Coaching The Coach- We Must Lead By Example
A Life Coach Is Unique
I don’t know whether it is a good or bad thing, but they say that if you ever worked in a restaurant, you wouldn’t eat there. You’d see some unappetizing things, perhaps grease and grime, perhaps old food or bugs… Well, the same is true of other industries too. If you saw a doctor off the clock, you might be convinced that they don’t really have what it takes to monitor your health, let alone operate on you. If you knew where your bank was putting your money, you might start to keep it in a sock at home and so on.
Undoubtedly, the same is true for a coach. I’m sorry to say that I think that if you saw your personal coach handling their own problems or their own day, you might not trust them with your life.
This is not how it should be.
Coaching coaches often is about helping and guiding a coach to walk the talk. Yes, coaching is and should be different than other industries. Why? Because a coach claims to be helping improve your life and this can only be done if they recognize what is truly needed. After all, a doctor must recognize your symptoms and know the appropriate medication for the cure. Otherwise, you’ll be taking medications that might help or might make things worse. Coaching is no different.
Yes, there can be ‘bad medicine’ from your coach. For example, if you are looking to find a relationship then you might start to engage in a night life. This may be the right thing for you, but it may not. This is one of the things that makes life tricky. People say that if you want to meet someone then you should ‘put yourself out there’, which is not bad advice. So, you may start to go out to bars and out dancing. Yes, you’ll meet a lot of new people, but will you really get to know them? Will the intent of those you are meeting match your desire for a deeper, committed relationship? Perhaps. The bottom line is that it always depends on you, your needs and your unique experience. It may be that this is exactly where you need to be, though often most people turn to online dating because this is where people now go when they are looking to really get to know someone and to meet someone for a more serious relationship.
This may seem obvious, but things tend to be obvious in hindsight or when they aren’t our current experience. On the contrary, when we are in the middle of our lives things can become as unclear as mud. It takes a maven coach with great wisdom and clarity to recognize your unique symptoms and what you truly need to help you through your experience.
This kind of wisdom and clarity isn’t necessarily common, so it is important that a coach walk the talk. It’s true, a lot of professionals don’t have their lives together, but if a life coach doesn’t, then who does? Coaching the coach is empowering when us coaches make sure that we have this wisdom and clarity so that we are in a position to help our clients, no matter what profession they are in. We need to lead by example, which is what a Maven Method™ Life Coach lives.