Here, try these glasses…

‘Knowledge is nothing more than just words or information, until you transform it into value for yourself and others.’ With this sentence in my mind, I was looking back at my live and started to become aware of the fact that my whole life I have being busy with gathering information. Gaining knowledge in the hope that someday this will lead to greatness. Why did I believe that? Because we live in a knowledge-based world. I went to primary school and got grades for knowing the right answer. I went to high-school and again I got grades for knowing the right answers, based on booked and classes I attended, mostly…After that I went to university, and guess what? I needed to study even more! The whole system I grew up in, taught me that I would be successful by knowing things. And what do I remember of all these books? 1%? 2%? Or even 5%? Getting this awareness made me choose to change it and start focusing more on developing my skills and ways of being instead of my knowledge. I stopped focusing only on the words I am saying and start focusing on who I am when transmitting these words as 93% of what we communicate is not about the words. Who made me being aware of this? My transformative coach Nacho. What is transformative coaching? Why is transformative coaching so important? And what makes you a good transformative coach?

Before I share you my perspective on what the importance of transformative coaching is. I want to clarify a bit more about this knowledge-based way of learning we are taught. In this knowledge environment they teach us to know things. By going to school, listen to your parents, reading books, watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, or read posts. With all this knowledge-based learning we can increase our cognitive ability, also known as our intelligence or IQ. Knowledge is nothing more than just words or information until you transform this knowledge into value for others. This is where it comes down to personal and social skills, your emotional intelligence, with other words your EQ (Goleman 1995). Emotional intelligence is about the skills you have in terms of self-confidence, empathy, self-awareness, effective communication, being responsible and many more interpersonal skills.

For what I have learned so far in my 32-years old life, transformative coaching is about creating awareness and responsibility. Awareness of what is holding you back from achieving your goals or living your vision. Awareness is so important because our brains can adapt and learn naturally, like a natural learning machine. By becoming aware we can make a conscious choice in the direction of our goal or vision. A choice to take action, to speak up, to be patient, to be take a risk, or to be confident, whatever is in line with your vision. Only when you are taking this committed action aligned with your goal or vision, transformation will take place. And therefore, it so important that coaching is about both creating awareness AND responsibility.

Even though we can coach ourselves to a certain extent, it is important to have a transformative coach who can help you interrupt your inner conversations, the so-called inner game. The game we play daily between our ears. Maybe you recognize the following: I have this small person dancing on my shoulder every day and whispering in my ear: ‘Don’t go there, that is scary! You will fail! You are not good enough! Don’t make any mistake, people will laugh at you!’ The game I play with this dancing little man (I call him Freek) is the inner game of thoughts, believes, and inner conflicts. The importance of coaching is to focus more on the other shoulder. During coaching we fire your Freek for an hour and to help seeing things from a different perspective. The coach gives you his glasses and let you see the world through his glasses. And maybe you will discover some new things…

Let me give you a personal example. I got the tendency to get bored easily. Especially when things get tought, I got this tendency of giving up and searching for new things which give me a feeling of excitement. Nowadays, I dare to call it, lack of commitment. Lack of commitment in following through on my plans, stay connected during meetings, not eating too much sugar, completing a task or project. It was this Freek telling me: ‘this is getting boring, let’s move to something else! This takes too much time! I need to be capable of doing this already, what short cut can we make?’ Due to transformative coaching, I became aware of the things that Freek was telling me and what prices I was paying in my life for this lack of commitment. With this awareness I can make a conscious choice, every day in responsibility, to be committed in life. The rewards I got so far? More focus, more inner peace and feeling proud of the things I accomplish daily. Even though I did the work, it was my coach being effective and excellent.

But what makes a good transformative coach an excellent transformative coach? Because if he would give you his glasses in the form of mentoring or advising or telling you what to do it is still based on information. Excellent coaching comes in the form of effective questions, inspirational metaphors, credibility, building partnership and off course confronting. Let me share something I discovered, or let’s say became aware of, something important about confronting! Confronting, the word is literally saying it, bringing you to (con) the front of your comfort zone. An excellent coach is bringing you to the edge, holding your hand and showing just a glamp of what is there in the deep and unknown valley, the world outside your comfort zone. He is learning you what is holding you back from jumping into the deep unknown, what might look like all darkness. But only the coach can see that there is light and greatness behind all that darkness of uncertainty and the unknown. As Michael Jordan says:

‘A coach is someone that sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness!’

This greatness that can only be achieved outside your comfort zone. The zone, which is in line with your vision, where leadership is needed to unlock your potential.

A transformative coach is someone who sees a vision before you can see it. Someone who sees that vision and sees what is between you and your vision. Someone who makes you aware of what is holding you back so you can face it and see what prices you are paying by living up to that. What is holding us back, is 99% of the time a limiting belief in which we give the power to circumstances or other people. A transformative coach can create responsibility in the person where he is bigger than his circumstances and is having authentic relationships. The transformative coach is not teaching him what he knows, but he is learning the person the skills to become self-aware and being responsible to create ordinary results. To create leadership. Without this leadership your knowledge will not be as valuable as it could be. With this leadership you are able to create a life worth living.