5 Reasons To Hire A Coach.
Be Brilliant In Your Business Podcast, Episode 89.
Hiring a coach is a big decision.
For many business owners, the decision to hire a coach comes after weeks or months of consideration and planning. Often, it’s a specific goal or problem that shifts entrepreneurs from thinking “it would be nice to hire a coach…someday” to asking themselves “do I need a coach for my business?”
There are many great options to help you scale your business, manage your time, hire and train a team, overcome burnout, and more. Courses are great for education, and group coaching is great for a peer community that gives you some access to a coach.
“Is coaching right for me?”
If you don’t want to waste any time trying to figure things out on your own, or you have already tried DIY resources and need direct guidance and support, then private coaching might be a great option for you.
Here are 5 reasons to hire a coach, that will help you understand a bit more about what coaching is and if it is a good choice for you.
Reason 1: Coaching helps you learn by doing.
You know more than you realize. And, you have access to endless information at the click of your mouse.
(In many ways) We live in the most incredible time in history, where you can learn pretty much anything you want in any format you want. Which is awesome and completely overwhelming.
We are exposed to great information almost every day, but we use almost none of it. Podcasts, books, webinars, even the journals of notes we keep…if you don’t do something with that information, it just becomes clutter in your brain.
Your brain was built to filter out anything that is unnecessary to your immediate survival, so if you learn something useful but don’t prioritize using it, your brain will try to store it in your sub-conscious (the “back of your mind”) kind of like a .zip file. And we all know how often those files get corrupted ;)
Nerdy jokes aside, everything you want in life requires you to learn and apply yourself to creating it. With information overload, it’s a challenge sometimes to even know what to do, let alone to take yourself all the way through the process of applying it. Coaching helps you figure out exactly what you need to focus on, based on the results YOU want (not the millions of opinions you hear), and then walks with you through the process so you can more easily solve problems and make decisions that feel right.
The hardest part of growth is consistency - applying yourself even when you don’t want to, or when you’ve had a setback and you start to doubt everything. Coaching prevents you from giving up on yourself in the process of growth.
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Reason 2: Coaching keeps you focused, which creates faster results.
Let’s face it, your attention is already divided among numerous things. Your goals aren’t the only thing going on in your life, and when you’re trying to make changes, these new habits are the easiest thing to drop.
In addition, old habits are hard to break, which means that it often feels “wrong” to stop doing what you’ve been doing. You may not even notice that you’re defaulting back to old ways (for example: getting distracted on Instagram, procrastinating writing your book, undercharging for your services, etc.) but your coach will.
Session by session, your coach will help you clarify and re-center on your goals, so that you feel good about what you’re doing next.
A coach will also make sure that you don’t get caught in the trap of feeling guilty or criticizing yourself when you don’t do things perfectly. Many high achievers suffer from perfectionism, which is the belief that there is a “right way” to do things. Coaching keeps you focused on what is working and what is next, so that you stay in motion.
Reason 3: Coaching helps you expand your creativity.
You’re a creative person, and you probably already value the “brainstorm effect” of having a sounding board to help your ideas take shape. So, that’s something a coach offers, for sure.
But the other creativity I’m referring to here is when you’re stuck in your perspective of a situation that feels…shitty. You feel slighted by someone, or desperate for cash, or frustrated by the Instagram algorithm. Things seem one way, and that way sucks. A coach will help you break free from that, and get back into an empowered state where you can use your collective creativity for good.
Reason 4: Coaching teaches you to make micro-adjustments.
In business, we set big goals but we achieve them at the micro level. Our daily habits and decisions have a butterfly effect on our business, but it’s really hard to see it from the inside.
My favorite analogy for this is a tennis instructor. If you want to be great at tennis, you hire an instructor. Because you need someone to practice with, who can also correct your form. Your tennis instructor will point out when your serve is off, help you understand why it happened, and show you how to adjust it. Once you can actually feel and see the difference, you have it for life. You stop hitting the net, and when you sometimes do you know exactly what happened and how to fix it.
Micro adjustments are all about experiencing small shifts that make a big difference.
Reason 5: A coach is unbiased (unlike your friends and family.)
Let me kick this one off by saying “don’t ditch your friends for a coach!” I’m kidding, you wouldn’t do that, right?
Friends, family members, colleagues and other community are so important for your happiness and well-being. But, they are pretty biased, which can make things pretty hard when it comes to business decisions.
