Is a Coach worth the investment?

A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. “Master, I wish to become your disciple,” said the man. “Why?” replied the hermit. The young man thought for a moment. “Because I want to find God.” The master jumped up, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him into the river, and plunged his head under water. After holding him there for a minute, with him kicking and struggling to free himself, the master finally pulled him up out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to get his breath.

When he eventually quieted down, the master spoke. “Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were under water.” “Air!” answered the man. “Very well,” said the master. “Go home and come back to me when you want God as much as you just wanted air.”

CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt says, “Everybody should have a Coach”. And I agree. Coaching brings the most breakthrough results in a relatively short period of time in any area of you life that you desire.

There is limited awareness about Coaching and its benefits, even though a lot of leadership development programs today are now emphasizing on the role of a leader or manager as a Coach and are systematically training them to lead coaching conversations with their teams.

But the questions that people usually ask are – Is Coaching for me? Will it work for me? Is it worth the investment of my time and money?

And that brings me to the story that I have put down at the beginning of this article, which many of us have heard at some point. In my opinion and based on my experience, only someone who is deeply committed to their goals will benefit the most from a Coaching relationship. Just like the young man in the example badly wanted to breathe!

A Coach is a facilitator and an investor in your goals, not a consultant, a subject matter expert or a therapist. S/he has the most sophisticated tools and insights to work with you organically through your challenges and problems. A Coach makes you aware of your blind spots or thinking patterns that might be standing in the way of you taking the necessary actions to realize your dreams and objectives.

This is precisely the reason that more money is poured into Executive and Business Coaching (or even Sports Coaching) as compared to Life Coaching; the stakes are perceived to be very high. Corporate leaders and entrepreneurs are under pressure to deliver, and quickly. And this is where Coaching comes into play. All Fortune 500 Company CEOs have a Coach, without exception.

However, all of these coaching tools and insights will fall by the wayside if you don’t bring yourself completely to the Coaching relationship. In coaching terminology, you must be “Coachable”.

A Coach will keep you accountable but will you do the same for yourself? We all have “reasons and excuses” but not a solid plan or commitment to achieve what we deeply desire.

So before asking yourself whether you should hire a Coach or whether a Coach is worth the investment of your time and money, it is imperative you ask yourself how invested are you in your own goals. What are your goals, what is it that you really want? Introspecting on these lines will go a long way in yielding the most benefits from a Coaching relationship.