Photo courtesy of klimkin and Pixabay
Welcome to the final part in this series of articles on the 7 steps to earning your living as a successful professional in any field. Over the past year I’ve been isolating the specific steps involved, and refining them. What’s resulted is a ‘roadmap’, and while the version of it I’ve created is aimed at coaches, therapists, trainers and consultants, with a little creativity, you’ll be able to see how these steps relate to anyone who wants to transition to doing work that involves you being a ‘trusted advisor’ to others (e.g. expert / speaker / professional services etc).
If you want to download the entire guide, “The 7 Steps for Earning Your Living As a Successful Coach” and get all 7 of them right away, you can get the guide free here. As you read this concise guide, you’re going to discover that it’s simpler than you may have been led to believe. So let’s look at Step 7 – Mastery.
STEP 7 – MASTERY: Keep growing, contributing and making a difference
You continue evolving as a professional, developing transformational impact and contributing to your field / to your community as a whole. You are acknowledged as a pioneer; as a leader in the field by your fellow professionals.
The Myth vs The Reality of Step 7
Conventional wisdom will tell you to ensure your goals are realistic and achievable, but the reality is this: your inspiration and enthusiasm have an intelligence all their own. The world is changing fast, and the only way to truly discover what’s possible for you is experimentally; by taking action and learning along the way. People tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in one year and underestimate what they can accomplish in five years, but the path of mastery and leadership is never a short one. Think long-term! You have an innate source of purpose and direction, and part of how that reveals itself to you is through your hopes, dreams and inspirations. As you embrace them, and move forward with courage and boldness, you’ll be amazed at what emerges for you.
STEP 7 FOCUS
– Commit to your profession and to your professional development for the long-term.
– Constantly evolve as a professional, surrounding yourself with successful pioneers who challenge and inspire you to new levels.
– Contribute to your field / to your community as a whole.
Farah Hussain is a great example of what can happen when you let go of the idea that you need to keep your goals ‘realistic and achievable’. When she first started working with us, she was working in the voluntary sector as a therapist. She’d wanted to start her own private practice for a while, but she wasn’t taking any steps towards it.
At first, she was shocked at what was possible when she saw what some coaches were earning, and the kind of impact they were having, and she thought, “Oh my goodness! I can do so much more with this.” Farah joined the Clarity Coach Training programme, and enrolled her two clients within the next month, but the real surprise came when she started sharing the principles behind clarity with her clients.
Farah started getting a level of impact that was unheard of at the psychotherapy and counselling practice where she worked (she’s required to track and measure her clients’ subjective report of their results, and the impact she’s having is unlike anything she’s seen before; either for herself or for the group of therapists who she supervises).
During the 9 months of the Clarity Coach Training programme, Farah continued to enrol clients and won a number of contracts for her work. She now has her own private practice, and is having a level of impact far beyond what she would have thought was possible if she’d been thinking ‘realistic and achievable’. One of the biggest shifts that Farah experienced during the programme is her level of what I call “grounded certainty” about her client’s capacity for transformation. She says, “I know that I can make an impact. And I didn’t know that before.”
If you’d like to have a look at a 7-minute interview we did with Farah where she explains what’s happened in-depth, you can watch it here https://www.jamiesmart.com/clarity-coach-training/#farah
If you want to take a deep dive into the principles behind clarity, during the Certified Clarity Coach Training programme, we put a big focus on establishing and strengthening your foundations, and include plenty of practice sessions so that you start building the skills, intuitions and reference experiences for great coaching. We also focus on helping you get the kind of certainty in your own and your clients’ innate capacity for resilience, realisation and transformation.
The programme is a 10-month immersion into the principles behind clarity. It’s formally open for registration and it’s not just for coaches; we’ve had all sorts of people go through the programme including computer programmers, doctors, call centre workers, lawyers, parents, PR specialists, therapists, office workers, entrepreneurs, surgeons, people who are already coaches and consultants and trainers and even a professional footballer. If you’re interested, it’s worth knowing that we’re not running the programme next year so the intake that’s starting this September (2018) is the last chance you’ll get to join us until 2020 at the very earliest. So if you want to find out how to become a Clarity Coach and see what’s involved in bringing an understanding of these principles into every aspect of your life click here.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love
Jamie Smart
Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 6 ways I can help you get the clarity and results that matter to you:
1. Listen to the ‘Get Clarity’ Podcast www.jamiesmart.com/claritynow/
2. Hire me to speak at your event: www.jamiesmart.com/book-jamie-to-speak-about/
If you’re a coach or interested in becoming one…
3. Join The Thriving Coaches Facebook group
4. Listen to The Thriving Coaches Podcast
5. Take part in the Thriving Coaches Blueprint. our 90 day, rapid-implementation programme to help you get more clients and grow your coaching or therapy practice (doors now open!)
6. Learn more about the Certified Clarity Coach Training Programme, our 10-month deep-immersion into the principles behind clarity (doors now open! The programme starts September 2018 and won’t run again until 2020 at the earliest.)
If you’re looking to change job, career or move from FTE to something more fulfilling…
7. Join the Transition Launchpad Facebook group
8. Learn more about Escape Velocity: The Transition Blueprint our 90 day programme to help you transition into doing fulfilling work.