Becoming a successful business coach: David Powell

My name is David Powell and I’m a business coach, executive mentor and author. I was born in the UK and gained a first-class honours degree in chemical engineering at Edinburgh University. I worked in the resources and IT industries for 24 years, leading many teams to success.

Why I became a coach – a passion for people
Realising that my real passion was empowering people, I left the corporate world and became a business coach. For almost three decades now, I’ve worked with individuals and teams in hundreds of organizations, across 30 countries and five continents, helping them to improve their lives and business performance. Coaching has given me the opportunity to travel the world, meet fascinating people and make a difference in peoples’ lives. It is a very rewarding career.

My journey to working as a life and business coach, mentor and facilitator had several phases which I will outline here for you. This will give you a better understanding of how I forged my own path based on my life and business experience.

Early life influences
I grew up in the UK. My father was a non-traditional Christian, and we attended the local Congregational church every Sunday – as many families did back then.

Family lunch after the Sunday service made for some lively discussions around my father’s questions, for example:

• What is a miracle – magic or a metaphor?
• Did Jesus literally walk on water?
• How does water turn into wine?
• Is it possible to feed five thousand people with a few loaves and fishes?

These were not typical Sunday lunch conversation for most teenagers, but it was the catalyst for my lifelong interest in the gnostic wisdom that sits behind every religion. It also led to my later research into science, religion and the world of metaphysics – searching for answers to life’s big questions.

Travel
After university, I spent a year driving a Land Rover overland from London to Australia. The physical terrains we traversed were awesome. But equally interesting for me were the various cultures and religions we encountered – Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and the animistic sensitivities of the Indigenous Australian peoples

This set me on a path of self-discovery and personal development that continues today. I learned yoga and meditation. I went firewalking. I read hundreds of esoteric books, listened to cassettes and CDs and attended countless workshops around the world. My wife and I spent several months living with a Yogi in Sri Lanka and then studying with Tibetan monks. I learned to process the trauma stored in my body and metaphysical space.

Career
In parallel to my personal development journey, I began to experience success in my career in the resources sector then in IT. I progressed to senior management due to my teams’ consistent excellent performance.

The need for skills training presented in one of my early management positions. As budgets were tight, I did the training myself – drawing on what I had learned from my personal development efforts. My teams were so successful that other managers asked me to train their teams.

I realised that my passion was empowering people – so I quit my corporate job and started my own business as a coach, mentor and facilitator.

My first clients
I listed 73 business associates who I thought might be interested in my coaching services. I called the first three. All three said they were not interested but provided the contact details of people they knew who might be. They were. These first clients then recommended me to other people.

So, I started my coaching business 30 years ago by calling just three people and the rest flowed from word of mouth. It never occurred to me back then that I would receive calls from clients all over the world – thirty countries, five continents and fifty plus nationalities. I never envisaged the rewarding and fulfilling life I am thankful for the decision I made to follow my intuition and forge my own path.

Join the dots
In his famous Stanford address, Steve Jobs talks about ‘joining the dots’ as you look back over your life. When I join the dots as I review my early life with my parents, my education, my travels, my career and my research in science, religion and metaphysics, I can see how the dots do indeed join. Following my intuition seemed to activate guidance from the universe or Source energy, which led me to developing my unique coaching method that has helped many people over the years.

Coaching is not advising
Let me define my view of coaching. Our role is to help our clients make optimal decisions for pursuing their chosen life path – in their personal life, in relationships and at work. A coach encourages their client to become self-directed and self-reliant.

You never advise a client what to do and you must resist influencing their actions. This would force them into being other-directed (by you) and that path does not lead to deep feelings of personal fulfillment.

A spirit-based approach
I see a human being as a ‘whole person’ – body, mind, emotions and spirit. A person’s spirit is the core of their being – the essence of who they are. My belief is that every human being decides to incarnate from the metaphysical realm into a physical body on planet earth. This choice to incarnate implies a purpose for them coming to planet Earth. What is their purpose? That’s what I help them to find out.

21^st century coaching
As with most human beings, it’s likely that a client won’t remember the purpose of this incarnation. There are tools and approaches in my coaching toolkit that help me to help my clients reconnect with their purpose – so that they can live meaningful and fulfilling lives.

You don’t know why your client came here – so your view of what is best for their life path is irrelevant. They must discover it for themselves – with your guidance and help. This is important to understand if you are to become an effective 21^st century coach.

