is personal development applied to others. The skills and the tools of coaching can all be applied to yourself. In fact by coaching others, you end up coaching yourself. Because you have to adopt a solution focused, can do attitude. And this cannot not rub off on you too. How can you dish out medicine to others without taking that medicine yourself.
Skills
So what are the skills of a coach that are so universally applicable throughout your life?
- A good functional understanding of how people think and produce their behaviour.
- An understanding of life, the process of change, and the process of achievement.
- The ability to actively build rapport with other people.
- How to listen with empathy, rather than just listening to reply.
- How to question effectively and in a manner that helps bring insight to others.
- The flexibility to take any situation and guide someone to find learnings and or actions to take.
Coaching helps people to uncover potential, because it is asking them, in a guided and structured manner, to find the solutions and to take the actions that improve their life situation. This puts them more in touch with their own resources, which then means that they are more able to avoid future pit falls, or more empowered to resolve difficult situations in the future. This way a coached individual can become a positive example to others. Simply embracing a life of coaching couldn’t make the world a better place too, could it?
“When I was at college, I wanted to be involved in things that changed the world.” Elon Musk
