SHIFT To Mastery

9 July 2021

Welcome to the world of coaching. This is a crucial skill for leaders to engage, empower and unleash the potential of individuals and teams in organisation. Here, I hope to share my journey and learnings over the last 25 years as a leader and a coach, in the hope to shorten your journey, getting to mastery. It is my hope too that the SHIFT mastery process will help you as much as it has helped me. It will provide you with insights of what masterful coaches focuses on in their conversations, their mindsets that drives them and the process that they engage in. There is a saying “A great coach changes the game but a masterful coach changes lives.”

The picture above is an apt metaphor of coaching. In our fast paced life, we need to slow down to observe, reflect and appreciate the beauty within and around us. It is a journey that we take with our coachees from point A to B but more importantly, it is a journey that we take as a coach, to upgrade ourselves in the way we perceive life, interact with people and the roles we play. Masterful coaching is a result of who are (our being) rather that what we do (the techniques) during coaching. So where do we start?

The image of this book, the gear shift, seems like an oxymoron to the the image of a slow horse carriage! In fact, it reminds me of the phrase which I picked up in my coaching journey, “To move fast, we need to move slow!” What is your understanding and interpretation of this phrase?

So how do we become masterful in coaching? First, find your purpose. Your BIG WHY. Without knowing a clear purpose of why you want to be masterful, you will lose the motivation and stamina along the journey. It is not an easy route because it requires a fundamental SHIFT the way we relate to ourself and to others. It requires an upgrade in our operating system in they way we think and behave. Your BIG WHY will provide you with motivation and perseverance to make the changes in yourself, to be disrupted in your habits and thought patterns. So, what is your BIG WHY?

This book deals with the deepest anchors of change, working with beliefs, perceptions and assumptions. It is a fundamental step in helping us understand how we are conditioned to think and behave and how this directly influences how we coach. Uncovering and shifting these belief systems is the real essence of mastery.

SHIFT is an acronym and it starts with “Self”. In my subsequent articles, I will be revealing the eight components of “Self” and the remaining four letters of the acronyms to guide you in your journey in becoming a masterful coach. Are you keen to embark on this journey?