You're Paying for WHAT???

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“Why should I work with a Professional Coach?”

Let’s be honest—you’ve probably asked yourself this before. No matter how much you learn about coaching, it’s still hard to understand why people would pay so much for something you can’t see, wear, or drive. It’s not always easy to explain to others, leaving you feeling foolish or indulgent.

We are creatures who care about social proof—we look to others to decide what’s worth our time and money. This is why so many are willing to spend $25K on an Hermes handbag or why we choose to live in homes on one side of the street vs. another.

Social proof ensures that everything expensive in our world is also visible.

But is it possible that something can have extraordinary value and be invisible?

Coaching says yes.

We all have a “default” future that awaits us. All we have to do is…nothing. It’s both free and the most expensive thing in the world. It’s free because it requires nothing from us—we don’t have to spend money, devote time, or direct any attention to it. Our existing mindsets, habits, and decisions effortlessly shape this default future. We just need to leave it alone, and we’ll get there.

Our default future doesn’t need our approval, effort, or acknowledgement. It will unfold whether or not we see the destination. It has a mind of its own and gently asks ours to relax—to stop worrying our pretty little heads with the details.

Yet, many of us live with a nagging feeling that we’re not headed in the right direction. We may not know where we want to go, but if we’re honest, we know it’s not where we’re going now.

If this insight resonates with you, then I ask you to slow down and allow yourself to truly feel the emotions that arise from this fear you’ve been carrying below the surface of your conscious mind—the feeling of heading in the wrong direction, the sense of being a sailboat tossed by the next emerging wave, and the feeling that you might be left with regrets when time has run out to remedy them.

I realize that what I’m asking you to do is not easy. In fact, it’s highly unpleasant. After all, rushing through our days and keeping ourselves busy through our preferred methods of feeling useful is a well-worn habit we’ve cultivated to protect us from facing the negative emotions of fear, doubt, and regret.

But if you muster the courage to take this first step—to allow yourself to be with your emotions—then, in time, you can move on to doing something that transforms you from a sailboat to a submarine—a shift that is the prerequisite to leveraging a powerful coaching tool I call the 4Ws!

Our four W’s are:

1. What

2. Why

3. When

4. Who

What do I want?

Many of you may think, “I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get it.” That may be the case, but I put it to you that 90% of us have not done the deep work of unearthing what we genuinely desire. We think we want something, but it’s often what we believe we “should” want, not what’s profoundly and uniquely meaningful to us. Sometimes, we’ve been carrying a desire for so long that we don’t even realize that we don’t want that thing anymore.

Exceptional Coaching begins with our What and then moves to our Why.

Why does it matter?

At a dinner last night, I heard one of the most capable women I know say, “I don’t know if I have what it takes to be successful in this new (business) arena.” Of course, she has “what it takes.” I know this because I’ve watched her live through the myriad life challenges she’s faced, with extraordinary capabilities. What’s missing for her is not confidence; it’s clarity of purpose. Clarity of purpose can only be achieved through a crystal clear understanding of our Why.

Most of us don’t abandon a challenge because we lack capacity or capability. We quit on ourselves because when the really tough moments arise, we realize that our reason(s) for staying in the game don’t matter that much.

When do I want it by?

Exceptional Coaching has an appropriate accountability component. Here, appropriate is the keyword. I will not follow up with a fifty-year-old to check in and see if they’ve done the work we discussed during a session unless they explicitly ask me to be their accountability partner. But I may ask a young adult client to call a potential employer or edit their resume right in the middle of a session while I’m there with them.

Whatever shape or form this move to action requires, it’s the non-starter of coaching. Committing to a timeline is one of the most powerful forcing functions for getting out of our heads and into the “real” world. Coaching without action is talk therapy, and there are many excellent therapists we can choose to work with instead of a professional coach.

Who will help me achieve my goal?

If our goal can be accomplished alone, it’s too small. No worthy goal can be achieved without visible and invisible allies coaching, mentoring and supporting us on our path to success.

Exceptional coaching helps us develop our circle of trusted advisors and what I call a Personal Board of Directors. It teaches us to create allies of strangers and hold at a distance those who don’t support our values, goals, and dreams.

The myth of the self-made man is just that—a myth. Don’t fall for it. Nobody ever achieved a worthy goal on their own through the sheer power of their abilities and willpower. This is a BS story that so many of us carry around with us, sometimes for a lifetime. Find your people, and they will help you ascend to heights you never dreamed of.

There are average, great, and exceptional professional coaches, with services priced at wildly different levels. The coach decides their fees, but the client decides the value.

Decide well.