You Could Be a Giftedness Coach

Would you like to make a profound difference in another person's life? You can! Consider becoming a Giftedness Coach.

What Does a Giftedness Coach Do?

A Giftedness Coach is someone who helps others discover their giftedness, and then apply that insight to the most important areas of their life—their job, their career, their marriage or family life, their life direction, etc.

Why is that role needed? Well, let's start with the fact that most people don't know what their giftedness is. That’s not good! If you don’t know what your giftedness is, you can’t live intentionally. You just live instinctively and intuitively—perhaps even randomly. Living that way can lead a person down a lot of blind alleys. To a lot of disappointments and frustrations.

So the first thing a Giftedness Coach does is help people wake up to their giftedness. That turns out to be a rather fun process, and ultimately quite satisfying for all concerned. It's like turning on the light instead of stumbling around in the dark.

But as invaluable as it is to know one's giftedness, that's not enough. That insight has to be applied. And that's where many people especially need a coach. In fact, The Giftedness Center has found that only a tiny fraction of people are able to grow and make progress solely on their own. As they try to make decisions and take meaningful steps based on their giftedness, they need someone who will listen, encourage, make suggestions, provide feedback, lend perspective, provide accountability, and otherwise support their efforts to realize their good intentions. We call that someone a Giftedness Coach.

Who Can Be a Giftedness Coach?

The simple answer is—just about anyone. Anyone who cares, that is.

The fact is, many occupations by their nature place people in roles in which they are paid to help others grow and develop. For example:

• Teachers

• Professors

• School administrators and other educators

• Deans of students

• Athletic coaches

• Counselors, therapists, and social workers

• Pastors

• Youth workers

• Staff members at camps and conference centers

• Staff of youth programs like Big Brothers and Big Sisters or the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts

• Community center directors

• Corporate trainers

• Executive coaches

• Personal coaches,

• Spiritual directors

• Chaplains

• Occupational therapists or activities directors at hospitals or nursing homes

If you work at a job like that, you already have relationships with people who are asking the big questions—questions like: What should I really be doing with my life? What will I do when I graduate from school? I've been offered a job; should I take it? Am I in the right job? What will I do when I retire? How can I be a better spouse? Why do my kids make me so frustrated? And so many more.

If you receive some modest training to become a Giftedness Coach, you can make yourself even more effective than you already are in helping people find some answers to those questions.

So some jobs just naturally lend themselves to Giftedness Coaching. But really, almost anyone can get in on the action. All you have to have is an interest in helping someone discover what they should be doing with their life, and then walking with them as they start to pursue that. For example:

• You might be a family medicine practitioner who has patients who confide in you.

• You might be a financial advisor who's been asked by a client family to advise them on whether one of their children would make a good successor in taking over the family business.

• You might be a manager or supervisor who sees promise in an up-and-coming young recruit or junior executive.

• You might be a parent who finds some of your son’s or daughter's friends hanging around and asking you questions--even if your own child seems to dismiss your input.

• You might just be someone in a company, church, neighborhood, or community who sees promise in a younger individual and feels an impulse to cheer them on toward success and happiness.

• In fact, you might be a young adult yourself, but you’re a leader among your peers. You know people look up to you, and they turn to you for advice and input.

If any of those scenarios is remotely like yours, you’re a great candidate to become a Giftedness Coach. You're in proximity to people wrestling with important questions. Would you like to become intentional about trying to make a difference in their lives? If so, we can arm you with some tools and knowledge to do that.

Informal Coaching

You don’t need to quit your job or go get some sort of degree or specialized training to become a Giftedness Coach. Bill Hendricks' book, The Person Called YOU, is enough to get started. Buy and read that book. Then, if you already have a relationship with someone you’d like to help, tell them you’ve come across a resource that might prove useful to them. If they indicate interest, have them buy a copy of the book (or buy one for them), and take them through the exercise in the back called Discovering Your Giftedness: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Work with them until you feel they’ve made some real progress in understanding how they’re wired. Then have them read Chapter 7 in the book on "Giftedness and Your Work," and/or Chapter 8 on "Giftedness and Your Relationships," and help them begin to apply the insights they’ve gained.

As they start to work on the specifics of establishing and following a plan and taking action, meet with them regularly to hear how it’s going, offer input, and encourage them forward. They’ll likely take two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes two steps back. Sometimes worse. Helping someone grow can sometimes be be a bit frustrating and even messy, and there’s no formula. There’s only a commitment to being there for them as they take steps that they have committed to. You can never do the work for them, nor should you. But you can keep them taking the steps they know they need to take. That's your role as a Giftedness Coach—to keep them from stalling out or throwing in the towel.

Formal Coaching

But suppose you want to go beyond just helping someone out using the book? What if you'd like to become really proficient at this giftedness coaching stuff—maybe even become a true black belt in it. In that case, you can sign up for some formal training and certification offered by The Giftedness Center.

Formally training to become a Giftedness Coach is like taking lessons from a professional fly fisherman to become better at fly fishing. It’s for people who want to turbo-charge their efforts at guiding and helping others find significance, meaning, purpose, and direction. The training regimen makes demands on you to develop your prowess and experience at helping people discern their giftedness, as well as focus on the area of application that you want to specialize in.

We especially welcome people who already have expertise in career guidance, marriage dynamics, parenting and child development, teaching, learning, and human development, counseling and therapy, spiritual direction, and other areas that giftedness affects. We're not the experts on everything. We just know a thing or two about giftedness. So our attitude is, let’s all learn together on how this stuff applies to life. Our culture is so early in that discovery process! You could be a part of the learning odyssey in a given field, and the expertise you already possess could contribute to the conversation and applications in ways we can’t even imagine. So if you’re game for that, we are too.

Seven Levels of Training

Basic Level

FRIEND

GUIDE

Intermediate Level

COACH

MENTOR

Advanced Level

EXPERT

SPECIALIST

TEACHER/TRAINER

The training is handled through on-line video sessions and person-to-person mentoring. Training for the FRIEND level is available at no charge. The costs and requirements for the other levels will be explained as you go through FRIEND training.

Everyone desiring certification by The Giftedness Center as a Giftedness Coach must work their way up through the successive levels.

The First Step

If you'd like to get started in training for the Friend Level, or if you'd just like to check out what this is all about and what's involved, watch the video below. Then, if you're interested in moving on in the training, click the link beneath the video.

We look forward to working with you!