As pointed out by accountability coach Kiera MacDonald in the title of her article, successful people have coaches. This is a constant fact across countless fields. Sports? Professional soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo still values his coach’s advice at 36 years old. Politics? Barack Obama, former president of the United States, turns to a coach for guidance. Business? The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, benefits from his own coach so much that he has been quoted saying,
Everybody should have a coach.
Successful people recognize the value of coaching because they understand the importance of having an outside source of support who can objectively look at your actions and provide constructive feedback. Family and friends can provide a great emotional support system, but we often bias towards sharing our successes and not our challenges with them. As professionals reach the middle of their careers, more and more of them report experiencing a sense of isolation from both their family, friends and colleagues when it comes to sharing their problems and challenges openly to access mentorship and advice. This is particularly acute among the breadwinners, as they become the primary carriers of the family’s financial burden.
Professional coaches, trained to understand, diagnose and assist in articulating the challenges and goals of clients, are able to serve as objective and experienced advisors accustomed to working with a number of people in similar positions, facing similar questions and obstacles. Macdonald references behavioral scientist Paul Dolan, at the London School of Economics – the author of the bestselling book Happiness By Design. He points out how:
“Just as people have for years been employing personal trainers to help them get fit and lose weight, so too achieving goals can be accelerated by using an advisor or coach to apply similar principles to success in life.”
Like a personal trainer, coaches have the experience and knowledge that qualifies them to help clients reach their personal and professional goals. To learn more, read here.