Why do I emphasise this 21^st century? Because the 21^st century is proving pretty turbulent and people will value coaches who are on the frontier, the coaches who have access to the best tools and techniques to help their client as life becomes more complex and challenging.

Understanding your role as a coach
I would suggest your role as coach is to help your client to elicit and define:

• their long-term success vision
• strategies to achieve that vision
• strategies to remain persistent and overcome opposition
• tactics to help them navigate the inevitable obstacles on their life journey

Your questions will help them with their life journey vision and defining strategies to achieve it. These questions will also assist them to clarify the terrain and identify potential obstacles so that they are prepared for the challenges.

Tapping Intuition
Intuition is the quiet voice within that is totally different from the logical processes of the thinking mind. It is important to encourage your client to detach from the background noise and tap into the latent power of their intuition. Our intuition is like the barely perceptible radio signal that gets drowned out by the noise of the big bang.

Encourage your client to take time each day to go within. This will enable them to tap into their intuition and live a self-directed life that is meaningful and successful to them.

The Mastermind Principle
The Mastermind principle applies when two minds come together to work on a challenge – and a third invisible mind cuts in. This usually brings some new ideas to the table that can deliver results surpassing anything your client had imagined. I’ve seen it happen many times. A great book that explores the Mastermind principle in detail is ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill – a highly recommended read.

No room for ego
In a coach/client relationship, there is no room for what Eckhart Tolle calls the false-self ego. To master the art of coaching, you need to leave your ego at the door as the coaching role is 100% about your client and them discovering their optimum life path.

Do you have what it takes to become a coach?
There are some questions you need to ask yourself if you are considering a career as a coach:

• Why do you want to become a business coach? Is it a career you are passionate about?
• What life and business experience do you have that will make you an in-demand coach?

We can’t have the blind (you) leading the blind (your client). Have you earned the right to become a business and life coach? Because business and life are inextricably linked.

Have you demonstrated mastery in your personal life, relationships and business or career? You can’t coach what you have not experienced.

The inner work
There is much work to do on yourself if you are to become a successful coach. This is the project of a lifetime, but at least the journey to mastery has begun.

Take time to reflect on the inner work required for your journey to mastery so that you can become an excellent coach with a long list of happy clients. Ask yourself:

• How are you managing your mind and emotions?
• Are you looking after your health and fitness?
• Do you have tools to purge what Eckhart Tolle calls ‘the pain body’. The pain body, as explained by Eckhart, contains the negative emotions that you could not handle at the time of a difficult or traumatising experience. These emotions need to be brought to the surface, processed and healed.
• What are your strategies for strengthening your own inner Being? Has anyone shown you how to scan your metaphysical space so that you can overcome all opposition to your life purpose?

Life is a journey – Apprentice – Journeyman – Mastery.
A master of any craft has had a long journey and made many mistakes – this is how we learn. If you have a passion for coaching and are up for this journey toward mastery – great! The world needs you.

Planning for the journey
Every journey requires preparation. You need maps and models of the terrain, strategies, contingency plans and persistence when things don’t go to plan.

My top 7 tips for anyone considering a career as a coach

• Create a long-term vision for your coaching business.
• Develop strategies for making the vision a reality.
• Think about how to attract your first clients.
• Consider what challenges you might encounter.
• Work on persistence strategies for when the going gets tough.
• Determine if you can manage without a regular wage or salary while you build your coaching business.
• Even though advances in technology now provide the huge benefit of online coaching, you may still be required to travel. Can you handle being away from home regularly? When I started coaching in 1993, my twin sons were 13. I could not have started when they were younger than that.

Develop an entrepreneur mindset
When I decided to launch my own business as a coach and facilitator, I was most definitely a ‘corporate job’ person – with zero experience of running a business. I had to seek out advice from many people to learn about banking, accounting and legal matters. As the business grew, so did my need for expert advice and I’m grateful to have found the right people in various fields to help me. Reach out to experts and get the best advice you can.

Your future as a coach
You are a metaphysical being incarnated in a physical body. You have a body, mind and emotions. You also have an inner being with a direct connection to Source energy and you are directed by intuition. Tap into this intuition and you will be guided as many before you have.

Do you have what it takes? Then go for it!

Author
David Powell Founder The Golden Tread | Life Journey Skills
Bio David Powell