Did you ever consider hiring a coach? Here is a personal reflection of what a coach can do for you, and some basic rules to help you in the process of hiring one.

1. Coaching:
The Possibly Best #1
Solution For You Now
Eduard Lopez

2. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
When starting fresh and young after completing our formal education, the first
thing that we usually have in mind is to look for a job. We have debts to pay or, in
the best case, no money at all. Therefore, getting a job, being initially paid for what
we have learned after all of those years, becomes our first priority. Coaching is not.
Whether the first job we get is the one we ever dreamed of (very unlikely), or a
temporary, low-paid, boring one (the most probable scenario), we are happy we got
it, and we can start thinking ahead with a different perspective that when we were
just broke-students.
This is the general process many people go through. What have we been studying
for anyway if it’s not to get a job? To get money and start planning our future with a
sense of independence which we have not had before?
Generally, we don’t have, at that moment, a clear picture of what we want to do.
Except for remarkable exceptions, we keep taking decisions along the way, many
times based on the circumstances around us rather than based on our true wishes
and desires.
And we keep learning from our mistakes, getting distracted from our initial dreams
and using too often words like ‘can’t’, ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’. And more importantly,
the people we turn to for guidance, being either our parents (who belong to
another generation/reality) or our friends, are at the same level of awareness of the
problem as we are.
I think it was Einstein who said
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we
used when created them”
Therefore, we do not find easy answers to our questions or doubts and keep trying
and failing as we grow.
Consequence: progress in our life is hard and slow.
Human for Human Consulting

3. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
I fully subscribe in first person to that scenario. We all know people in our
environment who we consider more ‘successful’ than us and less ‘successful’ than
us (whatever our definition of success is), but I observed that almost everyone
followed the pattern described above.
What would a better alternative be? A better solution to achieve faster what we
want? To move in straighter lines or, for many people, even to keep moving?
Many years after I walked that above-described path I discovered coaching as
being the alternative.
Very commonly used in the sporting world, it’s still in its infancy in the business
world.
Among the benefits of using a coach, we will find
Significant improvements in our performance,
More clarity in what we do and why we do it,
Better organization and effectiveness of our actions,
Improvements in self-confidence, relationships, communication skills
and life/work balance,
And all of this will translate into faster results and higher satisfaction with what we
do and with ourselves.
It’s difficult to see the ‘investment’ in a coach at the beginning of our careers. We
rather see it as a ‘cost’ we cannot afford. A slight shift in our thinking can provide
amazing results in whatever we do.
But, even though we have heard or read or been told of these advantages many
times, there is still a resistance to reach out and look for a coach. Maybe we do not
fully understand what a personal coach is.
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4. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
Coach de nition
A coach is nothing more (and nothing less) but a person who will keep you moving
in the direction of whatever end result you would set for yourself, providing
support, confidentiality, honesty and an environment to explore possibilities that
you may not see walking alone.
This is my personal definition. You can get hundreds of them out there.
We have to understand that coaching is not:
Therapy
Counselling
Consultancy
Mentorship
Specialized advice
Therefore, the coach is not a person who will tell you what to do; the coach is a
person who will help you discover what to do and what not to do, will support you
in your decision, will encourage you to keep going and will make sure you are
consistently and persistently moving in the direction towards what you what to
achieve, to have or to be.
If you think about the fact that the most successful people (and again, we can turn
to sports, but also applies in business) work with a coach, you can agree that it
looks like they (the successful ones) cannot be so wrong.
But still many people resist to work with a coach
Despite the explicit advantages of working with a coach (and this is the reason why
the growth in this industry is so significant: in the US only, the coaching industry
represented more than $1 billion in 2017), many people are still concerned about
the benefits of working with a coach.
Out of so many reasons why people resist hiring a coach, I would point out three of
them:
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5. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
1. The coaching profession is unregulated unlike most traditional professions.
There are many ‘schools of coaching’ with different approaches which award
coaching credentials, ranging from top-rated and high standard courses to other
that hand over a coaching certificate to you after a weekend training. This is the
biggest challenge coaches face today: the number of incompetent and untrained
coaches that are damaging the reputation of the industry.
Although any person with the right personal qualities, attitude and professional
ethics and standards could provide you with great results when working together
on a coaching relationship, you want to make sure this person has some world-
class organization behind, assessing his or her qualifications and aptitudes.
2. Sharing personal stuff with a stranger is uncomfortable.
This is not usually the reason we hear. We usually hear things like:
Nobody knows me better than me
I cannot afford paying a coach
I can manage without help
I know someone who had a terrible experience with a coach
We do not use these ‘excuses’ when we go to a doctor, lawyer or tax advisor, even
though they cost money, we have to tell them personal details or someone had a
terrible experience with doctors, lawyers or tax advisors
Maybe a good similarity could be why many men do not visit their urologist to talk
about sexual problems (it feels very uncomfortable) and only visit them when it’s
related to kidney stones.
3. The coach is not an expert on anything other than coaching.
Why CEOs of Fortune 500 companies work with coaches?
Why world-stars in sports work with coaches?
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6. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
Do these coaches know more about leading business than our CEO? Do they know
more about tennis than the current #1 ATP player?
Or course not, but there is one thing coaches help them with, which give them a
tremendous advantage: they point out areas of improvement, blind spots, than the
CEO or #1 player cannot see. And this change everything.
The role of the coach is not being an expert. The role of the coach is helping you to
get beyond your current limitations, beliefs and level of awareness so you can
change your current reality.
An unfair advantage to improve your situation
Having a coach gives us a tremendous advantage to move beyond our current
situation faster and achieve our goals.
This profession did not exist when I finished College and started my career. I had to
figure everything out by myself, by trial and error, by learning from people who had
an aptitude to explore my potential that was not comparable with today’s
professional coaches.
My recommendation, therefore, is for you not to repeat my experience.
Do your research and hire a coach.
When searching for a coach, look at two different aspects:
1. As per the school: World-wide renowned school of coaching.
The top ones are: the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC), the
International Coach Federation (ICF), and the International Association of Coaching
(IAC).
Although their certification process differs, all of them have make great progress in
creating and developing the most comprehensive, standardized and
internationally-relevant models for accreditation in coaching.
Having all of them its specific approach, they all strive to meet ethical guidelines
and high professional standards for their coaches to follow.
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7. Coaching: The Possibly Best #1 Solution For You Now
2. As per the coach: Make a little bit of research on the social media to ensure he or
she has the proper expertise, background and professional experience to fit your
requirements.
Unlike other professional disciplines, like, for instance, consultancy, a professional
relationship with a coach, to be effective, is usually much longer. For this reason,
selecting the most appropriate coach for you becomes a critical success factor.
Many coaching contracts extend for a minimum of one year and many coaches
refuse to engage in coaching relationships if the period is below six months. It has
been proved that these periods are the most beneficial for the client to experience
significant improvements.
For that reason, do not rush. Take your time. Do your research, read what they post
or write, interview them and choose the one you feel more comfortable with. The
relation will be long.
And after experiencing a coaching relationship, I would love to hear from you and
have your personal opinion shared so many others could benefit from it.
Eduard Lopez has extensive experience in coaching individuals and teams to
achieve personal and professional results. Eduard is the co-founder and Managing
Director of Human for Human Consulting.
Human for Human Consulting