I was on a zoom call (color me shocked in 2020) last week with about a dozen other fitness coaches. One of the other guys on the call is a mentor to new coaches, and he shared a commonality amongst all the coaches he’s seen come through his program in the past several months – they all lacked confidence that they knew enough to get the job done.
Put another way – they didn’t believe they could effectively help clients out as a coach.
This is actually a common thing I hear from gym owners too – they put a new coach in front of a single client, or a small group, and the lack of confidence is palpable.
The tough part about that? Clients can sniff that out a mile away.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret: if you’ve stumbled onto this blog, or received this because you’re on our email list, you DO know enough! How can I be certain of that? Because you’ve shown enough care to read this far.
For whatever reason, there exists an unfair burden that new coaches should be able to deliver on the same level as that of veteran coaches or the gym owner. I know this is fact. How? Because I WAS that gym owner!
Let’s get back to what I was saying earlier – you DO know enough. This is the most common quote throughout every course here at Two-Brain Coaching, but its always worth repeating: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Want to know the single biggest complaint owners have about new and veteran coaches? “They just don’t care enough.” I have literally never had an owner tell me they wish their coaches knew more about proper positioning in the snatch, or that they could coach muscle-ups better, or that they could speak to the physiology of rowing interval repeats.
They all want the same thing – people that care.
I recently wrote another blog about My Mission here at Two-Brain Coaching, which is to build World-Class Coaches. And trust me, I get how intimidating that statement can be for prospective (or even veteran) coaches. I’d encourage you to read that article though. You see, being World-Class doesn’t mean you take a course and you’re there. It also doesn’t mean that just because you’ve been coaching for twenty years that you’re World Class.
You need to be confident with where you’re at. Not arrogant. That’s different. You need to understand that there is always more to learn…and you’ll never know what you don’t know.
Teach your clients off the knowledge base you have today. When you learn more, teach from that.
What do coaches really need to be successful? Confidence in their competence.
You know enough for who is in front of you today. Show up, continue to learn, and keep showing up.