Coach

I have a personal coach; you know, a life coach. He helps me with life and business things. Part of this is because life and business is all mixed up together when you found and own a business or businesses. It’s hard to sort out sometimes, at least for me.

Part of this is because I need a voice other than mine to listen to. I get plenty of other inputs, but it’s not the same as that 1-1 meeting with a trained coach and counselor. There’s skin in that game; paying someone to provide accountability, tools, and inputs to help advance. My coach is the best of both – a trained counselor and a committed coach; a business owner himself and one who has been coached.

Part of this is because I also know that the best athletes, musicians, actors, vocalists, and business leaders, typically have coaches; often multiple ones. Who am I to think that I can thrive the best without someone pushing me to my peak?

It’s party because I tried the counseling route as well. I wasn’t quite ready for that. It helped expose some things for sure, but that counselor said he thought I might be better off with this other counselor-coach who helped business owners and guys like me. He was right

Part of it is because I have ADD, even though I never knew it. I typically manifest that in one of two ways. One is a short attention span and moving to and from many things, which can create familial and organizational “head turns” (like, “what’s he doing now?”). The other is “hyper-focus” where I can grind at depth to great detail on certain tasks or directions. It produces a high ROI but can lead to burnout or losing sight of priorities.

Part of it is because people depend on me and I want to be a good leader, a good steward, steady, growing, setting a good example. No one has all the answers individually.

Part of it is that with some problems involving relationships, emotional IQ, people skills, the “grey areas,” it really helps to have perspective from someone that can look in from outside and provide inputs.

There’s a lot of “parts of it.” Those parts help define the whole. I highly recommend a coach to you if you’re reading, and if you can afford one. If you can’t, look for alternatives like reading programs, business groups, peer to peer groups, and the like.

Oh yeah, and my partner and I have a board or directors/advisors as well. That’s a big help too, but that’s another story for another blog.

It takes a village…..