Coaching Blog

This One Tool May Help You Survive 2020

Posted by Julia Stewart

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Last night, I coached one of my students who was struggling with overwhelm.

But it was soon clear that something else was also going on. She was experiencing something that many are going through in this year of pandemic, social unrest, economic recession, political upheaval, severe storms and other signs of Climate Change.

What I said helped. It could help you, too.

Most coaches are Highly Sensitive People (HSP) who process more information than others.

HSP is inborn and well-researched. We make up about 15-20% of the population. There is a popular variation known as Empaths, a description that is not science-based but includes psychic abilities.

If you are a coach, you likely are an HSP or Empath. Whichever you identify with, you probably have an ability that most folks don't have:

You literally feel other people's emotions.

For a coach, feeling your client's emotions can be a valuable tool for understanding what they are experiencing. But in a year when millions are experiencing more upsetting emotions than usual, the ability to feel everyone's emotions can be an overwhelming liability.

You need an approach to eliminate excess negative emotions, especially from others.

Here's a process I've found that helps me. Before I understood that I was picking up the emotions of others' my life felt chaotic and my emotional state was sometimes turbulent. It was particularly challenging to be around extremely negative people, angry people, and people who were prone to conflict because the more I was with them, the more I became like them. Spending time alone and learning a variety of tools such as meditation helped me get back to my true self.

In extreme situations, I ended relationships that were just too challenging to tolerate. The irony of this approach is that to protect my highly-sensitive empathic self, I had to behave in ways that must have looked like the opposite: selfish and uncaring. There has to be a better way, right? There is.

I experienced a breakthrough when someone I knew, but was not close to, passed away. There were important others in my life who were very close to this person who were grieving. I was surprised to find that I was grieving rather intensely, myself. I felt like I was lugging a heavy duffle bag packed with painful feelings in the middle of my torso, day after day. I explored whether there was some underlying reason why this death was so meaningful to me but I could not find one.

Then it occurred to me that the grief I was feeling wasn't my own. I was spending time with loved ones who were grieving and I had picked it up from them. So I wondered, if those feelings weren't mine, could I just put them down?

In the moment of that thought, all the pain and heaviness evaporated.

I've been using this approach ever since and so can you. To use it remember the following:

  • If the negative feelings are your own, you need to get the message or information they carry before you let them go. Emotions are just messengers and must stick around until you get the message. If you bury them, they will shift underground and pop up later, sometimes more intensely. Your own feelings are there to help you. Don't try to ignore them.
  • If the negative feelings are coming from someone close to you, they are telling you important information about that person's feelings. Again, for the sake of your relationship, pay attention to the message before you release those feelings. A compassionate conversation with the other person can help. If you must, it is okay to limit contact with someone who is chronically upsetting you. If they are abusive toward you, it is fine to end that relationship. You can't offer your best gifts to the world if you are constantly licking your own wounds.
  • If you are just picking up random pain from others, such as co-workers or even via social media or cable news, realize that pain is not about you. It also is not yours to carry. Envision it as something separate from you, like a heavy duffle bag. Then give yourself permission to put down that burden. You might even envision yourself turning it in to the the Lost & Found. Then walk away knowing you did the right thing,
  • Don't hold on to an emotional burden out of guilt or solidarity with those who are suffering. Other people do not benefit when you are crippled by their pain. They do benefit when you can be fully compassionate and caring without being drawn into chaos and confusion.
  • You can care about others best when your empathy is manageable.


Self care for empaths means limiting the amount of pain you carry.

2020 will give us all plenty of practice with negative feelings. Be kind to yourself and others through this difficult time. Also, be aware that your own negativity, as well as any negativity you pick up from others, can rub off on additional people. Strong emotions are contagious. Don't be a spreader.

 

You can coach best when your emotions are mostly positive.

