Paying it Forward
SUMMARY
Do you always take on knowledge for yourself and then just keep it to yourself, or are people always asking you questions and you share what you've learned so that they can use it in their journey as well?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer, and today I want to start a new series, a new journey with you, where we're going to talk about taking what it is that we've learned and sharing that with others. And for those of you who have this desire to want to help in a more structured way, we're going to talk about becoming a coach.
What I want to do over the next few weeks is just unpack some of the elements of being a coach. If this then inspires you to want to become a coach, I'll certainly be able to help you to do that. And if you're already in coaching in training, whether that be internal in an organisation or whether you're doing it in your own practice like me, hopefully there'll be some insights and tips that will help you as well to be able to develop your practice so that you have a greater influence and impact in your world.
There are three key elements to being a great coach.
The first one is a love of people.
The second one is you need to have empathy
The third area that I believe is crucial as a coach is the ability to be a fantastic and an active listener.
Becoming a coach is not the ability to get it all together. I've been coaching for decades, however, I'm a work in progress just like you. I'm just a little bit more knowledgeable and have strategies that are hardwired in my brain now to be able to pick things up and make the change I need to make in a more structured and quicker way.
As we start this journey together, looking at coaching, looking at whether it's something that is for you, and that you'd like to pursue to add to the numbers of people all around the world that do this as a profession and help people and facilitate change in their lives, then stick with me on this journey over the coming weeks. I'm going to look at some practical things. I'm going to look at some things that are really going to help you to be able to become a coach, but also along the journey, continue to grow and learn yourself.
So, Hey, if you've got something out of this, I would love you to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Hit that bell so you don't miss it next week. If you're listening to it on the podcast, I'd love you to leave me a review, pop in a comment, and that really helps to get the message out. And I look forward as I make this slight shift, which is really still talking about leadership and emotional intelligence, to help more people for me to be able to pass the baton as we continue to work together. I'll see you next week.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Do you always take on knowledge for yourself and then just keep it to yourself, or are people always asking you questions and you share what you've learned so that they can use it in their journey as well?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer, and today I want to start a new series, a new journey with you, where we're going to talk about taking what it is that we've learned and sharing that with others. And for those of you who have this desire to want to help in a more structured way, we're going to talk about becoming a coach.
Today, as we start this journey, I want to talk about a simple concept. And it's a concept that I learned a number of years ago that really helped me to get into the journey that I'm in. So for me, I've been developing people now for over 37 years, I've been developing this person for 58 years. For 37 years, I've been involved in some form of training development, coaching, mentoring, inspiring, facilitating. And for me, when I really started to take that seriously was when I realised that what I had on my life was a gift that wasn't just for me, it was a gift that was designed for me to share with others. I've been blessed so that I can be a blessing. It's like if I was to go out in the field and find all these gold bars just popping up out of the ground and because they're heavy, I was only able to carry a few of them and I just left the rest of them there. We wouldn't do that. What we would do is we would go and get some other people and go, "Hey, look what I found, come and help me to get it and get some for yourself." And if you've got that sort of a passion in you, then you're the person that's going to really resonate with this message.
So as we kick this off, I want to talk about paying it forward. I always like to think of it as a relay race where we're not in competition with each other, but we're there helping each other. And I love when you watch a great relay team, how they take off well, and they're all in position and they're waiting there and they got their hand back and ready to take that baton so that they can do the next leg. And that's where I feel that I've come in my journey. The great leadership trainer, I believe the best on the planet, John Maxwell said that leadership doesn't take place until you actually train another leader. For me, I haven't done my role as a coach, as a trainer, as a facilitator, until I'm bringing others along with me, until I have taken that and inspired others to pick up the mantle themselves and go forward and become a coach as well. Now, more than ever, the world needs people who have the ability to listen, who had the ability to have empathy, who have the ability to talk you through situations and give you a different perspective to help you to reframe what's been going on in your mind so that you can take more positive steps.
