That each of us can realize the potential inherent in nature and increase our efficiency. The author invites the reader to the coach’s “workshop”, where the counseling process, usually hidden from prying eyes, takes place.
Why the book “How to Strengthen Your Strength? Coaching" is worth reading
- This is a new book from the author of the bestseller “Business is Psychology,” which has already gone through several reprints.
- She teaches how to achieve success without losing yourself in the whirlpool of modern life, to realize and understand your goal, to unlock your potential, to fulfill your “life task.”
- The dialogical style of presentation makes the book a kind of coaching consultant and helps the reader take a fresh look at himself, clarify his true values and goals, turn life's problems into tasks, and find his own resources for solving them.
Who is this book for?
For everyone whose activities relate to communicative or “helping” professions, for professionals in the field of coaching. And also for the thoughtful reader who does not want to stop there, thinks about his development and simply wants to learn more about himself and other people.
Who is author
Marina Melia is a professor of psychology, general director of the MM-Class company. She worked as a psychologist in national sports teams, headed the laboratory of Psychology of High Achievement Sports at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Physical Culture. She was the director of the Soviet-American Psychological Center ECOPSY, the general director of the consulting company RHR Int. Engaged in psychological coaching consulting for top officials of Russian business.
Find out how to increase muscle strength, important tips for beginners and advanced athletes, competent recommendations + videos from experts.
Strength training is fundamentally different from most workouts in the gym, where most people work to increase muscle size or burn fat, that is, all efforts are aimed at adjusting the figure, strength is given secondary importance.
Strength training, on the contrary, has only one goal - how to increase muscle strength and develop physical power. So how can you truly master the power of titanium?! Read on for 6 important rules!
1. Performing basic and isolation exercises
To develop strength, they are actively used, special attention should be paid to the golden three - and, these are the three pillars of creating athletic power.
Other basic exercises are also actively included in the work -,, and so on. It is the use of these multi-joint exercises that forces most muscle groups to work, and the more muscle fibers are loaded at the same time, the higher the strength indicators.
2. The importance of approaches
Training programs for developing strength are a feature of powerlifters. Have you ever seen how they work in action?! Not in competitions, but in training. A healthy man once appeared in my gym, he occupied the bench press, I acted as a backup, counted 7 working approaches, and how many warm-up approaches were unknown, as I later found out - he is the champion of Ukraine in powerlifting, the maximum weight on the bench press is 200 kg. without equipment.
So, strength training includes up to 10 in one exercise!!! Moreover, the heavier the weight, the fewer repetitions performed. Performing such a maximum number of approaches contributes to the perfection of the neuromuscular connection and the development of the technique of performing exercises until it becomes automatic.
3. Distribution of load on muscles
In fitness and bodybuilding, to maximize muscle development, the load is concentrated on a specific area. For example, when performing a bench press, you need to direct the entire load into the muscle, actively pump it with blood and deliver the greatest amount of nutrients for a further impetus to growth. All other muscles are given less attention so as not to distract the payload.
In strength training, it’s the other way around; for squeezing weights, the chest is actively used, and of course the chest is no longer a priority, pumping up the pecs is no longer a priority, the goal is only to lift the weight as much as possible. To do this, you need to include absolutely all possible muscle areas in action.
4. Number of repetitions
To develop strength, they set it to 1 to 6, increasing the number is more aimed at increasing muscle mass. Why is this happening?!
In strength training, it is very important to injure the element of muscle contraction - the myofibril, then, after resting a little, get the effect of supercompensation (this is a phenomenon when the body, having spent energy, tries to exert even more effort for the next load, thus increasing strength).
In the process of increasing muscle volume, the process is different, the number of repetitions is 8-10, here the main goal is to drive muscle acid and pump it well with blood, which is why they are often used, which are useless for developing strength.
5. Rest time
In this case, there is no specific period, usually 3-4 minutes are used for muscle growth, 1-2 minutes for burning and developing endurance, and for developing maximum body strength - the rest time lasts from 4 to 10 minutes.
It is very important to fully recover, in this case the body itself will tell you when it is ready to work further, otherwise if you strictly adhere to a certain time limit, then feeling tired, you will not be able to cope with the planned weight and the standard phrase will burst out from the depths of your soul - it didn’t work!
