The power and peril of a crisis avoided

What would you say is more heroic?

To anticipate a gigantic crisis and help avoid it?

Or

To jump into an ongoing crisis as a brave ‘firefighter’ and save a burning platform?

Well, independent of your or my opinion, I think we can agree on one thing:

It is a lot more VISIBLE to jump in, rescue, fix and solve. People cheer. Resolving an ongoing crisis is a visible problem solved. Instead, a crisis avoided is ‘just’ a potential, invisible problem avoided.

Why do I tell you this?

Here’s one truth, as this relates to coaching.

As a trained, professional coach, you are typically NOT someone who rescues, saves, fixes and resolves someone’s crisis with your own resources and ideas.

Instead, you are world-class at helping others challenge themselves and figure things out. You help them anticipate ways, obstacles, troubles, and yes, a crisis. You are most powerful when you help someone prevent a crisis using their own resources.

As a coach, you also congratulate your coachee on their idea and you follow up right away with a caring challenge: “What are the many ways this could go wrong and how will you deal with it with confidence?”

As a coach, you are a powerful vehicle to help someone achieve what they want and get them to anticipate where they could derail.

And you typically do this 1 person at a time.

You are shining through others, to help them rescue themselves. You avoid crisis through others.

And: You typically won’t end up in the news.

It’s an important decision to make for every single one of us.

Do I want to be someone who rescues others with my resources?

Or do I want to be someone who helps others rescue themselves?

What kind of hero do you want to be?