Coaching an Elon Musk

04/04

Imagine Coaching Elon Musk, who, reportedly, knows it and does it and exceeds it and is way up there already, according to many of the usual measures of success. How are you reacting to this idea? Musk styles himself as not only a micro manager but a nano manager. He believes in… what?

That more is always possible
That everyone can do better
That impossible is just a made up excuse
That people need to be driven, as he seems to be, in order to break the impossible

And more…

He is, shall we say, quite a guy.

And let us admit it, there is a ton of judgment around this person. But wait, as a Coach, do we judge? Well, we are not supposed to, but… No, we do not judge.

  • And let us further admit, this human being does more in a week than many do in a decade. That can feel intimidating. That can get in the way of ‘being with’ him as a client (because, heck, how do I be with such levels of achievement). Yes, we are supposedly the masters of ‘being with’ the client, wherever that might be. We ‘be with’ our clients
  • And let us again admit, this person is human and has all of the basic human needs, including Acceptance, genuine acknowledgement and a relentlessly gentle, trusted, truthful mirror to be held in front of them once in a while. These are the job of the Coach. We see our clients as simply human

I could go on. The bottom line here is that a Coach can increase the success of any person, when the Coach remains in the perspectives of the Coach. We need to step away from our gremliny ego thoughts, judgments, revulsions and so on, to meet our client where they are, as they are, and help them to get to where ‘they want to go’, not to where we (or Society) want them to go. Let us remember that all of us human beings have a difficult time ‘seeing’ ourselves accurately. That generates unintended impact and sometimes less than successful results.

This is how we Coach an Elon Musk to even greater success. Such an accomplished person has well demonstrated their deep desire to succeed and to repeatedly raise the bar for themselves. They are therefore, almost by definition, hungry for Coaching. As he would tell us, there is always more.

Ready here.

Joseph Seiler MCC