I was chatting to an entrepreneur recently who is a little rattled after a year in a popular group coaching program for entrepreneurs.
The coaching program — insert eye roll, like so many — is essentially geared to create “mini-me’s”, by teaching a specific, step-by-step methodology for how to grow your business by copying exactly what the group founder did to grow their business.
Everything about this well-worn technique offends me and everything I stand for on the deepest level.
But honestly, it’s effective for a brand new entrepreneur with zero confidence, who hates uncertainty and wants a strong-minded leader to replace the pain of, you know, building a business, with the pablum of “do it exactly like I did it and you’ll get the exact results I did!!!”
LOLOLOLOLOL.
In short, her time in that program was so completely focused on implementing someone else’s SYSTEM that she can no longer hear HERSELF.
That’s what happens when you rely on someone else’s step-by-step formula. You lose connection with your voice, vision, and unique thought process.
And then you wonder why nothing you do is working as well as you think it should AND you feel so massively disconnected from your vision.
I remember a client who had built a business totally unique to HER thanking me for not spoon-feeding her some asinine step-by-step formula, even though she confessed that at times she “hated” me for it.
To which I replied that I am a coach, not a professional enabler. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE. We laughed about it, but I have thought about our conversation many times.
I would never ever create a “baby formula” coaching program that delivers “sound like everyone else” gruel one video lesson at a time.
Why? Because I’m not teaching you how to darn socks. I’m teaching you how to build a business, which is a dynamic creation.
Rather, we have focused on creating programs that deliver the structure, guidance, support, accountability, relationships and tools to help our clients create businesses that are a true reflection and expression of who THEY ARE BECOMING…not who I WAS WHEN I WAS AT THEIR LEVEL.
See the difference?
Building a business is a lot like becoming a butterfly.
The hardest part of a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly happens when it has to emerge from the chrysalis. It’s FREAKING hard work to saw themselves out of that thing. But if you go over and help them out (i.e. spoon-feed), they’ll die soon after. It’s the nature of the struggle that determines the butterfly’s ability to fully fly.
Any coach who attempts to take that away from you is a pox on the profession. We, OF ALL PEOPLE, should know better.
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