“What’s the mantra?” I asked a person I coach.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, with everything that’s going on?” I said, “What’s the statement? The phrase? What’s the mantra?”
“Last night I opened a box that I needed for today.” he said, “And it wasn’t right. I immediately thought, ‘Ugh, this is not going to work… I can’t do this.’ But you know James, maybe for the first time, I stood up and I looked out the window and said to myself, ‘It’s going to be great. I’m good at what I do. I’m healthy. I’m happy. I’m alive. I can do this.’”
You’re probably like this too, for me… I get so excited when people who have been stuck in their thinking, break out — “Yes!”
It was quiet, the guy on the other end of the phone was catching up with himself. After a moment, he said, “James, when I said those things to myself, I was addressing the fear and anxiety I face every day.” He paused again, then continued, “I know what I’m afraid of, but no longer will it hold me back.”
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Anything is possible.”
Personal Coaching
Imagine a relationship where the total focus is on you, on what you want for your life and how to live in it.
That’s the coaching relationship. It’s a unique relationship with someone who is curious about what makes you tick, what you value, what you are most passionate about in your life . Someone who listens to the very best in you, even when you can’t hear it in yourself.
Imagine someone that goes and stands in the place where you want to be and keeps calling you to it. Someone who holds the flag at the top of the hill, encouraging you to press on. Someone who celebrates your victories and helps you learn from your setbacks. Someone who holds up your vision when you get off track, bogged down, or lose sight of where to go next.
Imagine a relationship where you finally break free of those self-limiting conversations you’ve been having over the years – where new beliefs are formed and the old ways of thinking are noticed for what they are, enabling you to step beyond them by faith. Someone who shares what they are sensing in a way that honors you. A relationship that is real – where the truth is told about where you are at your best and where you sell yourself short.
Coaching is that relationship. The powerful relationship for people making important changes in their lives. These conversations happen once in a while, coaching is the place that makes this happen regularly.
Professional Coaching
“James, I have been in Corporate America for 15 years, and I feel I’ve lost who I am.” A woman I coach said. “I have given everything for this job and I don’t have anything left. I feel like I am just trying to hang on.”
Do you ever stand at your closet wondering what to wear and wish you could wear the same outfit you did yesterday? Why don’t you? The off chance that someone might say, “Didn’t you wear that shirt yesterday?”
We take ourselves too seriously.
“Who are you?” I asked the woman who was barely hanging on. “Who are you really?”
It was quiet, she didn’t have to say it. There was a huge void.
Most of us do this with our work. We take it so seriously. We set out on the quest to find the perfect job, right people, ideal work/life balance. We’re always looking for the next thing to make work better. What would happen if you stopped trying to make your job better, and focused on making you better?
Sales
If you’re in sales, it’s not a different job with a better boss or bigger commissions, it’s you that needs to get bigger. Identify the 4 things that make a transaction happen and coaching will enable you to step up and be consistent every day. You need more confidence. Confidence about yourself, your interactions with people, and even your boss. Coaching helps you believe more.
Management
If you’re a leader, it’s not your team that needs to change, you do. Getting results does not happen by pushing on your dead weight, it comes from you stepping on the gas and helping your top 25% team members go faster. Coaching helps you produce more by giving you the kind of conversations that empower your top producers.
Entrepreneurial
If you work for yourself, it’s not just a stronger business plan that will make you money, it’s a stronger personal plan. Including the way you think about your role, your capacity, your to-do list, and even marketing. James has run his own company for over 15 years, but he doesn’t tell you to do it like he did, he asks you to where you want to go and helps you get there.
Every Industry, Every Position
Whether you’re a writer, a health care provider, a lawyer, or a barista, coaching improves your job by bettering you. Don’t spend another week just trying to hang on. Discover who you are and how you work.
Executive Coaching
Create Sustained Leadership Value For Your Company.
Executive coaching has become a standard for those seeking to maximize their investment in their company’s leadership. It’s a cornerstone of talent-development, ensuring that high-potential employees and senior leaders have the tools they need to rapidly adapt to their roles and strengthen the organization’s unique culture.
Executives working with James, say that coaching not only increases their confidence, engagement and results in the workplace, but also increases their sustainability in their high-visibility roles.
Whether you are a CEO looking for an experienced advisor, a leader looking for enhanced executive presence, a HRBP looking to design and implement a global coaching program, or a board looking to maximize board level participation, Warrick believes in a model of shared leadership – built on shared vision and shared responsibility.
Every executive coaching engagement is uniquely designed for the leader and her or his unique context. The focus is always on achieving business results and addressing the most pressing leadership needs. Most executive coaching conversations last about 4o minutes, and at a cadence of 3 to 4 sessions per month. This level of a coaching relationship provides the mindset leaders need to be effective, perform at their best and provide hope for the people they lead.
This Is What Coaching Does
It changes your thinking. Not by telling you what to think. Nor by looking for gaps in your thinking and trying to fill them. Coaching is not about making you think like someone else.
Coaching gives you new thinking. It takes what you already know and puts it together in new ways… for the first time.
Coaching Is Over The Phone
You don’t have to drive to some strange office, or sit in some corner at Starbucks. You get to sit in your space — your office, your house, your car. This is important. You go further in your thinking when you are in your own space.
How does this work for James? Well, he has been coaching over the phone since 2004, and by now, James hears more than he sees.
Coaching Is Not Just One Conversation
The power of coaching is in the relationship, not in the phone call. In this way, coaching is like accountability. It really doesn’t work if some random person asks you, “Did you do what you said?” It’s more than that – it has to be. It is “who” the person is that’s asking you, it’s your willingness to be asked, it’s your honesty, it’s the honesty of the person asking you. It’s the relationship that makes accountability work.