Did Michael Jordan, Eric Schmidt (Google), Bill Gates, and Serena Williams need a coach? Yes. They most likely wouldn’t have achieved the success they did without coaches.

If you look at the upper levels of performance in any field, especially athletics, or business, you’ll likely find a web of mentors, coaches and advisors behind every high performer. Nearly half of the CEOs in the fortune 500 receive executive coaching.

Being coached is not for wimps or under-performers. On the contrary - it takes a lot of courage to overcome your fears, create around your limitations, and find the depths of your potential. It’s one of the most leveraged investments you can make in yourself.

And you can measure the ROI if you want. (Or ROIIS - Return on Investment in Self).

Some one-hour conversations are worth thousands, or even millions of dollars in breakthrough ideas to entrepreneurs and business leaders over time. Here is a sampling of the real breakthroughs that have happened with New Edge Coaching.

Rapport and easy connection with your coach is really important. You want to be able to relax. So is a coach’s demonstrated consistency and integrity - do they walk the talk? Do they take ownership and clean it up when they mess up?

A great coach is going to tell you the truth in a way you can hear it and act on it. This is easier said than done. 

For some - that means a good, direct, "ass-kicking" truth in your face once in awhile.  

For most, it’s a balanced, empathetic and wise listener looking for incremental next steps on a complex journey - not to force you or shame you into change. Often our lives are like a tangled ball of fishing line that need some patience and focus to unwind.

You want someone who has honed themselves and wrestled with similar questions that you face, understands your context, and can help you see for yourself the next step that makes sense for you in a difficult situation.

A great coach is committed to health in their own lives and is kind of like a Jedi warrior. It’s a career and lifestyle choice not for the faint of heart, coming from a deep place of service to make the world of human beings more fantastic. 

You want a coach who isn’t a rescuer, or a pleaser, but confidently values their time, and your time, and helps you see the depth of your value without compromise. 

Coaching is an art that requires a coach to master themselves, constantly - and the best coaches also receive or have invested in high levels of coaching themselves. It’s not a profession you can fake, and the best coaches authentically teach from their experience in a unique way - sort of like a jazz musician who borrows from the greats, but develops their own voice instead of just copying other frameworks and techniques.  The barrier to entry as a coach is low, but the barrier to mastery is high.

You want someone who has worked diligently to get their ego and judgment out of the way so they can create a safe and powerful space for you to explore anything that will help you grow.

Everyone is coachable. However, we have varying degrees of being open to receiving help. We all have blindspots and derailers that will get in the way. The resistance. However, not everyone is ready to commit to the discomfort and step into the unknown that’s inherent in changing.

A willingness to explore, and a desire to pursue a level of mastery for yourself are key. Your coach can only point - but you have to do the work required of growth.

A personal trainer, for example, can’t do the pushups for you.

It’s hard for some people, especially entrepreneurs and high achievers, natural problem solvers, to ask for help.

However, it’s a lot harder in the long run to avoid weaknesses and hide them. They always catch up with you, and chances are you’re not really hiding them from anyone.

So, a little courage and humility to get started and be coached can help.

A bias for action can be really helpful, but sometimes working with a coach can also help spark momentum to take action.

A lot of people quickly realize after one conversation how helpful it is to have a wise, objective and creative thinking partner and wish they had started working with a coach a decade earlier.

This distinction is actually really simple: a coach knows the art of evoking the best ideas and decisions from you.

An advisor will share with you the best of their knowledge and experience.

Both can be useful, depending on the situation, and can be complementary, but they are not the same role.

In other words, having a board of advisors or mentors, does not serve the same purpose as having a dedicated professional coach. Most entrepreneurs don’t receive objective advice from family or board members because there is usually inherent bias.

The danger with advice is that it’s usually outdated and specific to the advice giver’s past situation or nostalgia for what they should have done.

You would never see a top level tennis player, for example, meet once a quarter with a former professional basketball player and expect to become the best tennis player in the world. The basketball player may have good related advice about athletics in general, or a useful mindset or training regimen, but this would be only tangentially useful.

Top performers in any field of course have a dedicated coach who knows them inside and out, and offers objective focus on the individual’s performance in support of their agreed goals.

This requires a lot of listening and creativity to get past the beliefs, habits and “saboteurs” holding back the client.

Advice, by contrast, is content - and doesn’t usually take into account and build on your unique talent, perspective, and the complex realtime variables you’re facing.

