Hello everyone,

Thanks so much for all the excellent responses you provided. Everyone had something of value to contribute were we can all learn from.

One of my questions was, "As a member of Wealthy Affiliate can you pinpoint who are the coaches and mentors in your business life within this community?"

Since I didn't receive a straight response to this question here is my comment.

It is easy to identify the coaches in WA. Jay Neil and Kyle are the two who comes to mind. The Super Affiliates who have started to hold classes could also be classed into the category of coach. If you attend their classes live, you have the opportunity to ask questions and receive answers which make their sessions even more valuable.

Mentors are more difficult to identify. I consider the member who sponsored me my mentor. I bounce ideas off him and he gives me advice. Our interaction doesn't take place in real time. When I ask a question or request a comment, he may take several days to get back to me. He is very busy indeed building his business and earns over $10K a month. It took him several years to achieve these results so I consider him an excellent mentor.

When a member reaches out to a more experienced member for advice, I also consider this a mentor/mentee relationship. It is usually done sparingly.

We all have the ability to be both coaches and mentors here at WA. When you strive to become an Ambassador, the only way to achieve this position is to help other members. This activity can be either by briefly coaching someone or being a mentor to them.

I wish all of you much success in your business as well as paying it forward.

Cheers.

Edwin

Hi Edwin
I said I'd get back later... here I am...

and here's a Partha length comment ... sorry.

I kind of fell into coaching around 1980 and trained more formerly towards the end of the 80s.

In my earlier comment, I suggested that the roles of teacher and trainer should be considered too ... for the sake of brevity I will stick to Coach and Mentor with just a smidgeon of Teaching and Training.

Many of the skills of all four roles may well be practised by people fulfilling any of the 4 roles and perhaps the way they describe their role is likely to be based on the percentage of their role that they apply to a specific situation.

Starting then with my personal roles as a coach (and facilitator). These roles are very similar and can easily be described in exactly the same way. The primary difference between the roles is that a facilitator tends to work with teams focused on a specific project while coaches tend to work with individuals or teams with broader objectives.

Contrary to many definitions below, I have spent a great deal of my time not being an expert at anything other than coaching, I.E. I coached people in various sports and business environments in particular of which I had limited knowledge. Usually, the technical experts were my clients. Of course, sometimes I did have some expertise and usually had some knowledge and learned more on the way but it was not my role to teach technical skills.

As a coach, my focus is on inspiring individuals or teams to perform at their best. It's about getting people to take responsibility for their own development. This typically involves helping people to become very clear about what they want to achieve, and why they want to achieve it. Then it's about helping them to figure out what they need to do to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. It's largely about getting people to think and to, over time, stay motivated as they develop whatever skills they need to succeed. To me, coaching is largely about helping people learn the best ways for them to learn whatever it is they're focused on.

At WA I find myself sharing some of the expertise that I have been picking up along the way. To me, this is mentoring. It's more personal, more focused on specific challenges that someone has, and to my mind, mentoring is a cross between teaching and informal coaching requiring a more relaxed friendly relationship than more formal, coaching.

I have seen, for some years now, people calling themselves 'coach', online especially, and actually doing what I would call teaching. They are communicating (often excellently) ideas and practices that help people learn what they need to develop necessary, often technical, skills.

I think trainers have the hardest role. They are expected to be all things to all people ... they are called upon to teach theory and to lead the practice of technical and physical skills development. In sports, they are expected to do what it takes to prepare all aspects of fitness as well. In addition, they sometimes need the skills of a good coach as well.

Please do tell me what you think.
:-)
Richard

For me, a mentor is like a role model, someone you can look up to for advice. Someone you can continue having a great relationship with even after you reach a certain level of success. A coach is like a business transaction that sets for a specific period of time. After everything is done, you may or may not ever hear from him/her again.

Hi Edwin
As a trained, certificated and experienced coach I have different distinctions to many here. Also I would be inclined to include the roles of teachers and trainers in the discussion.

Sorry I don’t have time to elaborate until later... as you might expect, my opinions are closer to those reflected by @philmedia (Phil) as outlined by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
:-)
Richard

I am in favor of the Mentor for me, Edwin!
Yes, the mentor probably knows what he is trying to tell you and help you do and what to do to improve your business and sales.
And it's up to you to do so. Coach, they also mastered all those necessary skills along the way, and they are more engaged with you and take necessary action for you to learn all the aspects, what schedule on you to be learned. Thanks for sharing, Edwin.
All the best,
Joyce