Coaching Blog

What's the real reason School of Coaching Mastery is sponsoring the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 contest?

It's the same reason we started our own "Find a Coach" social networking site, Mastery Coach Exchange. 

We're doing it because it gives our students a real-world laboratory in which to learn how to leverage the Internet's most powerful marketing tools, so when they leave SCM, they don't flounder trying to find coaching clients, but have hands-on experience - and success - at finding their ideal clients and coaching them to transformation.

That doesn't mean that our students are the only ones benefiting, though. Everyone is winning. In the case of Best Coaching Blogs, the coaches who write the blogs are getting read much more than usual. They're creating new fans and new subscribers. Some of those new readers will become clients, and so on. And winning will give them distinction and bragging rights!

And of course, the readers get to learn great stuff from the bloggers, like how to set up a successful coaching business, how to transform your life, and a lot more. By putting the best of the coaching bloggosphere in one place, with votes and comments from the readers, we're making it easy for you to find the very best coaching blogs efficiently and you can help the bloggers out by reading, voting and commenting. Plus it's free. Great stuff!

But the benefits don't stop there. The bloggosphere is one of the most powerful tools for both learning and marketing, but that does not mean you need to be writing your own blog. Actually, unless you like to write and really have something to say, I would advise you NOT to start your own blog. That doesn't mean you can't leverage the bloggosphere to grow your coaching business, though. 

If you want to be more successful as a coach, start with other people's blogs.

1. Start reading several good blogs every week (Better yet: Everyday).
2. Start subscribing to the best ones.
3. Start commenting on the posts that really speak to you.
4. Start developing relationships with the writers and readers at your favorite blogs.
5. Those relationships can be nurtured into joint ventures, linking, opportunities and clients.
6. It's a way to learn and a way to market, all at the same time, and it's fre*e.

I'm teaching students at SCM a whole lot more about how to leverage the bloggosphere, but I've put together one very awesome tool for everyone, including you - gratis - and that's the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest is going on, on our website, right now. Some of the best blogs in the coaching industry are already entered.

So you don't have to spend hours searching down the best blogs for you to read. You can pick the ones your friends are voting on and even read the comments they left, so you know which ones you want to try out.

Because they are all in one place, you can bookmark the page and return again and again, when it's convenient to you, while the contest continues, and read more blogs, cast your votes and add your comments (Be sure to add your website address to your comments).

Commenting on blogs is one of the smartest ways you can use Web 2.0 to market your business. Do you comment on blogs everyday?

While you're at it, don't just read the front runners. There are some real gems in this contest that not many people have heard of. You can help bring them to light by reading, commenting on and voting for them.

Approximately 1,000 people have already participated in this contest. Are you curious what brought them there?

Visit the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest page now and bookmark it, so you can return, read, comment and vote at your leisure.

Winners will be determined by both votes and comments.

Oh and if you have a great blog that you want to enter, we're still accepting entries through Sunday, but the sooner you enter, the more votes you'll get.

Have fun and keep being great!

Group coaching is a wonderful way to create more value for clients, while making more money for the coach.

And those are two goals that all great coaches care about, especially with a recession on. With masterful group coaching there's a synergy between the group coaching members that takes each individual experience way beyond what the coach provides. At the same time, each group member pays less than they would if they spent the same amount of time in personal coaching. And their combined fees can add up nicely for the coach. Everybody wins.

For instance, the first time I was ever coached in a group, the coach, wisely, set up a system where in each group member connected with at least one other group member, at least once per week outside the group.

That very first week, I was paired with fellow group member, Michael Port (Yes, the bestselling author of Book Yourself Solid, and former actor who appeared in Season One of Sex in the City). Michael was a new coach back then, like me, but he was already a leader. He asked me what I was working on in the group and I said I needed to get my coaching website up. So he gave me the contact info for a great web master in India that he had used. And just like that! I had my first coaching website up in no time and (almost) no money!

And then there are the friendships and connections that group members make. The very first coaching group that I ever led was for coaches who were working on IAC Coach Certification. Many of those coaches are still close friends, having established themselves as top-level coaches, referring, inviting and recommending each other along the way. Some of them have even held high-level positions with the IAC. They are a force to reckon with!

All this might make group coaching seem like a no-brainer for the coach. However it is really an advanced skill set. Learning to give a client exactly what he or she needs within a personal coaching session can be a challenge. Doing that for several people simultaneously is quite a feat!

And then there are the administrative issues that arise when we work with groups, instead of individuals. Mastering group coaching is advanced business-building too.

Suffice it to say that School of Coaching Mastery couldn't be without a module on Group Coaching Mastery. And so our new Group Coaching Mastery module commences in one week!

And because this is the School of Coaching Mastery, we will explore the masterful skills needed for coaching groups from the perspective of the 9 IAC Coaching Masteries(tm) and how to take them to the next level by expanding them to include an entire group of people.

For instance, Mastery #1, Establishing and maintaining a relationship of trust, is a delicate set of multiple skills that helps to establish an open, safe relationship between the coach and a single coaching client.

How do you establish and maintain an relationship of trust between each the members of a group, as well as with yourself, so that each group member is completely open and trusting enough to fully benefit from the remarkable experience that is coaching?

That's one of the many puzzles that we'll solve together in next month's, Group Coaching Mastery module.

If you'd like to know more about it, go here to the module registration page.

You'll also get Group Coaching Mastery included if you join the Full Coach Training Program.

