Turning a Skill into a Business

I stepped back into coaching in March 2022. At first, I just wanted to sharpen my leadership skills. Even though I was placed in leadership positions, I have room to grow my leadership skills. 

What are the differences? 

Being a leader is positional. Team captain, club president, team manager, team leader, project manager, CEO,..etc. These are just titles. You can easily picture these positions. 

On the other hand, leadership skill is the ability to influence another person. When it needs to be done better, it increases office politics and manipulates others to do your bidding. When done well, strong leadership skills build unity, inspire others, and empower your team to accomplish the mission. 

No one told me in college that leadership skills are different from technical skills. Students with technical skills can comprehend the textbook, present their findings, and write papers. As an educator, technical skills are the ability to complete tasks such as disciplining students, delivering the curriculum, and writing report cards. But none of these technical skills prepared me to be a student project leader, an administrator, or a pastor. Helping people requires a whole new set of skills. 

Leadership skills are the soft-skills such as communication, collaboration, conflict resolution, and empowering the people on your team. These are the skills that are rarely taught in school. So I had to learn it in a different setting. 

Luckily I remembered part of my seminary training. I took a few coaching classes and remembered that coaching is an essential leadership skill that promotes awareness and growth. It is also an essential skill to disciple someone. The coach has the pleasure and honor to walk with someone as they discover who they are and what they are capable of. Seeing my fellow coaches and I grow through our learning together was amazing. 

But that was not enough. I wasn’t satisfied with hogging this growth all to myself. I wanted to share it with the world. I wanted to share it with my family and my friends. More importantly, I wanted to share it with God’s people so they can dream God-size dreams and achieve them. 

So I reached out to my family and friends and offered to coach them. At first, it was free, but then they bought me coffee, boba, or a meal to have me coach them. 

A few months in, I had to decide if I wanted to pursue advanced coaching training. I had to decide if I would take coaching even more seriously or be satisfied to use it in my leadership position to increase my leadership skills. As I look back to the past few months, I see I was able to coach ministry leaders, business owners, and individuals who want to improve their lifestyles. At the same time, those who begin to pay for coaching sessions make the most progress because they have skins in the game. I believe that more people can benefit dramatically through coaching, and to do that well, I have to build a business. So towards the end of my Spring Semester, I decided to turn my coaching skill into a business. 

This was out of character for me, as I grew up thinking I would keep one job and do that one thing. This is how my parents have done it and how most people in the previous generation did it. But as I listened to other coaches and those who walked before me, I became more open-minded. I have heard many success stories where coaches maintained their day job while building a coaching business. A few years later, they are reaching further and deeper. They are helping more people than they were doing before. I was drawn to that story, and I wanted to do more than what I was doing. So I decided to turn my skill into a business, thus launching my 6 months journey of trying to understand how to start a business to write a business plan. 

This is the beginning of the journey of building a coaching business. I have no idea where God will take this business. I know that I can trust God, and I will trust the resources and people he has put in front of me to start this business. Since making this decision, I have taken multiple classes, met with my supervisors, and read multiple books. And I have started drafting my business plan. 

I am excited yet nervous, and I look forward to updating you soon on my journey.