IT WAS SEVEN IN THE MORNING. It was grey and cloudy outside and it felt almost as grey and cloudy in my room as I hunched over my computer, tired and frustrated. I had been working so hard over the past year to build my skills as a coach. I had done training after training, and I knew my coaching was powerful. Yet as I peered at my bank website in the early morning light there was no arguing with the cold, hard facts of the numbers. I had almost no money left in my account. What I wanted to scream was, “Why? Why? Why isn’t this working?” And I was angry because I’d just received a clear no to the bold request I had sent to a coach named Steve Chandler. You see, Steve had a reputation for helping coaches become prosperous. Some of the most successful and world-class coaches I knew had trained with him. So I had emailed Steve with an extraordinary offer. I had written, “Steve, I cannot afford to attend your Coaching Prosperity School. But if you let me attend for free, I will pay you double by the end of the program.” Excited by my offer, I was crestfallen to receive his reply: “Rich, I want you to be the coach who can create the money first.”
My chest was constricted and my breathing short, because signing up for Steve’s school would drain the very last of my savings. And yet a sensation deep inside of me knew: “You have got to do this.” I wrote the check then and there and walked to the mailbox with my heart beating fast in my chest. I wanted to commit. I wanted to play full out—for the first time in my life. I dropped my check in the mail and a couple of weeks later I met Steve in person for the first time as I became a member of his Coaching Prosperity School. The numbers don’t lie. It was just two months later when I realized I had already made ten times my investment in my own coaching. For the first time in my coaching life I had found a way to look into the eyes of a potential client and have them smile as they said the magic words, “How do I pay you?”
As I write these words today I have a deep sense of inner confidence about my ability to create prosperity as a coach. I no longer use my bank account as a way to make myself feel bad (or good). And I know how to create the income and clients that support a lifestyle I love. I attended the Coaching Prosperity School four times in total. I eventually became a faculty member and began to lead seminars alongside Steve. I have learned to thrive as a coach. And in this book, alongside my coach, mentor and now good friend, Steve and I get to share our world with you.
The scene is set in the next section of the book, called *The Miracle of Coaching*. You will choose your level of engagement and learn to set a high bar for yourself and your clients. Not many coaches are willing to play such a high-level game, so you will find yourself in the rare air of the world’s best coaches. In *Creating Clients* you will learn effortless and powerful ways to sign clients you love while maintaining your integrity. There are no gimmicks or manipulative techniques. You will develop a system that works for you, building deep, meaningful connections that lead to referrals and clients, time after time. In *Fearless Coaching* you will explore the two levels of fear that coaches face. There is the fear within your coaching which is often expressed as people-pleasing instead of powerful service. And then there is the fear of “selling” and enrolling clients that typically results in never making bold, life-changing proposals and having only uncommitted clients. In *Deep Inner Work*, you will examine—and move beyond—the deep- seated beliefs that hold most coaches back from success for themselves and their clients.
I HAD BEEN RUNNING MY Coaching Prosperity School for years, with remarkable results. Students learned to sell their services at levels they never thought possible. My school was the only coaching school that didn’t teach you how to coach. It focused all its time and energy on only one thing: acquiring your next client. My own life was completely turned around by coaching, and like a mad scientist who has found a cure for cancer I wanted to give that turnaround back. So I began coaching coaches on how to build prosperous practices. Because a coach without a client is not a coach. I know. I have been there. And how did that sorry state get cured? By my own coach, the ultimate coach, Steve Hardison. Now I want to give coaches everywhere what he gave me. It’s not enough for coaches to simply be good coaches. If you are a coach reading this book I want to make you as good an enroller as you are a coach. For your client’s sake and for the sake of humanity itself. Coaching can only help civilization if there are clients.