By Rhea Wessel
Some people have a life coach, a business coach, a sales coach and even a book coach.
These are all useful forms of coaching for people who want to make changes and improvements in these areas.But few people have an ideas coach.
I’m here to say that ideas coaching can be among the most valuable coaching you will ever receive.
What does an ideas coach do?
Book coaching vs. ideas coaching
Ideas coaching is very similar to book coaching, but the approach in ideas coaching is more exploratory and open.
When you’re in ideas coaching, you’re not under pressure to produce a book. Instead, you’re exploring a wide variety of your ideas in a safe space with a guide who is giving you feedback on what is making sense and what is not.
As an ideas coach, I see it as my job to help people articulate ideas they have sensed but have not yet articulated. That often means taking broad ideas broader or making narrow ideas narrower.
The coaching helps people:
deeply understand the problems of their audience through guided exploration of those problems
widen the search space for solutions to those problems
see connections among their own ideas that they may not have noticed
And when the ideas start pouring out, it is my role as a coach to help capture them. If possible, I also help clients create new intellectual property (IP) out of their ideas or further refine their existing IP.
Your ideas are some of the most valuable things you have, and it is your ideas that will distinguish you from the crowd, whether you’re working at a large company or independently.
As such, it’s important to invest in your own habit of cultivating ideas – to invest in their incubation.
This means following solitary pursuits such as reading and thinking.
It can also mean shaping and forming your ideas in conversation with an inquisitive other who understands the full process of idea generation and articulation.
That process goes from the messy beginnings of an idea through to an idea’s expression in fine, tight words and phrases that capture the essence to make it useful and actionable to others.
When you invest in an ideas coach, you will:
grow a capacity to identify new ideas on the tip of your tongue faster and easier
ensure a steady stream of new impulses for your business
begin to be more concept and story driven in your work
finally, and perhaps most importantly, begin to see yourself, your ideas and your potential in a new way