Coaching vs Mastermind: What's the Difference?

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are not doing an interview this time. We're going to talk about some of the things we picked up in our interviews. One of the topics that you're going to see come up a little bit has on the blog site in particular and we're going to continue doing this as we're pushing towards the end of this year into next year. We're going to talk about masterminds and coaching and what's the value and what should you look for because there are a lot of coaches and masterminds and things like that out there. You probably have seen that because we've had several that have bubbled up basically in our conversations, whether that was their primary thing, their focus or something that was one of the maybe the many things that they did. And also if you paid attention, you probably caught where several of the people that we talked to that were successful went through some sort of a coaching or mastermind kind of program. Now, those are different. And so I want to talk a little bit about coaching this time as opposed to mastermind. And really to just start out, I want to really just distinguish between the two. With a mastermind, you're in a group and yes, you have somebody that's sort of coaching you but really it's about the group helping you out. It's about other people in similar but not the same kinds of situations where they're going to help you think outside of the box. You're going to be able to help them think outside the box. Now, there's definitely a lead kind of thing that you want out of that. The person that's leading the mastermind, you want them to understand how these things need to work. You want them to be able to help you help yourself set goals, make sure you're setting those goals, make sure they're realistic, look at milestones and things like that. The kinds of things that you need to be able to say, hey, I want to get from point A to point B and these are not people necessarily they're going to drive you from point A to point B but they're going to help you. They're going to look at your journey as it were. You're going to say from point A to point B, these are my stops, this is how I'm going to approach it. And the lead plus other members of the team are going to talk about it and say, hey, I had a similar journey. This is something I learned. Or you just got stuck there. You had a flat tire. How can we address fixing the flat tire in an analogy form? You're going to get stuck. You're going to have blockers. You're going to have challenges. And sometimes they're not really about getting from point A to point B or at least they're not directly related because it could be things like you're talking about progressing your company and you run into some sort of HR issue. Maybe you've got a employee that you're struggling with and it may be that they're not probably the hardest type. But if you're bad, you're not getting everything you think you can out of them and you would like to help them and help yourself by doing so. Those are kinds of things that are great for Mastermind. That's not that coaches can't help that. Coaches though, one on one. You're in a situation where you've got somebody that is a, it's really a mentor as much of a coach. This is somebody that has been there, done that, is walking through some of this journey with you, if not all of it in a sense. And think about it like a counselor or something like that. This is somebody that's, except for their expertise is going to be in doing what you need to do, whether it's exactly in your line of business, whether it's building a business of a style that you are. But that's what a coach is. This is more of a one on one. Now in the world of coaching, we've talked to a few and I'll have some links with the blog post that goes with this. I'll add a couple of those if you want to go back and sort of hear what they have to say. The thing with a coach is you need that expertise that I mentioned. They need to be somebody that, it can't be somebody that just come out of school and doesn't really know anything. They've got to been around the block a few times. They have to understand how it works, how the game is played. This is even true if you want a good sports analogy as you think about it. There are coaches out there that haven't played the game. Not a lot, especially when you get up to like the professional level, but they understand they've been around enough. They understand how it's played. They've worked with or studied under people that are coaches that have been through all of the paces. You know, they've won the big awards and built teams from scratch and all that kinds of stuff. That is what you're looking for in a business and a professional coach as well. Somebody that understands and can define and describe how do you grow your business or your career or your personal goals along with your career maybe, depending on what kind of coach it is that you're looking for. Now they're probably going to have contacts. They're probably going to have some network and they're going to have some people that aren't them. They're going to bring into the picture to help you succeed. And that's not a requirement, but that's typically going to be one of those things because the coach is not going to do it. The coach is going to help you figure out how to do it. They're going to show you how to do it better. They're going to show you where you're, yes, you're doing this, but you're not doing it quite right. If you adjust, you can do it better. You want to think about something like a golfer. That's what their coaches do. And I'm not a golfer, so pardon me if I'm getting this completely wrong, but my understanding is a golf coach is doing things like telling them how to stand and how to hold their head and how to swing and all of the nuances of the swing, including things like exercise and diet and all of these facets that go into becoming a better, in this case, golfer. That's what the coach is doing. They've looked at this. They've researched. They've said, this is what winners do. Coach's coaches, this is what winners or the successful people do, whether they are one or whether they know one. And now with a coach, they're going to be a motivator as well. And this is where with a coach, you really need to find one that meshes with you personally, because different people are motivated in different ways. And you're going to have and want to have, I think, a coach that's going to kick you in the butt if you start falling back. You want to have somebody that, in a sense, is as invested in you as you are them as far as this relationship, this coach, coachee, player coach relationship. You want somebody that is going to be able to talk to you about your business, that's going to be able to understand your business. They don't have to know it off the bat, but when you talk to them about it, they need to be able to understand that this should be something