“Hire a Coach!” says one of your friends, “That will help you grow your business.” For a split second you agree, it seems like the ideal solution, but then something happens…
Whether you have previously hired coaches, or whether you’ve never engaged that kind of resource in business or in life, the following thoughts and considerations may just pique your interest and may even help you to improve your present situation.
We all come up against obstacles and self-doubt
As we go through our lives, every single one of us hits obstacles and blockages that prevent us from achieving our full potential.
As human beings we are all awash with feelings, beliefs and viewpoints that either help us move forwards in the direction of our goals or keep us prisoner, trapped in a quagmire of negativity, disbelief and lack of self-confidence.
No matter your situation or circumstances, however, there is one thing that we all have in common – we all have the capability of choosing our thoughts, choosing our actions and thus changing our lives. So why is that some of us do and some of us don’t?
An endless debate that has raged on through the centuries is the question of whether our characters and personalities are formed because of our genetic make-up, over which we have no control, or whether we are products of our environment and the challenges or opportunities that life throws at us as we grow up. It’s just like the question of whether leaders emerge because they are born that way, or because of learned traits and behaviours.
The key factors here are the same determinants as to how we feel about the decision to hire a coach:
- Your past does not have to equal your future. No matter what has gone before, you and you alone, have the power to choose your thoughts and therefore to change your results.
- You CAN choose your thoughts, you CAN influence or, when necessary, over-ride your feelings. You may not feel the ideal way you think you should, yet still take action.
- Everything that you know right now has got you to where you are. If you want to achieve new things, it pre-supposes that you must either do new things, learn new things, or probably both.
- Our ability to do new things is based on our sense of identity. If you want to do new things, you must believe, or at least convince yourself that it may be possible for ‘little old YOU’ to achieve them, or to gain sufficient motivation to propel yourself to try.
- Change often brings up fears – of the unknown; fear of success; fear of failure; fear of humiliation; fear of social exclusion. It’s the same thing that kicked in to stop our ancestors leaving the safety of the cave as it is that stop us from public speaking, or prevents us from applying for a challenging job or stops us from chatting up that attractive potential partner – it’s all about the unknown, the unchartered and the unfamiliar.
Hire a coach and use ‘BE-DO-HAVE’
One of the tenets of coaching is that we have to BE different and DO something different in order to HAVE the different results that we think we want.
So, when you ask yourself whether to hire a coach to grow your business, you are immediately confronted by those same determinants and fears…
(a) What if I spend money on a coach and I don’t get any better results? Would it just be another bill to pay, when often you may already be struggling, or at best, not achieving the results you want to or need to?
Speaking as an experienced coach, I can only give you the honest answer that I cannot guarantee your success – no coach can. Why? Because I cannot MAKE YOU DO ANYTHING!
I can ask you incisive questions and help you look at things in a different way; I can challenge your thinking, so you explore and discover new ideas, new paradigms and new possibilities; I can teach you new skills and knowledge; I can connect you with experts who know far more than me about specific topics that will help you; I can inspire you, help you grow and even, to an extent, motivate you more than you are now, but still, I cannot make you do anything. That final part of the equation must come from you.
What I can guarantee, as most good coaches will, is to do my very best to help you get the results you want – I will be the best catalyst that I can. I can also guarantee, that if you have taken the action we agree upon and you don’t feel you are making positive progress by the second session, I will refund your money. After that, you can cancel our agreement at any time, if you feel it’s not working for you.
(b) What if I hire a coach and I don’t get on with them? That’s easy – we all offer ‘try before you buy’ sessions or ‘discovery sessions. If you’re considering a coach who doesn’t, then I’d be inclined to recommend a different one. Coaching is built on trust and on a relationship. Without that, your chances of success will be reduced.
(c) What if I hire a coach and they expose my shortcomings and make me feel embarrassed? That’s pretty much the same reason why a lot of people delay going to a doctor when they know they should. None of WANT to feel embarrassed, yet if something’s not right and you’re not willing to overcome that feeling in order to find the answers you need, how else is anything going to change?
In business and in life, there will be times when we don’t know something we think we probably should have known, or we’re not doing something that we know we should be doing. When you hire me as a coach, I’m not going to judge you, laugh at you or mock you because you don’t know something. My success as a coach depends on helping my clients to know more to achieve more, but most importantly to become more of the person they want to become in the process.
(d) What if don’t need to hire a coach because I can do it on my own? If that’s the case, then I say, “Good for you – make it happen!” Though there is that old coaching pre-supposition – the fact that you’re even asking the question, kind of sounds like you might be doubting your ability to hit the mark alone.
Source: Image courtesy of the Adams Group 1990
Here’s where I say something controversial that is possibly to my own detriment…
“Every single person has the ability to change, to grow, to make things happen and to do so without necessarily hiring a coach.”
I bet you didn’t expect a coach to say that!
Oh, but here’s the thing. A lot of people CAN change, but DON’T. A lot of people COULD grow their business on their own, but DON’T, or they do it much slower alone than with the support and guidance of a coach or mentor.
Champions know the value of coaches – champion Roger Federer with coach, Stefan Edberg
Here are some questions for YOU…
Why does the top tennis player in the world hire a tennis coach or the top soccer team hire a soccer coach? Why does the top politician in the world hire a branding coach or a speaking coach? Why do the top business people in the world hire business coaches or mindset coaches– surely, they must know enough if they’re already that successful?
Here are some thought to leave you with…
You may desperately NEED a coach. Sadly, most for most people in that bracket, it can sometimes be too late to turn the ship around, but not always.
You may NOT NEED a coach, but maybe you’d be far more likely to succeed and/or succeed faster and more efficiently, if you DO hire a coach.
It may not be the right time for YOU to hire a coach, but if not now, when?
The most successful people in the world DO hire a coach, for some reason at some time during their journey. Do they go through the same fears and ask the same questions as you? You bet, but they do it anyway.
Hire a coach like Tony Inman if you want help to grow your business and change your life for the better!
I may not be the right coach for you. I don’t work with everyone or anyone. I work with clients who want to change something, who are courageous enough to step outside their comfort zone and who are willing to invest in their own future. My goal is to help to positively influence people to lead happier and more successful lives, by bringing to bear my experience and skills to be a catalyst for change.
If you’d like to explore the possibility, feel free to contact me via this page for a no-obligation chat. Whether it is your decision to hire a coach or not, I hope this blog helped you in some way to consider the possibility.
Click here for more information about my upcoming workshops.
Click here for details of my book, ‘If Life’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well.’
Fin out what some of my previous clients gained from coaching with Tony Inman.
