How do professionals get better at what they do? How do they get great?
There are two views about this. Firstly is the traditional pedagogical view. That is that you go to school, you study, you practice, you learn, you graduate, and then you go out into the world and you make your way on your own. A professional is someone who is capable of managing their own improvement. That is the approach that virtually all professionals have learned by. That’s how doctors learn, that’s how lawyers do, scientists … musicians. And the thing is, it works. So no need for coaching?
Consider for example legendary Juilliard violin instructor Dorothy DeLay. She trained an amazing roster of violin virtuosos: Midori, Sarah Chang, Itzhak Perlman. Each of them came to her as young talents, and they worked with her over years. What she worked on most, she said, was inculcating in them habits of thinking and of learning so that they could make their way in the world without her when they were done.
Secondly is the contrasting view comes out of sports. They say “You are never done, everybody needs a coach.” Everyone. The greatest in the world need a coach.
So then which view is right, traditional or coaching?
For that reason, I learned that coaching came into sports as a very American idea. In 1875, Harvard and Yale played one of the very first American-rules football games. Yale hired a head coach; Harvard did not. The results? Over the next three decades, Harvard won just four times. Harvard hired a coach.
So have you ever thought? “Is this as good as I’m going to get?”
Above all, what great coaches do is we are your external eyes and ears, providing a more accurate picture of your reality. We’re recognising the fundamentals. We’re breaking your actions down and then helping you build them back up again. After a few months of coaching, you’ll feel yourself getting better again. It will sometimes be painful. You may not like being accountable and observed, and at times you probably won’t want to have to work on things. But you feel there are times where you’ll will get worse before you get better.
Finally, all my clients realise that your coach is onto something profoundly important, we get the results you always hoped you could get… and more.
