Shouldn’t “personal” mean “personal?”
Lately I’ve been at the gym at unusual times and I’ve now seen the same trainer at different times of day training different clients. Men and women. Ranging from 20s to 70s. And I’ve seen her do essentially the same program with all of them.
I’ve hired a number of coaches – a leadership coach, a personal wellness coach, and tried a few different therapists. I hired them and continued paying them specifically because it was personal, individualized, custom, and adapted for me and my own specific needs. One-size-fits-all rarely works in clothes, let alone your health, your career, your business, your goals.
I have totally different fitness goals than the person lifting weights next to me. I have different aspirations and challenges than another manager. Sure, fundamentals are fundamentals and that’s what courses can cover. But when it comes to extracting maximum performance, dismantling roadblocks, identifying your specific goal, nuance matters.
A great coach notices what’s unique about you and adapts. My fitness coach knows my chronic hip pain and when she notices my form is compensating, she reprograms an exercise. My job is to notice the hesitation in your voice, the way your face changes when you talk about what you love, or the same theme that keeps coming up.
We can read books, attend free webinars, join group classes and learn. But now that the generic stuff is generic. If what you want is truly personalized support, the right coach matters.
My clients benefit from my years of work in learning and development, leadership development, and performance management, but every one-on-one coaching conversation is distinctly unique. And every workshop, even if the fundamentals are the same, is its own creation.
In the internet-turned-AI world, generic answers to common career or leadership problems are easy to access. For some, that’s enough. But for high performers, it’s rarely sufficient.