that they are comfortable with, where they can say, OK, I see what you're doing. I see where you're at. Let's talk about where you're going and let's figure out how we get you there. And then this is going to be somebody that's going to observe in some way, form or fashion, whether it's directly or whether they're getting feedback from you. And ideally, it's them observing. Even getting feedback is not going to be near as informative as watching you in action. It's like going back to that golf example. If you're sitting there and you're swinging a club and you're telling them how the swing is, that's not the same as being able to watch that. What does that look like in a business coach? It may be stuff like maybe you send them copies of some of the reports or emails or communications that you've got with your customers. Or maybe you have them review some of your marketing campaigns and your website or something like that. Have them take a look at that. They may sit in on a meeting with you or something like that. This depends on where you're going and what do you need out of this coach. But they may ride shotgun for a little bit or shadow you for something to say, OK, let's see what a day in the life of you looks like. And where do I as a coach see where you can make some improvements? So coaches are, again, not to go back into that whole mastermind idea, but coaches are usually going to spend more time, definitely, I think more time per person than you're going to find in a mastermind. Mastermind is a lot more about I've got a fairly good idea of what I'm doing and how to get there. And I need some people that I want some people to sort of help me out to help me with this journey. So I've got a sounding board and things like that. A coach is a little bit more of I'm stuck. I've plateaued. I'm not seeing how do I get to the next step? What do I need to do to get moving forward again or to grow or sometimes to really get started? And if you want to if you question the value of a coach because you're sitting there saying, yeah, I'm stuck, but I got to this point so I can figure it out. Go back. Listen to some of our some of our past conversations. Go listen to particularly where you find this a lot where you can get the sort of the backstory to some successful people, particularly in the business world, whether it's like a Tim Ferriss or if you go to Gary Vaynerchuk or some of those people that are out there that are well known business people. They're a little different because they're more in that influencer type of role versus the people that are like read a book that's something everybody it seems like it's been a big CEO. They probably have a book. Listen to what their journey was like. You will find if they didn't specifically have a coach, they had a mentor and a mentor is to me more or less the same. This is you pay a coach meant in a mentor is a little different. It's there's a there's a different relationship between those. If you have all of the above, if you've got a coach and a mentor and you're in a mastermind group, I don't know how you can fail. Okay, I'm just I mean, I'm probably over. I am I'm over selling those. But if you got all of those bases covered, you are in really good shape because you're going to have people that are invested. You're going to have people that are looking at what you're doing and have people assessing it. And that's that's the kind of stuff that makes us better. That's what a coach is doing in a sense is they're they're testing you maybe on a regular basis. Just like we did in school, we don't know when you know if you're back in grade school and you're learning math, we don't know how well we've learned math until we get tested on it. We may think we've got it because we can answer some questions. But it's not until we're asked to do that without having the book in front of us and some of these other things. And then when we're tested, we get to see how good it is. Literally, we get to see how well do we know it. Now, granted, you can complain that tests are good or bad and blah, blah, blah. But in some way, form or fashion, you have to test your skills in order to see where you're at. And honestly, you have to test your skills to get better. You have to push yourself in order to get better. That's why athletes play game after game after game after game. They don't just like jump right into the championship game. I mean, part of it because you have to earn it. But part of it is you'll see that there be people that have very sports that have a professional career that they early on just played a lot. Lots of games kept testing themselves, kept trying to win all that kind of stuff, because that was how you get better. You either win and you see what you did that helped you win and you learn and say, okay, this is the good stuff. This is the stuff that I want to continue to be successful. Or you lost and you look at why did you lose? What were the things you did that led to or caused that loss? Business is no different. And that's where the coach comes in is they are invested in you, but they're not you. They're a different set of eyes. It's like, honestly, not a whole lot different than hiring a consultant. If you are a business and you're struggling and you hire a consultant to come in and say, hey, I need you to help straighten out our business a little bit. Now, a consultant is going to be more a doer than a coach, but that's sort of what a coach is. They're watching what you're doing. They're assessing what you've done, how you do it. And then they're going to come to you and say, hey, this is what I'm seeing. These are the things that you're doing great. I think you need to continue these. See where you can do more of this. These are the things that I see you are hurting yourself. You're shooting yourself in the foot or you're not doing these real well. And that is maybe that's a burden or a cost or something that is slowing you down somewhere else. And so you get that feedback and then you go try it and see what works and see what doesn't and you make some adjustments and you move forward. And that's what the coach is doing. And they've now got a as they're coaching you, a history. Because initially they're going to sit with you and talk about stuff and watch and get you like a baseline. But then as they start coaching you over time, they're going to have that history with you. So they're going to say, hey, we tried this thing before and it didn't really work. It looks like you're going to be trying that again. So let's like avoid that. Or maybe it was, you know, we tried this thing and we thought it would work. Didn't quite work, but you didn't quite execute right either. So let's swing back around to that and let's adjust the execution and trying again. That's what you're going to get out of them. So coaching literally should be a good coach is going to adjust your bottom line in a positive sense, whether it's a career coach, whether it's a business