WHAT COACHING IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT

As a kid, I listened to punk rock and have always hated labeling myself as anything…but that’s what I am: I’m a professional coach. 

I’m also a serial entrepreneur, writer, lover, fitness addict, and have been told I take a handsome photo. (Love you, Mom.) 

We’re all many things, but one thing I am is a professional.  

In the coaching world, it’s becoming more and more important these days to distinguish yourself as a professional. 

In other words—someone who has not only accomplished what your clients want for themselves, but even more importantly someone who has been trained to create transformation in his clients’ lives.

(This, as opposed to someone who looks good with his or her shirt off, slaps the word “coach” on his Instagram bio and stands behind little more than Tony Robbins-ripped motivational quotes.)  

…Charismatic? Certainly. 

…Coach? Not so much. 

Being a model of excellence for your clients is good for marketing. But that doesn’t make you an effective coach. Especially not when your clientele are high performing executives and entrepreneurs who are results-driven and also INCREDIBLY stubborn. (Don’t scowl, you know you are.) 

It’s the same reason why not all athletes make exceptional coaches. It’s not just about knowing how to play the game and being all ra-ra motivational, it’s about enrollment.  

“Enrollment” means sharing in such a way as to have your listener take action. 

To be a good coach, your clients will think that you’re the most interesting person in the room. 

To be an exceptional coach, your clients will think that they’re the most interesting person in the room. 

Your job as a professional coach is to help your clients be an expert in leading their own lives, not following your orders.     

It’s not enough to tell your clients what to do, it’s creating the shift so that they’re telling you what they’re going to create, by when, and why you can rely on them to make it happen.

Extraordinary coaching is having the skill and compassion to enroll your clients in being the DEMAND to cause their own breakthrough.

That way, the results they create are permanent. Not just “results” on the outside, but transformation inside.

How do I know this? Because this is my brilliance. It’s who I am, what I do. And it didn’t come cheap.

In the past few years, I have invested well over $300,000 in my coaching and leadership development, from LA to San Diego, to New York to London, gaining accreditation from the ICF along the way. But who cares about titles, right? I threw that in just because.

Over my career, I’ve spent well over 10,000 hours coaching my clients, mostly entrepreneurs, executives and creatives—and all of them high performers who want more from life.

My mentors, peers and clients are the world’s very best and most successful coaches and online entrepreneurs.

Writing all of this, I’m proud of who I am. When I read these thoughts on the screen, I’m proud to call myself a coach—even if I don’t always feel that way when I see how the profession is represented on the webs.

I put all of my accomplishments at the end of this message because, in truth, none of it matters.

You know when someone is real by measure of the impact he has on your life.

You know by the sense of possibility you feel within yourself.