Have you ever wondered how top performers get to the top?
I was pondering this and considering, that apart from hard work and willingness to put in the effort and make sacrifices, was there anything else?
And then I came across Seth’s Blog, “A coaching paradox” and as he said:
At the top tier of just about any sort of endeavour, you’ll find that the performers have coaches.
He listed off pianists, orators and athletes and said how weird it would be if we heard someone on stage or on the field who didn’t have one. Image the All Blacks or one of our Shot Putters or Singers not having a Coach!!
So why is it in the business world, they’re seen as the exception?
As Seth puts it:
Part of the reason is that work feels like an extension of something we’ve been doing our whole lives. Figure skating isn’t like school, but showing up at work seems to be. “I’ve got this,” is a badge of honor.
It appears some of the issues lays with us, Business Coaches, as we aren’t clear on what we do and how we can help you. But also, as Business Owners, it doesn’t help that there’s no easy way to identify what sort of coach you need or what you’re going to get…
As Seth says:
It turns out that the people with the potential to benefit the most from a coach are often the most hesitant precisely because of what coaching involves.
Talking about our challenges. Setting goals. Acknowledging that we can get better. Eagerly seeking responsibility…
And yet we avert our eyes and hesitate. It might be because having a coach might be interpreted as a sign of weakness. And what if we acknowledge our challenges but fail to overcome them? It could be that we don’t want to cause change to happen, or that we’re worried that we will.
Also, it can be hard to embrace when we have to pay for ourselves.
And so, paying for a coach, for something that’s hard to measure, which might be socially awkward, to get better at something that feels normal—combine that with a hesitancy to ask for help—it’s a wonder anyone has a coach.
The paradox is that the very things that hold us back are the reasons we need a coach in the first place.
Written by Alan Jarvis
