Last week I had lunch with a friend who, like me, is a recent graduate of a coaching certification program. [1] As we compared notes on our various projects, I used a word I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently with regard to my new venture. The Vessel. I…
Browsing Category Coaching
The Music Industry’s 73%
This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the top 1% of musicians accounted for 60% of concert revenues – up from 26% in 1982. The top 5% of artists get 85%. Yesterday this popped up on my Twitter feed: In another post, I wrote at length about the challenges…
Book Request: The Coaches
Note: this is an idea I am getting rid of (for the foreseeable at least) Coaching has exploded in popularity over the past decade. Starting in the world of sports, before being embraced by senior executives in the business world, coaching is now a practice utilized across technology startups, the…
Coaching for creative inspiration
A key component of a coaching certification program is to get coaching. Not ‘get’ as in ‘understand’, but ‘get’ as in enrolling with a coach. Becoming the client. There are some obvious benefits to this: learning new techniques and approaches from another coach; putting yourself into the shoes of a…
Overrated Mentors, Underrated Coaches
Mentoring and coaching often get thrown into one bucket. On the surface they sound pretty similar; practices that help people make progress. However, go down a layer or two and there are a host of differences (I wrote about these here). Broadly speaking, mentors are people who have trodden a…
Learning Styles: 3D Mapping a Conversation
One of the learnings from being a student again has been around my own learning style. Other than a few short courses and MOOCs I haven’t done much classroom-based work since university – and that was nearly 15 years ago. The delicious irony here is that much of my work…
What the music industry’s people need next
As the music industry’s resurgence continues, its people need support now more than ever. There’s opportunity to further embrace a contributor to success in tech, sports, and other industries. We’re now living in a world that’s more prosperous than at any time in history. Standards of living are increasing. Extreme…
Coaching: Spinning our Wheels
Here’s a question I hear from time to time. What is coaching for? It’s a simple question, but not necessarily easy to answer. We may think about leadership, success, being in the top 1% of performers. Often it’s less about the big visible breakthroughs and more about realigning a small…
Insider, Outsider
Usually we want to be insiders. The inside scoop, the inside knowledge, being in the loop. Being outside doesn’t sound so appealing. Being left out in the cold, an outsider looking in. Maybe even frozen out. I’m an immigrant, trying to find my way in a new country and culture….
Coaching: Preparing for job interviews
Job interviews can be nerve-wracking at the best of times. There’s pressure, uncertainty, intensity; it’s a set-piece with a design out of our control. We often don’t know what to expect from the interview itself. When combined with our pre-conceptions of the company, role and the wider market, as well…