In the last post, Building Your Personal Brand – the 3C’s, we referred to Competence as one of the 3 C’s.
Competence is key and sometimes, we might have to alter our direction and take a route to where our competence lies.
Here is a true story.
I was coaching Deepak (name changed). He wanted to be a Motivational Speaker.
He was doing all the right things. Passionate about changing people’s lives, he had big dreams and was following several Western motivational speakers. He read a lot and regularly practised his craft.
Competence is key!
His plan was to build a career for himself as a motivational speaker in English. But there was a problem.
His English was faulty.
When I was coaching him, I realized that he was forming his arguments in Hindi, his mother-tongue, and then translating them into English. This was clearly not working. His grammar was weak and he used a direct translation which seemed out of step in English.
All around him, people were encouraging him. It was up to me to break the bad news to him. At the same time, I had to be sensitive to his aspirations and dreams.
A coach’s role is sometimes difficult.
Although I had observed that he was making serious errors in the English language, the errors, obviously, were not evident to him. It was critical to point out the issue without dampening his enthusiasm to become a motivational speaker.
I hit upon a plan.
I asked him to first type out five of his speeches. He took some time to get this done. Once he had done that, I had him download Grammarly, a free writing assistant. Once Grammarly began scanning his manuscript, several errors surfaced. While he looked at the errors, he did not know how to correct them which clearly showed his limited knowledge of the language.
While we went over the results, he seemed disappointed. But I did not want him to abandon his dream.
I pointed out his strengths – his passion, his keen interest to change people’s lives, his learning habit, and his desire to rise to the top.
Leveraging strengths
I asked him: what if he changed the language to Hindi?
Being a master of Hindi, he could play with words, connect with the audience, and deliver his message. He could still make his dream a reality.
I knew the idea had clicked with him when I saw him smile – a wide grin.
Today, Deepak regularly delivers motivational speaking sessions in Hindi. His talks are getting popular. Last month, he delivered his first motivational speaking session for a fee.
Deepak is now working on his first book – in Hindi.
Life is about identifying our strengths and leveraging them fully in this ONE life of ours.
Do you need help with identifying your strengths and re-imagining your life and work?
If yes, join several others who have signed me up for Life Coaching or Career Coaching. Think of the coaching fee as an investment for your life – the right investment for the right reason.
Write to me at [email protected].
Make that move NOW.
