Coaching.

These days there seem to be a few misconceptions around the word Coach. Usually when I tell people I’m a coach they ask “what sport?” And then their faces fall when I tell them “Businesses”.

I think the first image that comes to mind is usually a sensational speaker on a big stage with a microphone wrapped around their cheek getting people all riled up around resolutions and big changes. Or they think of someone who sits with you and lays out a rigorous plan of action that will get you to your next goal because that’s what worked for them.

The reality of coaching is quite different. Simply because people are so different from one another. And that’s the key word - People. A good. Coach can sit with someone they’ve never met, who works in a field they have never studied and help them reach a decision while at the same time crafting a healthy sense of who they are, what they want and how to get it.

A coach is not a trainer or a mentor or a counselor or an advisor. A coach is someone who chases the magic. Someone who dives deep into how you are wired and what that means for how you should start moving forward. A Magic Chaser.

Plenty of people have made a career out of chasing magic. You can see examples of this in the arts. Acting, singing, painting, people are always chasing something that makes them feel alive. We all have that in us and we have all been in certain situations where we feel a sense of “magic”.

My job as a coach is to figure out with you what that thing is. Once we’ve nailed it down, we can then figure out what to do about it. Transformation, then strategy. Not the other way around. If you’re given a plan of action and you follow it and you see results, you have been trained in a way of doing something. This way is not always conducive to that sense of magic and if that’s true, it will never actually bring about change.

Real change happens when transformation comes before action. My job as a coach is to open that sense of who you are and then move forward with the strategy piece. Diving down to the root of what makes you, you opens up sustainable change and brings on lasting, motivating change.

That’s what I do and that’s what gives me that sense of magic.

What’s my super power? Helping others answer that question for themselves!