Advice can be a great source of inspiration for what’s possible and new ideas, or technical expertise, but your wisdom and intuitive decision-making ability is perhaps the most important skill you can develop as a leader dealing with unpredictable relationships and complex systems.

Great companies often have a coach who works one on one both with key leaders, and also with the dynamics of executive leadership team - or even the board - to get the best wisdom and creativity out of everyone.

Coaching works on the quality of how a leader is thinking and performing, not just the strategy and content of the business.

There is a new book called The Trillion Dollar Coach, by Eric Schmidt (infamous former CEO of Google) and colleagues, detailing the profound impact of a former college football coach named Bill Campbell on several Silicon Valley giants including Google and Apple.

Just like in sports, the dynamics of how a team is being and working together make or break the execution quality of a company’s goals.

If the team is being dramatic, drama ensues. If they’re being calm and creative and empathetic with each other, then creative results flow.

Campbell demonstrated at a trillion dollar scale how important the way a team is being with each other matters just as much - if not more than anything a company does.

The leaders coached by Campbell compiled The Trillion Dollar Coach book so this knowledge was not lost with Campbells’ death.

Many companies ignore these invisible interpersonal dynamics, and it’s likely why about 90% of businesses fail within the first few years.

Team coaching can help to make sure that the trust and communication channels are open and healthy so that the collective creativity of the team can be harnessed towards the mission of the company instead of internal drama.

Coaching is an investment in yourself - not a cost. A lot of people miss out on the value of coaching when they view coaching as a discretionary expense or fluffy soft skill feel-better thing for wussies. Not so.

To quote Eric Schmidt, “Everyone needs a coach.” To be human is to have blindspots.

Like a surgeon, a great coach is going to discover and take a scalpel to the core challenges you or your company are facing as a leader and help you creatively shift those challenges. Often in a matter of minutes.

This coaching skill is often cultivated over decades, and often has highly leveraged value.

For example, in one 5-minute conversation, a CEO client discovered $25,000 of opportunity cost per year wasted on employee drama with just one executive team member. Another client discovered clarity of vision, eliminating another decade of distraction on irrelevant projects. Another client negotiated a higher salary and equity package after a ten minute coaching conversation. Another client saved thousands of dollars in legal fees via an insight from coaching. Another client corrected a hiring mistake that could have tanked the business if left alone.

What can be helpful to consider when thinking about a coaching investment is this question: “what is the biggest blocker I have in the way of what I see as possible for me or my company, and how much would I be willing to invest in order to conquer that challenge?”

Chances are, what you’d be willing to pay to solve the challenge is a lot more than what the coach actually charges. Or, what you are paying to NOT solve the challenge is actually costing you more than coaching.

Hourly rates are often better suited for therapy and life coaching where it can take a long time to unwind personal stories.

Executive Coaching is more about creating valuable outcomes - so it’s often framed around the value of insights and subsequent actions that appear, versus time for money.

Getting access to a highly skilled coach is extremely valuable because the coach’s time is as valuable and limited as yours.

The range of investment to expect is widely variant depending on the skill of the coach and the size of organization. You should expect around $20,000-$30,000 for a six month program for a good coach. Some coaches charge $250,000+ a year.

Often leaders are sponsored by their employers, or coaching can be paid for through the business.

Some executive coaches, however, will do shorter trial programs, or invest in longer-term relationships to work with people who demonstrate high levels of commitment and potential.

Coaching is fundamentally about moving forward and preparing for the future.

A good coach nurtures your untapped potential, moving you to ever-higher levels of responsibility and accountability. Coaching helps you create your own solutions.

In contrast, traditional counseling and psychotherapy typically focus on resolving issues rooted in the past, from abuse and addiction to trauma. Counseling strives to heal psychological or physical conditions, with the goal of reaching a healthier emotional state and achieving overall well-being.

New Edge Coaching takes the approach of learning from the past challenges as a way to create more of what you want. Sometimes this may require a little letting go or moving past habits grounded in old beliefs or negative experiences.

Justin Perkins, founder of New Edge Coaching, is an experienced Founder and entrepreneur, also holding roles such as VP of Business Development and VP of Strategic Partnerships. Perkins loves working with inspiring Founders, CEO’s, and other senior leaders and teams. Occasionally he also will mentor other coaches or work with promising emerging leaders earlier in their career. He also gives inspirational talks for startup teams, and training for high performing sales or marketing teams.