Live a Human Life, live a Coaching life

Coaching used to be perceived as fixing people. Nowadays it is a respectable practice, growing rapidly. Much more than that, it is about being the best of what we can be, for ourselves and for people around us.

Coaching is a way of living a human life

“No one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone”

Marcia Reynolds

 The practice of coaching has probably existed for centuries if not millennium though it is only from the 19th century that the term started to be used with its modern meaning. We tend to believe that the term ‘coach’ comes from sports, though back a couple of centuries ago it appeared as a slang word for a tutor who "carried" a student through an exam. Hence the original intent of the word was as a process used to transport people from where they are to where they want to be.

When we look at where we are as human beings, we might want to consider what that means. In the context of coaching, where we are can cover many different coaching disciplines:

• Where am I in my life? Life coaching
• Where am I with my health? Wellness coaching
• Where am I career-wise? Career coaching
• Where am I in my growth journey? Performance coaching
• How do I get my team to gel and perform at Its best? Team coaching
• Where is our organization at and where is it going? Strategic coaching
• How can I make my values (or my organization values) fully alive? Culture coaching

Implicit in those above questions is the essential question: What makes us happy (or even just content) with where we are at and where we are going in life. As such, coaching skills, and acting those skills, bring essential life behaviors so we can thrive and be our best selves.

Ready to get learning? OK, let’s start the journey.

So, you want to be a great coach; first master yourself.

“To be a great coach, you yourself need to be humble and coachable.”

Jack Canfield and Peter Chee

 You think you have what it takes to be a great coach? You might want to look in a mirror first.

“Know thyself”. You might be familiar with this English translation of the Greek aphorism which was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It essentially means that to help ourselves (and others), we must first know who we are.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, this is one of the hardest endeavors in life as what’s going on inside us (mind and body) is quite complex.

There are a couple of key elements in our psyche that we shall focus on knowing. The first key aspect to understand is what you are incredibly good at. In other words, what are the strengths that you exhibit every day and for which you are known. You might not know them as when we have a strong skill, we tend to believe that everyone else should be equally competent at it.

Do this, find five people that you respect and that know you well as you interact frequently with them. And simply ask them: What am I good at?

Pick the three strengths which most frequently come through from your discussions.

You’ll be amazed at what you will hear, and more than that, you will feel pretty good about yourself.

The second key aspect is about your values. This is essentially about your soul, the person deep down and that makes you unique in the world.

So, take a piece of paper and write down ten values that you strongly believe in and that forms the foundation of the person you are. If you are struggling with examples, you can go there to inspire yourself.

Now the hard part comes, remove the five least important values in the list of ten.

Now remove one more (you should be down to four)

Now remove one more (and we are now down to 3).

There you go, you have your three most important strengths that people see in you and your three core values.

Find the center of your universe.

“Find that one area that you really want to perform at and is something you are passionate about and feels like it’s connected to something meaningful and purposeful: you’re unstoppable.”

Mark Thompson

 Often you hear a variety of self-helpers extolling the virtues of living your passion and seeking it every day. Passion is great, and it needs to come with other elements if you really want to reach a state of flow.

The good news is, if you have done the two exercises above then you now have your strengths and values.

The last part is to take your strengths, your values, what you are passionate about and write down your life purpose in one meaningful, single sentence. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

Well, it is not so easy to come up with it and you will probably need the help of a coach to do so (so reach out to us, we are happy to help). The second-best way is to use proven methodologies to do so. I encourage you to go through Chapter 2 of the book 5 Levels of Mastery from Dr. Peter Chee and Marshall Goldsmith. There you will find practical and powerful tools that will guide you to your life purpose statement.

Stop talking, start listening.

“Never make the coaching process about yourself, and your own ego, and how smart you think you are. Make the coaching process about the clients you have and how wonderful they are.”

Marshall Goldsmith

 Language is a wonderful invention, which has helped us bring humanity to where it is today and has brought levels of cooperation which would not have been possible otherwise. Now language has two essential components, that which is spoken and that which is heard and understood.

And we are very proficient at doing the first part, talking, and expressing whatever thoughts come to our mind. The problem with all this talking is that there is not much listening and therefore real engagement between people.

You don’t believe me? OK, next time you have a discussion with your spouse, a friend, or a colleague, put yourself in the helicopter position. Meaning that you will observe the time that each person is talking. As a second (and harder) step, consciously push yourself to ask questions instead of giving opinions about what the other person is saying.

Now, say that wasn’t hard.

