Coaching Blog

I spoke to a member of Certification Bootcamp this morning about her Coaching Triads.

She called me because I sent her a rather cryptic message:

1. Stop being 'nice'; start being honest.
2. Dig deeper. 

But maybe I should back up a bit and mention what a coaching triad is and how it helps you become a master coach. A coaching triad is a tool I dreamed up with one of my mentor coaches many years ago as a way for coaches to prep for IAC Certification. Triads provide learning on multiple levels and they are free. Three coaches get on a three-way-calling line or use a free bridge line. They each take turns being the coach, the client and the observer. After each coaching session, they talk about what they heard. Everybody learns - fast. This is an 'extra service' that Bootcamp members are using to prep for the live intensive - fast.

Back to the coach who called me. You see, someone (I thought it was her) from the bootcamp emailed me over the weekend, and asked how to tell a triad partner that her coaching was missing the mark. She also mentioned that she was having trouble coming up with a problem or goal to be coached on in every triad session. Hence my advice above.

It turns out I sent the advice to the 'wrong' coach, but it fit perfectly for her. And I can't find the original email from whoever sent it and I suspect it doesn't exist. (Imagine the theme from the Twilight Zone playing).

Those questions are common problems for coaches in triads until they start thinking like master coaches. Then the problems disappear like 'magic', because their thinking has changed.

We employ as many tools like these as possible so our student/coaches become master coaches faster. Certification, especially live certification, turns up the heat like a catalyst in a chemical reaction. Learning become almost instant.

I believe it was Leonard Bernstein who said that to achieve great things, it takes a plan and not quite enough time. So I suggest you plan to be a master coach faster. It's the surest way to coaching success. Once you start thinking like a master coach, you'll understand why.

Ready to achieve great things and become a master coach faster? There are 2 seats left at the early bird price for the live Certification Bootcamp intensive. Join us!

 Oh, and if you're the one who sent me that email, you're answer is above.

One of the many hurdles that a new coach might struggle with is getting up that first website.

Honestly, most coaches make this harder than it has to be. And if you're waiting to fill your business with clients until after the website is up, you're giving yourself an unnecessary delay. Why?

• Unless you're an marketing genius, most of your clients won't find you through your site, anyway. At least not at first.
• In fact, most of your clients don't care if you even have a website.
• There are so many other ways to to be found on the web besides a traditional website (social networking, directories, blogs, portals, etc.) that are probably juicier ways to attract clients, anyway. 

But a site's a good thing to have, so if you're struggling with it, here's a great way to get a site up in less than an hour. Buy a URL (web address) and point it to your 'personal web portal' (Bribe your 13 year old nephew to handle the web address, or pay a webmaster, if you must. GoDaddy and HostGator are 2 sites where you can get the address for a few bucks.)

Where do you get a 'personal web portal'? Here are 3 possibilities: flavors.me, chi.mp, and unhub. Watch the demo below to see how flavors works. Easy enough that even you can do it (Let's face it, your nephew's taste in graphics just won't work for your coaching site, anyway.)

Once your portal is up, add links to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MCX, Flickr & YouTube accounts. Then remember to add a link TO your portal from all the social sites and directories that you belong to, so people can find you on the web. You can add your new web address to your business card and Voila! your website problem is solved.

Flavors.me from Jack Zerby on Vimeo.

Get the free Coach 100 eBook for a better way to attract coaching clients.

I've talked to hundreds of coaches and nearly all of them say the same thing:

They see themselves equally as entrepreneurs and professionals. I'm not surprised.

DEFINITION:

Entrepreneur: Someone who starts businesses for fun. May or may not be successful.

Professional: Someone with professional training & credentials who offers professional services for a fee. May or may not be successful.

Coaches don't just wear two hats. You could say we have two brains, when it comes to running our businesses. One for the entrepreneur (Fun & profit!) and one for the professional (I'll learn everything I can to give the best results and I have credentials that confirm that.)

I love being an entrepreneur. It's loads of fun. I bet you do too. And I bet your inner professional held you back until he/she was convinced you'd done what it takes to be the best you can be. Not always fun - but worth it, if you want to be a professional with integrity. And necessary, if you want to be a professional who succeeds.

You see, to your inner professional, practicing your profession without the appropriate credentials is as terrifying as walking down the red carpet stark naked!

• Or performing brain surgery without being a doctor.
• Or flying a plane without a pilot's license.

There's no getting around this, if you see yourself as a professional. So, if you're a coach who wants more clients and you're trying to do it without training and certification (the coaching profession's recognized credentials), then your inner professional is just trying to save you from disaster and humiliation.

You can thank it for that.

Your inner entrepreneur doesn't get this. It's busy running a cool business and it doesn't have time & money to spend on more training. And anyway, coaches don't really need certification, right?