 

If you are a coach or are thinking about becoming one, you're invited to attend a live course we offer a few times per year called, Fully Alive. It is experiential and includes a wealth of tools that can help you manage life in this especially turbulent world. The course is free to everyone.

 

To register for the next one, please visit our public catalog or register below.

Attend Fully Alive for Givers for Free

 

Topics: become a coach, coaching tool, economy, highly sensitive, Covid, Black Lives Matter

Coach for Entrepreneurs: To Be American in Spirit

Posted by Jeremy Tick

Jeremy Tick, Coach for EntrepreneursThe following guest blog post by Jeremy Tick, Coach for Entrepreneurs, is an invitation to the entrepreneurial spirit that is often identified as the American Spirit, also known as the human spirit. A business owner since the age of 24, Jeremy is uniquely familiar with the challenges faced by individuals at all stages of business development.  His work is dedicated to aid Creative Professionals in building meaningful brands and developing systems and structures for success with which to create sustainable profit. You can reach Jeremy at www.jeremytick.com and www.tickmanagement.com

The unique attribute shared amongst all Americans, the quality that makes each of us the same, regardless of age, race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, politics or ethnic background is that we are all the offspring of immigrants. Each of our ancestors came from somewhere else. Some came to escape religious persecution, some were forced against their will, some came in pursuit of wealth, others came because they needed to find work to support families at home. The list of reasons is endless, yet one fact remains: our ancestors came to this country as immigrants and those who survived stayed. Consciously or not, these individuals became a part of the American Experiment – something bigger than they brought them here and something bigger than themselves kept them going. With the passing of generations, came the pursuit of self-actualization.

Regardless of their place of origin each of our ancestors share one sole quality: willpower. Not a single of them in generations past, save an extraordinary few, had anything handed, granted, given or guaranteed. Through diligence, hard work and sheer determination our ancestors carved out for themselves an identity, experience and resultant way of life.

The fruits of their labor speak volumes. We live in an extraordinary time where the opportunity for self-actualization has never been more present. We are educated and exposed, liberal in our social construct, accepting in our embrace of change, and live in a time and place where elitism by situation of birth has been replaced by an orientation toward meritocracy such as has never, in the history of the modern world, been seen. Economics, in its true iteration, where the market drives all, has taken hold. For those of us capable of its understanding its value, it is time to contemplate this new reality and consider its relevance to our way of being. To achieve this mindset we must consider the roots from whence we stem. To do so is to simplify the quest we embark on in our pursuit of the unreasonable and, in doing so, find a way of being more relevant to our individual talent and attributes and thus our own capabilities for self actualization.

In order for survival of the cultural and lifestyle shock thrust upon our ancestors when arriving in their new ‘home,’ some primal instinct for survival has to have kicked in. The motivators contained in each of our predecessors to understand and identify their place within the construct of this new society, nor what they experienced in doing so, cannot be fully explained save for our own existence. Yet via the opportunities to live in the free economy that now lay before us, that they created for us, we share one key attribute: this same orientation, willpower. There is hope. There is opportunity, there is a promise of freedom from the burdens of debt, for ownership of homes and businesses and education such that we can experience a life of fulfillment in ways that our predecessors identified and worked toward for us. To find these we must look inside of ourselves and create a new reality such that we can achieve these now fundamental luxuries and in doing so, fulfill our familial destiny.

