The Ultimate Guide To Becoming A Master Coach
Everything you need to know about becoming a master coach and how coaching mastery can boost your business.
You have a successful coaching business. Your clients are happy, and so are you.
But lately, you have been hearing this buzz about "coaching mastery."
You are tempted to brush it off. Becoming a master coach could be just another fad in the industry.
You stick your chopsticks in the noodle bowl and watch Kung Fu Panda for the nth time. As you see the food-obsessed panda, Po, master kung fu in the face of extreme personal attacks, it dawns on you…
You are falling into the loop of the 'seven great objections' you often help your clients overcome...
You jump to your computer and start Googling. In the background, as the movie plays, you hear Master Oogway:
The funny and compelling story of a clumsy panda who rose to become THE Dragon Warrior is the perfect tale for and of everyone and anyone who wishes to gain mastery…or avoid it!
A veritable dumpling of wisdom, the Kung Fu Panda, shines a light on a few truths most coaches tend to ignore after having reached a certain level of expertise, and their businesses plateau comfortably:
1) Anyone can become a master coach.
Anyone! Be it a giant panda, a tiny red panda, a tortoise, or even a praying mantis.
"There's no secret ingredient. It's just you".
– Po at the moment of Enlightenment.
2) Potential hides behind blocks.
Coaches must become adept at seeing their clients' blocks, change their technique to suit the student (including themselves), and then ANYONE can be brought to their own greatness.
"Once I realized that the problem was not you, but within me, I found inner peace and was able to harness the flow of the universe."
– Master Shifu to Po
3) Just keep learning.
Getting good, great, or evening gaining mastery does not mean the end of the road for learning.
"There's always something more to learn, even for a master."
– Master Oogway to Master Shifu
4) Practice is a must.
Without practice, the one 'Aha moment' of realization – the moment of truth and test – would be lost. Push yourself to go beyond your mental and physical limits.
Challenge yourself!
"If you only do what you can do, you'll never be more than you are now."
– Master Shifu to Po
Coaching mastery is not an unattainable goal.
It is not a by-product of your coaching business.
It is not just a function of time and experience.
It is a function of WHAT you have done over the years and HOW you have enriched your life.
It is the qualitative process during which you transform lives and end up creating a super successful business out of it.
Sounds motivating? Are you ready to reorganize your universe once again? Let's read on and see what it takes to become a successful master coach.
Who Is A Master Coach?
On coaching some of the world's biggest business leaders, renowned executive coach Gregg Thompson writes,
"I have nothing to bring to them in knowledge or advice. My role is to have a conversation that can test their thinking, challenge their beliefs, and help them to see differently so they can act differently. If nothing changes, that's not coaching; it's just a nice conversation."
If you ask the world's top coaches what they do, almost each and every one of them will say, "nothing much."
They're being truthful too.
A master coach doesn't SOLVE anything. They give tools so individuals can keep addressing their problems for all time to come.
They help people, organizations, and coaches become their best versions by teaching them to see their own problems, inspect them, dissect them, solve them in record time and in a lasting way.
They shift the entire trajectory of a person's life, no matter who they are or where they come from.
For example, master transformational coach Oren Harris invites people to "experience the O," aka clarity, through an energy technique he has developed to clear blocks and experience one's full potential – the O! His many clients include bestselling authors and fellow coaches who dip into his niche to transform their work and fundamentally change their lives.
Usually, as a coach, we advise you to find clients whose requirements closely match what you offer.
As a master coach, you gain the skills needed to work with any kind of client - even if it isn't a perfect match.
Any good coach can help their client arrive at the outcomes they desire by helping them create goals, make a roadmap, identify obstacles, and keep them on track. A master coach adds some zing to this – they make the journey shorter, more efficient, and fun.
Master coaches dedicate their lives to helping others. In the process of gaining coaching mastery, they set off on a life-long journey of learning, teaching, and perfecting the art of assisted self-reflection and time-bound change.
The fact is that if you do not walk forward and do not work towards gaining mastery, not only do you stop, but you also actually start getting left behind. Because others just keep moving on… including your clients.
Why Become A Master Coach?
Becoming a master coach is all about accelerating your personal and professional growth.
Pursuing coaching mastery gives you:
- 1A skill upgrade
- 2An efficient road map to success
- 3A higher success rate
- 4Better market credibility
- 5A wider network
- 6Better pay
It makes good business sense!
As a coach, you are running a marathon. As a master coach, you are training yourself to win the gold - not just a certificate saying, 'also-ran.'
So, what does it take to go for gold?
