Niiamah Ashong coaches a master certified coach who trains coaches in a Tribe 1:1 coaching session on the Outlier's Edge Podcast. The guest is creating a course on the neuroscience of coaching and asks whether serving coaches is truly the impact the guest wants to make. What emerged is a clear calling: some coaches are called to work with starters, and this guest is called to work with finishers, the coaches who want to finish what they started.
Episode at a glance
- Host: Niiamah Ashong, coach to outlier leaders
- Show: Outlier’s Edge Podcast, released October 29, 2021
- Format: session, 54 minutes
- Topics: Produce versus reduce, Building the muscle for rejection, Training coaches for exponential impact, Reframing low-hanging fruit, Starters and finishers
What this session is about
The guest is a master certified coach, the highest level of coaching credential, held by only about 1,200 coaches in the world, and works with high achievers, high performers and high potential leaders, including leaders of big companies. The guest has trained hundreds of coaches, literally wrote a book about coaching, and created a leadership program for the guest's community that is now in its second year. Client outcomes the guest is proud of include helping a financial planner land a $100 million portfolio, helping an attorney at a prestigious law firm create her own department, and helping an entrepreneur launch a luxury watch line within a year of working together. About 10 years ago, while tutoring, working part time in a restaurant and acting, the guest decided to change the world, took to heart a musician's words that there is no plan B, and began coaching teenagers to find their purpose. Now the guest is creating a course on the neuroscience of coaching with two neuroscientists, to serve trained coaches and elevate the professional coaching industry, with a fire to help coaches not give up.
What emerged
The guest wondered whether serving coaches was low-hanging fruit, and Niiamah Ashong reframed it as the fruit that is going to ripen into the next generation of leaders, while the guest saw the exponential impact of serving coaches who each serve clients. When Niiamah Ashong asked whether the guest is a get-in-the-game or a stay-in-the-game kind of person for others, the guest named a new distinction: some coaches are called to work with the starters, and the guest is called to work with the finishers. In the guest's own marathon image, that means meeting coaches at mile 17, when they've put in the work and are about to quit, and getting them to the finish line.
Questions this episode answers
What does it take to keep going when people doubt the work?
The guest says that something no book can teach is finding the strength inside to persist no matter what, and that first and foremost a person has to believe in themselves. The guest credits years as a professional actor, facing rejection after rejection, with building that muscle.
Is serving the people a leader already knows just low-hanging fruit?
Niiamah Ashong reframes it: at this inflection point in human history, there is a chance to help cultivate the next set of world leaders, so it is the fruit that is going to ripen into the leaders who shift things. He compares holding back to carrying water in a desert full of thirsty people and deciding it would be too easy to give it to them.
Why would a coach focus on training other coaches?
The guest sees it as exponential impact, because coaches have clients, and believes that if every coach empowered clients to be their best self, the world would be a much better place. Niiamah Ashong asks whether about 1,200 master coaches is enough to shift the consciousness of the world, and the guest concludes that leadership means creating more leaders, which here means creating more master coaches.
What is the difference between helping people get in the game and helping them stay in it?
Niiamah Ashong describes himself as a get-in-the-game kind of guy and asks which kind the guest is for others. The guest answers stay in the game: some coaches are called to work with the starters, and the guest is called to work with the finishers, the people who want to finish what they started.
What does produce versus reduce mean for a leader?
Niiamah Ashong explains that reduce comes from a root word meaning to lead, with a prefix meaning back or again, and that he spent two years leading by taking things away. Produce adds a prefix meaning forward, so now he is leading forward, with the range to move between full-on production and the bare essentials.
In their words
First and foremost, you've got to really believe in yourself.
A participant
This is the fruit that is going to ripen into the actual leaders.
Niiamah Ashong
I think some coaches are called to work with the starters. I think I'm called to work with the finishers.
A participant
Key moments
01:04 – Produce versus reduce
07:11 – The highest coaching credential
18:33 – There is no plan B
22:37 – Acting built a rejection muscle
27:18 – A course on the neuroscience of coaching
35:02 – Is serving coaches low-hanging fruit?
37:37 – Fruit that ripens into leaders
44:53 – Water in the desert
49:36 – Get in or stay in the game
51:40 – Meeting coaches at mile 17
About Niiamah Ashong
Niiamah Ashong is a coach to outlier leaders, host of the Outlier’s Edge Podcast, and founder of the Trailblazer Collective. He coaches leaders who are creating something only they can make: a company, a body of work or a movement. Make a difference with your difference.
Work with Niiamah: 1:1 with Niiamah | World of Difference
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