ASK THE COACH
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A Good Coach Speeds Success
By Dr. Ray Angelini
The Saratogian
October 4, 2005
In my last column, I explored the three acts involved in becoming successful. In this column, I'd like to focus on Act 3, personal coaching, and explain why this act is without a doubt the most important factor in achieving lasting success.
The dictionary defines a coach as "a wise and trusted mentor or teacher." In my experience, very few people experience great success without a personal mentor or coach.
In their book, The One-Minute Millionaire, Mark Victor Hanson and Robert Allen discuss three benefits of having a coach.
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Coaches give us perspective.
Most of us are too close to our careers and businesses to view them objectively. It is very easy for us to get caught up in the adrenaline, and often confusion, of our given situation. A coach is more detached and is usually more able to be objective. As Hanson and Allen state, "Experience plus time equals wisdom." A good coach can offer us the wisdom of greater life experience.
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A coach can help make us proficient.
Someone once said that the value of education lies in helping us recognize what we don't know. A coach can help us fill in the gaps between what we know and what we don't know. In learning a new task, or even in rethinking an old one, a coach can simplify things by guiding us more easily and proficiently through the process. A coach can be a tremendous timesaver in terms of having to learn things through repeated trial and error. A coach also can provide us with a shortcut and spare us from unnecessary emotional pain as well as lost time and money.
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A coach teaches us patience.
In learning any new task, there is a learning curve. A good coach can dramatically reduce this curve and along the way, teach us the valuable lesson of patience during our struggle to achieve mastery.
If you want to achieve success more quickly, find yourself a good coach. All of the most successful people I know of have one, and readily admit they would not be nearly as successful without them.
We cannot create synergy on our own; it takes at least two. An ancient Chinese proverb states that "a simple conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books." We are only as powerful and successful as our coaches. Don't miss out on this most important cornerstone of success.
