Consider the following two questions: 1) On any given day, who do you think about the most? 2) On any given day, who do you have the most conversations with?
If you answered anything other than “myself” to the questions above, I’d ask you to reevaluate. Upon reevaluation, if you don’t agree with me, I’d ask you to closely examine your thoughts and internal dialogue for a period of two weeks.
Why is this important for coaches? Because the individuals on your team are no different than you; they think about themselves more than anything. And if you want to coach them as effectively as possible, it’s imperative that you intimately understand the thing they care about most: themselves. Coaches and organizations who understand this win awards, maximize results, and have quotes like this one attached to their name:
“100 percent of his sales team members agree that he cares about them as a person and describe him as an excellent sales coach.”
In 2019 the word manager has become archaic. In an age where information is now a commodity, if coaches are managing anything it should be the psychology of those on their team. Hence why it’s important to know them and what they are constantly thinking about. According to neuroscientist Joe Dispenza and many other reputable think tanks, 95% of our day-to-day behavior and actions are being run by our subconscious programing. That is a MASSIVE number!
What are the implications? Change is hard – coaching is hard – you can do it!
If 95% of a person’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and activities are being run by unexamined subconscious programming, that means your job as a coach is to help them tap into their unique conscious power which makes up the remaining 5%. Motivational genius Tony Robbins says, “it’s an individuals state of mind and personal narrative that determines a person’s capacity for success." This means that coaching has a lot more to do with helping a person understand themselves and enhance belief in their own ability than it does teaching them any particular “how-to” skill set. (Tweet This)
If you are a sales coach that is searching for ways to better understand each unique person on your team, begin by committing to executing these 5 high-payoff coaching activities. In doing so, you will not only be able to help enhance technical skill sets, but you will put yourself in position to spend more time with your team members allowing you to ask them questions about that all-important thing they care about most: themselves.
Disclaimer: In order to effectively inspire others to tap into their own free-will and powerful 5% of conscious control, you must first tap into your own. There is literature for days on this topic, but here is a 30-minute video from the amazing Tom Bileyu at Impact Theory which is a great crash course interview with the aforementioned Joe Dispenza.
Disclaimer II: If the fact that you think about yourself more than anything else makes you uncomfortable, that’s good. I know a guy that once said, “comfort will ruin your life”. Also, avoid the temptation to be a binary thinker. Just because you think and care about yourself the most does not mean that you can’t be a loving, compassionate, philanthropic, and an awesome human being. You are that to.
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