I'm interested in finding an executive/startup coach, but I'm neither a c-suite executive or a successful founder. Does coaching exist (and at a relevant price point) for folks that maybe aren't quite at "that level" yet, but are hoping coaching might help them get to the next level?
If you're seriously considering it already, I say just do it. I'm a "normal" by your definition and have a both an individual counselor and an executive coach, both paid for on my own dime. I've committed over $10k between the two so far and feel like it's money well spent.
80% of the value for me has come from identifying hidden sources of fear and working through plans to overcome them. I'm naturally risk-averse and really had no real understanding of how much I was letting my own self-limiting belief system hold me back. A good coach can help you identify ways in which you're inadvertently sabotaging your own progress and help you to overcome them.
The other primary benefit (the remaining 20%) has come from having a completely new and fresh perspective on problem-solving. I can easily say that I've had more directly actionable "Aha" moments in the last three years of coaching than I had over the previous 20+ years of my career. For every "unique" problem you think you have, a good coach or counselor has probably seen some variation of it dozens of times and can probably offer you a half dozen useful ways of tackling the problem. It's the same thing that something like YC does for startups, but applied to you on an individual level.
The major caveat of course is that good coaches are often hard to find and you might have to search a bit to find one that works well for your specific needs. YMMV and all that.
I searched for coaches in my area, did a handful of interviews, then went with the one I related best with. The only unique insight I can offer here is to take any recommendations with a heavy grain of salt. Counseling/coaching is highly individualized, and what works for one person could do absolutely nothing for you. For the reason, there's no harm in ending a relationship that isn't working for you.
Sounds like that 80% could also be covered by talk therapy. I’m not discounting your approach, but identifying fears and their sources is pretty common.
Isn’t coaching basically “non-professionalized” therapy? Like insofar as a decent chunk of therapy is this^ (interrogating belief systems), there’s hardly a reason you need someone to do it from the blessed perch of a paper that says “Doctor” on it, and hardly a reason your beliefs need to be pathologized to the degree that you become a “Patient.”
Coaching should focus on work issues and your personal development in the workplace. While that does overlap with regular therapy, regular therapy can involve family and more complex personal issues. You may also expect a coach to have more experience in corporate life than a therapist may. But the central tenant is their that the only change that can happen is the change that you make.
HBR has a good podcast that is run by Muriel Wilkins that is useful for those that can learn vicariously.
My thoughts too. I think the hardest thing is finding a therapist who will actually be giving you good data/challenging the things you're stuck on versus a therapist who just agrees with you
80% of what personal trainers do could also be reduced to "talk therapy" and the other 20% is literally googleable.
Perhaps you can see how my example is an over-reduction that eschews the actual value of a personal trainer, and then likewise for founder coaching.
The main value is overcoming your own bias and limitation by accessing an informed neutral perspective. A coach isn't there to provide you with all the right answers. He's there to help you see the right problems.
You can easily search for one online or LinkedIn. But generally, once you start running in certain circles (think executive networking and chamber of commerce type events), you'll usually find a bunch of coaches and mentors waiting for you there. Or, at the very least, you'll have a group of people who you can ask for leads for finding a good coach.
First, congratulations on being proactive in pursuit of scaling your career trajectory. I'm often amazed that an ecosystem that reveres best-practice and first principals has fostered belief that coaching is valuable only to those who inhabit c-suites or....wait for it....the latest Stanford startup backed by the illuminati of SV.
Securing a coach is both possible and critically important to career trajectory. Further, the FANG SVP that has climbed ladder without benefit of guidance and network such associations yield is rare indeed.
If desired I can make introduction to a couple of people that are well respected, lmk.
One, a mentorship need not be a lifelong relationship. Mentorship relationship might exist for three months, ten years, or might be lifelong. Different mentors are needed for different phases in your career.
Two, keep meeting people, keep talking about stuff that you are genuinely interested about. Not only professional interests, but also cultural, social, personal, and (in some little number of apt places) political interests, as well. When a mentor picks you, it's because you are interesting to them. A mentor is a person, and not an advice-bot.
There certainly can be overlap in these roles. You can have a coach who at times provides mentorship and a mentor who at times provides coaching. It can be pretty fluid. To draw a hard line between them, you can think of a mentor as someone older/more experienced who can show you the way. A coach on the other hand is someone you engage in a creative partnership with, and they are there to help you discover the answers that are within you.
Something I've observed is that this level of coaching is only available through particular, isolated channels.
Those channels are top accelerators like YC and top VCs. It's not worth their time to waste it on people they don't have a stake in, but it seriously changes the trajectory of founders who are exposed to it (and their employees - not going to doxx myself but it's not possible to understate what you get through osmosis at an early stage startup on the path to being a unicorn).
Basically you need to take that risk to be a founder of a killer idea that redefines or creates entire new markets (or has the potential to) and then exercise a network to get in with the "in" crowd of advisors who have a vested interest in your success.
At the end of the day, those who can't do teach. But there's only so much you can learn from those who haven't done anything.
My wife is an independent dentist she has a coach and it worked tremendously well for her.
