Ranch Coach

One of my favorite times of the year is upon us. No, not winter. Believe it or not, 10” of snow and -23 degrees F (current conditions as I write) just isn’t that exciting to me. What gets me excited right now is the NFL playoffs! Admittedly, it’s even more interesting since my team (Go Pack Go) is in the mix, but even if they hadn’t made it, the playoffs are pretty hard for me to not get wrapped up in. Gifted athletes battle on the field, while gifted coaches play a game of chess. The cerebral meets the physical for four quarters, and the best combination of the two moves on towards the ultimate goal, the Lombardi Trophy.

I also find it fascinating that an NFL player’s profession is to throw a ball, catch a ball, run with a ball, tackle people that have the ball, and stop people from tackling people that have the ball…. AND they need coaches for those things! These guys get paid millions of dollars to be gifted athletes doing basic skills we all learned at recess, and they are provided coaches in order to perform at their absolute best. Some, like the Buffalo Bill’s Josh Allen (Go Pokes) even hire a personal coach to help elevate his game during the off season. That’s right. He has a head coach, an offensive coordinator, a quarterbacks coach, and a personal off season QB coach all working to help him throw and run a ball better. 

It’s not just elite athletes that find value in coaches. Musicians, artists, CEOs, and coaches all rely on coaches to help them perform at their best. Yep, coaches need coaches, too!  Why would a coach need a coach? Even coaches have blind spots. Areas where they lack knowledge or understanding, but don’t realize it. A coach acts as a mirror to help discover those blind spots. Sometimes we don’t want to see our personal blind spots. Other times, we truly can’t see that blind spot. A good coach exposes what we can’t see, and forces us to look deep into those things we don’t want to see.

A good coach helps to discover the vision. They ask the questions that find the pupil’s “why.” Winning the Super Bowl is every player’s dream, but why they want to win the Super Bowl is where motivation is found. A coach forces us to dig deep into how accomplishing that goal would make us feel and why it is important to us. Once they have that, a coach helps us to break that goal down into several objectives and build a plan to get us there. It is easy to identify a good coach. They are asking lots of good questions and are rarely giving advice. That comment may surprise some of you, since we often associate coaching with telling us how we could have done something better or just pointing out our mistakes. A truly effective coach, however, will ask questions that lead us to our own breakthroughs. We learn and implement new ideas much better when they are our own conclusion.

A good coach helps us to close the performance gap, that space between “what we know” and “what we do.” Having knowledge or skill is only valuable if we apply it, but applying a new skill at first can be extremely uncomfortable. We have a fear of failure and a fear of the unknown, but a good coach will be honest and supportive in helping us overcome those fears and get uncomfortable implementing new knowledge and skills. Ken Coleman, a career coach and Ramsey Show personality says, “we’d rather be miserable than uncomfortable.” His point is that a coach will force us to be uncomfortable, in order to unleash our highest potential. 

Is there a place for someone like this in your ranch business? Do you, or your manager, have blind spots in your business that you can’t see, or don’t want to see? Do you understand the “why” behind your goals, or have a step by step plan to help you accomplish that goal? Do you know everything there is to know about cows, soil, plants, or money, but struggle to fully implement that knowledge into your operation? Perhaps if superior athletes charged with protecting a ball see value in coaching, you could also find value in coaching to help you build and protect an economically and ecologically resilient business?

We are fortunate to live in a time where coaching is readily available. Whether you seek financial guidance, soil health coaching, relationship counseling, or mental health coaching, you will be able to readily find someone ready to help you level up. Even if your business is in the “stop the bleeding” phase and there is little to no money available to hire professional coaching, you can still find a network of free coaches in the forms of podcasts, blogs, articles, and books. I highly recommend that you study what these resources offer, write it down in order to retain it, then teach it to someone else to help close the performance gap. However you accomplish it, seek coaching, be coachable, and strive for the next level of Ranching For Profit!