6. Work to failure
Working up to , is extremely rarely used in powerlifting, with a lot of weight, failure increases the risk of injury of the exercise, tired muscles slightly lose concentration, and under the influence of huge weights, the ligaments and joints are overloaded, a slight loss of coordination occurs and therefore the risk of injury increases.
Working to failure is often used when pumping muscles, but as stated earlier, this method is suitable for pumping muscles, not for increasing strength.
Finally, I’ll say especially to beginners, are you still wondering how to increase muscle strength? Then remember that you shouldn’t constantly work on strength, otherwise it’s easy to make money, alternate working on strength and mass, and before the summer period, add cardio loads and increase the intensity of training to 12-15 repetitions, this will make the muscles more prominent, defined and significantly reduce the layer of fat deposits.
Marina Melia
How to increase your strength? Coaching
Scientific editor E. Shchedrina
Editor O. Nizhelskaya
Project Manager I. Gusinskaya
Corrector E. Aksenova
Computer layout K. Svishchev
Design S. Prokofiev
© Melia M.I., 2012
© Alpina Publisher LLC, 2012
© Electronic edition. LLC "LitRes", 2013
How to increase your strength? Coaching. / Marina Melia. – 2nd ed., add. – M.: Alpina Publisher, 2012.
ISBN 978-5-9614-2715-8
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Acknowledgments
Coaching and writing a book about it are two things that are so difficult to combine that I would hardly have been able to decide on this venture if not for the help and influence of many people.
I am grateful to fate that I was able to see with my own eyes how the great Carl Rogers, Viktor Frankl, Karl Whitaker, Virginia Satir, James Bugental work... These meetings changed my professional life and became a discovery in the understanding of real human contact and the opportunity to hear the Other.
In this row are two domestic psychologists - Vladimir Stolin and Andrey Kopyev. With Vladimir Stolin, we were partners in the first psychological cooperative in the USSR, Interact, and in the first psychological consulting company in Russia, RHR International/ECOPSY. At this time, we had the invaluable experience of first contacts with enterprise managers, the first attempts to “use psychological methods to help the development of the Russian economy” (this is the meaning we put into the name ECOPSY). In addition, I am convinced that all domestic corporate consulting emerged from the “Stolin Pogodinka”. I have been working together for almost 20 years with Andrey Kopyev. Daily communication with such a brilliant professional gave me more than dozens of books I read.
I am grateful to all my colleagues at MM-Class for their intellectual support: many of the thoughts presented in this book were born in dialogue with them. I would especially like to thank Ekaterina Garcia and Svetlana Spichakova, who not only managed to organize me for this work, but also worked very carefully with the material in the book. And, of course, Maria Sidorova, who went with me all this way: from printing out master class materials to checking the final version of the manuscript.
I am grateful to all my clients who have been and remain my main teachers.
Preface
Coaching is something fashionable and mysterious. And very modern. A personal psychotherapist, psychoanalyst is the 20th century, but a personal coach is the 21st century. What is it? “Science, art, craft,” answers Marina Melia, “and all this is fused together.” As in the profession of a surgeon, or a sculptor, or a director. It is difficult to reveal the creative component of the profession in a book. And yet in other creative professions there is an obvious result of creativity - be it complex heart surgery, sculpture or a movie. There is also a place for the author’s signature under his work. Even the “closest relatives” of coaching consultants - sports trainers - can enjoy the publicity of their success - the medals won and prize-winning places of their wards. The creative products of a coach consultant - especially one working with business leaders - are not visible to the outside eye, the names of clients, the very fact of work are hidden in a veil of professional secrecy.
Marina Melia does not rely on the sonorous names and fame of her clients, does not take credit for their successes, does not provide multi-page transcripts of her meetings and does not publish recipe menus. And yet, after reading the book, the reader will understand what coaching is, and why it is needed, and what it is based on, how it is built and what drives the process, what a coach should be able to do, and what pitfalls lie in wait for a coach in his professional work. Moreover, after getting acquainted with the book - written surprisingly easily, simply, in a conversational manner - you get the feeling that you were shown a product, something tangible, visible still existed or somehow arose in your mind.
One of the main ideas of the book, expressed in its title, is “the secret of success is the ability to discover your advantages and organize your life so as to make the most of them.” It would seem that this idea is already present in the consciousness of the professional community, and, more broadly, in the public consciousness. And yet, for most people, these are just beautiful words, an elegant idea. It is extremely difficult to use - both in relation to other people and in relation to ourselves.