It is safe to say that many of us, having spent our developmental years preparing to play a game no longer in existence are experiencing some of the same discontent/disenchantment/disorientation that our ancestors did. Those of us old enough to recall working in the pre-recession days likely miss certain perks, comforts and other accouterment of the corporate life. We miss the promise of stability and the structures promised and fulfilled. Those of us who spent years preparing to participate in the economy in the ways in which we most identified, socially and intellectually, likely find a certain disconnect in the way we think of ourselves and the opportunities presented as income generating situations. Indeed, many of us have had dreams modified, broken or disjointed as result of the externalities that surround us. But the truth is that this is the situation of life as it currently presents itself and it is time to stop whining about it. Social welfare is not going to change this, the creation of new work opportunity by some large governing body will not repair the displacement we feel as result of the economic correction. No new and great job creation on the part of the government or large entity is going to fix what has become antiquated and broken. Novelty and change will always prevail – this is a reality that has to be accepted – and embraced – for without change there would be none of the possibility and progress we now live. The only way to achieve and restore our faith and capabilities lies in a reorientation and perhaps even a constitutional recall into the stuff that we are truly made of. It will require a great deal of digging, but just as the titled nobility once rested on the laurels of its birth and the achievements of those before them, so too can we: inside of ourselves lives the capacity to forge the lives we are entitled to, just as our ancestors, wholly displaced and confused by the realities of their migratory situations did before us. It just takes work.

This personal work requires us to reassess not only our roots but also our visceral priorities. We often look to past generations and the relative ease they seem to have experienced in the attainment of life’s simpler pleasures: often the pictures portray a grandparent in front of a new home, during the purchase of a new car, or wearing a cap and gown. Note that many of these pictures are taken at an age older than sixteen or twenty-two or even at twenty-eight – it is no matter. Note too, that many of the achievements made by our predecessors were on a smaller scale than that which we aspire to. For those of us still ‘holding on’ to the notion of self entitlement by situation of birth, this opens the argument of possibility to suggest that the American Dream is dead, that the work of the generations before us and their sacrifices and investment for our wellbeing were for naught given the implosion of the market and its resultant fallout. But I will argue differently. This is our situation by birth. I do not believe that our for-bearers fought through their work in coalmines or on cotton plantations or in fields or in sweatshops or in water as journeymen or teamsters so that we could find cushy employment in cubicles. I believe they invested in this way of life because of their belief in the opportunity to feel complete in their economic participation – that those of them who toiled forward provided for future generations by giving them access to a life different than their own, invested, through hard work, in our ability to have choices to do the same for ourselves. And somehow, the largess achieved benchmarks of their own. No, many of them did not summer in the Hamptons, nor did they take the Grand Tour, nor did even many of them attend school beyond that which was vital, available or convenient relevant to family welfare. But they worked, fed and clothed their children and provided for you to have the opportunity to find your own capacity to contribute to your family’s legacy and thus their own.

It is true, these people may not have toiled in the fashion that you seek, feel entitled to based on the situations of your birth or even really want to. But they worked toward achievement of a higher standard of life than previously existed because they tried, they cared, and they took notice and pride in a job well done. While their lives may not have been as exciting as the ones we had once envisioned for ourselves, they seem to have been just fine. The transfer of wealth between the WW II Generation and its predecessors is the largest in history. This is not because most of them invented some new widget that made them wealthy quickly nor because of their lofty positions in corner offices. It is because they worked hard, saved, purchased quality product that which was within their reach, and passed these things down to their children – legacies of a sort – that many amongst us seem to overlook in our pursuit of new and untold wealth at very early and quite frankly, unreasonable ages. In short, our ancestors, lived their lives with common sense approaches to problems. And through their work, found attainment of the life they identified for and created for themselves.

Maneuvering forward, it can be suggested that for most immigrants life upon arrival was less than pleasant. This is not to discount the population of people whose ancestors were brought by force, but contained inside those who survived and foraged forward to achieve the same pursuit of liberty as those before them, was something bigger than aspiration: it was the human spirit. These individuals, even more than their neighbors, were clearly in possession of a determination unlike any others in modern history: the result of their contribution is incalculable. But this is not meant to be a history lesson nor is it meant to bring up moot subjects as they pertain to human rights - what is meant to be discussed is both the entrepreneurial and survival spirit contained in us all, instilled at birth, that we cannot overlook or avoid - our responsibility to ourselves and our families, as Americans.