Coaching is about reserving 70-80% of the time for the coachee to talk, while the coach takes the rest of the time in the form of asking questions.

Own your life.

“Once you carry your own water, you will learn the value of every drop”

African Proverb

 When is the last time that you apologized to a colleague or a friend after failing to honor a commitment that you previously had made to them? Most likely, a long time ago, or you did it in a way that might have been perceived as not totally sincere.

Owning the mistakes we make is hard, and like anything difficult, it takes practice to become more comfortable with doing it. And it relates to accountability; if we own our mistakes and what we say we will do then we are empowered in our lives about anything we undertake.

Let’s practice the ownership behavior so it becomes second nature. Pick a recent situation where you have not respected a deadline for a task you said you would complete. Your natural tendency might be to blame it on an external factor. Refrain from doing this and think about what you could have done differently (what was in your power) to prevent it from happening.

Now, go see the friend or colleague that has been impacted by the mishap and apologize based on what you have identified as what you could have done differently. Now check how that feels: empowering isn’t it?

When you coach someone, it is always a situation of honoring the promise you made to help the coachee. And sometimes you might not be doing it perfectly and that’s OK – you will learn to powerfully apologize and get better at it.

Walk the talk!

“A person has integrity when there is no gap between intent and behavior”

Stephen M.R. Covey

 Have you ever noticed about how much what we intend to do or convey ends up being misunderstood and interpreted in a completely different way from our original intent? There are a couple of invisible steps between intent and result, and which can make all the difference.

One is the situation in which the event occurs. If you intend to have a calm conversation with someone while metal music is playing in the background you might not get what you intended.

The other is the actual way that you convey your intent: the way you act and behave. If it comes from a position of expressing your core values and strengths, it has a much higher chance to come out as genuine and aligned with your intent.

How about you do a simple exercise that will help you live your values and align your intent to them?

From the values that you have identified earlier in the article, pick one and go see a colleague or a friend and demonstrate that value through what you do for, or, with them. For example, if one of your core values is respecting others, listen to a situation where someone says something negative about a friend/colleague. When this happens, gently and purposefully stop the bad-mouthing.

That is walking the talk of your value of respecting others.

The intent of a coach is to help others realize themselves and that demands for the coach to first and foremost be aligned with herself, and then using her core values in the coaching process.

Network your way to happiness.

“You want to touch hearts, minds, and souls around you so that ultimately you ignite everybody around you to become the absolute best that they can be. Right in support of their vision, their mission, their purpose.”

John Mattone

 Networking might not be your cup of tea as you might perceive it as wasting your precious time to create connections that might at some point be useful or not to you. Looking at it through a different and more satisfying angle, networking is a way for us to satisfy our need for social interactions, preferably with people who share our values.

A Harvard Study of Adult Development, which was conducted over 80 years ago and continues to this day, has identified just one factor that contributes the most to our happiness and longevity: the quality of our relationships.

Coaching is building relationships with people who are interested in moving their life forward, towards their purpose, as we touched upon earlier. Once you get to know other fellow coaches you will build long lasting friendships with like-minded individuals.

Be effectively nice.

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated”

William James

 A human trait that we all share is a need for acknowledgement. From childhood when we needed reassurances from parental figures to later ages - even if we want to show toughness – we all need a tap on back and a hug from times to times.

Having said that, most of the acknowledgement we receive for what we do well usually lacks effectiveness. We might be told (or tell someone) that “they did a good job” or “that was awesome”. The problem with this type of acknowledgement is that it lacks specificity, so people cannot deeply relate to the thank you they receive.

Let’s try it. Pick someone that you have recently interacted with and who has done something positive and meaningful for you or others and that you want to acknowledge. Now, think carefully about what precisely you appreciated about what they did (how did they do it, how did it relate to their values and strengths). And then tell them just that and see the impact it has on them.

As you can guess, there is no coaching without deep and frequent acknowledgement. Coaches help people move forward with their goals and they are their biggest cheerleaders every step of the way.

Become a Special Agent.

One of the key sources of stress and disengagement in organizations today is the feeling that you cannot control or contribute yourself to what is going on. In other words, people feel that they do not have agency over their life. Coaching is all about gaining agency in your own life and helping others do so, too.

When you coach, you become the best that we can be as human beings.

We rise by lifting others. 

When you take the journey to become a coach you become the special agent of your life so take the first step now, learn about coaching with us at the Let's Coach group.

There are many coaching training providers out there, my own growth journey has taken place with the Certified Coaching and Mentoring Professional program, and later the Certified Chief Master Coach program.