Coaches' Corner~Termination

Today’s blog is an unusual one in that it can only be inspiring if one looks into the future.  Have you had a relationship, any sort of relationship where the time had come to sever it?  I am sure that we all have.  Many of our relationships are based on business and if not on business certainly something selfish kept the relationship alive.  Despite all our attempts to fight it, we are all selfish to some degree.  This selfishness can get in the way of our effectiveness as a coach especially if the other party is not particularly good at taking care of themselves.  People who allow themselves to be victimized do no one any good other than themselves if they sincerely have no regard for their own well-being.  What about you?  Can you say that your relationships are all serving you?  Can you say the ROI (return on investment) is worth it financially?  Are you so addicted to pain that you will endure it because to do otherwise would still be painful only moreso?  It is easy to become satisfied with any sort of pain when we have had it so long it seems like part of us.  I am severing a business relationship today and I choose to share it with you.  It had been a long time coming and I am glad that I finally got a good enough reason to bail and you will be too if you are part of my warm market.  I am much more able to support you and provide what you need since the previous company I was associated has been 86ed for lack of a less flowery term.

I recently asked a friend what Kathy Fairbanks of Klemmer and Associates asked me once.  “Do dogs eat bones?”  “Don’t they just love bones?”  And we all have seen the worn out photograph of a dog gnawing on a bone, right?   In case you haven’t, notice the one on the left.  A dog can spend most of its life gnawing on bones and we feel that is perfectly normal.  Would you be surprised to know that dogs do not prefer bones?  Well, they don’t.  Dogs prefer steak just like you and I do but they are accustomed to receiving bones and they have gotten used to it.  Well-meaning will go to great pains to make sure that the dog gets the bone and eat all the meat off the bone and
the poor dog wishes they would just leave a little meat on it.

The story is relevant because being a technology enthusiast who has a low aptitude for analytical thinking, I would be satisfied with the simplest of concepts.  I would be satisfied with a system that delivered video email….some of the time.  I would be glad to give my business to a company that only gave email support and no phone support and be content to have a support ticket submitted when a phone call lasting less than 30 seconds would do.  Ask yourself if you are settling for less than what is available to you?  Ask that about your business and ask that about your coach.  When some of the clients of mine would lament that my system could not do certain functions, I would admonish my clients to be glad that the system did what it did and not to complain.  We all know that technology improves as it is forced to come up with new and improved ways to do things.  While I am doing all I can to remain positive, my clients are going elsewhere to get what they need.  That is no longer the case.  My patience has paid off and I am now starting a new relationship that answers all the complaints I have received over the years.  After reading this blog make the decision to no longer be satisfied with bones if there is some steak available.

I address you now to temper you desire to remain positive with growing in your skill level.  It is fine to appreciate what you have but complacency is mis-placed in the coaching world.  Eliminating the good/bad, right/wrong concept requires a delicate balance and you must strike it if you want to last in the coaching business because no improvement, no better technology or even new information will damn you to mediocrity.  I am happy for the change and I look forward to the next one and you should too.  Like Gail Sheehy in her book, “How to Survive the Loss of A Love,” I may find myself missing that old way.  I might even experience some separation anxiety but I know the relationship must be severed and the pain of the separation will not override the joy of newness.  As you and I move closer to actually being an extraordinary coach, these times will occur more and more.  In the not too distant future, we might not even not notice the pain part because we are so focused on the improvement part.