The concept of an American life is so multi-faceted that to pursue any form of dialogue surrounding it is to be left for drinks at the end of a workday or to be explored in a dissertation. Let’s leave it for that. What I am instead referencing is the need for a recollection of sorts, the importance of digging down inside of oneself and finding the necessary gumption required to avoid the complacence set forth by the never ending pursuit of more that so many of us fall prey to.

It is safe to say that many of us do not and cannot achieve the dreams we set forth for ourselves as children. While a sad truth, it is also a realistic one. Many of us will never be movie stars nor will we be Presidents, nor astronauts nor media moguls. For the vast majority of us, at some point in our lives a realistic approach to the creation of meaningful survival must be embraced – else we will forever find ourselves feeling somewhat empty, devoid of the dreams of our youth and disappointed by the way things have panned out because life just does not replicate the movies, no matter how many of the behaviors of the big screen we emulate. While sobering, the sooner we begin to contemplate the relevance of such a concept, the sooner we can begin to find inner peace and reorganize our expectations and aspirations to accommodate the reality of society as it now presents itself. The fact is and remains that with the global recession and the shrinking of the world as result of technology there is a need and rationale for new thought. And to find the spirit contained inside of us required to achieve this really only needs to spoken to, recalled and reminded of its existence in order to be woken from its dormant sleep. Through its awakening inside each of us lies the ability to achieve an element of inner peace, of security, of any number of other things long forgotten as we as a collective continually seek to emulate the leisure class in our pursuits, and in doing so, become more and more beholden to the increasingly more antiquated system rapidly losing its relevance. Self-employment, creative business efforts and technical expertise distributed though trade practices, entrepreneurial endeavors manifested into functional business, is the only route toward this freedom.

For some technology is the only answer to entrepreneurship. For others too, success on a large scale is the only reasonable pursuit of any form of career. Indeed, in my experience of many entrepreneurs, the pursuit of funding to underwrite their endeavors seems to be the most logical route to follow. Rarely is there a desire to perform the work necessary to get the widget they seek to bring to market nor is there a willfulness to accept economic realities or realistic assessment of market opportunity as it pertains to their product. I will state this over and over again: entrepreneurship is not writing a business plan, pitching an idea or seeking funding. Entrepreneurism is the creation of a product or service of value distributed for profit in perpetuity. Entrepreneurism is not always fun nor is it a fast road to success and riches. But it is the ability to be the master of your own fate, to test within and allow for the market to determine your success and once identified, for you to capitalize upon these findings in pursuit of the profit that drives all economics. And thus, become an entrepreneur.

Visit Jeremy Tick on School of Coaching Mastery

Topics: business coach, coach, business, business skills, economy, Talent Coach, Entrepreneur

10% of Coaching Schools Go Out of Business Every Year

Posted by Julia Stewart

coaching schoolsThe Sherpa Executive Coaching Summary, a large-scale annual survey on the state of executive, life and business coaching, was just released yesterday, with a startling statistic that 10% of all coaching schools worldwide go out of business every year - every year.

I've heard this statistic tossed about in reference to specific years, but now it's becoming an annual trend? This flies in the face of an old coaching myth, that the real money is in coach training, not coaching. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Why are coaching schools going out of business when the profession of coaching is still growing?

1. One theory is that there are too many coaching schools. As Donna Steinhorn mentioned in her recent The Truth About Coach Training post, 10-12 years ago, there were only a few coach training schools, but now there are well over 100 coaching schools, worldwide. Sherpa says there are actually over 300 coach training schools in the world. In fact, peer.ca, which tries to compile all the coach training schools worldwide, lists 508, as of today.

That means around 50 coaching schools will go out of business this year. Will one of them be yours?

2. Another theory is that many professional coaches, believing the myth that 'the real money is in coach training', started coaching schools when their businesses were challenged recently during Depression 2.0. If that's the case, I'm guessing most of them have/will go out of business, because it is actually much more expensive and time-consuming to run a quality coach training business than it is to run a coaching business.

