The Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Coach
There are several reasons why you should hire a Personal/Professional Coach, but here are the Top 10.  

1. You will set far better goals that motivate you in a healthy way.
Did you have Goal Setting 101 in high school? Probably not. Enter the coach, an expert in helping you to
identify and set the goals that you really want, not the ones that are "shoulds," pipe dreams that you've been
recycling or that mirror the goals of your parents, society, or Madison Avenue. Choosing the right goals for
you is an art and the coach takes the necessary time to help you clarify your personal values, so that you
have something really solid on which to develop your goals. Value-based goals are naturally motivating, but it
takes good coaching to get to these.

2. You'll accomplish goals and tasks and projects much more quickly.
One of the reasons that people hire a coach is to save themselves time. Working with a coach, they learn how
to be far more effective, efficient and productive in everything that they do, including their job/business or
personal projects. We humans just aren't that naturally effective, even if we think that we are. The coach has
the tools and techniques to share with their clients so that things get done in half the time. (Even the coaching
process is efficient -- on the phone, 1/2 hour to 1 hour a week, reasonable fee.)

3. You'll make fewer mistakes in your business life or in your personal life.
The old model of learning from your mistakes has deteriorated to be more like: How else will you learn if you
don't make mistakes? With a coach, you have a third eye, someone who's been there and who has coached
others in your situation, and an expert in getting the job done with the minimum of fuss (called learning curve,
mistakes, errors in judgment, wrong tunnels, etc.). The costs (emotional, financial, time) of making mistakes
has gotten very expensive in the past decade. A single mistake can ruin you in today's hyper-paced business
environment. Some clients use their coach as an inexpensive insurance policy.

4. You'll move up to the next level of your professional and personal life.
Almost everybody is moving up the ladder of business success, personal development, awareness and
emotional balance. The coach can help you see where you are right now and point out ways to grow and get
where you want to get to. Or, if you're not even on the ladder, the coach can guide you to it and help you get
started on your path.

5.  You'll reduce the number of problems you have and better resolve the problems that are left.
The first step in solving a problem is to ask yourself why you have this problem at all. The second step is to
ask yourself why you have problems at all. The third step is to get on track to having no problems -- aka,
becoming a Problem-Free Zone (PFZ). This is not a joke. Being a PFZ is becoming even more important along
the path of sustainable success. You cannot afford to have problems, period. Life's too short and problems
are too expensive. A well-trained coach can help you become a PFZ. A well-trained coach is a PFZ.

6.  You'll likely make more money in your career, profession or business.
Clients don't keep paying their coaches just for the fun of it. Coaching, like every other professional service,
needs to improve the financial bottom line and it does. Coaches are trained to help clients to leverage their
ability to make money, i.e., getting a raise, choosing a better career, starting a business, improving
profitability, adding more value to their customers, proper pricing, productivity and others. Sure, coaching is
personal, but it almost always includes a strong financial aspect.

7.  You'll be a lot happier and this happiness will last.
Coaches know how to help you to reduce stress, integrate all aspects of your life, simplify or down shift, and
reorient around what makes you the happiest. What good is increased productivity and profitability if you're
not happy?

8.  You'll be much more effective and influential with others: family, business and personal
relationships.
Communication makes life, life. A coach is an expert communicator and trains clients on how to come across
better, relate well with others, listen aggressively, influence, coach, motivate and support others. There are
over 100 communication and listening skills that clients can learn from a coach.

9. You'll become much more attractive to others -- on the inside and on the outside.
Selling, as a profession and as a proven technique/process, is on its way out. Why? Because humans are
getting better at choosing for themselves and are now better at buying. Humans will respond less to
advertising and selling techniques and instead be drawn to a product or service and they will be more likely
drawn because of who is offering the product or service. This process is called attraction and Coach
University wrote the book on it (called Irresistible Attraction). It's real. It works. And it will replace much of the
promotion, marketing, selling, seducing and other very expensive budget items. Remember, the world (aka
consumers) is rapidly eliminating virtually all waste and inefficiencies in how business is conducted, products
are sold and how services are delivered. Selling and mass marketing, while certainly still very effective right
now, is on the hit list. Attraction is the next generation of selling and the well-trained coach can help you and
your business get on this track immediately.

10.  You'll have a better life, not just a better lifestyle.
The term Quality of Life has become overused in the past few years, but the trend of Americans seeking to
create a much better life for themselves is accelerating. In fact, people are re-examining what they had
assumed that a good life was (married, 2.3 kids, nice car, secure job, church on Sundays, 3 weeks of vacation
a year) and are now creating their own life, often breaking the rules and flying in the face of conventional
wisdom in the process. A coach has been trained in the Life Design process and has already made the kind of
design changes in their life, that their clients are just now beginning to make.

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About the Submitter
This article was originally submitted by Thomas J. Leonard. He, along with the coaching profession he helped
to pioneer, was featured in over 200 media outlets since 1996, including
Newsweek, Time, Fortune, NBC
Nightly News, Los Angeles Times, and The Times (London).  
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Life Journey Alliance Coaching
P.O. Box 25823
Colorado Springs, CO. 80936