If you're interested in becoming a coach

...or you just want to add coaching skills to your resume - and you like doing a good deed, then you'll love this:

School of Coaching Mastery is presenting its signature coach training program for new coaches, Coaching Groundwork, for FREE! All you have to do it make an online contribution to Habitat for Humanity by March 30th and email us your receipt. You'll get to attend a special Coaching Groundwork course, live with Julia Stewart, SCM President on four consecutive days, March 30th - April 2nd.

Coaching Groundwork is normally $325. The most common feedback we get from this course is that people can't believe how much they learned in so short a time!

This is a rare opportunity to do something good and get something extremely valuable in return. And something that makes it extra special is that a benefactor will double your contribution to Habitat for Humanity!

To find out more and make your contribution, vist Coaching for Habitat.

It's often said that investing in your business and/or your education is one of the smartest ways to invest your money, because both will pay for themselves many times over. It's especially smart to invest when prices are low.

If you’re anything like your coaching clients,

...then you probably want tools for reaching your goals more quickly and easily. And if one of your goals right now is Coach Certification, then the information in this article can help you get there faster and more easily.

How?

Well first, if you’re a talented coach, you probably can obtain IAC Certification more quickly than any other certification from a recognized independent coach certifier. Second, I’m going to share a big secret about how to do that.

As you probably know, the IAC Coaching Masteries™ Learning Guides...

...are a wonderful tool for checking your own coaching sessions to see if you’re using these skills at a masterful level.

It’s helpful to note though, that the information in the Learning Guides defines masterful coaching, as it is scored or graded and that they can be rather inscrutable to most coaches, when it comes to learning the level of mastery required to obtain the IAC Certified Coach designation.

Learning coaching and scoring coaching are two very different processes.

The IAC’s mission is to score and certify, not teach, so their materials tell you “what” they are looking for, not “how” to achieve it. Big difference.

That’s one of the reasons why you can achieve mastery more quickly by working with coaches who are masters of the IAC Coaching Masteries™. That’s also why I’m about to share one of the most powerful “how to’s”, you’ll ever learn.

But first, here’s a handy metaphor.

Years ago, a famous retired sea captain named, Skippy Lane, taught me to sail on Long Island Sound. Skippy’s mastery of sailing was legendary in the New York City archipelago where we lived. One day I asked Skippy how sailors kept track of everything while they sailed. The current, the wind direction, the sails, the rudder; it was all so overwhelming!

Skippy said, “You sail a boat by the seat of your pants.”

I can still hear his booming voice. What he meant was that when you’re sailing, if you have everything optimally lined up, the energy of the wind pulls the boat up out of the water and you feel it rise up literally through the seat of your pants! That’s when a sailor knows he’s on track.

And that’s exactly what happens when you ride the energy of the conversation throughout your coaching sessions. That energy is called curiosity and when it rises, it tells you that you’re on track. It’s so simple and so much more effective to do it this way, than it is to try to remember all the effective behaviors required for IAC Certification. When you focus on the skills and details, you’re too busy thinking to notice what’s really going on. When you focus on the energy, you’re attention is on the client and what your inklings are telling you about your client. That’s what separates good coaching from great coaching.

The amazing thing is that when curiosity is used well,

...many of the events that the IAC wants to see like, “The client is no longer held back but is instead excited and moving forward…” or “The client communicates more effortlessly and resourcefully”, show up as a result of you sailing masterfully though the energy of the coaching conversation. Pretty cool!

How do you use the energy of curiosity to coach masterfully?

There is not nearly enough space in this article to cover all the ways, but here are three simple steps to get you started:

1. Notice what you’re curious about and ask your client about it.

2. Notice what your client is curious about and ask about that.

3. Use your curiosity and your client’s curiosity (and your curiosity about your client’s curiosity) as continuous feedback loops to help you navigate throughout the coaching conversation.

It’s quite simple and the results are magic.

To master this, practice it with other coaches who are knowledgeable about the IAC approach to coaching.

School of Coaching Mastery has some free resources to help you with that, such as our free Study Groups and our networking group for coaches who want buddies and triad partners for practicing the masteries. You don’t have to be an SCM student to use these free services.

And of course, we also have much more information about energy, mastery and curiosity in our Coach Training Programs.

Skippy never heard of coaching, but he taught me the key to masterful coaching when he taught me how to sail. Interestingly, that legendary master of coaching, Thomas Leonard, called this skill, “Navigating via Curiosity.”

A shorter version of this article appeared in the February issue of the IAC VOICE.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2009

Want to become a successful coach? Make sure your coach training includes everything you need...

Last night, Angela Spaxman, IAC President, emailed me that the license for the new IAC Coaching Masteries was finally ready. After a few glitches, I succeeded to buying a license for School of Coaching Mastery and our parent company, Julia Stewart Coaching & Training LLC.

I think we are the first!! Good thing! We've been teaching them for over a year and a half!

SCM students probably won't notice any difference, since we've been operating with a verbal agreement all along, but it's nice to have bragging rights!

Personally, I'd like to see more hoops for schools and mentors to leap through in order to become IAC licensees. As it stands, it's a lot easier to buy a license than to become an IAC Certified Coach. That could lead to a lot of disappointed coaches who may study with folks who are clueless about what it takes to pass this tough certification.

Then again, maybe I'm just being self-serving since all of our instructors, mentors and advisors are IAC Certified Coaches, some are founding members of the IAC and some contributed to the establishment of this certification and are or have been Certifiers for the IAC. Collectively, we've taught, mentored or certified most of the current IAC Certified Coaches.

Maybe I just want to crow a little!