She is normal (by your current definition!) in the sense that coaching is not about growing her business to a billion dollar endeavor nor about growth in the startup sense but more about living your potential because you will be more happy if you are successful in your own terms and in some of your current or future contexts.
Many of the friction, we, individuals experience are not connected with IQs or metrics that are fancy when you are in high school but recognizing resources to leverage or invent.
In a nutshell, IMHO, [western?] people tend to think that they need to hardly optimize at the individual level (very local optimization) where the potential is in The "tribe", the group(s), teams, clusters, etc you connect and/or built.
In another context, but linked, HN thread the article says "We should look to society, not to the brain" [1]. In this context we refer many times to coaching for improving the person but I would say the purpose is being a vector of change beyond your individuality but respecting it.
Hey @wanderingcoder, my cofounder and I had the same problem as you when we were looking for coaches. We'd love to chat if you have 15 min? My email is jenn@getcoach.io.
Here's our backstory. We needed coaching, did a bunch of research, found coaches everyone said were good, found them to be really really expensive ($750/session and up), tried them, they didn't really help much.... it was super frustrating.
My biggest issue was I needed help showing up every day and bringing my best effort to solve problems that seemed increasingly impossible. I knew I wasn't performing at my best, and very much wanted to -- but I didn't know what to do.
One of my batch mates introduced me to a friend from Stanford who had worked with a sports psychologist to help her train for the Olympics. After talking to her, I discovered an area of psychology called "performance psychology." It's the mental training pro athletes to reach goals.
It was both an aha moment... and also something that made me feel a little mad. I had worked in so many jobs where this type of coaching would have made a. huge. difference for me -- why wasn't it widely known and available?
My cofounder and I are now solving that problem with Coach. We'd love to talk to anyone looking for a coach. We're still in beta, but here's our demo: https://vimeo.com/680075985/cd193c0e7c
As someone who's spent many thousands of dollars in the last 5 years on coaches and therapists- there is a considerable difference between the two.
At a the most basic a therapist looks at your past- the emotions/feelings involved and helps you process and understand. Vs a coach that looks at the future, helps identifies goals- personal and/or professional keeps you accountable to those goals. Especially when you don't feel like doing them.
Therapist = healing past. Coach = creating future.
I find using them both in parallel very worthwhile.
I am not even close to an executive and I had hired an executive coach that was beyond amazing. He helped me identifying where I wanted to go, but had a h ard time expressing. Then helped me over my roadblocks and doubts.
Coaches keep you accountable. He would probe to find exactly what I needed,tell me what to do and I would agree to that commitment. Where I therapist almost never tells you what to do- but through a slow sometimes painstakingly process, you figure out on your own.
I good coach will skyrocket you to your goals, a good therapist will help you heal. But they can be hard to find, and one that is good for one person won't be for the next. .
There is a whole subsection of coaches that write books and you can sometimes find their students who are also good coahes. I'd check out Rich Litvin, John Patrick Morgan, Steve Chandler, Steve Hardison, Tripp Lanier, Jamie Wheel- If they are out of your price range see if they have recommendations or referrals.
Interview with people, see how you get along and move to the next. But pull the trigger. They can be worth multiples of their sometimes extreme fees in the return you get back.
And here I thought you were looking for help understanding how normal vectors work to define the reflectiveness of a 3D surface, and I thought, that’s a rather specific item for guidance!
Depending on what you want to achieve you may get somewhere with a life coach. I saw one and while they didn't help me professionally they were able to help me work out what it was I wanted to do at that stage in my life. I would argue that that's more valuable than leveling up in the office.
I'd be happy to chat with you to understand what you're looking for. Everyone starts off somewhere, and only becomes a C-suite executive or successful founder after a long journey. Coaching is one way to supercharge that journey. I've received my share of good advice and coaching, both from chance mentors as well as paid professionals. It certainly exists and should be used.
I am interested in building out a coaching and advising practice for technical leaders. It's something I've been doing professionally in the role of a manager and department leader, and am eager to expand it. Take a look at my HN profile for a bit more about me and to see how to get in touch.
Therapy or coaching are presented as the two choices.
But are these appropriate and is there another way?
1. Therapy: Tissues, tears, talking and thorazine.
2. Coaching: Most often asking questions to "lead you to the answer", though in some cases it has slowly evolved to providing some frameworks/models but still almost never resolving to ROI, payout models or physics.
If your computer crashed due to a corrupted file or OS issue would you call a shaman, stoic or therapist to talk about how to reframe the pain or anger of lost time or a coaching to ask questions of how you feel about it, and what resources do you have to fix it or have it fixed?
What about office politics? A toxic client, coworker or executive? A narcissist at home or in the family. And so on.
I find these approaches brittle, inefficient,incomplete, and often non-repeatable aka laden with heavy technical debt.
The paradigm shift is to understand that all of these issues relate to applied psychology bounded by economics (and ultimately by physics), and that psycheis the superpower with repeatable patterns that are computationally deterministic.And that they form a complex system comprised of modules, functions, algorithms, elements and primitives.