Personally, I made more money per hour as 'just a coach' than I do running School of Coaching Mastery. Education, done well, is labor-intensive and labor is expensive.

Why do I do it? SCM is a labor of love for me. I have a vision of one million master coaches worldwide and I'm just getting started.

3. Another theory of why 10% of coach training schools go out of business, is that coach training has become a commodity. There is so much competition that schools are competing on price, rather that value. This was further supported by the incredibly high unemployment rates of the past few years, when people were desperately trying to start coaching businesses with little or no money.

When money is extremely tight, unlikely promises, such as the promise of one coaching school mentioned by Sherpa, that you can 'Become a Certified Professional Life Coach in Just 16 Hours' for $397 or $497, or whatever the price du jour is, become alluringly tempting. If such a school also brags about their 3000 successful graduates, you have to wonder about their criteria for 'success'. I've talked to quite a few 'graduates' of these 2-week wonders (because eventually they realize they need more training and contact me) and not one of them has told me they ever got a single paying client.

So in the race to the bottom, some schools, even the huge schools that were founded in the mid-nineties, have become less profitable. And if you're not in it for love, you'll get out if there's not much profit.

School of Coaching Mastery is about to turn five years old in March. We've weathered Depression 2.0 and our international Ultimate Coach Training coach-students are spreading their masterful coaching skills to thousands of grateful (paying) clients. 

I wouldn't close this coaching school for anything. I've got too much work to do to get those one million master coaches out there changing the world for the better.

What do you think? Do 10% of all coach training schools really go out of business each year? Why or why not? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section, below.

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Topics: Coaching, executive coaching, coach training, School of Coaching Mastery, free coach training, Business Coaches, Life Coaches, coach training schools, coaching schools, economy

8 Reasons Some Coaches Don't Have Enough Coaching Clients

Posted by Julia Stewart

Coach chasing client

Is It Really So Hard to Get Coaching Clients?

A few weeks ago, a colleague said something to me about 'coaches who can't get clients' and a nerve broke for me. I'm fed up with the image of the coach who's always chasing clients, but never catches them. Chasing doesn't work. But getting clients is simple.

I've heard this whine for years. And it usually comes from people who, themselves, are having a tough time of it. And often they are hanging out with people who are also struggling. Therefore, they reason, it must be hard for everyone.

 Well I'm here to debunk this myth: Coaches DO get clients. Plenty of them.

How do I know that coaches get plenty of clients? Because I mentor them and teach them. It's just as common to for me to hear from coaches who have too many clients and want to redesign their businesses as it is to hear from coaches who don't have enough clients.

Even in 2009, the worst year for the economy that most of us have ever seen, my students were building their businesses with new paying clients. Some of them were supporting their entire families with their new coaching businesses and commanding fees that impressed even me. And veteran coaches reported that they were doing fine. Some were doing better then ever.

Does that mean that coaches didn't notice the recession? Sure we did, but less than you'd think. I noticed a decline in the number of new coaching students, for instance, but the number of coaching clients that I have has stayed steady. 

In every business, some people don't succeed. But if it's a growing business like coaching, you can bet more people are succeeding than failing.

There are 8 reasons why some coaches don't have enough coaching clients:

  1. They're new and they haven't given it enough time, yet.
  2. They still need training.
  3. They haven't defined what 'enough' is.
  4. Their environment isn't supporting them.
  5. They aren't doing enough to succeed.
  6. They're doing the wrong stuff.
  7. They've got shadow issues holding them back.
  8. They're in the wrong business.
All of these eight 'problems' are simple to solve: Get more experience. Get the training you need. Set realistic goals on how many clients (and how much money) you want. Redesign your environment so it supports your business. Work harder and more consistently. Get a better strategy. Work with a coach to get over your garbage. Face the music, if necessary, and change careers.
 
