Hire a personal development coach when you have a burning desire to grow, you feel stuck or uncertain, and you want a champion in your corner. I call a great coach a greatness extractor. Before you commit, run the decision through three filters: clarity of vision, creation of self and lasting change.
- A great coach is a greatness extractor who magnifies the best things in you.
- A coach is worth it when you feel stuck, uncertain or alone with a big vision.
- Wait when the offer is a shiny object. Invest in what stays with you forever.
- Audit your inputs today by asking where you are being coached right now.
What does a personal development coach do?
A great coach is a greatness extractor. That is my name for someone who sees the best things in you and helps you level them up and magnify them. They also take the limiting beliefs, fears and judgments all of us feel and help you turn them into power.
I learned this by hiring one. In the middle part of my entrepreneurial journey I felt stuck and uncertain. I also felt a lot of good momentum in my life and wanted more of it. So I sought out my first coach, a branding coach named Gil.
I was running a sports blog and a marketing business at the same time, and people kept telling me, "Rob, I just don't understand what you're doing." My vision was crystal clear to me, and the market saw it differently. Gil helped me create clarity for myself and for my business. For the first time in my life I had a champion.
A great coach is a greatness extractor.
That clarity led me to become a coach myself. Later, on a podcast, Drewbie Wilson told me, "Rob, you're a greatness extractor." I scooped that compliment up, and it became one of the declarations I speak out loud every morning.
When is a personal development coach worth it?
Hiring my first coach changed my life, and I have sought out great coaches in every area of my life since. Look for these four signs in yourself.
- Burning desire You want to do something great or become the best version of yourself.
- Stuck or uncertain You have momentum and you are on the fence about what comes next.
- Missing clarity Your ideas are crystal clear to you, and the people around you see something different.
- Going it alone You look around and see nobody you can talk to about what is going on in your world.
Everything going on in your mind can be solved, and in my experience it happens in conversation with someone aligned to where you want to go.
When should you wait to hire a coach?
Wait when the thing in front of you is a shiny object or a band aid. Growth is built like bricks on a foundation, so save your investment for work that will be with you forever.
Starting free is a real option too. I began my personal development journey at zero. I read books, watched YouTube videos and listened to podcasts, all of it free. That kind of growth is often slow, and it still builds self mastery.
Fear on its own is a weak reason to wait. I wanted a coach and I was also a little scared, because I had never spent that amount of money on myself. Investing in myself opened the floodgates.
What are the three filters for choosing a coach?
These came out of conversations with people who were hungry, willing and unsure what was next.
| Filter | The question to ask |
|---|---|
| Clarity of vision | Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? Working with someone can help you create the answer. |
| Creation of self | What is the next level of you on the inside, in your heart, your mind, your habits and the story you tell yourself? |
| Lasting change | Will this be with you forever, like a new tool on your tool belt? |
Working with Gil, the thing that stood out to me most was that clarity of vision gave me permission to dream. If vision is your gap, start with a vivid vision for your life and business.
You are your best asset and your best investment.
Rob Cressy
How do you decide whether to hire a coach?
- Audit your inputs. Ask yourself where you are being coached right now. Who are you listening to, what are you watching and what are you reading? Be very candid. An empty list is a big opportunity.
- Run the three filters. Answer the questions for clarity of vision, creation of self and lasting change. A yes on lasting change means you should probably do it.
- Seek out someone who resonates. Ask who can help you get where you want to go faster. Look for a champion who has the roadmap and creates a safe space for conversation.
How can you use AI as a personal development coach?
Take anything that inspires you and drop it into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask it to unpack the idea, build on top of it and turn it into action items for your world. I did this with a tweet I read at lunch. My prompt asked ChatGPT to act as my world class coaching advisor and show how the tweet applied to me. I was learning in about three minutes.
Three keys make this work: a growth mindset, awareness and action. I call the awareness piece signal recognition, your ability to see something out in the world that you can put into the AI. Stay human first. This is less about AI and more about where you want to grow. AI brings the personalization. A coach or a mentor brings the champion and the conversation.
Do this today
- Audit your inputs. Write down who you listen to, what you watch and what you read.
- Ask the lasting change question. Pick one coach, program or book you are considering and ask if it will be with you forever.
Listen to the episode
Should You Hire A Personal Development Coach?
