A member wrote this on the BACC forum today:
My goal this month is to find 5 ‘clients’ or classmates, to do more audio recordings. I’m offering free 30 minute coaching sessions in exchange for permission to record the session. My goal is to have 100 audio recordings to learn from.
I applaud her dedication and realistic assessment of how much practice is necessary to become a masterful coach. This is what I like to hear!
I’m surprised at how little practice some people think is necessary to become a masterful coach. I’ve had people bemoaning the fact that their coaching is not yet masterful, and when I ask them how many coaching sessions they’ve done they say 10 or 20. Sometimes even fewer.
Would any of us entrust our well-being to a professional practitioner (e.g. doctor, accountant) who has only 10 or 20 hours of experience? I don’t think so!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Here, here, Barbra!!
One of the main reasons coaches have trouble building successful businesses isn’t that they don’t understand business concepts – it’s that they aren’t skilled enough to help their clients TRANSFORM.
Once you become masterful, you cross that “invisible barrier” and you totally GET how powerful coaching is, and how much people want and need it. “Selling” it becomes easy since everybody has something they want to change!
So, “Time in the saddle” is the best solution. Coach – learn – coach – learn – coach – learn…it’s a never ending cycle. The more you coach, the more you learn (especially when you work with a great mentor). The more you learn, the better you get. The better you are, the more efficiently and effectively you help your clients make the necessary internal and external transformations. The more your clients experience transformations, the more they want. AND the more their friends and colleauges want, too!
There is no substitute for masterful skills when it comes to coaching. All the marketing spin and hoopla simply cannot take the place of honest to goodness masterful coaching.
Nina!
I’m with you, Barbra – You know the generally agreed upon number of hours needed to become a world-class master of anything is 10,000 hours. Even if someone spends 40 hours per week coaching, if would take 5 years to achieve that.
Somehow coaching got the reputation that it was something anybody could do – as long as they have experience doing something else. Almost all of us (myself included) have discovered that being a great coach requires dedication to practice, much the way a pianist, golfer or physician needs to practice in order to master his/her skills.
Imagine flying to your next vacation in a plane piloted by someone who got his/her captain’s hat by just attending a weekend workshop, or by practicing a couple of hours per week for a few months! Coaching clients literally put their lives in our hands. We owe them great coaching!