Robert Hargrove

Coaching can be about leadership breakthroughs or business breakthroughs or a lot of other things. Yet what makes the difference in how effective you are as a coach is where you come from.

First of all, I think Masterful Coaches tend to be both highly effective people and highly compassionate people.

On the one hand, I am motivated as a coach by helping people realize goals and aspirations that they previously found difficult or even impossible. On the other hand, I am motivated by my experience of empathy for people’s pain and suffering.

Buddha expressed it well with his three noble truths: 1) Life is suffering; 2) Experience other people’s suffering as your own; 3) Your work in this world is to eliminate suffering. The people who I am most inspired to coach are the ones with a big dream, together with the willingness to experience personal suffering in its pursuit.

Think George Washington crossing the Delaware with frostbitten feet. Think Abraham Lincoln’s depression after being defeated for his senate bid against Stephen Douglass. Think Nelson Mandela on Robben Island prison in South Africa where he became a symbol of the end of Apartheid.

In developing powerful and profound coaching relationships, first find the dream, second find the pain, third allow yourself to be moved. Yes! I can help.