What do Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serena Williams, Alun Wyn Jones, Elton John, Roger Federer, Gareth Bale, Richard Branson and Kelly Holmes all have in common?
You could say that they are all the top of their field and that they are ultra-successful, that would be 100% correct, but what I was looking for is that…they all have a coach.
I was surprised recently when I came across a Ted Talk by Bill Gates entitled, “Everyone needs a coach.” Gates says, whether we are a CEO, leader, teacher, basketball player or bridge player, we all need people who will help us reach our goals and give us feedback.
Now, this made complete sense to me and I agree wholeheartedly with it, but what really surprised me is the studies that he talked about. Curiously, multiple studies on performance have found that the best performers all have coaches while the lowest performers tend to be the least receptive to coaching and feedback, especially when things weren’t going well.
Isn’t that incredibly interesting? When people think of the best performers, we think that these are the people that need coaching the least but in reality, it is actually the coaching that makes them perform their best in the first place.
We’ve all been coached
When Bill Gates said “everyone needs a coach,” he meant it. He wasn’t just talking about leaders at the top of the heap, but everyday professionals like you and I.
Throughout our lives we have had natural coaches helping and supporting us; parents, teachers, and professors.
In our personal lives, when we want to get fit and lose weight, we go to the gym, but when we want to get serious and achieve specific fitness goals, we hire a personal trainer.
In the workplace, working for a company we have consultants, trainers, and managers.
Throughout our lives we actually reap the benefits of coaches and mentors all the time, so why is that when we take the next step – to run our own business – that willingness to seek support seems to stop?
The answer, I’ve realised, comes down to the misconception about what having a coach actually means.
Many people believe that they don’t need a coach because they have years of experience; because only underperformers need help or because needing one is an admittance of failure.
With so much taboo in this area, it can be difficult to convince people that seeking coaching is actually a good thing, that it doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you. In fact, it’s the opposite.
The most successful people in the world ALL have a coach
It’s crazy to think that 60% of people are too embarrassed to even consider a coach when many studies have shown that the best performers ALL have one.
When you think of any successful person in Sports, Politics, Business, and Entertainment, they most likely have or have had a coach. Just take all of the people that I mentioned previously; Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serena Williams, Elton John, and Richard Branson, they all have or have had coaches throughout their career.
The point is that none of these people got to where they are on their own. They realised early on that they would get more out of themselves if they had the support, advice and accountability of a coach, even multiple coaches, and it didn’t stop there when they became experts in their fields either!
In sports, they say “you are never done” and that’s true for business too. For anybody in any industry and on any level, having a coach is often the difference between you being good and being great.
You’re limiting yourself by not having a coach
We have all worked hard over the years to learn what we need to, to gain the experience that we need and build the business that we want, but if we don’t seek to grow and continue to challenge ourselves to develop then somewhere along the way, we stop improving.
With that, our businesses also stop improving.
The challenges of growing a sustainable business on our own are quite substantial, sometimes we don’t tend to recognise the issues that are standing in our way and if we do, we often don’t know how to fix them
When you are a participant in your business it is really difficult to be an objective observer, this is where a coach comes in.
A coach is someone who helps you to achieve the success that you define for yourself; someone who serves as a guide while you create a plan, define outcomes, and experiment to move your thinking, and your business, forward.
Reasons why everybody needs a coach
There’s a lot of confusion around what coaching actually is and what benefits it has to offer. Here are some of the most important ones.
1) A coach brings a whole new level of awareness and a fresh perspective.
2) They are your external eyes and ears providing a more accurate representation of your reality.
3) They recognise the fundamentals and help you identify what is most important to you.
4) They challenge your thinking, making you consider better questions or different world views, and helping you understand your own blockers to success.
5) They help you break through barriers by breaking down your thoughts and actions and helping you build them back up again.
6) They help you improve any skill, capability or challenge, enabling you to get to your next level of what you have identified you wish to achieve.
7) They help you rediscover your why and reignite your passion.
8) They help you pave a clear path to success and empower you to take action, holding you accountable to help you get there.
Hiring a coach could be the best thing you’ll ever do
We go through our whole life being taught, learning and improving, so why stop this guidance after school or university? Why start limiting ourselves in business when all it takes is some support to unlock our real potential?
“You are never done,” the greatest sports coaches say to the greatest athletes, so bear this in mind when you’re thinking of how to overcome challenges, how to develop your skills or how to propel your business forward.
Hiring a coach could be the difference between you being where you are now and where you want to be. The only question is “will you invest in yourself to ensure that you get there?”
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If you are interested in finding out more then please do get in touch. Do you want to take your business to the next level of success?
P: 01792 475149
Book a free 30 min coaching call to see for yourself if having a coach is the missing piece you have been looking for.
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Asked what the best advice he ever got, Eric Schmidt, the former Chairman and CEO of Google said, “Find a coach.”
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