Now, when I say biased, let’s clarify that they want what’s best for you. But sometimes their opinion comes from fear or lack of understanding. And it’s impossible to grow from that place!
Have you ever gotten really excited about an idea and shared it with your partner…only to be met with a confused look or way-off-base advice?
I have! It’s disheartening, frustrating and sometimes infuriating. And it’s not their fault! They can’t be objective with you, they don’t see your big vision, they don’t know the right questions to ask. And, as much as they love you, they have also seen you at your worst. So, yeah, they don’t 100% see the possibility here.
You don’t need to change them or convince them, you need to share your ideas with a better partner.
A coach knows your higher vision, understands your unique challenges, and will ask the right questions to help you clarify further. They will listen with an open mind for as long as it takes for you to be heard, and pick out the most important things to give back to you. They’ll help you make clear and empowered decisions that feel right and are also in line with your goals.
A coach won’t love you like your friends and family do, which is exactly the point. We do LOVE our clients, but it doesn’t interfere with our work ;)
Finally, coaching is not reciprocal. It’s all about YOU. And that may seem indulgent but it’s quite magical. It’s the most productive “me time” you can get.
I hope that these 5 reasons to hire a coach have given you a deeper understanding of what coaching can do, so you can decide if coaching is right for you.
Next Steps…
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Read The Transcript:
You are listening to Be Brilliant in your Business, the podcast for busy business owners to take charge of your time and energy to create meaning and momentum in your life. I'm your host, Linsi Brownson, certified coach and seasoned entrepreneur, and I know what it takes to run a thriving small business that works for your life. Join me for an honest look into the minds of small business owners as I share with you stories, coaching and solutions to the biggest problems that keep people from realizing their dreams.
Before we dive into today's episode, I want to welcome new listeners. I'm so glad you're here. And I look forward to being part of your brilliant business. Be sure to hit the subscribe button, because we've got new episodes for you each week.
Are you ready? Let's go. Hello, friends, how you doing? Welcome to the show. Today, I want to share with you five reasons why you should hire a coach being really specific here really direct. So okay, here's the impetus, I realized that I've never done an episode like this. So on the show, I share a lot of coaching concepts. I give examples of clients situations, and I've even had some of my clients on the show before. But we're coming up on our 100th episode, which is so cool. I'm so proud. And because of this milestone, and because of the time of year since January, I've been doing a lot of reflection and evaluation of this podcast and how I can make it better how I can keep growing it, and how it all fits into my business as it keeps growing and evolving as well.
So this episode is not a commercial for my services, I'm really aiming to make this something valuable and useful for you. But I'm also going to assume just based on the title of this episode, that if you are listening to this, then you are or you plan to be considering hiring a coach at some point. So I want to give you some food for thought here. So the first reason is all about learning versus applying. When you listen to things, you learn them, and when you apply them, you grow. So I've been noticing this kind of trend, I'll call it a trend. It's just because I've been noticing it lately with my clients in our calls, where the topics that we're on specifically, or the coaching concepts that we're working with are things that I have taught on the podcast before. And these are clients who I know listen to the podcast, they're regular listeners, they will often you know, quote things or ask questions about things that they have listened to in the podcast. And even with that, there's still so much information that they have already taken in that they've already learned that they haven't applied, right? Like they it's still not something that they're really clear on or they're really connected with, until we're actually using it in session for something specific.
And so that got me thinking about the difference here between learning something and applying it to your life. I love having this podcast, I really think that it's such a valuable resource. I try to share ideas and tools and techniques that are helpful, that are practical, so that you can use them in your life. And I also love listening to podcasts. And some of my favorite ones do exactly the same thing. They're very focused on these practical tools and inspiration that you know, really feels like it's part of your daily life.
But the harsh truth is that podcasts are just another form of entertainment. It doesn't matter how much great information we get, or how many aha moments we have, if we don't apply the things that we learn in our lives. And the vast majority of the content that we consume, we just don't do anything with it. We enjoy it. And it feels productive when we listen to really smart things. And that's all great, right? But we don't take it much further than that. And this is true for all kinds of content that we consume. But I think especially with podcasting, the very nature of a podcast is that its background, it's something that you're listening to while you're doing something else. It's made to be a passive activity. So in my reflection and the evaluation of the podcast, I've been thinking a lot about how to bridge that gap between learning and application. And one of the ways that I'm doing this is by creating the maverick HQ. Which is our A listener library with downloadable workbooks and resources from various episodes, and workshops and things that I have taught. So you can go there to get tools to work on your business or work on yourself using a lot of the ideas that we've covered here in the podcast.
