CHAPTER 2
Success Coaching Element
#1: Mindset
Now that you've looked into releasing your internal doubts and blocks, you're ready to move into the nuts and bolts of how to coach entrepreneurs.
In the rest of this Guide, we'll focus on the 3 Success Coaching Elements for coaching entrepreneurs and business leaders, and how you can use each one to create outstanding results for your clients.
We'll start with the first Element, which is Mindset.
Mindset is that intangible quality, the internal thoughts and beliefs each individual has about themselves and the world as they move toward their goals and dreams.
Essentially, mindset in this context can be defined as "how you think."
The right mindset is critical in everything we do and accomplish, which is why we're starting with this element.
When you work with your clients in this area, you're helping them rewire their thinking so they can be authentic, aligned with their values, and go for what they want in their business with clarity and confidence.
Coaching around mindset can be complex but there are 2 foundational pillars that greatly influence an individual's overall mindset:
When you laser in and help your clients work through their fears and negative beliefs, you can quickly help them create amazing results in their business and in their life.
Working with Negative Beliefs
So, let's begin with releasing negative beliefs, which is basically about the ability to differentiate unhelpful, unsupportive thoughts from reality.
The process of releasing negative beliefs begins with seeing what is real and what is not. So much of our life is built on what we "think" is reality, based on our own limiting beliefs and ideas about what we can and cannot achieve and how the world works.
When you work with your clients on their mindset, it's important to help them first identify their own values and beliefs. Once they are aware of their beliefs, they can understand what they believe is real in their inner world, identify what is actually taking place in their outer world, and then choose a more empowering belief to achieve their goals.
Working with Fear
The second foundational pillar of mindset work affects just about every human being on the planet, no matter how successful or confident they may appear to be, and that's fear.
When it comes to coaching entrepreneurs and business leaders, one of the biggest fears to work on is their deep -- and sometimes hidden -- fear of failure.
Fear of failure can be so overwhelming for most business owners that they end up in flight, fight or freeze mode.
This means they either work day and night and head straight into a nightmare state of burnout (fight), run from becoming an entrepreneur by choosing to stay in a "predictable" 9 to 5 job or some other situation they don't want to be in (flight) or they end up doing nothing at all (freeze).
When coaching entrepreneurs, it's crucial that you recognize your clients' fear of failure as a dangerous internal block that can hold them back from starting and growing a successful, profitable and fulfilling business, and achieving their potential as an entrepreneur or business leader.
Here are some key techniques you can use for transformational mindset coaching around beliefs and fear of failure.
Entrepreneur Coaching Technique -- Beliefs
Step 1
Start by having your client identify a specific goal they want to reach in their business.
(eg: I want to create a 6-figure business by next year, I want to grow my coaching business to 7 figures in the next 6 months, etc...)
Step 2
Next have them list or share their current beliefs around this goal. Then read through each belief and ask them the following question:
Is this belief helping or hurting your ability to reach this goal?
Step 3
If the belief is hurting their ability to reach their goal, then go deeper. Help them identify the difference between their own thoughts and beliefs... and what is actually going on in their outer world.
For instance, they may believe that they are not "good at running a business" because no one else in the family is an entrepreneur. But, is this really true? Is their ability to run a successful business related to whether anyone else in their family is an entrepreneur?
Coach your client through this process so they can see that their belief is nothing more than a negative thought they've repeated over and over in their minds. And then, ask them to choose a more empowering belief instead that will allow them to achieve their goals.
Entrepreneur Coaching Technique - Fear of Failure
Step 1
Start by helping your client acknowledge their fear of failure. Have them share a life or business experience where their fears held them back from moving forward.
Step 2
Help your client understand that it's natural to have this fear and also share how the world's greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders have one thing in common - they don't allow their fear of failure to stop them from going for what they want.