A coach helps other people draw on their own talents to achieve their goals. Finding talent in someone else is easy to say! We are critical people. We are taught to see weaknesses and shortcomings in any professional endeavor - politics, art, business. We easily explain the successes of others - by successful circumstances, luck, situation. To attribute the outstanding success of another to the talent, intelligence, and will of the one who achieved this success means going against your gut - committing violence against yourself. It’s the same as admitting: you yourself lacked something from this set - talent, intelligence, will. Well, it would be nice if we were talking about people from another world - about Bill Gates, for example. But about our own people, who grew up in the same communal kitchen... In psychology, this phenomenon is designated by a “smart” term - causal attribution, well, in common parlance – just envy. The closer a person is to us - in age, education, life circumstances - the more powerful the hidden impulse acts on us: to explain his success by chance, luck, lack of moral prohibitions, and the more difficult it is to discover his special talent.
Applying the idea of building on your strengths to yourself is also difficult. Talents, abilities - they already exist, is it worth paying much attention to them? Isn’t it more correct to look for what is weak in us, what is a brake and a deficiency?
Marina Melia reveals the idea of relying on strength both in depth and in breadth - what this means in the life of each of us and what it means in the work of a coach. How can you learn to believe in the non-randomness of someone else’s success and arm yourself with the desire to unravel your client’s talent? How to avoid the traps created by our nature and the profession itself, and how to subject your consciousness and subconscious to chemical cleaning, get rid of the slightest stains of envy, vanity, lust for power, self-abasement - the true enemies of a professional coach.
Marina Melia does not work with just any clients. Her specialization is the top persons of Russian business: owners and managers of large organizations and enterprises. One of the most interesting sections of the book is devoted to their generalized portrait.
In our society, there are persistent and predominantly negative stereotypes of successful entrepreneurs. These people fully experience the manifestations of the asymmetry of causal attribution - their successes are attributed to chance, circumstances, and low morality. Their wealth is perceived by the environment exactly in accordance with the saying “You cannot build stone chambers with righteous labor.” The staggering income gaps between the poorest and the richest are constantly cited. Hidden self-interest is sought in their selfless philanthropic actions.
The more powerful the stereotype, the more interesting it is to understand what these people really are like. And Marina Melia has something to say about this - her empirical base is wider than the one that once allowed Maslow to define a self-actualizing personality. And the trusting relationship between coach and client allows you to see the subject deeper and more fully than any interviewing or testing. The collective portrait of the Russian entrepreneur turned out to be colorful, accurate, convex, multidimensional - far from both envious criticism and reckless admiration.
Any profession needs a framework - its constitution or “ten commandments”. Marina Melia offers her own version of such a constitution - her ten principles. The description of principles or commandments provokes pathos, abstraction and metaphor. The author managed to avoid these provocations. As presented by Marina Melia, the principles are working moments: “drivers” that trigger correct behavior and “blockers” of errors. Principles placed in a real process become fleshed out with details and nuances. Contradictions between the principles themselves are openly discussed and resolved. “Rely on the positive,” but what if you see “negative” – something that interferes and harms the client himself? “Unconditional acceptance” - but what if you want to object? “Customer focus” and his problem - what to do with your own emotions? All these real and apparent contradictions are resolved not through verbal balancing act, but on the basis of one’s own experience, using examples from rich practice.
Prohibition of interference
Not all leaders of the former colonies like Lieutenant Chekhov's actions aimed at reviving the Empire; they especially irritate those who came to power as a result of military coups. They have their own plans for the future world order, and the utopian dreams of the former imperial paratrooper have no place in them. The Gliese star system is unexpectedly attacked and plundered by a powerful squadron of former good neighbors, who for some reason have absolutely no shortage of fuel for their warships. Admiral Yamada hastily prepares the Indian for the defense of the planet Epsilon and asks for help from the newly created Union State of Humans and Jangras. A civil war is about to break out on the territory of the former Empire, threatening to destroy everything that the Swarm could not destroy. However, Lieutenant Chekhov also has his own trump cards up his sleeve, and only the upcoming battle will show what the future awaits for the people and jangras who survived the terrible war.
