#1127 A Brain Transplant

I'm a coach.  I'm an optimist.  I believe in hidden potential.  I believe folks aren't lacking specific skills; instead, they block certain skills. My job is to see the potential, convince people that they're better than they think they are, and offer some guidance to get from where they are to where they want to go.  My job is to convince them that with the proper training and practice, there isn't anything they cannot accomplish.

Sometimes I'm full of crap.

I don't mean to be. Charles Schwab famously said that when we mine gold, we find a lot more dirt than gold, but we don't focus on the dirt; we focus on the gold.  I go into every encounter that way.  I believe that with a bit of encouragement, confidence, and training, big-time improvement (GOLD!) will be gleaming amongst the turned-up dirt.

However, if I'm honest, I have done all I can to help one CEO and a sales manager smooth out the plentiful and persistent bumps in their respective roads over the past couple of years.  Both are hyper-critical of the other managers in their organization and have proved utterly and exasperatingly uncoachable.  Each is entirely convinced that it's everyone else's fault. "But Frank, it's simple.  If those effing morons would just…"

You get the picture.

My message to you today is to be coachable.  Regardless of what level of the game you're at, be coachable.  Be willing to be wrong. Go into every encounter, whether with a superior or a subordinate, with an open and curious mind.  The learning and rapport you will gain will not only make you better, it will make you better liked.

I have disengaged with the two fellas I mentioned, convinced that only a brain transplant can help either of them.  It takes a lot for me to quit on someone.  Uncoachable is a shitty way to be.  It makes you stagnant and, like small ponds in a similar state, fetid and AVOIDED.

Own Your Sales Gene…