Getting enough coaching clients is simple, but not always easy. But if you really love your work, you'll overcome every challenge, because it's so darn fun.
 
Several years ago, I hit a dry spell in my own coaching business. I had changed my business model and clients weren't coming to me as easily as they had previously. To make matters worse, I was shopping for a home, so it was no time for a reduction in income! Then I remembered my own business-building program, Coach 100, and I decided to take my own medicine.
 
Did I get plenty of clients? Yes. Was it a lot of work? Yes. Was it worth it? Well I love to coach, so yes absolutely! I bought that home, too. And this was before I started the school, so my only income was from my coaching clients.
 
This year, I've had it (Had it!!) with the old lament that coaches have trouble getting clients. That's garbage! So I've launched a new Coach 100 Mentor Program to prove it. It's for coaches who are ready (Really Ready) to get out of the garbage that's been holding them back and step into their true Greatness, thriving business and all.

Don't join us unless you're willing to abandon ALL your old excuses and are willing to do what works in your own unique way and fill your coaching practice once and for all.

There are some sweet deals for the coaches who join the Coach 100 Mentor Group early. If you're tired of making excuses, check it out.

Do you agree or disagree that getting coaching clients is simple? Please share your thoughts in the comments section, below.

Join here.

 

 Check out the Coach 100 Mentor Group here.

 

Topics: coaching business, Coaching, Career, group coaching, money, mentor coach, Coach 100, coaching clients, coach, economy

Career Coaching Spikes Says CNN Money

Posted by Julia Stewart

CNN Money LogoOn September 29th, CNNMoney wrote, "Should You Hire a Career Coach?"

In it, Christopher Metzler, associate dean for human resources studies at Georgetown University, says, "Any time there's an economic downturn, career coaching spikes,"

With job searches now averaging 25 weeks, it's no surprise that the out-of-work are looking for every competitive advantage they can find. And while career coaching is not cheap,  one session averages $161, it more than pays for itself, if you land a great job a few months earlier than you would have otherwise.

There are pitfalls, however. As the article points out, not everyone who calls him/herself a career coach is skilled or qualified to help you reach your goals. And the quality of coach certifications varies widely. Some coach certification training programs take only a weekend to complete, with every participant guaranteed a certificate just for showing up. (I recently spoke to a coach who completed one such program. She confirmed that it was "pretty much a joke.")

Two places you can find career coaches who have pledged their professionalism, are the coaching trade organizations, IAC and ICF. Each has a Find-a-Coach feature. You can also find career coaches at Mastery Coach Exchange, where you can easily connect with and find out about your coach, before trying them out.

Other coaching specialties that do especially well in economic downturns are business and corporate coaching, executive coaching, and money coaching, but even fields like life coaching do surprisingly well, especially now that there are lower-cost options.

Here's the full CNNMoney article on career coaching. Check out their sidebar for more interesting information about it.

Read the Coaching Commons article on the same subject here.

Topics: business coach, corporate coaching, executive coaching, Career, ICF, Coach Certification, Life Coaching, IAC, certified coach, economy, FIND A COACH

Should You Become a Coach In an Economic Downturn?

Posted by Julia Stewart

Future of Coaching Butterfly by Codice Tuna Colectivo de Arte cropped
 
Is it or isn't it? A recession, I mean? How many thousands of hours of airtime have "pundits" used up analyzing our economy and still we don't know if it's the Big R or not?

All that professional fretting can sure make a new business person nervous! And those of us who've been at it for a while are concerned, too. On the other hand, any time there is a shake up of any sort, new opportunities pop up. The fun of being in business is watching the landscape change and noticing the next big windows of opportunity before everyone else does.

A freaky economy brings plenty of opportunity. So call me perverse, but I'm having fun ;-)

It's a little bit different for a friend of mine, who owns an upscale home-building and design company. His business has definitely been impacted by the real estate/mortgage/credit crisis, although, as any high-quality company can, his is doing nicely compared to his lower-quality competitors.

