Oliver Hill is a performance coach for business and life. Here he talks of feeling a ‘little embarrassed’ to say that 2020 was the best year for his business, but goes on to explain how, for some people, the pandemic has been a catalyst for personal development
My first 40 years have been spent setting me up for the next 40. I used to believe failure was exactly that – failure. Now I understand that ‘failure’ is simply life giving us feedback. We only fail if we don’t listen to the feedback life gives us. To describe my life, I would say that I am looking for the feedback.
I always feel a little embarrassed to say that 2020 has been the best year for my business. I am in my fifth year and 2020 saw a huge jump in new clients. I put this down to two main factors. Factor one? A lot more people are taking their personal development much more seriously (and lockdowns have given them time, and in some cases money, to do so). Factor two? I have moved my business online (in terms of virtual coaching sessions), something I had previously resisted but March 2020 forced my hand. I previously believed I needed to see people in person. I now realise this was utter nonsense – and a perfect example of how we can easily mislead ourselves every day.
I see a coach’s duty is to help people, nothing else, just to help them. I do not think that lockdown has changed that. I do think lockdown has changed some people’s willingness to be helped. There could be many reasons for this. I am just happy to see that more and more people are willing to seek help.
I would not suggest that our role is any more important now than it was before. There is so much information out there (readily available to everybody) that can help them. All they have to do is look for it and then do the things they need to do with it. Perhaps lockdown has given people the opportunity to start to look for it.
I’ve never liked the word ‘coach’ and I don’t believe the separation of coaching into different forms makes me feel any better about it. As I have previously mentioned, any coach is there to do one thing – help people. And so good business coaches will inevitably end up helping a person in their life, and a good life coach will end up helping them in their work/business/finance. Coaching is often confused with training, consulting and mentoring. This is unhelpful for the sector and for the clients that would otherwise access the help they need if they truly understood what they’d be getting.
Has the pandemic been a catalyst for personal development for some people? Absolutely yes! 100 per cent. It’s one of the positives to come out of what is clearly a difficult time for many people. Terrible things have happened to thousands (perhaps millions) of people, but there are positives to be found if we look hard enough.
I see Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) as a way of academically explaining certain behaviours and thoughts we have. I believe that NLP is a tool that may be helpful to some people. What is most important is the pursuit of purpose and the recognition that the thinking and thoughts we have are not the reality of our situation. Once you realise that we live life from the inside out, and not the other way round, you will no longer be concerned by the specific labels of NLP, Life Coaching, Business Coaching etc, and the need to define them.
If people are looking to NLP to help them then they may not find what they want. If they are willing to do what they need to do to help themselves, then some NLP techniques may help them achieve this.
On a personal level I hope that all people close to me remain fit and healthy for as long as they can. Professionally, I hope that people remember this period of their lives, and don’t go back to forgetting, ignoring, or even hiding from the fact that there is so much information out there designed to help them.
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