The gap between what you want and need and how to communicate it confidently and assertively

by Alessandra Patti (Switzerland)

Coaching is powerful. It is a powerful tool, and now the industry seems to be growing at unprecedented speed. And yet, it still seems that anybody can be a coach. Basically, when you do not know what to do, instead of pause and reflect, become a coach. I do not particularly agree with that, since I do not think that anybody has what it takes to become a coach, such as particular empathy, intuition, sensitivity and at the same time the business strategy that shows the client how to get from A to B.

But, at the same time, why not? Isn’t it the same thing, when there was like a boom in the IT industry around the beginning of the year 2000 and everybody suddenly wanted to know how to program? Funny enough, the IT and the coaching industry are the fastest growing industries now! The bigger freedom that people experience in their professional journey, and social media, contribute to having more people expressing what they can do, how they feel and how they can help people. Then why does life coaching have a such lower reputation sometimes?

I think because it is something that belongs to the humanities. Whatever people are studying that it is difficult to put in a box, and therefore more intangible, has lower reputation. Because selling the intangible is equally hard, whereas programming (that for me is equally hard and intangible) has tangible results.

Therefore, in my experience with my own coaching practice, I think that the best tool that life coaches can use, it to create methodologies, whose heart is the client. However, creating methodologies takes time, and you need to have experienced success in those methodologies during a certain number of years, to be able to sell them confidently.

I’d like to make an example of my own methodology that fills an important gap, as mentioned in the title of this article: your needs and how to truly communicate them.

Source: iCN Issue 31  (Life Coaching: Personal & Professional Empowerment); pages 63-64

About Alessandra Patti

Alessandra, originally from Italy, resides in Zurich, Switzerland, where she leads her coaching practice (FindYourWay Coaching), facilitate workshops on assertive communication and mental health first aid. She is a certified assertiveness coach and university lecturer, and she also loves writing. Her chapter ‘The Assertiveness Companion’ in the book that she co-authored (Activate Your Life: 50 transformational exercises from coaches around the world) contributed to make it one of the best sellers on Amazon self-help category. Her hobby is latin dances, reading and writing.