3 ways a great coach helps you achieve your goals more quickly

Fact:

The most successful people have coaches.

In fact, every HIGHLY successful person in Sports, Politics, Business, Entertainment, Religion and Life have or had coaches.

As long as he used a coach, Cristiano Ronaldo continued to play world-class football.

To do and be his best, President Barack Obama used coaches throughout his terms in office, because as you remember he had almost zero experience in the federal government.

At 67 Oprah Winfrey still relies on coaches to stay one of the most respected people in the Entertainment industry.

And the list goes on and on. Entrepreneur-extraordinaire Richard Branson and runaway best-selling author Tony Robbins have coaches.

So if the most successful people in all areas of work and life and have coaches, it only makes sense that you and I have coaches as well. Which leads me to a few …

QUESTIONS:

Who is your coach? How are you being coached? What process are you following? And are you getting the very best from yourself as a result?

From my experience in working with hundreds of thousands of people, I can tell you that most people can’t answer those questions. They really haven’t given any thought to being coached, and if they have, they don’t know where to start.

So let me give you three things a great coach will do for you, personally and professionally.

I work with a limited number of leaders as their coach to help them reach new heights in their professional life. It’s a part of what I do with my private clients. Call or email me and I’ll share how our coaching process works

► 1. Bring an open mind.

I’ve worked with some of the most famous and powerful people in the world, and they all have one thing in common. You probably won’t guess what that is … but all of them struggle at one time or another with self-confidence. They have doubted themselves and their capabilities

But a great coach is an encourager. They see talents that the other person overlooks, and in various ways they tell the other person “I believe in you. You can do it.”

That’s what my favorite high school teacher, Mrs. Virgelee LeDue, did for me. She kept on validating me when I really needed it. At a time when sports, good looks, and popularity ruled, I had none of them. I was just the nice fat kid who never smoked, drank, or dated. I was the good boy, the smart kid, and the nerd, all rolled into one.

But Mrs LeDue got me involved in speech and debate. She encouraged me to enter various speaking contests, and she coached me before, during, and after school — so I could excel. Somehow or other, she knew that competence precedes confidence. And so the better I got, the stronger I felt. Little did she know back then that I would end up making my living as a professional speaker and be inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.

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► 2. A great coach demands excellence.

They demand excellence and pull excellence out of you.

In point #1 above, I said a great coach validates you, but that in itself is not enough. You need more than a mother who thinks you’re wonderful, no matter what you do. And you need more than a cheerleader who does more than give you a rah-rah chant, even though you seldom score any points. You need a coach that knows how to get you to be your very best … in a word … to be excellent.

That means you need a coach who is highly skilled and courageous. As Superintendent of Schools Bill Honig said, “Kids respect courage. They say, ‘If you don’t make me do it, you don’t care about me’.”

Of course, if your coach demands excellence, if your coach refuses to accept just-enough-to-get-by behavior, if your coach enforces high standards, you may not always like your coach. So be it.

While sharing the speaking platform with legendary football coach Lou Holtz, he said, “If you desperately need people to like you, you’ll never have their respect.” In other words, great coaches must be willing to tell people when they do not meet the standards of excellence. They must be willing to help people see their mistakes.

Of course, demanding excellence sounds good, but what does that mean? It means that your coach takes you through a process where your excellence is the result. One part of that process … and I do mean just one part of that process is where …

► 3. A great coach helps you make and follow through on commitments.

A great coach helps you make a decision that is backed up by behavior. A great coach helps you make a commitment that you CAN do it and WILL do what needs to be done to move forward and upward.

As one of my coaching clients Brenda Ellsworth, who in turn coaches her team at Tastefully Simple, says, “It all begins with making a decision and saying, ‘This is what I’m going to do: I’m going to make it happen, no matter what!'”

Civil rights activist, Joseph Lowery, had a clever way of saying it. He said, “If you can take care of the internal, you can easily take care of the external. Then you can avoid the infernal and catch on to the eternal.”

Final Question: There are two ways to create the life, work, and relationships you want: 1) The slow way, on your own, through trial and error, or 2) The fast way, with the encouragement and guidance of a gifted coach. Choose wisely.