One of the benefits of working with a coach is that they don’t care about you. Okay, that’s bluntly stated. Let’s say instead that they’re disinterested in you, and keep in mind the difference between disinterest and uninterest. The first means being impartial, unbiased, and with no personal stake in the outcome. The latter is being indifferent or not caring. Good coaches are disinterested, not uninterested.
If you rely on a spouse, friends, relatives, or even a boss for input and direction, they have a vested interest in your desired outcome of any decision.
With a coach, you have a disinterested party with whom you can discuss and wrestle with ideas and decisions. It’s the concept of wrestling with a stranger when that stranger can bring forth the best of you because they do not have a preconceived listening of who you are or what you want.
One of our coaches has a client who’s become involved at the ground-floor level of a venture that is far outside of the financial services industry. He believes in it to the point of selling his book of business and becoming fully invested in this company. As it turns out, his true calling was never really financial services. He has the courage to take this step and is a prime example of the entrepreneurial motive power. If this venture fails, it will not be the end. It will lead to another door opening. It’s what I mean when I say, “Way leads on to way.” His path became more obvious as a result of working with his coach.
Another client shared that, unlike so many, he’s not pressed for time. Some days, he finishes within two hours. When pressed, he admitted he felt neutral about that without a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps his path is not one of financial services. That suggestion led to a discussion about success. Talk to the most successful people you know, and you will discover their sense of satisfaction is not founded in numbers, whether those numbers be earnings or profit. Their satisfaction comes from serving others and the belief that what they do is noble and right. Their business becomes their place of service to make the world a better place.
That said, financial services doesn’t have to be the path. It can be the funding mechanism that enables the true path. The game can never be won, only played. But when you love the game you’re playing everything gets easier.
If your profession isn’t your path or your way, then what is? There is no hard and fast right answer. But when you understand your purpose, everything else makes sense.
Think about those people who’ve achieved greatness in their respective fields, like Michael Jordan or Elon Musk. They are far, far to the right on any bell curve. And the farther they get to the right, the more unrelatable they are to those in the middle. They may seem weird. That’s okay, but understand that the more you go out there, the more people will not understand you, so you really have to understand yourself and what it takes for you to remain in an optimal state.
This is difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve on your own. You’ll discover that working with a disinterested coach (not necessarily one who doesn’t really care), you will make greater progress in uncovering your true path, if you’re unclear about that, or the best way forward when you’re on your true path.
