Do you think that you can get any tips about successful coaching from an orchestral conductor? How about if he’s three years old? Well, I think you can. I just watched an incredible video that is packed with examples of what you need to do if you want to be successful at coaching. Here are four.

Be Totally Involved

Successful coaching requires you to put your whole self into the process. While you may not make the body and arm movements of a conductor, you still need to be energetically engrossed in your coaching session. You get that from being both physically and mentally committed to your client. Without it, you risk losing rapport and consequently you risk an unsuccessful coaching experience without the desired result for your client.

Use Everything You Know

Really great coaches bring all their knowledge into their coaching sessions. Of course you use all the coaching skills and techniques you have learned. If you have experience with other related techniques and technologies, possibly from the realms of hypnosis or NLP, you will use those to the add to the impact of your coaching. And perhaps most important, successful coaching also uses your life experience and general knowledge to provide stories as great examples and analogies to help your clients.

Be Unselfconscious

For your coaching to be most successful, all the focus should be on your client. You can’t be worried about sounding silly or using correct grammar, or trying something you aren’t sure will work, or whatever your particular concern might be. If you are worried you might not do a good enough job, your focus is in the wrong place–on you and not on doing your best for your client.

Successful Coaching Doesn’t Allow Distractions

In the video of the three year old conductor, nothing stops him. The camcorder is rolling and it doesn’t matter. His nose itches (a lot apparently!) and he just carries on conducting one handed while he scratches. For you, eliminating distractions means handling them in advance. Get into your coaching state and clear your head of any of your own “stuff.” Then eliminate the obvious distractions like the ding that means you just got another email, or forgetting to get your client notes in front of you before the call starts. Also deal with the less obvious distractions. For instance, get your class of water or cup of tea beforehand; make sure the temperature of the room is reasonable, and go to the bathroom before the call if you need to.

Isn’t it amazing what we coaches can learn from a three year old? You can watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0REJ-lCGiKU&feature=player_embedded if you are intrigued. Then come back and tell me what else you learned from it about successful coaching.

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “Life Coaching Business Blueprint” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your life coaching business blueprint videos.

Dorine G. Kramer
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach