Coaching is ultimately about subtly putting ideas into a coachee (person-being-coached)’s head about who s/he is and what s/he can become or accomplish.

That may NOT sound very romantic, but THAT is what Coaching ultimately entails!

This is the reason why the best coaches are those who know how to make you BELIEVE you can do anything you set your mind to.

It is also why those coaches often succeed in getting a coachee to rebound from serious failures or setbacks that would keep others down, to resume his/her winning ways at even higher levels.

Sometimes however even the best coaches will not be able to help a coachee…

But that will often only happen when the latter is unwilling to accept the ideas the former ever so subtly puts into the latter’s head.

For instance, if a tennis player past the age that most active players are expected to be able to  compete effectively at world class level, wants to reach the Top 10 rankings, after having crashed out say 5 years earlier, s/he has to DISPENSE with the conventional wisdom that players enter a period of decline once they cross that certain age range.

S/he must also tune out advice from inevitable nay sayers: some will be former champions, veterans, even coaches, who will try to dissuade him/her from embarking on a futile journey.

Most importantly, s/he will likely need to exorcise his/her own demons in terms of self-doubt that may plague him/her anytime s/he suffers a setback as s/he pursues this ambitious goal.

The coach’s ability to show him/her how to deal with the above mentioned intangible but potentially negatively impact-ful factors/conditions, will go a long way to determine how successful the player ends up being.

The ability to do the above, and reproduce it, is what makes some coaches better than others.

A quote I once read stated that success is never about being right 100% of the time. It’s instead a matter of percentages. You will get it wrong, or fail periodically. That is inevitable.

The trick to success is to work hard to get it right more often, over time, than you get it wrong.

It won’t matter what you do, or where you do it. Understanding this simple rule is the key to avoiding frustration as you pursue success!

Coaches who excel are those who leave coachees equipped to CONTINUE succeeding on their own…

They do this by instilling in their coachees a sound understanding of the above philosophy, and a mental attitude that ensures they can diligently apply it anytime the need to do so arises.

In other words, the best coaches are those who empower those they coach to eventually BE INDEPENDENT of the coach, such that they can Self-Coach!

At that stage, such coachees, only reach out to the coach periodically, for insights or perspectives to deal with new or unfamiliar challenges.

Outside such situations, they would be confident carrying on alone in pursuit of valued goals they constantly refine and expand towards achieving self-actualization.

If you’re going to be a coach, THAT is the kind I recommend you become!

As you can imagine, IT IS the kind that I am – and have always been.

Such coaches make what is called a LASTING DIFFERENCE anywhere they go.

And they are the ones our societies need…NOT those who try to tie people who learn from them to their apron strings – or worse, who try to keep persons they coach, from surpassing them.

Doing the latter (i.e. failing to give enough to make coachees do better than you are doing or have done) effectively defeats the purpose of coaching.

How successful a coach can you be, if you cannot produce any coachee that you’ve empowered to exceed whatever you may have accomplished?

It goes without saying, that NOT all coaching relationships involve both parties sharing similar vocational/career interests.

However, whenever THAT is the case, it is my considered opinion that if the coachee does NOT end up exceeding the coach’s achievements at some point, something would be wrong with such a coach’s formula or method!

Why do I say this?

Because a coachee’s talent/potential is only one part of the coaching equation that will yield success.

Other factors will often come into play – most being Psychological, and some Environmental.

Both factors are the coach’s playground…where s/he creatively injects needed input to elicit the desired behaviour from the coachee.

In other words, a coach’s success in getting his/her coachee to succeed will depend on how frequently s/he is able to create conditions that enable the coachee reject anything that goes against what s/he needs to believe/think/do, to achieve a set goal.