Simple Offerings or Health Guru?

Before I piss some people off, I am going to qualify this blog post by defining my intention. I am going to call some of you out to make you better. Those of us in any kind of coaching profession show up every day because of one thing: It makes us happy to help people. But if you are not effective in helping people make changes that will help them, it will be very difficult to sustain a thriving practice. Many are thinking, “If I could just complete “this” training or take “that” program, I would be ready to take it to the masses. But think about something for a minute. If you, the aspiring “expert in making changes” is struggling to make a change, um…do you see where this is going? I wanted to talk about this because I think THIS is at the very core of why so many are struggling. What is the ever elusive “THIS“? Let’s go there….but first, a little humor!
 

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Yay! Me! I’m funny! But anyway…Maybe it’s the ADD in me craving an orderly process, or maybe it was this article I stumbled onto today, but I really think I’m on to something here. Why do people struggle so much getting from HERE to THERE? That JOURNEY that is so often rhetorically referenced is a little glossed over. In other words, the PROCESS is gray and seemingly inconsequential. I believe that is what is missing for so many coaches and I think we are robbing ourselves of the joy of “humble beginnings”. You know, that whole bloom where you’re planted thing? How does all of this translate into a successful practice? I think we need to embrace starting out small and commend ourselves for starting in the first place. Why is this so important? How can we teach our clients to do this in their own life if we don’t know how to do it in ours? Practitioners and their clients are both facing the same challenge: Expecting to wake up at point B tomorrow without actually traveling there.
 

How can we make this mini-mind-dump useful? Here’s what I did: I asked myself what’s really important to me long term. I want to help people. I think I, and maybe many others, too, have gotten an unrealistic idea of what it means to be successful as a coach. We think we have to achieve guru status for anyone to take us seriously. Want to know the real secret to being successful as a coach? Recognize that clients and people in general (ourselves included) are overwhelmed with stuff. Why do people not want to start a health program? Because they think it will take precious time away from them to learn something new. Why aren’t you out there coaching right now? Because there is so much you need to have in place (autoresponders, websites, signature program). How about we stop the madness and start out with a simple success. Maybe have a workshop about how to get back into your kitchen or replacing toxic products with natural alternatives? Another reason to keep it simple? Scope of practice! I have seen a number of coaches putting themselves in very real legal danger by the way they promote their offerings. I don’t make claims about healing and nutrition. I help people make lifestyle changes and build their body systems with a philosophy of take away what harms and replace with what heals. Think about what you know about chronic disease. Do you need to teach much more than that? You can change lives with very simple offerings. You can help people by making it very simple…as in, “your next step is…”. Want to bring a SIMPLE model into your practice? Let me introduce you to IN.FORM. Simple for clients and simple for practitioners. Let the gurus be gurus, or whatever. Let’s go help some people.