Glebov Max Alekseevich
Science fiction, Action fiction, Heroic fiction, Space fiction, Popadantsy
Stories of hits and misses
It's hard for blonde Sandra! The lover will not divorce his wife, the mother is swearing, a magician he accidentally met as a joke endowed Sandra with dubious gifts. And another sorcerer, having learned about magical gifts, offered to soften their effect. Not disinterestedly, of course. Now the blonde is helping him unravel a strange story with fiery letters and numerous suspects! And as soon as Sandra solves some problems, others arise. As soon as she found her love and got ready to get married, troubles begin to fall on the couple in love. Now the main problem is the eccentric mother-in-law, who urgently needs to return the stolen magic amulet.
Gale Anna
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance Novels, Romance-Fiction Novels,
Assistant for the professor
I suggest you, Nastya, to become my assistant. And the score is yours. What will be my responsibilities, Roman Andreevich? The professor smiled coldly. You will live with me and help me with everything that I cannot cope with due to a fracture. You will be my right hand, Nastya, whom I broke, by your grace. My name is Nastya Tikhomirova, and I am lucky. I got an internship in the best law office, under the supervision of Professor Isaev. Let me tell you straight: he is completely unbearable. Especially after he broke his arm through my fault. Now I’m his personal assistant and I dream of strangling him... Or kissing him? Hot, with humor.
Mayer Jasmine, Cute Alya
Romance Novels, Contemporary Romance Novels, Erotica
Vicious revenge
The man I fell in love with from the moment I saw him is my older brother's best friend, and he is the one to whom I willingly gave my most valuable possessions, thinking that I would never see him again. However, five years later, he himself finds me and gives me an ultimatum: either I go into his sole ownership, or a person close to me will suffer. It’s hard for me to believe that I donated my heart to this monster, but it seems that’s exactly the case.
Salah Alaina
Romance Novels, Contemporary Romance Novels, Short Romance Novels, Erotica
Mouse for pumping (SI)
The All Elements Day holiday is over, but that doesn't make it any easier. Even the fact that I, Daria Lukina, an alien and an adept of the Academy of Elements against my own will, is no longer an outcast, does not inspire - alas, it is difficult to enjoy life when Kast, the “king” of our faculty and part-time son of the god of Fire, promised to finish off , and not achieve, and the mysterious first-year curator Emil von Glun shows an interest that I just can’t explain to myself. Moreover, the upcoming individual lessons with Lord Glun are terrifying. But there is no turning back, and if this is so, there is nothing left but to continue to fight. And prove that girls from Earth don’t give up!
Gavrilova Anna Sergeevna, Zhiltsova Natalya Sergeevna
Fighting fantasy
Marina, so what is coaching?
The English word coach has two meanings. The first is “teach”, “inspire” and the second is “cart”, “carriage”. Both the first and second options are suitable for revealing the meaning of our consultation. The coach, in dialogue with the client, really teaches and inspires, and also, like a carriage or cart, takes the person from the problem zone to the zone of its solution.
It's not very clear yet.
First of all, coaching is a dialogue with an equal partner. This is especially important for top officials, since very often there is no person in their environment with whom they could share their problems. The entire environment is dependent: employees, partners, family, which is interested in stability...
In such a situation, it is vitally important that you have an independent dialogue partner nearby with whom you can discuss everything without fear of publicity, with whom you can also not be afraid of appearing weak, irritated, aggressive or, conversely, super-kind. Moreover, this partner must be absolutely focused on the interlocutor, which is extremely rare in life. A coach consultant can be just such an independent partner; for him this is a professional job. In this case, of course, he must be a personality equal in scale to the personality of the first person.
Is there a scientific definition of coaching?
Yes, I formulated it in my book: “Coaching is a partnership between a client and a consultant, aimed at recognizing, formulating and achieving the client’s true goals, revealing and realizing his personal potential.” There are three key words here: dialogue, true goals and realizing potential. I have already spoken about the dialogue. Clarifying true goals is a very important point, because our true goals are usually literally “paved over” by fashion, rules of behavior, obligations... From childhood, a person begins to live according to other people’s life scenarios. And when a crisis comes, when he acutely feels: “No, I’m doing something wrong,” it is important to understand what he really wanted, what for him really was and is the meaning of life. This formulation of true goals is a very important part of the work in coaching.
Do top officials really have such problems?
People who are seemingly successful, rich, and perceived by everyone as a standard to strive for, are often extremely dissatisfied with their lives, because sometimes they cannot understand what they really want.
