How To Become A Coach (by Hank Chin, Expert Career Coach At IPIB; Director of APCA)

Today’s author is Hank Chin who is an Expert Personal Branding and Career Consultant at IPIB and Director of the Asia-Pacific Coaching Alliance.

Hank is the No.1 certified job campaigner and personal branding strategist in the Chinese-speaking world, having earned 5 career-related credentials and prides himself on high customer 

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HOW TO BECOME A COACH

I. Your Inner Voice
To be a professional coach you have to embrace thinking from the inside.

You have to ask yourself: “Do I  really have the self-generated passion to listen to and make sense of another person’s confusion, uncertainty or doubt, even though that may well drag me down in the process, too?”

That is the million-dollar question and it will greatly determine whether coaching is for you.

Being a coach requires a strong commitment as well because you will be asking your clients to carefully listen to their inner voices and then asking them to brainstorm with you to figure out possible solutions which will best enable them to achieve their goals.

However, if you don’t, can't or won't listen to and confirm your inner voice ─ PASSION ─ how can you possibly expect your clients to follow your instructions when you ask them to listen to their inner voice?

II. Mindset and Expertise
Secondly, after you confirm your passion the next question will be “Other than passion and empathy, do I have enough knowledge to coach my clients?”

If you think about it, being a coach is a very sacred responsibility. Someone has entrusted their well-being to you.

Whether you recognize it or not, your words, thoughts and actions will mildly to greatly influence your clients. You must, therefore, ensure that you possess a positive mindset, up-to-date and time-proven knowledge as well as have developed the habit of continuous life-long learning.

This will ensure that your client is taken care of professionally and just as importantly well cared for.

To ensure that you have the most up-to-date knowledge and coaching processes be sure to enroll in a trustworthy, ethical and most of all results-driven coaching organization, such as HICA, to earn your coaching certification. After earning your coaching certification, be sure to regularly participate in industry seminars and networking events.

III. Between You and Your Clients
Lastly, your ability to build mutual trust and commitment with your client is as if not more important than the earlier issues we discussed.

And as discussed before, mutual trust is the foundation of successful coaching.

So you must learn how to connect with your client through your initial interactions whether they are by email, phone, skype or in person.

Once solid and mutual trust has been established, you must know how to motivate and convince him/her to fully commit themselves to the accomplishment of each task as they strive for their ultimate goal.

Although both are not directly related to your coaching knowledge they are equally important as your passion and expertise.

IV. Real Coaching
After your clients have made substantial progress, gains and finally achieved their desired results based on your coaching, then and only then can you truly and honestly say that you’re a qualified and real coach because those actual results along with satisfied, empowered clients, speak the loudest.

We hope to see you in our community soon!