By comparison, my business seems hardly to have noticed that people apparently are no longer spending like there's no tomorrow. Why? It's international. The weak US Dollar actually makes my services and products a bit of a bargain for my clients in say, the UK. They're paying half what they might have paid a few years ago. (Yay for them!)

In the past year, the percentage of non-US clients and customers in my business (coaching clients, live event participants and buyers of products) has at least doubled. They are filling in spaces that would have been taken by Americans, so it's a wash.

Well that's nice, but what does it mean to you if you're new to coaching? Here's my advice, based on what I observed during the last recession:

Between 2001-2003 there was a well documented recession and the number of coaches seemed to double. Why? Thomas Leonard's "low cost" coach training drove some of it, but a big reason was that thousands of people got laid off from their jobs and interpreted that as a sign that it was time for them to quit the corporate grind and become a coach. They got sold on the myth that anybody can be a professional coach. By 2005, there was quite a bit of pain and misery amongst these coaches and a lot of them dropped out.

The reasons why they quit are diverse, but a lot of them ran out of money before they built up their coaching businesses to a sustainable level. Some of them just weren't cut out to be entrepreneurs and never really "got" the mind set needed to run a small professional service business. And some of them weren't cut out for coaching; it wasn't nearly as easy as they expected.

I suspect that some of the coach-training companies preyed on all those out-of-work hopefuls and painted an overly rosy picture of their prospects, but I really don't know that for a fact.

I'm lucky I wasn't one of those miserable coaches, because I started my training in 2001. Why did I make it when others didn't? One very big reason is that I got in just ahead of the big surge. That meant I had mastered the coaching skills I needed to get and keep paying clients before the number of new coaches pouring into the market doubled. All those late comers had to struggle to get their coaching skills, personal development, sales & marketing (might as well call it S&M, if you don't know how to do it), and business & finance skills up to a level where they could compete at a time when there were way more coaches, but NOT way more clients. Ouch!

The lesson there is that if you're thinking of becoming a coach and you suspect there is going to be a recession, then get into it before mass layoffs send thousands more into the coaching business. In fact, it's smart to get your training while you still have a job that will pay the bills. Coaching is a big learning curve. You can't learn quickly if your worried about money most of the time. And desperate coaches scare away potential clients. (Double ouch.)

One more thing, you remember my friend with the high-quality construction company that's doing okay even though the construction business is terrible? When only a few sales are still being made, it's Quality that still sells.

What does that mean to you? 

1. If you're going to be a coach, be the coach with the best skills, who offers the most service. Then you needn't worry about the hoards of new coaches who may or may not flood the industry in coming months. You'll be the coach that clients from around the world will seek out and happily pay. Quality sells itself.

2. Be sure you have a source of additional income for the first few years, just in case you need it. It's much easier to sign on new clients when you don't need the money. (In other words, don't wait 'til you get laid off to get training and start your business.)

3. Find out if you really want to be a coach. If coaching is for you, then you'll be glad you learned everything you could about it, whether you become a successful coach-preneur or you use it in another profession. (Currently, there are at least twice as many coaches who call themselves managers, business owners, teachers, etc., as there are professional coaches.) Coaching skills enhance every profession (and offer job security). Introduction to Positive Psychology Coaching was designed for people like you.

4. Don't be the tail of the dog. It's a lot easier to succeed if you get in before everyone and his cousin joins up. If you're thinking about getting coach training, now is the time to do it. (School of Coaching Mastery isn't for everyone, but we'll be happy to help you find out if it's right for you.)

5. Don't quit. If you do these first 4 Rules on Getting Into Coaching When the Economy is Funky, you odds of succeeding are extremely high. And if you love it, you'll have the time of your life!

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2008
 
Learn More: Get the Free Become a Coach eBook
 
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Topics: School of Coaching Mastery, become a coach, economy, want to be a coach, positive psychology coaches

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