The third point is unlocking your potential. It is important for a person to understand: “How did I achieve success? What is it about me that has truly made me successful?” It is very important to look at yourself truthfully: “I am not very successful in this, I am weak, this is not my strong point, but in this I am strong, this is my talent.” And the main task of a coach is to help a person understand himself. As a result, a person gets rid of unnecessary things and becomes stronger.
In what situations do you recommend turning to a coach?
In general, I don’t recommend anyone to turn to coaching consultants. A man once came to me and asked: “Why don’t you go to clients?” I say: “We go to clients when it is related to production needs.” For example, to China, when a client needs emergency assistance in the negotiation process, or to Vladivostok, or Geneva, or Kostroma... But I never go to potential clients, I never present services.
My company is already 20 years old, and all these years I have started the first conversation like this: “Are you sure you need this?” You need to think a hundred times before turning to a coach.
Coaching involves changing a person, an impartial look at oneself. It's painful. It is unpleasant. It's difficult.
Now, by the way, a fashion for coaching is beginning, and having a coach is becoming prestigious. I had a funny situation: a man came up and said: “Let me pay you, you don’t need coaching, and I’ll just tell everyone that you are my coach.” Naturally, I did not agree.
Who turns to you for help?
These people are undoubtedly successful, capable of making decisions, and with high self-esteem. Strong people. A weak person does not see the questions that life poses to them. But a strong person meets these questions halfway and is ready to accept a dialogue partner next to him, ready to receive objective information, not always positive. For example, that the style of communication with subordinates does not contribute to the implementation of the projects that a person is implementing, that there is no need to recruit creative people and then build them up like soldiers...
How long ago did coaching appear?
They started talking about coaching as a separate area of consulting in the 80s of the 20th century, but we understand that at all times top officials had advisers... And psychologists appeared in business in the 30s of the 20th century in the USA, but then they advised organizations, not top officials. As for our country, in 1987 I organized the first psychological cooperative in the Soviet Union at Moscow State University, and we immediately began working with the main people. This was, perhaps, an example of our first organized coaching, although we didn’t call it that then.
What did you do before creating a psychological cooperative?
I started as a sports psychologist for national teams of the Soviet Union, then headed the psychological service of sports in the USSR. The attitude of a champion is internally clear to me, because I myself was an athlete, a cyclist, at one time a champion of the Union, an international master of sports. By the way, it was sports psychology that was quite advanced in our country, because international sport is the fiercest competition, and psychological preparation had to be no worse than in the best world teams. Sport was already in the “conditions of capitalism”, when the fittest survive. A sports psychologist creates successful people, champions. Therefore, the experience of working in sports teams helped me a lot when, in the early 80s, I began working with top officials in business and government.
How similar is the psychology of athletes and successful leaders?
There are a lot of similarities. Firstly, result orientation. In one case it’s goals, points, seconds, in the other it’s money, volumes, capitalization. Secondly, the ability to grit your teeth and spend tons and tons of labor to achieve your goal. In addition, both of them experience a certain narrowing of consciousness, when all thoughts, all feelings are aimed at the result.
How is coaching different from psychotherapy?
Both are the art of dialogue. However, coaching is not psychotherapy, although the coach also needs to master the methods of psychotherapy, and he must focus on those psychotherapeutic humanistic approaches that do not imply that you look down on a person, but conduct a conversation as equals.
The tasks of a coach consultant are: to help the client focus on the most important, priority aspects of his activities; include internal resources; put into action a motivation system; take a fresh look at yourself and your business; as efficiently as possible (and at the same time painlessly) link the client’s goals with the goals of the people around him and his organization, so that there is no reaction of rejection; deal with personnel issues - part with someone, motivate someone, etc.
The work of a coach consultant is reminiscent of the work of a sports coach: a coach cannot run the distance for an athlete, but he can help him actualize his internal resource, “catch his game,” discover his “crown” - something strong and unique that is unique to him and that will allow achieve victory.
Sometimes coaching is confused with psychotherapy. But these are different things. The psychotherapist concentrates mainly on psychological problems and the study of their roots, and therefore on the past, on the patient’s mistakes. Coaching focuses on basic life values, goals and ways to achieve them, and successful strategies of the client. Coaching is focused on the future rather than the past. In the following articles, we will take a closer look at how coaching is carried out, which executives and at what stages in the life of their company need it, and how to choose a coach.
Has the crisis somehow affected your interest in coaching? Maybe there are some new requests?