Step 3
Coach your client into engaging with their fear of failure. Go deep into exactly what it is about failure that scares them. Rationalizing and engaging with their fear of failure on a logical level can dissolve the fear sometimes instantly!
Check out this short video by Master Coach and Co-founder of Evercoach, Ajit Nawalkha, where he shares 5 powerful life coaching questions you can ask yourself or your coaching clients and turn any fear into action.
CHAPTER 3
Success Coaching Element
#2: Behavior
It's easy to tell if your client needs coaching around their behavior because you'll notice them frequently saying things like this:
Behavior is essentially the external manifestation of internal thoughts and beliefs.
To put it another way, behavior is basically thoughts in action and in the context of coaching entrepreneurs and business leaders, behavior can be defined as "how you act."
If you want to go deep with coaching entrepreneurs around their behavior, you need to know that it's about getting them to see how their actions affect their business both in the short-term and in the long-term.
It's also important to help your clients realize that their behavior and their overarching approach to business in terms of action are influenced by 2 key things:
Behavioral reaction happens in connection with external stimuli. Reaction could arise in response to what someone said or did or what's going on in the world.
For instance, some business owners stay smart and centered in the face of major challenges and problems such as a global economic downturn. Their responses and reactions arise from a well thought-out plan or strategy (please see Chapter 4 for more on strategy) on what they can do to minimize losses and maximize profits.
Reactions and responses are based on how we connect, communicate and interpret the outside world based on our internal world of thoughts and beliefs.
So, coaching entrepreneurs and business owners to create positive, uplifting and supportive beliefs and thoughts as they move toward their goals will help them shape powerful responses and reactions that will create the results they're looking for (go back to Chapter 2 to review this).
Behavior is also born from pattern and repetition - doing the same thing again and again. This is also known as a habit.
Your job as an entrepreneur coach is to make sure your clients' daily habits are aligned with their goals. Focus on coaching them around building habitual behaviors that are supportive of what they want to achieve in their business and who they want to become as entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Some of the most crucial success habits you can help your clients cultivate include:
The world's top entrepreneurs and business leaders have integrated these success habits into the tapestry of their daily life for outstanding results in all areas of their business.
Here's an incredibly effective Entrepreneur Coaching Technique you can use to help your clients unhook from unsupportive habits and adopt powerful new ones to create success and momentum in their business.
Step 1
Invite your clients to keep track of their daily routine in a journal - basically what they do from the moment they wake up all the way through to when they fall asleep at night. Ask them to take note of how they feel at different times during the day with a special focus on physical, emotional, and mental highs and lows.
Step 2
Walkthrough your client's journal with them and ask key questions focused on their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Check-in on core aspects like how much sleep they get each night, their exercise and activity levels, the quality of the key relationships in their life and their ability to focus for long periods of time in order to get things done in their business.
Step 3
Note all areas where your client is stuck. For example, maybe they feel overwhelmed with an endless to-do list and it's because they have trouble delegating some of the smaller tasks in their business.
Step 4
Now that some of the weaknesses and pitfalls in your client's daily routine have come up to the surface, it's time to coach them into adopting new, healthy habits that will take them to the next level in their life and business. First thing you need to do as their coach is help them identify one key habit they need to embrace - this could be something simple like waking up at sunrise all the way to more complex habits like finishing what they start.
Step 5
Now work with your client to identify positive and negative triggers in their environment that will support this new habit and also triggers that could block the habit. Coach them on transforming negative triggers to positive ones. For instance, late risers may find that a negative trigger is having a TV in the bedroom because it keeps them up late at night which leads to a mid-morning wakeup time.
Step 6
Finally, coach your client into practicing their new habit over and over again. Be their accountability partner and cheerleader. Help them feel excited, motivated, and enthusiastic about the benefits that come from releasing negative habits and behaviors and replacing them with positive ones. Keep going until the new habit is fully integrated into their behavior. When you're done, help them work on the next habit and the next (repeat steps 1 to 6)