Over the last three or four months, I've done a number of different topics where we've talked about developing ourselves, where we've talked about human behaviour and being able to create a different version of ourselves so that we can have different results. I've talked about building our identity of who we are, not just looking at what it is that we do and removing those limiting and false beliefs, changing that inner dialogue so that it serves us, not holds us back. All these things and more are what we do as a coach.
What I want to do over the next few weeks is just unpack some of the elements of being a coach. And if this then inspires you to want to become a coach, I'll certainly be able to help you to do that. And if you're already in coaching in training, whether that be internal in an organisation or whether you're doing it in your own practice like me, hopefully there'll be some insights and tips that will help you as well to be able to develop your practice so that you have a greater influence and impact in your world.
I believe that there are three key elements to being a great coach. The first one is a love of people. If you're someone who doesn't love people and you're a loner and you'd like to be on your own, and that's okay, you're probably not going to want to share what it is that you know and your skillset with other people and interact with them and listen to their story and help them and guide them and facilitate change in their life. But if you're like me and you know that even though you haven't got the greatest people skills in the world, and you're working on them every single day of your life, you really do love people. You have a heart for people. You love to see people to succeed. You feel the emotion that they feel when they do that. If that's you, if you're always wanting to help, rather than hold back, then I believe that you've got what it takes. You've got the first box, the greatest box ticked for becoming a coach.
The second area is you need to have empathy. Empathy is that great characteristic that says, "I feel what you are going through. I may not understand, but I'm willing to have a conversation with you." "I'm willing to see it from your perspective." "I'm willing to listen and perhaps not even give you any advice, but I want to see things through your lens." "I want to walk a mile in your moccasins in a non-judgmental way so that I might see something that I can add value to in your life.
And the third area that I believe is crucial as a coach is the ability to be a fantastic, active listener. Now, this type of listening, we've talked about before. This is listening where you're fully present, where you're engaged, where you're focused on them, not on yourself, and you are listening, not just for what's been said, but you're listening to the emotion that's coming through. And you're also listening to what's not being said. And these three areas put together of active listening, empathy, and having a true love for people are a great start for you to be able to develop your skills as a coach. I believe that they are the base level competencies of paying it forward, of being able to take what you've learned and share it with others, whether that be as a coach or a mentor or a trainer or whatever it is that you want to do. You can learn skills on how to run a coaching session, on how to run a practice, on how to train someone in a workshop. All those things can be learned, and I'm going to give you some help with that over the coming weeks. However, those first three: loving people, having empathy, and active listening, they're things that need to be within you. Now, if they're not within you right now, it doesn't mean that they're not there, it just means you haven't found them. And it could be that because you're still on your own own journey of personal development that you're not allowing those things which are truly you to come out and be seen.
So, becoming a coach is not the ability to get it all together. I've been coaching for decades, however, I'm a work in progress just like you. I'm just a little bit more knowledgeable and have strategies that are hardwired in my brain now to be able to pick things up and make the change I need to make in a more structured and quicker way. But it doesn't mean that a coach has got it all together. It doesn't mean that a trainer, a facilitator, a mentor, whatever it is that you want to do, it doesn't mean you've got to have it altogether. I love to tell people I'm on my own journey of imperfection. Perfection is never the goal, but it's about being on a journey of continuous improvement, looking for opportunities to become that next version of yourself. As we start this journey together, looking at coaching, looking at whether it's something that is for you, and that you'd like to pursue to add to the numbers of people all around the world that do this as a profession and help people and facilitate change in their lives, then stick with me on this journey over the coming weeks. I'm going to look at some practical things. I'm going to look at some things that are really going to help you to be able to become a coach, but also along the journey, continue to grow and learn yourself.
So, Hey, if you've got something out of this, I would love you to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Hit that bell so you don't miss it next week. If you're listening to it on the podcast, I'd love you to leave me a review, pop in a comment, and that really helps to get the message out. And I look forward as I make this slight shift, which is really still talking about leadership and emotional intelligence, to help more people for me to be able to pass the baton as we continue to work together. I'll see you next week.
