MM Newsletter - Inner Firewalking

What Coaching Isn’t

The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.

The most obvious point to remember is that coaching is not therapy, counseling, or psychology. In addition, coaching should not be confused with consulting or mentoring — there are subtle differences between each of these interventions. Whilst the coaching process may have originated in the field of psychology and intervention often follows some psychological models, the actual coaching process should not be mistaken for a therapeutic intervention. Some of the differences include:

Mentoring:
The passing on of knowledge, experiences, and skills usually by someone within the company who is older and wiser. Usually more specifically career-oriented information. A mentor has normally achieved the goal themselves, while a coach may not have any experience in the given coaching area.

Consulting:
Often using your own skills to improve a given situation, as opposed to developing the client’s skills to a level that can cope effectively with the situation.

Therapy and counseling:
Tends to focus on feelings related to past events and processing such feelings. Coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encouraging the client to actively move forward. Tony Grant from Sydney University has said: “Therapy is like helping someone with a broken leg to walk again. Coaching is helping them to run the four minute mile”.

The Coaching Market

The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.

Ten years ago, no one had heard of life, business, or corporate coaching. Today, it is featured in The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, Oprah, and CNN. And still, most of the world’s population has not heard of it. Demand for coaching is expected to continue to grow and may accelerate. What will happen when the first major movie featuring a life coach hits the street? Corporations are jumping on the band wagon: they want to hire corporate coaches, but even greater is their desire to have their managers trained in coaching techniques, and to develop a “coaching culture” within their organization.

There are an estimated 10,000 part-time and full-time coaches worldwide (ref: ICF). The number of people entering the emerging field of personal and business coaching has doubled in size each of the past three years (ref: CoachVille™). Several hundred articles, TV and radio shows have been done in the past three years. Coaching has been written about in Newsweek, Business Week, Fortune, Money, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, New Age Journal, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Bloomberg Personal, Newsday, etc.

The number of corporations using coaching is increasing. Fortune magazine has referred to coaching as: “one of the hottest things in human resources” and “a grassroots movement that is spreading in some of the unlikeliest corners of corporate America, including IBM, AT&T, and Kodak.”

Coaching is strongest in the US, followed by the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand. Coaching is reaching more and more countries all the time; my newsletter subscribers now come from more than 90 countries.

Improvements in technology including teleconferences, cheap international phone calls, and the reach of the internet are making it even easier for coaches to build a successful practice with low overhead.

One Reason Not To Become a Life Coach

The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.

If you don’t enjoy seeing and being part of someone’s growing, then don’t become a coach. If you don’t get a kick out of being part of someone learning something new, bursting through a barrier, having FAR more than they ever thought they could have then this is not the career for you.

Having said that, I don’t believe there is a human being on the planet who couldn’t learn to enjoy that!

Creating Your Speech: Pick Your topic, Niche, and Target Market

The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.

Creating Your Speech

You need to decide who you will speak to. Who do you want to help? Women? Teens? Corporations? People in Rehabilitation? Spiritual people? When you know who you will speak to/help, you can start to try and find them.

Ideally, choose people who would pay for your services — who have money. Pick a topic which solves a problem people have. If you speak on ‘enlightenment for underprivileged children’ you’ll likely command a lower fee than if you speak on ‘how to make your customers choose your company over others’. Of course — if money isn’t important to you, this won’t matter.

Speak on something that’s VERY important to you and which you feel makes a difference to the world. If you don’t come from the heart and say what you really feel/mean, you won’t get the gigs, you’ll be unhappy, or both.

The Four Freedoms

The following is an excerpt from the book Get Paid For Who You Are.

You can create a lifestyle of:

Location Freedom

The ability to live or travel anywhere in the world, including the simple joy of working from home.

Time Freedom

Being able to choose to work five days a week, or one.

Financial Freedom

Not having to check the prices when you buy things that bring joy to you and those you love and not having to worry about money again.

Inner Freedom

The freedom to be yourself, and to share what you know and love with the world.

Is it Okay to Make a Lot of Money?

The following is an excerpt from the book Get Paid For Who You Are:

Deep down you may not want to start a business for fear that people will think you’re greedy or involved in a “get rich quick” scheme. if that’s what you’re worried about, is it really more noble for you to hide your gifts and talents than to make them available to others?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re a counselor who’s really good at helping women over 45 move through the process of divorce. a woman comes to your website lost, anxious, depressed and panicked about what life might be like after divorce. even though she knows it’s the right decision, she doesn’t have the courage to divorce because it’s too scary and she can’t see the way forward. as she gets information from your website she begins to feel some comfort, peace and optimism; she begins to create some goals for herself.

Then, she subscribes to your newsletter and after two to three months she has received so much from your free tips that she’s ready to proceed with her divorce. So, she spends $47 on your ebook, downloads it and devours it in about five hours. She’s so excited and happy, she follows your action steps and she starts putting them into place. She’s empowered. a month later, she calls you up and says, “I’d like to hire you. i’ve saved up the money and i’d like to work with you.” So you work with her over the phone and support her through the process of achieving her goal.

Perhaps making money is a normal, healthy byproduct of helping others.