Then it is simply a matter of determining your goal/s or objectives, how you will move towards them or resolve them,
such as pain killer, problem slayer, directed problem solving, etc. and while learning simple but very powerful psyche models & psyche functions/forensics that give repeatable results in anticipating, avoiding and/or resolving issues, and moving towards your goals.
Even if you are autistic af, it doesn't matter if you can read an error code or exit code.
The key is this is applicable across all industries, functional areas, and tasks, such hire, fire, promote, love, hate, divorce, stop divorce, sell, buy, negotiate or sue.
It's a leap of faith until the first time it is used and the effortless results come in. And then seen as transparent and repeatable.
Definitely, yes. I would recommend looking for coaches certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). They are the largest standards-body for coaching. I'm sure you can find great coaches who didn't go through ICF but it can help you narrow down your search.
I recently graduated from an ICF-approved coach training program and I'm making the transition from tech to coaching. You can read more about me on my profile. If you think it's a good fit I'd be happy to offer you a few sessions pro bono.
I am highly connected in my networks so at one point I started getting such requests. I have never professionalised it and typically I tend to connect it to some tangible deliverable. This makes it easier and more sticky short term as majority of coaching outcomes usually bear fruit years after when person takes ownership of the ideas. So take time to find a good fit, and be conscious of the path you are taking.
At shiftspace, we want to make personal development accessible to all levels of an organization, not just the c-suite. We offer a three months cohort-based program with app support and personal coaching between group sessions.
Right now, we only engage B2B but if you're interested to join as an individual, we could get you on the next cohort (starting Jan, 2023).
Check shiftspace.com or DM me for more info. Cheers!
Sites like MentorCruise exist that offer paid mentoring with experienced people, including executives and startup founders. I'm not sure what a "relevant price point" is for you but they are often relatively affordable on a software engineer salary.
Full disclosure: I'm a startup founder with a profile on that site but there are other similar services out there I believe.
The longer and hopefully less useless answer is that "executive/startup coach" is too general regarding your desired outcome(s) so it would be difficult to identify prospects for your consideration. "Relevant price point" also needs to be nailed down.
I’d trade coaching budget for company car any day. But as the old saying goes: “what if they leave after we train them”?
Pls post here if you find a channel. I am also interested in that. I have (www.adplist.org)[www.adplist.org] but it’s more technical mentoring than anything else
Yes! We have a bunch of awesome coaches for people in your situation. Hit the form on our homepage and we'll get you set up. Or email me at sean@exec.com
I’ve worked with Mike at theattitudecoach.net. He’s not a career coach but he’s been very effective at helping me advance my career but helping me improve my functioning in all aspects of life.
We normally coach Unicorn Founders 1:1, however we have started a waiting list for a group founder coaching program. Would be on par with what you might pay for a therapist in NYC.
Affordable is a relative term. I agree absolutely on the returns of the investment. I had once 3 coaches during 1.5 months preparing me for a big interview. It was exhausting but it really brought me to the next level. One coach was for interview preparation in the language of the employer. The second was an insider colleague preparing me with feedback on my slides etc. The third was a generic coach using my mother tongue --- unrelated to my profession --- and we were working on communication, values etc. The third one gave me the impression coaches have a recipe of 5 or 6 sessions that they more or less apply to everyone.
This thread and your comment made me look into BetterUp. I've been both drawn to and skeptical of this kind of coaching in the past, thinking of coaches as a lower-entry-bar version of therapists. I guess I questioned how a coach would be worth the money as compared to a mental health professional with proper training and deeper knowledge about the brain and the mind. Anyway, I noticed there was a free intro session and thought I'd try it. One of the coaches recommended to me has a background as a therapist, which helped alleviate my whole "Who are these people even and what makes them qualified for this?" skepticism a little. The session was actually really great aside from truly horrible video quality. As a newbie to this kind of thing, the price still seems pretty steep for talking to someone for 30 minutes, but at least judging by this intro session I'm really tempted to just try it for a few months.
Did Bill Gates need a coach? Did Steve Jobs? No, they just got on with it, and learned through a trial by fire. That's the best way - don't be scammed by people who offer the secrets of success, because there aren't any. Just try and try again until you win.
80% of the value for me has come from identifying hidden sources of fear and working through plans to overcome them. I'm naturally risk-averse and really had no real understanding of how much I was letting my own self-limiting belief system hold me back. A good coach can help you identify ways in which you're inadvertently sabotaging your own progress and help you to overcome them.
The other primary benefit (the remaining 20%) has come from having a completely new and fresh perspective on problem-solving. I can easily say that I've had more directly actionable "Aha" moments in the last three years of coaching than I had over the previous 20+ years of my career. For every "unique" problem you think you have, a good coach or counselor has probably seen some variation of it dozens of times and can probably offer you a half dozen useful ways of tackling the problem. It's the same thing that something like YC does for startups, but applied to you on an individual level.
The major caveat of course is that good coaches are often hard to find and you might have to search a bit to find one that works well for your specific needs. YMMV and all that.