Introducing the Extraordinary You!

If you could meet any person on the planet and have an hour-long conversation, who would you want to meet? What would you ask that person? What would you hope to learn? Would you be inspired? Would you be surprised? Would you be more aware? Would you be able to see their genius and their flaws without judgement? What a gift it would be to meet such an interesting person.

As coaches our job is to give you that gift. The Extraordinary Person we would like to introduce you to is you!

You might think that is ridiculous. You already know you! You know you better than anyone in the world. You know everything there is to know about you.

The truth is that most people have so much to learn about themselves. Tasha Eurich reported in the Harvard Business Review that in nearly five years of research on self-awareness that 95 percent of people think they are self-aware and only 10 to 15 percent are.

If you have a conviction to the idea that you know everything you need to know about yourself and there is nothing left to learn, you should probably stop reading this article and you clearly wouldn’t be interested in working with a coach.

“To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do.” Vironika Tugaleva

Would you like to get to know yourself better? Would you like to know why sometimes you don’t do what you want to do and why sometimes you do what you don’t want to do? Would you like to learn what you need to be happy and fulfilled? Would you like to see what is in your blind spots? Would you like to understand how to increase your energy? Would you like to understand why people treat you the way they do? Would you like to experience the best of you?

Here are two things you might be interested in:

• Internal Self-Awareness: How clearly you see your own values, needs, passions and patterns.
• External Self-Awareness: An understanding of how you are perceived by other people.

Working with a coach is like having a mirror, someone to help you see from the outside what you can’t see from the inside.

There is the “you” you think you are, the “you” you are, and the “you” you will choose to be.

The last pat of that sentence is key. You may be very comfortable with who you are and not need to do any introspection. Congratulations, if that is true. Congratulations as well if you would like to learn some things that can help you move toward what you want.

“Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.” Debbie Ford

We have found that a lot of the things we believe about ourselves are simply not true. It is easy to see evidence of that in others than it is in ourselves. People believe things about themselves that are simply not true, but they hold on to the belief because the only evidence they consider is evidence that supports their belief.

If someone says, “I can’t remember names,” the truth is they remember lots of names but only focus on the small percentage of times they do not. If they say “I am always late,” it may be true some of the time but if it was true, they would have never flown on a plane, held a job, graduated from school.

Please consider if what you believe about yourself is true. Please also consider what it has cost you to believe what was never true in the first place.

There is a saying that you are what significant others say you are. In life many people will make observations and comments about you. Some comments will be positive, some with be negative. Some people will say things about you that says more about them than it says about you. In most lives when a significant person like a parent, a teacher, a mentor or a friend says something, there is a good chance that you will believe what they say whether it is true or not.

As you get older you may gain the awareness that the most significant person who can influence who you will be, is you.

Coaches in life and leadership are not there to tell you what to do. Their role is to help you gain the awareness to allow you to take accountability to decide who you will be, and what you will do.

External feedback from someone who shares your desire for success can help.

Having someone to think out loud within a confidential environment can help.

Having access to coaching tools to give you awareness of where you have been, where you are and where you want to go can help.

Getting your needs met and being in alignment with your values can help.

From a leadership perspective, understanding how to get the best out of yourself can help you to understand how to get the best out of your people.

Gaining self awareness requires a level of vulnerability. Some people are reluctant to do so because they might find some imperfections or things they wish they would prefer not to see. The other side of that is that they might find some genius, some great qualities or skills that they could utilize to change their world. That can be scary as well.

Some people are so comfortable with the familiar that they want to stay in it even if it is not great.

Becoming more self aware is an opportunity. If you would like to get to know the Extraordinary You better, please consider taking advantage of a coaching session.

We look forward to introducing you to “The Extraordinary You!”