During a recent conversation with Michael Gebben, he referred to the way he and I coach as a new breed of coaches. I loved that term, so I decided to adopt it. Over the four short years I’ve been coaching, I’ve seen a lot change. This is not surprising because the coaching industry is still young and evolving.

Coaching has been around for years, but in the past few years it has grown exponentially. The need for coaches has grown a lot. As has the desire to coach for so many people. So the coaching industry will continue to grow, and the numbers agree. According to ICF, the coaching industry has grown by 21% to $2.849 billion from 2015 to 2019.

How coaching looked four years ago

When I first came on the scene, I experienced a type of coaching that was a combination of the coach listening to the client and then telling them what to do. Popular themes at the time were; stop watching the news, waking up early, journaling daily, investing before you’re ready, and getting off anti-depressants.

Though there’s nothing wrong with each of those topics in itself, there is no one solution for everyone. Every person is different. They all have different needs and desires.

Enter the new breed of coaches

The new wave of coaching that’s happening, acknowledges each person’s individuality. It’s about accepting that each person is whole, not broken. That a client’s intuition is more knowledgable than the coach's tools. This type of coaching is about guiding the client to reconnect within.

The new breed of coaches knows that their value is holding space for clients to become more of who they are. Not someone else. So the coach doesn’t tell the client what to do. He or she is there to support their journey.

The coach as the architect

When we don’t trust ourselves, we come up with certain crutches to support us. In the coaching world, this often comes in the form of strategies and modalities. All strategies and modalities are great. They all have their place but they’re just blueprints that worked for some people.

If we look at the most popular family home models in an area, chances are high that it will work for a lot of families. However, it won’t work for everyone. It won’t work perfectly for a lot of families. The chances of a home model being perfect for a family increase if that home is designed for that family specifically. The same goes for coaching. Successful transformations increase when the coaching is designed for the client.

The new breed of coaches becomes the architects of the perfectly designed coaching experience. They listen, reflect back, and adjust along the way. Strategies and modalities only come into play to support the process, not as a starting point. In order for a coach to be the architect, they must trust themselves to guide the process.

A coach that knows their value

Outside sources cannot be the source of someone’s worth. Standing in your truth as a coach means doing things your way. Even if you haven’t seen the desired results yet.

There’s a time gap between setting intentions and receiving them in our reality. What a person does in that time gap determines whether the intention will manifest. A lot can happen during that time gap. Often things happen that seem like the intention won’t manifest. This is not a sign that things won’t work out. It’s a sign that the old is being removed to make room for the intention to manifest.

When the coach is allowing the client to trust their intuition, it may look like everything will go wrong. That’s when the new breed of coaches own their worth and trust that the transformation will happen. Not the time to start doubting everything.

Applying these concepts to courses and group coaching

Obviously, these concepts can be complicated to understand and even harder to embody. They go against many collective societal beliefs. They can also be easier to understand for private client relationships.

The magic of it all is it doesn’t matter whether someone is coaching one person or many. Whether the coaching is happening live or recorded. Whether it’s through video or audio like Voxer. The same principles apply. Instead of one client, one can see the collective as one client.

What does this mean for business coaching?

Ha! The last four years have been a journey for me to answer this question. Four years ago I decided to build my business my way. I made the term “your business your way” the motto for my coaching business. I even named my Podcast Your Business Your Way. Truth is, I didn’t understand what I was stepping into at the time. I’ve figured out a lot in the past four years and I’ll forever be figuring it out. I’m ok with that now.

In a nutshell, it’s about surrendering all the business strategies. Then be still to connect to your soul for the next creative steps. From there, it’s simply about applying the soul’s guidance. Easy right? It is, as long as we don’t allow the know it all ego brain to take over with its abundance of “you have to” conversations.

Doing things this way means letting go of the need for email lists, social media strategies, launch strategies, market research, and sales strategies. Nothing wrong with them, as long as they’re what your soul is guiding you towards. We’ll never know our true soul’s guidance without surrendering what we think needs to happen.

My intuitive business coaching helps lady coaches apply soulful guidance in their business. Whether that is in the form of 1-on-1 coaching or my membership. Check out my coaching services if you’re interested.

Do you consider yourself a new breed coach?

Share why in the comments. Also, please share your website and/or social media in case someone wants to connect.

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