But that is still just scratching the surface, right? really the most effective way to learn and apply tools is by working with the coach who created them. So if you are loving this podcast, if the tools, the things that we talked about here working with me directly is going to give you the most bang for your energetic buck, right? Because what we're working on is exactly what you need right now specific to who you are, and who you want to be. it's specific to your challenges today, your habits today and your goals, right? So I know this probably all sounds pretty obvious. But I want you to really think about this. Your current biggest challenges in your business or in your life, the things that are currently keeping you up at night, how much information, just information do you think that you're missing right now? Like, how much more do you think you need to know, in order to be able to solve that problem?
I'm gonna bet it's not a lot. Because you've already read books, you've taken courses, you've Google searched, you've talked to your friends, and you probably have way more knowledge on the subject than you even realize you do. Because a lot of that knowledge, really great stuff you've picked up over the course of your life, but you weren't actively implementing it, or you were actively implementing it back then being a different person in a different time for a different purpose. So here you are today, with tons of knowledge that's kind of hanging out in the back of your mind somewhere. And it's not necessarily even conscious for you, it's not like you're just tapping back into that resource library, to bring it up to today and really look at what's going to be the most beneficial for you now.
So this is most of my clients to, we've all read, for example, the book Think and Grow Rich, but who we were when we read, it was so different than who we are today. And that knowledge is only useful while you're applying it. And the things that you need now. And the things that you want now are very different from who you were before. So even if all we're talking about is information and the knowledge that you have, if it's the exact same information you already have, you still need to be able to find it, and organize it and utilize it for this moment and for your future self, not your past. So when you work with a coach, the two of you come together to determine this process, which tools, which resources, all the things that are going to be the most relevant and the most useful for you right now specific to what you need with that filter of what's useful and what's not useful in this given moment.
All right, reason number two, you will accelerate your results with a coach. If you read any business book, the author will tell you that their secret to success is not wasting their time and energy on things that they don't need to be wasting their time and energy on. So one of those things, of course, is learning stuff the hard way, when you've got someone available, who can help you bypass that obstacle, because they've already been there and done that. Now, this isn't going to be true for everything in your business.
But there are quite a few obstacles that you don't need to bother with, when you have a coach, your coach can just tell you do this thing. Don't do that. Here's the results that I've created. Or here's the results that my clients have created. And this is the path to get there. It's so much easier to start with what you do have and what you do know what's already available, and then to fill in the gaps than it is to go through the motions of trying to find all of the answers to everything that you need to keep moving forward. Another reason that you accelerate faster is because you stop partying with your self doubt. So most business owners I talked to think that the biggest reason that they're not taking as much action toward their goals that they want to be is because they're just not clear on exactly what actions to take. This is very similar to the learning versus application, right? It's never an information problem. It's never a knowing what to do problem.
Okay, it's almost never a knowing what to do problem. The reason is almost always that they're spending way too much time with their doubt squad. This is like the party in your head. I imagine this like the movie Greece and it's a bunch of 1950s Hi schoolers hanging out and drinking in a parking lot. And just like making a lot of noise and being obnoxious, right, that's your doubt squad that's basically just keeping you doing a lot of the same old nothing's. And here comes along your coach pulling up in the caddy convertible just lets you hop in, drive away and leave all that noise behind, then that car takes you wherever you want to go. I love this little visual. So the doubt squad is just a human thing. I know I say this all the time, right? This is human, we're going to doubt ourselves, we're going to get in our own way we're going to get in our heads, and a coach just like plops you right out of that noisy situation and takes you in a whole different direction. And that is how you accelerate so much faster. When you're just keeping the keeping the path clean, right? You're quieting the noise and you keep moving forward, you'll go so so much faster.
Reason number three is that you have breakthrough creativity, like breakthrough, all the barriers. As you've noticed, maybe, sometimes, I have some pretty colorful analogies that I like to share. And that's because I'm a creative thinker. And I tend to draw out my clients natural creativity. But I also intentionally guide my clients to like tap into and lean more and more on their own creativity and their own intuition to develop that as their primary resource their go to, for problem solving, and for growth and new idea creation. Because as much as I love having my clients work with me time and time again, what is most important in a coaching relationship is that your coach is helping you build the skills that will empower you to continue creating more and more on your own.
It's that old adage, teach a man to fish, right? That's what coaching really is all about. It's helping you learn how to do the things that you need to know how to do, it's helping you get new perspectives, and you know, find a new fishing hole to fish in when your old one is all tapped out. And then it's actually teaching you what you need to do so that you can go out and do it on your own. So I'll give you an example with this. I had a client recently who was telling me this story. And as she was talking, she just telling me a normal story about something for her business. And I had this idea like this little intuitive hit little flash in the back of my mind. So I jumped in. And I shared with her my idea. And she loved it. And so she said, Okay, so what should I do next? What do I do to put this into action? And in that moment, instead of telling her what I thought she should do, or how I would go about it, I asked her what she thought she should do, and how she wanted to go about it. And then we workshopped all of her ideas. And she was able to walk away with this really clear plan that she came up with.
So it's this like really symbiotic relationship where I draw things out of my clients, but it's their own ideas. It's their own creativity, it's their abilities, which gives them so much more power. And then once they're out on their own doing these things, it's so much easier for them to tap into their own creativity to solve problems and to keep taking action and not need me there. That's the whole point. Right? So breakthrough creativity, even if you're already a very creative person, this is like adding fuel to that fire, and it'll make your own creativity burn so much brighter.
Alright, reason number four, is what I like to call micro adjustments. So no matter how self aware we are, no matter how much mindset work and personal growth work we do, we still always have our own brain to contend with. We are still always going to believe by default. Everything that we think we're going to think all of that's true, unless something happens to us, that causes us to challenge our own beliefs. And for the most part, most of our beliefs, we just never even notice that they're there. And some of those beliefs, some of those what we call stories that we tell ourselves, right? Some of those are really the things that are sabotaging you. And maybe it's because I mostly work with business owners.
So most of my clients have done at least some level of personal development. They're pretty self aware when we start working together. But what I have found is that the most harmful stories that we tell ourselves are not the big ones that all the self help books talk about. They're all the little ones the tiny little stories that we tell ourselves that we don't see, or we just don't even think that they're a problem. They don't seem like a big deal to us. So I talked about a few examples of these in the episode about the fuzzy blanket syndrome. But it's basically being able to bring to light, the little tiny things that are impacting our business, the little ways that we are sabotaging ourselves. It's not always about this, like overarching theme of, I don't believe I'm worthy, or I don't believe I'll ever make it. And it's not that those don't aren't things that you want to work on, right, and that it all works together. But what is so important for the practical day to day steps that we take the actions that we're working on, the ways that we're showing up for our business, is these tiny, tiny little habits, and the tiny beliefs that stop us from creating those habits, those are the things that we've really got to work on. And so what I do as a coach is help you make those micro adjustments, it's almost like, if you had a golf coach to help you improve your golf swing, they would be standing behind you. And you know, watching you take your swing, and then come behind you and just like adjust your form a little bit, it's tiny little tweaks that you don't realize they make such a massive difference in your golf swing, right, same exact thing with your business.
And Reason number five that you should hire a coach is because it feels great. Now, I'm not talking about a coach making you feel good. Though I did recently survey my clients, and 90% of them gave feedback where they said, verbatim, you're so motivating, which is fun, I love that. So there is definitely an aspect of coaching, where it's like having this cheerleader on your side, someone who believes in you, especially when you're having moments when you don't believe in you, that is really empowering. That's really nice to have. But what I'm talking about with feeling so good, is the simple act of being seen and heard. For who you really are, with no judgment with no pretense. This kind of connection is one of the most fundamental human needs. And sadly, most of us only ever get that if we have a therapist, a coach or her really, really evolved an unbiased girlfriend, right?
For all of the incredible opportunities and things that are available to us. With our modern world. We are lonelier and more isolated than ever. There is this joke in the coaching world that you could walk up to a lamppost and just talk to it for 15 minutes, and walk away transformed, simply because it's such a rare experience, where we just get to talk and be fully ourselves and not have to reciprocate something, it's just all about us. And we all need that so much more than we realize. So of course, in coaching, there's a two way interaction, you're not just talking to a lamppost, but it's still all about you. And I can tell you, especially as someone in a service profession, where I give so much of my energy to other people, it's so restorative, to have that attention given back to me, I crave it, I feel ungrounded when I don't have it. And often we don't even realize that this is what we're craving, this is what we're needing. And so we try to get it from other people, but with our personal relationships, they're reciprocal relationships, right? You can take a little but then you're expected to give as well. And that's great. That's how relationships work.