Actually, according to a number of studies (See Coaching Sherpa), professional coaches without training & certification earn less, become successful more slowly, and/or drop out of the profession after a couple of years.

No surprise, eh?

You've got to get your inner professional and inner entrepreneur talking to each other. They need to work together so you can have the fun, ease and profits you planned on and the integrity you require.

Fortunately for you, there's something that will make both your inner professional and inner entrepreneur very, very happy.

It's called Certification Bootcamp. It's for practicing coaches, only, and it's short on both time and money, long on fun, and high on quality, value and results (Listen, I'm a professional, too).

The premiere edition of CERTIFICATION BOOTCAMP is coming up in a few weeks.

IT INCLUDES:

• 10 TELE-WEBINAR CLASSES
• 4 TELECONFERENCES
• 1 LIVE EVENT

You can customize it and take only what you need.

It's fast and fun and priced so low, even your inner entrepreneur will love it. If you jump in quickly, you inner professional will breathe a sigh of relief and will finally, FINALLY, let you succeed like you know you are meant to.

NO MORE GOING NAKED.

This program is only open to a few good coaches and it's already filling, so if you're at all curious, check it out right now. Your inner professional will thank you.

If you have more questions, call us at +1-877-224-2780

Check out Coach Certification Bootcamp here.

Artifact From the Future:

On April 1st, 2014, the International Association of Coaching released its new IAC Coaching Supremacies^TM, the intellectual property on which its elite IAC Certified Coach designation will be based, going forward.

Reached for comment, current IAC President, Thomas J Leonard, often called the ‘Father of Coaching' and recently brought back to life via advancements in cryogenics said, ‘I'm pleased with the improvements in coaching during my absence, except for all The Secret hoohah... With the release of the new coaching supremacies, I'd say coaching has reached about 13% of its full potential.' Mr. Leonard founded the IAC in 2003 with the mission to ‘Improve the Quality of Coaching Worldwide'.

Here are the Five IAC Coaching Supremacies^TM:

1. Is Completely Transparent: The Certified Coach is so honest, straightforward and highly evolved that in many cases, he/she has  achieved complete invisibility. This negates the need for pajamas while coaching by phone. The advantage of transparency is that the supreme coach gains complete trust from the client, who often is unaware that the coach is even there. It also aides in Supremacy #2.

2. Really Sees the Client: The Certified Coach doesn't rely on client truthfulness. That can come in short supply. Rather, the supreme coach can view everything the clients says and does, electronically, physically or metaphysically, 168 hours per week and coaches the Truth, not some story about the truth. For the geographically or metaphysically challenged coach, a new iShadow App for iPad can be purchased from iTunes for 99 cents. A copycat version for droidPad is also available for free from Google.

3. Is Utterly Silent: The Certified Coach has mastered the skill of silence so completely, he/she doesn't have to say anything. Ever. And the client is then coached, well, supremely. Supreme coaches say this advanced skill set speeds up the coaching process by at least 10 fold. When contacted for comment, Coach Mattison Grey had no comment.

4. Creates Outcomes by Thinking: The Certified Coach has mastered the Law of Attraction (or Principles of Attraction, if you prefer) so thoroughly that he/she merely has to think and feeeel what the client really wants and the client gets it, pronto. This is casually known as the genie-in-the-bottle skill. No need for poky structures, systems or environments to do the work. That's so 2010.

5. Coaches Beyond Enlightenment: The Certified Coach knows that every level of advanced consciousness carries with it its own peculiar dysfunction. Whether it's complacency, absence of boundaries, severe financial woes, or how to feng shui a cave, even enlightened clients, now estimated to make up at least 50% of all coaching clients, need their own version of a kick in the pants now and then and the supreme coach knows how to deliver it.

IAC Eurasia Chapter President, B. K. Ramalamabananananda, who lives in Mumbai, the current epicenter of professional coaching, and who specializes in coaching Bollywood starlets said, ‘These coaching supremacies are really nothing new. Indian saints have been performing such feats for centuries, so why not coaches?'

Want to stay abreast on the future of coaching? Join our IAC virtual chapter and get this free white paper, plus more goodies. No joke.

Coach Natalie Tucker Miller just returned with some amazing insights from last week's Shanghai Coaching Conference.

School of Coaching Mastery's own Dean of Students, Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, just returned from her visit to China as keynote speaker for the 2010 Shanghai Coaching Conference. As former President of the IAC and the current Lead Certifier for the IAC, Natalie was a natural choice to keynote for this first ever live IAC coaching conference.

But more than that, Natalie is one of the best examples of a great coach that I know. I'm sure coaches in Asia loved just being in the room with her!