coach or whatever it is. This person is investing in you. And yes, you're investing in them. You're investing into this. You're, you know, if it's coach, you're paying them to coach you. But that, that should be considered an investment. It's not a cost center because basically if you pay that you're paying that coach and unless you really don't care, unless you don't follow through, you know, if you're not coachable, if you're not listening, if you're not adjusting, if you're not embracing what the coach says, or if the coach is just horrible coach, then all right. Yeah. You can still fail, but most likely that's not going to happen. Most likely you're going to see improvements. And again, this is where we have conversations and we bring up coaches and we bring up mentors. I don't know how often people have said this conversation or this coach or this mentor changing my mindset and going to, you know, coach mentor or something like that, turned it around where they went from, they weren't getting, maybe they weren't getting any traction or they had just sort of like plateaued and they weren't seeing any more growth. And then it's almost like the old MTV behind the music things is you always had these groups that were really popular and then they then there'd be like some sort of drug thing and they fell apart and they get back together and they'd be awesome. It's sort of what the business story is like. It seems like so often the story is that people start out doing real good and they're going great and they think it's like sky's the limit and then it's not. Something happens. They stop, they pause, they plateau or maybe even, you know, they were growing and now they're shrinking. And then they talk to a mentor or a coach. They get a mentor or coach or join a mastermind or maybe all of the above. And then flash forward, it's not an overnight success but maybe six months or a year or two years later, they see that they're now triple where they were before. They're way better off. And there's so many things that go into this and this is why if you're wondering, yeah, a mentor is great. A coach is probably going to be, if you really want to go for it, a coach is probably going to be your best bet. And I say this not being a coach. I'm not currently a business coach in any way, form or fashion, nor do I actually have one right now. But if you look at objectively what they bring to the table, if you want to aggressively invest in your career, in your business, then a coach is going to be very helpful. Now you can't get that out of a mastermind. The thing is, depending on who the coach is, is they may or may not give you as much personal attention, you're still going to get it and you're going to get, I think, a broader range. So personally, I like a mastermind better because it means that you're not, it may sound bad but you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. You aren't relying really on that coach. Yes, you've got the leader that is sort of helping to coach but you've got these other people that are helping to bring their, helping you by bringing their insight and their experience. And everybody's unique. I don't care who you are, whether you're a coach or a mentor or part of a mastermind or just a Joe Schmo out there in the street that's a customer, you have experience that is unique that you can bring things to the table that are valuable. And so that's why I like having a group a little bit better. That's why when we did our mentoring for several years, it was really more a mentor group. It wasn't as much like, you come in and you talk to your one mentor. We had a group that was much closer to a mastermind kind of feel, even though it was not quite as organized as a mastermind might be. We'll be changing that moving forward because there is definitely that value in organized accountable milestones and things like that that a good, that really that a true mastermind group will bring to the table. And that's what a coach will do to you as well as they will, they're going to be, if they're worth their salt, they're going to be working with you to say, what are your goals? How do we get there? What are the milestones that we have to hit in order to get there? What do you need to do to change, to improve, to add, to subtract in your company or your career or your activities to get you up to those milestones and eventually to whatever that goal or destination is. It can be all kinds of stuff depending on where you're at and what you're doing. The coach may even be, even in a business sense, may be actually impacting your personal life a little bit. The coach may say, hey, you watch TV all the time. Maybe if you want to be successful, I think maybe what you need to do is instead of just watching sitcoms is read books or work on your business a little bit more or something like that. There's things that a coach most likely is going to tell you some things like that that maybe are not comfortable to you because if it was easy, then everybody would do it. You get a coach, they're going to make it probably hard and they're also going to be kicking you in the butt to say, you know what? You can do this. Hard is not impossible. It just means you're going to have to work, but there's going to be a good result on the other side of that work. I want to thank you for spending your time, not so much maybe working, but listening through for this episode again. We will return next episode. We're going to have another interview and we're just going to keep going along with this because there's so many gems that have come out of the last basically year and almost year and a half of interviews that I feel it's really worthwhile for us to step back or go back and review some of these things and highlight a couple of them a little more than we did in those calls. And particularly now because some of these things are six months or a year ago and if you're like me, it's like the value has faded a little bit and sometimes it's good to get that like that re-listen to spark that thing again in your head and say, oh yeah, this is something I need to be doing or if nothing else, assess what you're doing because maybe you know that you're supposed to be doing that. Assess what you're doing and say, am I doing this the way I'm supposed to or did I drift away from the path that I know I should be taking? That being said, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week and we will talk to you next. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Please check out school.develop-a-nor.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. We've taken the lessons, the things that we've learned, all of the things that make you a better developer and we're putting it there. We have a range of courses from free short courses up to full paid boot camps. All of these include a number of things to help you get better, including templates, quick references and other things that make us all better developers.