But sometimes, we really need that just focus and attention. And like I said, that unbiased perspective on ourselves. You know, this, if you've ever tried to talk with your partner about your business, and ask them questions, and they jump immediately into giving you advice that they have no business giving you, right? You're like, why are you telling me to do this, I would never work or they are wanting the best for you. And they're just mad about the client that you're venting about. But all you need to do is get this off your chest like we know that that we all have that experience with other people. We just don't have people in our lives like a coach who's going to listen and who's going to help us work through our ideas, but has no agenda for us. We get to decide our own agenda. That's so so important. A number of my clients have called me their business therapist more than once and I get it. I Get why because the experience of having that is therapeutic It is like being in therapy. Now the difference, primary difference between coaching and therapy is that therapy is really more focused on your past and healing through past traumas, whereas coaching is about what you want to be creating, and working through the process of actually creating and implementing that. So that could be a whole other podcast. And I probably will do an episode like that someday, if you are curious about really, what a coach versus a therapist does, and which one's right for you would Google it, there's I know, there are a few really good podcasts out there that do talk about this. I think some of my coaches have done some good ones too. But just google it coaching versus therapy and see which one kind of resonates more for what you're looking for.
So these are five reasons why you should hire a coach, there are certainly not all of the reasons, but I thought that a podcast episode on 100 reasons to hire coach might be a little bit long, that might be a little bit much. So I picked five of them. And as a quick recap, those are number one, applying the things that you learn versus consuming more information. Reason two is that it will help you accelerate your results by not doing the things that you don't need to be doing, focusing on the things that you do. Number three, is that it helps you expand your own creativity, or what I like to call breakthrough creativity.
Reason number four, is that a coach helps you make micro adjustments so that you are in the right form and in the right frame of mind to be doing the tiny actions every day that really produce the results over time. And Reason number five is that it feels amazing. If these reasons, or any of your own reasons, have you in the place where you are ready, and you want to work with a coach and you want to work with me, I've got a couple options for you right now. So first, you can buy a single session with me, which is great, if you want to try it out. So if you've never worked with a coach before, I think this is a great way to go. Because you'll get a lot out of this one session. And you'll get a good feel for what it's like the flow and our relationship and what you get from it on going. And in a lot of my coaching sessions, we end up working on usually around three to five different topics, or areas within that one session. So we do cover quite a lot in every single session. So that's one way to do it come and try it out by purchasing a single session with me. But of course, the bigger benefits and the accelerated growth that we're talking about that is going to come from meeting regularly.
So I have a couple package options ranging from three to six months. So if that is what you're interested in, I would invite you to have a free consultation with me. So we'll get on the phone talk about exactly what it is that you need, what you want. And then I can make a recommendation for what I will think will get you the most bang for your buck. So to schedule either one of these, go to Linsibrownson.com. And you'll see the option for a single session or for a free consultation there. And just in case, any part of you is worried about getting on a call or getting in a session and having that pressure to buy. Let me just dispel that fear for you right now. Because I've definitely been on the receiving end of some pretty bar for the sales experiences, some pretty hard sells shady selling techniques. And I know it feels completely awful happy to share that story. If you ever want to know, I have also bought some things that I kind of regret because I felt shamed into buying them at the time. So I'm super aware of what that experience is like, and I hate it just like you do. So you will never get that experience from me. I don't believe that anybody wins in this world unless everybody wins. So I can promise you that when we talk, I will coach you, I will inform you of things but I will not be selling you on working with me. That is entirely your choice. So keep that in mind. And if all of this sounds great, but you're really not ready to work with a coach. Totally cool. I would love to invite you to join the maverick HQ. And check out some of those resources, some of those tools where you can take these podcast concepts and start putting them into action. That's also a spot where you can ask me anything as you know, you can ask me questions. We do have weekly coaching, written coaching available in there as well. So I want to make sure that I've got you covered that you have the resources that you need for this world. And when you're ready, I would love to work with you in some capacity.
All right, you guys have a fabulous week. I'll talk to you next week. Do you love these weekly doses of insight and inspiration for your business? Then you got to join me in the maverick HQ. This is our listener library full of helpful tools to create clarity, spark creativity, and manage your time and energy like a boss. It's all inside the maverick HQ. And it's totally free for you. Head to Linsibrownson.com/Maverick to join me right now. I'll see you inside.