It wasn't easy catching up with Natalie to do an interview, but I knew that our readers from around the globe would be curious to hear about the enthusiasm and desire to embrace coaching mastery that Natalie encountered in Shanghai.

Here's what she told me:

JS: Natalie, thanks for doing this interview. What surprised you most about Asian coaches and the Asian coaching industry?

NTM: Asian coaches are so very interested to be on the leading edge of coaching! It's very inspiring to recognize how much we can learn from one another and that coaching opens those doors of sharing and possibility. The very nature of coaching encourages this as no other profession ever has, and it allows coaching's trademark "win-win".

Coaches around the globe see coaching as a way to bring about positive change for humanity, and there may be no place where that is more evident than in Asia. There is a great desire to help others, and improve the conditions of people's lives and work. There do not seem to be borders for the coaches who recognize these possibilities.

JS: Wow, that's truly inspiring! What stood out for you in terms of the attitudes of Asian coaches toward certification and training?

NTM: There is a powerful desire to achieve high levels of mastery in coaching. The coaches I spoke with in Asia want to know what the requirements for coaching mastery are and what needs to be done in order to fulfill those requirements. They seemed very interested in understanding the nuances of transformative coaching outcomes and learning what it takes to coach at that level.

JS: They sounds like high achievers! No wonder there is so much happening in the Asian coaching world. Describe the people who attended this coaching conference. What were they curious about? What kinds of questions did they ask and what did you tell them?

NTM: It was truly an international conference, with Asian representation as well as coaches from Europe, Australia and North America. There were certified coaches, coaches curious about certification, owners of coach training programs and representatives from companies who either shared their coaching success stories, or wanted to know what to expect by including coaching in their employee support programs.

Since this was based in China, there was a lot of interest in how and even if coaching skills could be applied cross culturally. What was concluded was that, when applying high coaching standards, cultural differences do not inhibit the process. There is great interest and support for the IAC Coaching Masteries® as a model for global standards.

JS: What do you see as the future of coaching in Asia and elsewhere?

NTM: I believe we will see a unifying of global coaching standards and a continued trajectory of professionalism in coaching. And as a huge success for the IAC, I think we'll see more live conferences hosted by the IAC.

Also, there are many Asian corporations bringing a coaching culture into their companies and this will continue to grow to all sectors of business, large and small. As China continues to grow as an economic and business center, there is great potential for coaching to grow there as well as all around the world. There are far more similarities than differences among people and this conference reinforced that for me in a big way!

JS: Thanks again, Natalie, for being the great leader that you are. I know our coaching students feel blessed to get to work with you!

If you have a pasion for coaching mastery and want to train with one of the very best, you can do so very affordably and from where ever you are in the world. Natalie with be teaching IAC Coaching Mastery 7 starting April 6th via live tele-webinar. Join Mastery 7 here.

We also have a limited-time special opportunity for new members of our Full Coach Training Program and Certified Coach Training Program where they can work with a certified mentor coach for three months at no extra charge and Natalie is one of our mentor coaches!

Want to know more about how you can work with Natalie? Call 1-877-224-2680 or email here to make an appointment with one of our enrollment advisors.

Last year's Best Coaching Blogs 2009 was hugely popular.

Over 30,000 visitors read and voted on their favorite blogs and the winners, from all over the world, ranged from big coaching organizations to new coaching students.

We're getting ready to do it again. After reviewing a variety of approaches to help us upgrade security and fairness, we realized we already have eveything we need to run another great contest.

Who can enter Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Any self-described coach who already has a blog. Please don't enter if you aren't at least a coaching student and obviously don't enter this year if you don't already have a blog.

What's the benefit of entering Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Hundreds, if not thousands of new readers, potentially getting picked up by lists of top blogs, connecting with other thought leaders in the coaching world, prizes and bragging rights (including a badge for your site) if you win. Oh yeah, and it's fun!

Right now, we're looking for sponsors to help kick in some prizes in exchange for a little promotion on our site. If you offer a product or service that coaches would be interested in and want to be a contest sponsor, let me know here. (Sorry, contestants can't be sponsors, so you have to choose how you want to play.)

The contest last year ran from May through June, but we'll be accepting entries earlier this year. Watch this blog for upcoming announcements. I recommend you subscribe by email or RSS.

Why do we hold a Best Coaching Blogs Contest every year? Lots of reasons, including:

• Reading blogs is one of the best free ways to learn about this business.
• Participating in the blogosphere is a super way to establish yourelf as a thought leader, even if you don't have your own blog.
• Connecting with bloggers and readers can bring you ideas, opportunities, collaborators and clients.
• Much, much more. 

Subscribe to the Coaching Blog above right, to keep informed about this exciting coaching contest.

We're adding some major upgrades to our students' experiences at School of Coaching Mastery.