Yes, they have appeared, and they differ significantly from what interested top officials during the 1998 crisis. Back then, all requests to me as a coach related only to business, but now people are mainly interested in existential questions, that is, questions of the meaning of life. People worry about whether a decision “fits their life strategy.” They ask a lot of questions related to children and family.
Why do you think this happens during a crisis?
Before the crisis, not only companies, but also individuals were “inflated”. Constant material success is blinding. And when success ends, it's sobering. This is true for top officials - when they reach the pinnacle of material success and there is nowhere else to move further - “they have achieved everything.” At this stage, someone starts drinking, someone goes to Tibet, someone starts changing wives or buying yachts - one is longer than the other... Another situation is when, on the contrary, long-term efforts to achieve financial and career success end in failure. You built and built your business, and it collapsed overnight, like now, for example, during the crisis. And you understand that any material success is a rather ephemeral thing, that you cannot connect your whole life with it, that life is something more. Back in August last year, just before the crisis, I watched in a famous restaurant in Saint-Tropez how our Russian businessmen paid bills of one hundred thousand dollars in cash, took bottles of Crystal champagne, and poured it on everyone present... A terrible picture. There are no such scenes today. The crisis had an extremely beneficial effect. Calm, normal people are sitting, and next to them you are no longer ashamed that you are also from Russia. It seems to me that even for this sake the crisis could already have taken place.
Many people have had a prejudice since Soviet times that psychology and psychotherapy are intended for sick people. Does this attitude carry over to coaching?
On the contrary, I have recently noticed, as I already said, a certain fashion for having your own psychologist or coach. Although, of course, some people still have this negative stereotype. Firstly, they are afraid that they will think: “If he turns to a psychologist, it means he is weak,” and secondly, they are afraid of becoming dependent on the consultant. They are also afraid, as one client told me, that “first they will take it apart, and then they will not put it back together,” that is, they will unsettle the person, disturb him, throw him out of balance, and then they will not be able to help... Indeed, you need to think a hundred times before you start work with a specific consultant psychologist or psychotherapist. Unfortunately, now the fashionable word “coaching” can be used to describe anything. This could be really pure psychotherapy, but they tell you that this is coaching. You come, and they start to “dig” you out from childhood - to get all these forgotten childhood grievances against grandparents, mom, dad, older sister, they start digging into everything... It’s like a bad chiropractor. By the age of fifty, your spine has already developed - with its own curvatures, osteochondrosis. You somehow adapted to live with them, you correct it with light gymnastics, correct it. And then a certain chiropractor comes and says: “Moment. Now I’ll fix everything!” It begins to wrinkle, break, straighten. The result is terrible pain and you cannot walk.
An illiterate psychotherapist or psychologist can do the same. If you are offered psychotherapy sessions 4 times a week for 5 years, then I would think about it. You can’t let yourself be “taken apart piece by piece.” Is it dangerous. For you personally, for your business, for your family.
I had to meet people after unsuccessful and incomplete psychotherapy - they were not in very good condition. For example, a person does not like to speak in public and does not communicate very well with people. Instead of understanding his characteristics, the psychologist-consultant forced him to hold meetings every day with a huge number of people, taught him to shake hands firmly, and forced him to deliberately smile at the crowd. And a person is an introvert, he experiences terrible stress from this, loses the internal energy that he used for business...
Therefore, think a hundred times before allowing interventions into your life.
How can you determine the level of a consultant without starting to work with him?
First of all, the coach must be a mature person, not young, not a fan of any one technique in which he “sacredly”, like a fan, believes. If a coach knows only one technique, this means that he only has a hammer in his hand and for him any problem turns into a nail that needs to be driven in. Having your life experience, look at him simply as a person - are you ready to share your most intimate things with him? If some doubt arises, it’s better to take a break and take two steps back. The main principle here is “do no harm.”
And then I don’t believe that unsuccessful consultants can work with successful people. The consultant, to some extent, must go through the same path as his dialogue partner, achieve a lot himself, and must understand what success is.
Marina, what do you think the duration of coaching should be and are there any standards and recommendations at all?
In fact, I believe that every meeting with a client is like the last and should have its own significant result for the client, so I give my best. Of course, people can come again after some time; there is a certain regularity of meetings. It all depends on the specific situation; issues need to be resolved as they arise. But the most important task of a consultant is to teach the client to see and solve their problems independently.
Is there a danger that a person will become psychologically dependent on a coach?
