You want a Coach, not a Guru

“You’re not The Bike I ALWAYS HAVE to use to get where I want to go, you’re my Training Wheels to HELP ME learn to ride my bike myself so one day I can go wherever I want on my own!”

“Coaching operates from the profound belief that you are the expert on you.”

A client said this to me as we were discussing a phenomenon in the ADHD coaching world we have both recently discovered.  I’ve always openly discussed with my clients that coaching is an unregulated industry so a lot of people coach in very different styles.  What I hadn’t realized until recently is that what some people call coaching is a lot more like what I tend to call “Guru Talking”. Many of these “coaches” are now hosting podcasts and, unfortunately, now influencing what people think coaching should do. They play their recorded “coaching calls”, 20, 30, 60 minute conversations that start out like real coaching conversations with questions focused on the client.

“What would you like to work on today?”

“What area of your life could we focus on that would have the greatest impact in your life?”

“Where are you stopped and looking for a breakthrough?”

They might even follow up with more questions to fully understand the issue, but then at some point they slip into Guru mode and leave coaching behind.  

What does Guru talking sound like? Gurus start telling you what you are doing wrong, they tell you what you are feeling, they tell you what to do and how to fix your problem.

“Sounds great!” You say. 

 “Sign me up!” You exclaim.  

“What’s wrong with that?” You ask.

“...the mission of true coaching is to empower you to learn to coach yourself.”

The flaw behind Guru Talk is that while the conversations may be amazing; the insights might even be jaw dropping; quite frankly none of it is likely to cause long lasting change because it didn’t come from the clients own work and realizations.  It was given to them by a guru, not thought through and discovered by the client.  And while I fully understand the instantaneous and deep relief one might feel from being told “this is what you are doing, this is what you need to do” and feeling “fixed” in under 30 minutes  It is unlikely to “fix” anything. 

“..the basic premise behind True Coaching is that you are capable. You are capable of learning to coach yourself. You are capable of setting goals and achieving them. You are capable of making decisions. You have tools and skills to learn, but you are capable.”

Real coaching is about empowering the client to take the actions they want, to accomplish the things they want in their life.  If you want to get into classic parables, Coaches teach our clients HOW to fish, rather than giving them the fish. This involves deep conversations with a coach who is a powerful listener and asks questions that open your mind up to new perspectives and possibilities.  It’s pretty amazing work and I love it.  I love it so much that when I listen to podcasts doing Guru Talk and calling it coaching I get pretty upset because it isn’t doing anyone any favors, except for the person charging you a lot of money to tell you what to do.  There are a few important reasons “true coaching” doesn’t operate this way. 

 First of all, the mission of true coaching is to empower you to learn to coach yourself.  Coaches are always coaching themselves out of jobs.  Our goal is to help you understand yourself and to learn the coaching skills you need such that you can use them on yourself when you need them.  And why is this important?  Because the basic premise behind True Coaching is that you are capable. You are capable of learning to coach yourself. You are capable of setting goals and achieving them. You are capable of making decisions. You have tools and skills to learn, but you are capable.  Guru talk runs on the premise that you need someone to tell you what you are thinking, what you are doing wrong and what you need to change to do things “right”.  Coaching operates from the profound belief that you are the expert on you.  Now clearly there are tools and skills and realizations you may need to learn or adopt along the way (the biggest one being how to coach yourself) but still the premise lies in our faith in your abilities and knowledge and just like you learn to coach through modeling our coaching, you also begin to learn to believe in yourself and have faith in yourself through our modeling because we as coaches believe in you.  We believe you don’t need a guru.  We believe you are capable of real lasting change, but that does take work and that is hard and doesn’t always feel good.  

To quote another client, “Now THAT’S real empowerment!”

Interested in seeing what true coaching is like?  Great!  Schedule one of my FREE introductory call so you can experience real coaching with me.