What’s your job title? Is it ‘coach’?
Everyone knows exactly what a coach is, don’t they? I rarely meet someone who isn’t a coach, who actually gets it right though.
For the record:
- I’m not a netball coach (yes, I was asked that once!)
- I don’t work with any kind of sports players actually
- My work doesn’t involve driving a vehicle that can carry lots of passengers – wrong kind of coach again (A taxi driver once told me we were in the same business….)
- I don’t teach people to do what I’ve done (well I do these days, but that’s mentoring?)
- I’m not a singing coach. #Justsayin
Fancy Job Titles
I know people who need fancy job titles. Global Director of International Expansionwas one title that someone I once knew had. It sounds very grand until you realise that the company they worked for had a similar turnover to a local coffee shop.
Fancy job titles are like fast cars. If you need one to demonstrate your worth to yourself, feel free to have one.
What Do I Call Myself?
I don’t.
I haven’t got a job title.
It really messes with peoples’ heads.
It’s funny, but we all have this tendency to want to put people into boxes and a job title is one of those boxes we’re comfortable with.
My business card has my name and contact details on it, and our website. That’s it. It has two functions I suppose, one is that it does what business cards are supposed to do, the other is it starts a conversation.
‘Oh!’ people say. ‘It doesn’t give your job title! What do you do?’
I never say that I’m a coach, or a mentor, or a marketer (although I could probably call myself one these days). This is what I say:
I work with coaches, to help them get paying clients, so that they can help to change the world for the better, and get paid to do it.
That sentence does one of two things. It attracts exactly the sort of person with whom I work, and it repels those with whom I don’t.
I don’t mean repel-in-horror type repel, I mean if the person who asked me the question isn’t a coach, they’re not really interested in having a lengthy conversation with me. Not about work, anyway.
Occasionally ask them if they know any coaches, because, well, I work with coaches – right? I like to maximise every opportunity to find coaches who need our help.
I Want To Change The World
Coaching is a force for good, even without the job title. In fact, I think that good coaching can change the world.
I’m not a spring chicken any more. In my time walking around on this planet, I’ve realised that I cannot change the world on my own. Believe me, I’ve tried!
However, what I absolutely can do is that I can help other coaches find people who want to pay them to be coached. If I can do it well (I can), and keep on doing it well, that will be my contribution to the greater good.
One day, coaching will reach a tipping point and it will make the change that I’d like to see.
I hope I’m still around to see it!