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Read the full transcript
Hiring my first coach changed my life. It unlocked a new level to my vision and added fuel to the burning desire that was deep inside of me and can for you too. And what I want to do is tell you a story that takes you back about five years ago to the middle part of my entrepreneurial journey. And maybe some of this will relate to you.
At the time, I was feeling stuck. I was uncertain. And I was on the fence about a few different things. At the same time, I felt a lot of good and momentum in my life. And I wanted more of it. And because of that, I sought out my first coach. A branding coach. His name was Gil Nevo. And I had never hired a coach before.
And it was something that I both wanted, but I was also a little bit scared of. Because I'd never worked with a coach before. And I'd never spent that amount of money on myself. And one of the greatest things that I learned is that when you invest in yourself, it unlocks the floodgates of potential for you.
Because for the first time in my life, when I finally hired Gil, I had a champion for me. Someone who was aligned to my vision. Someone who heard me and felt me and helped me see the things that I couldn't see in my business. Someone who helped me create systems and processes that could allow me to build my business faster.
Because at the time, I sort of had two things going on in my life. I had Bacon Sports, the sports blog side of my business. And then I had Cressy Creating, which was the marketing side of my business. And so often people would say, Rob, I just don't understand what you're doing. You've got so much going on. And it was crystal clear to me because it was my dreams. But the market didn't see things the same way.
And it was once I understood it and realized, wait a second. It was the lack of clarity in myself, in my vision, in where I was going that helped me say, oh, I can go and find someone that resonates with me, that can help me get to where I want to go faster.
Because a great coach, they are a greatness extractor. They see the best things in you and help you level them up and magnify them. But at the same time, those things, those self-limiting beliefs, those fears, those judgments, those things that all of us are feeling, they help us take those, remove them, and turn them into power. And that's exactly what Gil did because he helped me create clarity for myself as well as for my business.
And little did I know what would happen after hiring my first coach. Because after that unlocked so much potential in me and built so much momentum, I immediately understood the value of working with the best in the world. And since then, I've continually sought out the best coaches in the world in all areas of my life to help me level up the things that I want to in my life.
So if you're someone who has a burning desire to do something great or to be the best version of yourself, or you're feeling stuck or uncertain, I encourage you, hire a coach. Because they've got the roadmap to help you get to where you want to go. And also, one of the things that so many of us lack is just the ability to be in conversation with someone who's aligned to where you want to go.
And I can tell you from my own journey over the last 12 years, one of the biggest challenges has been it can feel kind of alone and isolating. Whether you're an entrepreneur or you're working in the corporate world, it's all the same. Because so often you look around and there's no one else there where you can talk to them about what's going on in your world.
Because the good news is everything that's going on in our mind, and the vision for what we want to create, all of that can be solved. And I can tell you from experience, it happens in conversation. But a beautiful thing happened after I hired Gil. Not only did I continue to level up myself and invest in even higher levels in coaching, I became a coach myself. I became one of those greatness extractors.
Because who would I be to help others if I wasn't someone who invested in coaching myself? But I saw the gift that I have and the desire inside of me to help other people on their journey. And that calling through the clarity that I created with Gil, and boom, the evolution of my brands. Boom, I stepped into the best version of myself of being a coach.
And the next level of this for me actually happened last week. And I was on a podcast, shout out to my man, Drewbie. And we were in conversation. He said, Rob, you're a greatness extractor. You're one of those few in the world who go out there and help people on their journey to be great.
And like I always do, whenever I hear someone give me a compliment, I scoop that bad boy up and I said, thank you very much. Now every single morning, I speak out loud and I feel into it. I am a greatness extractor. And I sit there and in my emotions, I say, you know what? I help people be great.
And if you want to take your greatness to the next level, here's something I want you to think about. Ask yourself, where are you living being coached? Who are you listening to or watching and consuming? Or what are you reading? What are those inputs that are helping you be better to take what it is that you want to create to the next level? Be very candid with yourself. Because if you don't have any, ding, ding, ding, there's a big opportunity there.
And if you want more of it, you say, huh? Who is it that I can go and seek out that can help me get to where I want to go faster? Because as I said previously, the fastest way for you to get to where you want to go is to have somebody there with you who is a champion that has that roadmap, who can create the safe space to be in conversation, to where we can be aligned to your goals and your vision. Someone who's in your corner. Because when you have this in your life, there is unlimited potential. Potential.
Transcript cleaned up for reading.