Empower has become quite the buzzword the last several years. To us, being empowered is about being confident. Why does that matter as a fitness coach? Simple – confident coaches get better buy-in from their clients. Better buy-in equates to people getting the results they’re after. Do that, and you guessed it – they stick around long term.
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Before we go further, this is the 4th in our 5-part series where we are looking closer at the principles that govern Two-Brain Coaching. You can look back at the previous articles here:
Principle 1: Enjoy the Process
Principle 2: Learn, Design, Deliver, Refine
Principle 3: Sleep, Eat, Move, Manage
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What are the ways that we deliver education?
First, you’re consuming one type right now – we write, a LOT! (We’re aware that most folks prefer short form blogs, but you’ll find that we don’t operate that way very often.)
Another way is through our online courses. You can find those here.
We also share valuable content on social media (FB, IG, and Twitter) and YouTube.
Lastly, the most impactful and lasting – we provide mentorship in a 1:1 setting for coaches.
We’ve had requests for in-person seminars and its a definite possibility that we’re exploring!
So what?
Why do we put so much stock into education? As a coach, learning is one of the most effective things that you can do (next to physical practice) to bolster your confidence. And like we said at the beginning, confidence is empowering.
Let’s take a step back though – how much education do you actually need as a coach? Well, that depends.
Novice coaches need less overall education than they think to get started.
Veteran coaches need a different educational focus than they think to get better.
For these two reasons, we educate in two distinct ways: through depth and breadth.
Depth is akin to the ‘zoom in’ function on your camera where breadth is the ‘wide angle’ lens.
Depth is where you will find us doing a deep dive on a specific niche topic. Talking about optimal joint angles in olympic weightlifting is a great example of this. Another: understanding the psychology of motivating individuals within a group and the group as a whole. The deep dive is where you have an opportunity to become a specialist in a particular area.
Breadth, on the other hand, is where we will teach big picture concepts and view things from 30,000 feet up. Teaching coaches how to establish points of commonality and use them as bridge-backs in future sessions is an area that all coaches can improve in. Similarly, you don’t need to have a PhD in biology level of understanding of all the body’s organ systems. Knowing that they all work together at the same time, that the body is a system of systems, is plenty of knowledge as you get started.
As a novice coach, its tempting and easy to go for depth and get lost in the minutiae.
Don’t get us wrong, both depth and breadth are vitally important to your development.
Veteran coaches will tell you that going for depth frequently results in increasing their breadth as they make connections between things they’d never before considered.
One final consideration: empowerment through education increases your motivation by tapping into three concepts that Daniel Pink covered in his book ‘Drive:’
1. Autonomy: we want to be self-directed. This increases engagement over compliance.
2. Mastery: we have an innate desire to be challenged and get better
3. Purpose: the desire to do something that is important. In the case of Two-Brain Coaching, we want to positively impact the world’s health and fitness through YOU, the world-class coach!
Do have a structured process for continuing your education as a coach?
Would you like one? Reach out to us – we’d love to hear from you!