Of course, there is always such a danger.
How to avoid it?
I have already said that from the very beginning you need to look at who you are getting into the same boat with. Second: if you feel that addiction has appeared, you should definitely discuss this with a coach. A competent coach will always help you get out of such a situation.
And who usually determines that the result has been achieved and the coaching series can be completed - the client or the coach?
Of course, the client. And the client has the right to end the consultation at any stage. For example, he meets and says: “I want to take a break” - there is nothing wrong with that. The client must feel the result himself.
How does the level of Russian coaches correspond to the level of, for example, American coaches?
Unfortunately, there is still a difference and not in our favor. Now there are about a hundred psychology faculties in Moscow, but, unfortunately, there are not so many qualified teachers in the country, so the quality of education is still quite low. But over time everything will return to normal. Now clients need to be more vigilant.
If we talk about methods, then in the West there is a narrower, utilitarian approach, often focused on one particular method. Ours is more like RussianSoul, our methods are designed for the Russian mentality, for people who grew up on our literature, in our culture. So the future belongs to domestic coaches.
Is calling or visiting foreign coaches an option?
Why not. This suits some people, I know people who turned to foreign consultants. There are many people in our country who have a Western mentality or aspire to it, so working with a foreigner for some time is not bad for them. I don’t think at all that there is something absolutely bad, but there is something absolutely good. It all depends on the specific situation.
In my practice, there was a client who, without refusing my services, after some time turned to a foreign consultant, he was simply interested. He consulted with me about this. If there is an opportunity - why not...
Now we continue to work with him, and I believe that the meeting with the foreign consultant also gave him a lot. I don't see any negative in this. You just have to remain the master of your life with any consultant.
It turns out that the best coach for a person is himself?
In life, the Lord God controls us, and the merit of a coach is that he gives an outside perspective. Why does a champion athlete or a person at the top of his career need a coach? Because it’s always lonely at the top, and every person needs an independent interlocutor. Not everyone manages to find this - it is very difficult. Likewise, it is very difficult to find a coach who could always maintain the position of an independent person.
Are the problems that businessmen address different from the problems that politicians address?
I would say this: for businessmen, the main task is to achieve an absolutely concrete result. If we take the psychological formulas “to be” and “to seem,” then for a businessman it is “to be,” and for a politician it is “to seem.” But I don’t work with politicians now, although in the 80s and 90s there were many politicians among my clients. Then there were elections, there was a real struggle - a 50/50 situation. Politicians believed they could do a lot, and they wanted to “be” rather than “appear.” As a psychologist, I participated in the elections of delegates to the First Congress of People's Deputies, then in the elections of governors. Now politics is a completely different business.
I wonder how different the coaching needs of Western and Russian businessmen are?
There are differences. I would say this - foreigners have a more specific, narrower request, since their lives are more regulated, their communication with consultants is more regulated, and their tasks are more clearly and narrowly set. If we take a Russian person, then he has some languor, dissatisfaction, uncertainty, which is more interesting to me as a professional.
Three or four years ago, Forbes magazine wrote that your typical consulting fee is 3 thousand euros per hour. How close is this figure to the real one?
I don't want to comment on these numbers. I do not disclose the size of my fee, but, of course, it cannot be small, since a person receives help from me, thanks to which he earns millions... I even had clients who said: “Listen, you and I came up with this together.” “They say, as a partner, we should share with you. I reject such proposals, since everything that was invented during our dialogue belongs only to the client.
I note that a coach must always clearly state the price for his time; if he does not do this and makes the amount of the fee dependent on the result, then this should be alarming!
I had a client with a very difficult situation. He had a business, then he spent a long time in prison and came out, as they say, “without anything.” And in this situation, he came to me for help, because he didn’t know what to do... We talked. I did not adjust my fee, I wrote him an invoice, saying that he could pay me in a year. As a result, he paid me after six months. Now this man is all right and he calls me his godmother.
Now, during a difficult economic situation, could you give advice to our readers?
I’ll try, although there are as many different situations as there are people. I gave some similar advice in the Vedomosti newspaper. For example, in a crisis you don’t need to rely on some extraordinary manager who can replace you. Take the reins into your own hands. Now many business owners are returning from their foreign residences, although recently it seemed to them that they could live there quietly “in retirement”, having transferred operational management to hired managers. Often in critical situations, only you can solve all the problems.