Episode 1129: Mentor, Coach, or Counselor

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,129 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Jeff Wald: I'm Jeff Wald. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to focus on how your work impacts the world is.

[00:00:28] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:36] Scott Maderer: but the truth is all I work with on people is talent because at the end of the day, the way you handle your time and the way you handle your treasures is all about how you handle yourself. And that's the core similarity between mentorship, coaching, and counseling. They're all focused on that area of how you handle your.

[00:00:58] Welcome and thank you [00:01:00] for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:17] Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:25] And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about the difference between a mentor, a coach, and a counselor. Also talk about why you may want all of these things in your life. And I also talk with you about the reason, these things, maybe real keys to growing in your life.

[00:01:45] You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go [00:02:00] to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign. And you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:07] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast, mentor, coach, or counselor. What are these things and why might we want the.

[00:02:34] In our life you'll see different definitions of all three of these in different places. But broadly speaking, usually you'll hear about mentorship is when someone who's more experienced in a particular job or career offers some sort of advice. Usually informally though, it can be formally to someone with [00:03:00] less experience.

[00:03:01] In other words, it's helping someone come along in their job. Coaching is generally defined as something that's somewhat short-term though. Again, short term is relative. I've worked with clients for 10 or more years. In some cases it tends to be formal and structured. It tends to be specific and measurable and it's focused on performance.

[00:03:25] What's more coaching is generally a collaborative process where the coach and the client are working together to develop areas around the growth of the client. Generally, coaches are not looked at as having all the answers or giving advice, but rather gathering information and helping the client through a process of change.

[00:03:50] Mentoring tends to be longer term and informal. It tends to be driven by development or focused on [00:04:00] career or job. And it has usually much looser parameters for growth. Mentorship is usually about developing a coworker about something else. And then of course, Counseling as a coach, this is an area that we need to be very careful to not stray into because counseling generally requires credentialing and is focused on certain types of things, not just mental health.

[00:04:30] A lot of times people think counselors are only focused on. Know mental illness or that kind of thing, but counseling can actually be much more than that. Counselors have very strict rules that they operate under in terms of confidentiality and in terms of sort of privilege and other words as a coach, what I say with a client could actually be subpoenaed and put into a court of law, but as a counselor, it's usually much more protected.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Now I will tell you as a coach, I still hold things that the client tells me in confidence, but that's just part of my coaching expectations or coaching agreement with the client. Counselors often have much firmer boundaries around their interactions with their clients as well. For counseling, it tends to be a retrospective or backwards looking kind of process.

[00:05:25] Generally the client has some sort of decreased level of functioning. Now that doesn't necessarily again, mean mental illness, but there's a structural or behavioral problem that they're trying to work on. Oftentimes counseling may involve collaborative care with medical professionals that may even involve medicine.

[00:05:46] It's deeply oriented towards figuring out why something is happening and it can be relatively long-term. It requires certain licensing and training and it [00:06:00] is diagnostic. It is focused on finding out what is wrong, so that you can work on healing that through medicine or through behavioral types of therapy.

[00:06:10] It's about recovering from the past traumas and releasing and relieving psychological suffering. It's often stigmatized, but really shouldn't. We're coaching is more focused on the perspective or the forward looking it's focused on a solution and change or capacity for change tends to be goal oriented and co-created, it's not diagnostic, but it helps the client clarify their goals and how to go about reaching them.

[00:06:46] Now, the truth is. In all three of these cases, you may need all of these at, in your life. At various times, I've worked with a lot of counselors who see the value of coaching and actually have [00:07:00] even partnered with some of them and worked. I've worked as a coach and they've worked as a counselor with the client on the same thing.

[00:07:06] So for instance, I've had some clients that have had addiction or other issues like. And it becomes very clear in my coaching that they need to work with a counselor on some of their past trauma to be able to reset and overcome that trauma. And they can continue to work with me as a coach on trying to achieve their goals and having accountability and those sorts of benefits that coaching can give while working with the.

[00:07:36] I've also had clients that are working with a mentor at their day job, getting better at their career. But as a coach, I'm working with them on broader goals around their life and their why and their mindset and their beliefs and how those things can help them, not just in their career, but in their relationships and in their broader strokes.

[00:07:59] As a [00:08:00] stewardship coach, I work with people on their time, their talent and their treasure so that they can live out there. But the truth is I joke all the time about the fact that people come to me for help around their time or their treasures, either with that feeling of, I make too much money to be this broke or with the feeling of I get, there are a lot of things done, but I have way too much to do.

[00:08:21] And I end up sacrificing the things that feel like they're the most important to get things done that I feel like I have to do. And I don't know how to balance that, but the truth is all I work with on people is. Because at the end of the day, the way you handle your time and the way you handle your treasures is all about how you handle yourself.

[00:08:41] And that's the core similarity between mentorship, coaching, and counseling. They're all focused on that area of how you handle yourself. It's just mentoring is focused on that career. Part of yourself, counselors are focused on looking at the past. So [00:09:00] that you can recover from trauma and past problems and coaches are, tend to be focused on the future and how your capacity for change and growth can allow you to change what you're doing today so that your future becomes better.

[00:09:15] All three are valuable, all three are necessary and all three can actually work together to allow you to really grow and thrive in your. That's why I love being a coach because it's about forward focus. It's about growth and thriving. It's about accountability on the things that you most want out of your life.

[00:09:40] Thanks for this.

[00:09:41] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your life. If you liked this episode on the [00:10:00] stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.

[00:10:12] Or if you're in the us, you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4 4 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time investor. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.