Written by: Flora Bami, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you have a coach? Athletes have coaches. Musicians have coaches. Leaders have coaches. When you start to look, you’ll find that pretty much anyone at the top of their game has a coach – it’s often what separates the good from the great.
Coaching is a partnership between a coach and a coachee that builds the coachee’s ability to observe and select appropriate actions to maximize their personal and professional potential. Coaching is a symbiotic relationship and mutually beneficial interaction.
A coach provides space and structure for the reflection that is necessary for learning and growth. They help you understand what your values are and where your actions diverge from your values or stated goals. A good coach can help you reconnect with what you love about your life and your work.
Coaching is not a remedial procedure, it’s a developmental investment. The most successful people in our world take their personal growth seriously and make sure that they have a coach to support their development at a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level. You can be a successful professional, a great friend, and partner but you can become even better by building awareness of yourself, your “algorithm”, the way you have been programmed, your limiting beliefs, etc.
Self-awareness is an endless lifelong beautiful fascinating journey. The desire to be coached comes from a space of self-love, self-worth, and genuine curiosity.
“Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast, or a bridge player. We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” ‒Bill Gates
Interestingly the point he highlights and the one characteristic common to all high-performing individuals, from executives to athletes is the fact that they all have a coach.
Good coaching provides actionable insight and opportunity for growth based on specific areas you wish to improve; Its purpose must be clear, and the success criteria are set. But not by a coach, by you.
Coaching is the mechanism to help you achieve the success you define for yourself; the coach is the ally that helps get you there.
How?
By challenging your thinking, making you consider better questions or different world views, helping you understand your own blockers to success, being fully present for you, and listening to you with zero judgment. Who else does that for us? Coaching helps you break through these barriers, empowering you to be the expert of your own success.
So why everyone needs a coach?
A coach sees the potential and greatness in you, even when you don’t.
A good coach challenges you to think bigger and do better. They’ll remind you of your potential and resourcefulness when you’re hitting roadblocks. When you’re feeling like a failure, burned out, or overwhelmed, a coach will reconnect you to your vision and your “why” to relight that fire.
Working with a coach helps give you space and structure to think.
In our culture, everyone seems to be going, going, going with packed schedules and endless meetings. Have you ever thought, “I could do amazing things if I just had the space and time to think and reflect!”? When you work with a coach, you have dedicated thinking time, plus an experienced thought partner who asks the right challenging questions and offers the right guidance to help your thinking time be as productive as possible.
A coach can help you get out of your comfort zone.
Whether it’s limiting beliefs or self-sabotaging behaviors, chances are you are part of the problem you want to solve. Which is a good thing because we can’t change others, but we can change ourselves. A coach helps shed light on times when your assumptions, subconscious beliefs, thought processes, habits, or other behaviors are getting in the way of what you want to accomplish.
Working with a coach helps give you a different perspective.
Sometimes, we’re so close to a situation that a solution could be right in front of us and we wouldn’t see it. Other times, you need to get out of your bubble and think differently about an issue. Having a coach can solve all of these things – they can help you zoom in, zoom out, visualize possibilities and identify areas of opportunity. A coach will support you integrally by accessing not only your mind but also your heart, body and spirit ‒ and this is how and when the magic happens.
A coach can help you find new and creative pathways to success ‒ your success.
A coach works with you to identify the best path to get from where you are to where you want to be, how to overcome the obstacles you encounter when it makes sense to take a detour, and which skills you need to build over time. Sometimes, what you need is a roadmap. What have others done in this area that has been successful (or not)? With a good coach, you can get a roadmap that makes your journey one you’re excited to take.
A coach is a dedicated listener (and everyone needs one of those in their lives).
One of the most important roles a coach plays is a dedicated listener. If you’ve never had the experience of someone listening to you – really, truly, deeply listening without judgment and with no other purpose than to understand you – it’s life-changing. Unfortunately, most humans aren’t taught to be good listeners, but it’s something we all need. Some of my most meaningful personal coaching sessions have been when I have felt overwhelmed and emotionally drained, and my coach just listened. Talking to your coach can be like releasing pressure and overwhelming emotions. It allows you to vent, center yourself, and come to a place of calm and thoughtfulness. You’ll see things in a new light and be intentional about your next move.
A coach facilitates the development of personal or professional objectives.
The coach doesn’t provide you with the answers to a challenge or even tell you what to do. Instead, the coach acts as a facilitator to help you ask better questions and explore your own answers. They serve as a guide while you create a plan, define outcomes, and experiment to move your thinking forward.
“Life coaching is truly its own unique service designed to help ambitious achievers meet the outcomes that will bring them Success and Fulfillment” ‒ Tony Robbins
Becoming a coach and having a coach, has improved immensely my personal and professional life, made my purpose in life clear and inspiring, radically changed my relationship with myself and others, and made me fall in love with the process of self-discovery, becoming unstoppable and living with inner peace.
My long-term vision is that coaching becomes as normal and as indispensable as running water, electricity, and WiFi in every family, workplace, business, school, university, and public service.
Flora Bami, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Flora Bami is an optimist, an experienced and passionate integral coach, with expertise in life, mindset, relationships, and wellbeing coaching. Her main focus is on making your relationship with yourself healthier and reframing your inner voice based on self-love, acceptance, and compassion.
Her mission in life is to support people in their life journey to reach their potential and feel better and happier through individual coaching and setting up wellbeing programs in big organizations.
Better people, better world!
Happier people, happier world!
After going through a deep transformation herself and turning trauma into a gift, she dedicated her life to supporting people reconnecting with their true selves.