In his book Outliers, author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell dissects success. He states that it takes 10,000 hours to gain mastery – to become an expert – at anything.
International organizations require coaches to put in at least 2,500 coaching hours (2,200 paid) even to qualify to be taught by master coaches!
Is it worth it? Totally!
10x Your Offer
Create Greater, Lasting Impact
Guaranteed Growth = Higher Confidence
More Clients, More Money
Wider Network
Unlock Your Highest Potential
10x Your Offer
Would you pay more for a 32-piece home tool kit or the 161-piece kit? This decision is a no-brainer. That's exactly how clients also think while selecting a coach.
The process of selecting a coach:
Suitable niche
Credentials and Skills
Client Feedback
Bang for the Buck.
As you transform into a master coach learning new tools and techniques from the best coaches out there, you will see yourself creating better results faster for your clients.
Create Greater, Lasting Impact
Using coaching models and strategies known to give guaranteed results, you'll be able to transform lives at a deeper level, creating a lasting impact.
Guaranteed Growth = Higher Confidence
With great skills comes great confidence. As a master coach, you'll learn to stay calm, focused, and true to your inner greatness - both in the sessions as well as in sales conversations.
More Clients, More Money
Master coaches learn top-notch business-building systems and marketing strategies. That translates to a steady stream of dream clients. A wider and sharper skillset, consistent results, and credentials attesting that you learned from the best also put you in place to seek higher client contributions for the time and energy you invest. It sets you apart from the crowd allowing you to charge without comparing yourself with anyone else.
Wider Network
As you commit to mastery, growth, and continuous contribution, you will meet and work with many like-minded, high-potential individuals. The shared work and learning experiences are known to elevate businesses for all those involved.
Unlock Your Highest Potential
Gaining mastery helps unlock your full potential, tap into your uniqueness, amp up your style, and polish your methodology, so you can become the very best version of yourself, grow your business, and fulfill your life's purpose with ease.
Feel the need to gain mastery in your niche now?
List your coaching skills, starting from the ones you are most confident about to the least confident. State your blocks or limitations against each skill. Identify a master coaching program that can help strengthen your repertoire.
Here are some to get you started:
Coaching skills | Blocks/Limitations | Coaching mastery niche |
|---|---|---|
Discovering purpose | ||
Deep listening | ||
Effective communication | ||
Setting boundaries | ||
Creating structure | ||
Clearing blocks | ||
Building trust | ||
Forging relationships | ||
Self-coaching | ||
Enrolling clients |
What Does It Take To Become A Master Coach?
In short: Be a perpetual student.
Master coaches are selfless people of strong character, humility, and gratitude who enjoy popularity, trust, and earn a lot of money.
But these are not the skills that helped them become masters. These are the products of their investment in continuous skill development to serve others.
Another word for continuous skill development is LEARNING.
And there's a science to it. It's called modeling – the process of replicating actions and thought patterns.
Anyone can excel by aligning oneself with those who are at the top of their field!
This principle can be applied to coaching as well.
Learning from the masters allows every coach – beginner or experienced – to become their absolute best at changing lives, unlock their true potential, and break glass ceilings lightning fast.
To become the best, seek out the experts in the skills you wish to acquire. Know that what you pay for their knowledge is an investment that will come back to you many times over.
4 Essentials For Coaching Mastery
Stay Committed
The journey from good, to great, to exceptional passes through commitment and sacrifice. Don't let distractions derail you, don't let setbacks deter you.
Small things can have a big impact on when you reach your goal. Focus on deep work, minimize distractions, and dedicate time to practice what you learn on this journey. Set clear goals for each hour invested.
Study Material, Practice Tools
When you are undergoing coaching mastery training, you'll get access to a ton of material. This can be planning guides, case studies, role plays, etc. Use them! Go over the material individually, with peers, or in study groups that are spontaneously born at training sessions. Keep this material even after your course ends.
Support System
It can get difficult to stay committed to your goals. Create a support group that will hold you accountable. Rope in a peer or develop a buddy system to ensure that no one falls off the wagon. The system also works for fair and continuous feedback.
Your Coach
As a coach yourself, you know the importance of a coach in helping you achieve your goals. Yes! Coaches can go to coaches too. And they totally should!
Watch this video that breaks down Deep Coaching techniques by master coach Rich Litvin:
Take note of what more you can do or what you can do differently for your clients. Create a mock coaching session using these tools to create a breakthrough for your client ahead of their next session.
Play both sides, the coach and the client.
How To Become A Master Coach?
