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I really wonder if anyone not hand-picked for an Olympic team / for a position through nepotism ever got ANY benefit from "coaches".



I will treat this as a real question. The answer in my case is yes.

Many, many senior executives, founders and owners benefit from coaching, and pay at times thousands per hour to be coached. In fact a famous coach in Silicon Valley was so well loved his coachees (including google founders) wrote a book about him to thank him.

To paraphrase Dune, the first lesson is learning how to learn.

Put another way, an insightful person rooting for you and kicking your ass can have a profound impact on your life.

I recommend it!


It's a serious question. I see virtually every "coach" as a scam artist who would be doing what they coach if they could. The few legitimate coaches out there are prohibitively expensive. Of course, that's just my take on it.


If you log back in, here's how I would think about it. Imagine yourself at peak personal and work performance. Do you have a sort of a 'type' or person that comes to mind? e.g. Perhaps you're into building content based communities, and Alexis Ohanian comes to mind. Find out who advised and coached Mr. Ohanian in the early days of launching reddit. Can you imagine wanting that person's input into your life, and how it might help you?

That's the sort of person I'm thinking of when we talk executive coaching.

The other kind, to parody, a sort of failed masseuse and mid-tier office worker turned coach is not at all the sort that I think would generally move the needle for someone interested in the tech startup world.


That's at least partially true. There are lots of "life coaches" out there who may have a certificate in coaching, but not a degree in related field and no professional license (like a licensed social worker or therapist). Some are good, some are no better than your best friend, only anonymous-ish (I guess there's some value there).

But, there are legit coaching programs out there (Georgetown has one of them). While not full degree programs, the end product (ie, the coach graduates) can be very good.

And getting value from a coach is a 2-way exercise. They won't transform you into your best self without work from you. You need to have problems that need solving, you need to put work into discussing them, and then you need to execute when you're back in the office.


I think it works the same way that a psychologist works. You’re partially paying them to just be an impartial generator of feedback. You cannot get that anywhere within your organization or circle of friends.




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