One new change is that Dean of Students, Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, is taking a more active role in orientation of new students, as well as answering questions for ongoing students and helping them stay on track with goals like IAC Coach Certification. Natalie of course, is an amazing coach and master instructor (She's leading our Mastery 6 Clarifying module, this month.). She's also past President and current Lead Certifier for the IAC. This month, she's speaking at the Shanghai Coaching Conference, too. Busy lady! But not too busy to meet personally with new coaching students to help them get off to a fantastic start with their coaching careers.

The second change is one that Curriculum Coordinator, Dee Taviner, has been hard at work on for months. It's a new membership and content management system that is really slick. We are SO excited about the possibilities that this new system adds for our students. Plus, we're adding a whole new way to play for coaches who want inside coaching knowledge, but don't need or aren't ready for a full-service coach training school. We're almost ready for a few beta testers. Please stand by...

And speaking of Dee Taviner, I can't help but mention our ongoing Study Groups. There are so many ways a study group can enhance your career (just ask Natalie), but that topic deserves its own blog post. I DO want you to know that in addition to Dee's Seven Secrets of Certification Student Group, talented SCM coach/student, Heidi Courtney, is now leading the Coaching Co-op Study Group.

Join a free Coaching Study Group here.

I've written a lot lately about how to build a successful coaching business without complex marketing systems or pricing structures.

Here are a few high points on how to give successful complimentary coaching sessions:

• Focus on the client, not on yourself. Your nerves and even your desire to do a good job are all about you. Coaching is all about them.
• Focus on expanding the client's possibilities instead of solving the client's problems. Every great coach knows that problem solving is the least of your gifts.
• Focus on the relationship and the potential relationship. Help the client see what's possible with your coaching.
• Give the client an experience. Of themselves, the value of the coaching relationship and the potential outcomes of working with you.
• Notice all the information that your client and your intuition are sending you. This is how you recognize a good client fit.
• If you and the client are a great fit, invite them to work with you.

Last night's call with Adela Rubio* was awesome, but it brought up a controversy in coaching which is, what is coaching, anyway?

You'd think by now we'd have that figured out, wouldn't you? Well we have. The thing is, in a profession with no unifying body, we naturally have more than one definition.

That's what makes coaching controversial. People know it 'works', because we have research and results, but not everybody agrees on what coaching is to begin with.

I'm sympathetic to a point, with the folks who say anything goes, since we're not regulated. But ultimately that point of view is a disservice to the consumer, who trust me, is way more confused than we are.

I believe coach trainers and certifiers owe it to the public to speak up about standards in coaching. This isn't every coach's job, but it's our job, because of the positions we're in.

So here's my stand on what is coaching:

'Pure' coaching is a highly customized conversation between a professional and a client that leads to a successful outcome for the client. In it's purest form, coaching is delivered one-to-one. Small group delivery also makes customization possible and has other advantages. 

It's certainly possible to share coaching questions, excercises and come-froms in larger groups or via information products. They may be highly effective and more cost-efficient. But nothing beats the customization of pure coaching.

There. I said it!

Does this mean I'm against internet marketing or coaching products? Of course not! I use both. But if you're a coach with multiple product streams, please at least be a competent coach.

That's the issue that actually interests me:

What is a masterful vs proficient vs competent coach?

They each are important, because they each reflect a mindset. A new coach coaches differently from the very beginning if they commit to mastery vs competency. Mastery is a commitment to always learning, to always be upgrading the service and results that we deliver, to delivering what works, not just what we think people will buy.

In my experience, the coach who focuses on competence is mainly interested in the content of the conversation (or product). I don't think that's enough, because clients can get great content for free.

When a coach goes for proficiency, they get more concerned with the delivery or performance of the coaching. That streamlines the coaching, leading to greater outcomes. And it focuses on 'pure' coaching, as opposed to other delivery methods.

Mastery is a huge level beyond proficiency, because it can only be reached after many hours of practice, to the point that both the content and delivery are so second nature to the coach that all the coach has to focus on is the client. That level of coaching leads to results that are (almost) miraculous. 

I've been told by veteran coaches that what we teach at School of Coaching Mastery should be called something else besides coaching, because most coaches don't work at this level. Other veterans say anything less shouldn't be called coaching, at all.

I choose to call what we teach here, 'mastery', because we're committed to always learning, growing, and upgrading the outcomes for our clients. That's the instructors' commitment, not just the students'. It's a journey that we take together and the coaching that we learn to do transcends, but includes the other two levels.

Whether other delivery levels or methods should be called 'coaching', I don't really care. I don't control the whole coaching industry, I just lead one small and very passionate coaching contingent.

What do you think?

If you missed the call with Adela, you can listen for a short time. Join here.