Goal clarity; choose your niche.
Pick time-tested ways over trial-and-error.
Smart mimicry or strategy replication.
And then
Practice, practice, practice!
"One reason, so few of us achieve what we truly want, is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular."
-- Tony Robbins, master coach
What Tony Robbins really means to tell you is to choose a niche and keep adding skills that are relevant to your career graph. Don't get caught up in the shiny toy syndrome, chasing after every new tool whether it adds to your portfolio or not.
So, focus and start mimicking!
Yes, it sounds ridiculous at first, but the fastest way to learn anything is by starting to copy what already works. And who better to copy than a master coach?
Copying master coaches saves you from wasting time over trial-and-error.
There's a sure-shot way to cook your eggs well. You learn the method, perfect the recipe, eat your eggs and move on. You don't sit trying to figure it out over a stove.
The same goes for coaching.
A master coach will unlock top-level tools, show you how they work, tell you how it worked for them, and share insights.
Learn the tools, practice them and apply.
So, mimicry will finally lead to individuality.
3 Ways To Gain Coaching Mastery
#1 Invest in yourself
Outstanding coaches are great at their jobs because they constantly invest in themselves intellectually and emotionally.
Practicing new skills and perfecting old ones is an investment. Books, peer huddles, masterclasses are all investments. In fact, every client, workshop, and session is an investment.
It requires hours to learn how to facilitate a problem-solving endeavor.
"But how many tools are there to learn? How many times can you learn the same tool?"
Well, how many layers does an onion have? You wouldn't know till you start peeling and continue till there is nothing left.
Master coaches the world over have attested to uncovering new facets and strategies every time they dedicate themselves to studying "the same old thing" from a new perspective.
Two types of investments -- Gaining skills and Practice.
Master coaches also invest in relationships. They form meaningful connections to further their network. The larger the network, the larger the possibility of new clients and even more growth opportunities.
#2 Practice
Practice is a conscious act of preparation. Great coaches practice their addresses, sessions, and material over and over to ensure their message and the words they use evokes THE outcome they aim to elicit.
Deliberate practice of a structured task or activity removes deficiencies from your current approach.
Director of executive coaching and leadership at Google, Dr. David Peterson, is famously known to have practiced his opening question for a coaching session for six months!
By doing so, Dr. Peterson came up with a variety of opening questions, reflected on their impact, and assimilated his learnings into his coaching sessions.
#3 Really find your niche
Master coaches are not bound by their years of experience. This is merely the time they consciously spend to become experts at figuring the "who," the "how," and "where" of their coaching – the AREAS they would be investing themselves in.
The WHO is the people, the clients they wish to set on an accelerated path to success.
The HOW is the tools they would use to create a difference.
The WHERE is the organization, industry, or profession they would find their high-potential beings.
Most coaching mastery programs have eligibility criteria, such as a certain number of mentoring hours, coaching hours (paid and non-paid), and a minimum number of clients.
Make a list of all these. Identify shortfalls and start working towards fulfilling them. You can use the table below and add more as you explore this space.
Evaluation Criteria | Program 1 | Program 2 | Program 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
Total coaching hours | Enter your text here... | Cell | Cell |
Total mentoring hours | Cell | Cell | Cell |
Number of clients | Cell | Cell | Cell |
Course Fee | Cell | Cell | Cell |
Coach profile | Cell | Cell | Cell |
Make a list of all these. Identify shortfalls and start working towards fulfilling them. You can use the table below and add more as you explore this space.
Do I need to be certified to be a master coach?
Yes, and no.
You can become an expert coach without a certificate. You can make it BIG in the coaching industry without a shiny piece of paper that spells your name in cursive.
But professionally, when you're climbing the ladder, it pays to have a certification.
The coaching industry is saturated and booming! With a low entry barrier, it is attracting some amazing talent. This also makes it difficult to understand who has done the work and who hasn't.
So, it pays to have an organization that is known to polish diamonds in the rough vouch for you. To tell your client, "Hey, this person learned from the world's greatest leaders. They have the education, skills, and support needed to help you meet your goals!"
Benefits of Being Certified:
Read this guide on everything you need to know about coaching certification programs to help you make the right decision https://www.evercoach.com/ultimate-guide-to-coaching-certifications
Think about the value a certification can add to your practice.
- 1Would your clients appreciate it more?
- 2Would it help you increase your fees?
- 3Would it help you attract more business or get listed in some corporate programs?
Enroll High-End Clients
A master coach acts as a mirror for their client. They shine the brightest because they have been polished to near perfection.
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