I am a Coach – well I am also a Psychologist but I kind of prefer to think of myself as a Coach. No, I do not have a whistle around my neck most of the time and I do not usually work with athletes, even though I have done some of that. What I do is to help people live up to their full potential in any or all areas of life: Work and career planning, work-life balance, personal relationships, optimum health, retirement, you name it, and yes, athletics, also.

Are you curious about what happens in Coaching, yet? Here is my theory:
Each one of us has our very own personality which is made-up of a unique combination of traits. These traits, much like a coin, have two sides: One side can be very helpful in our life, a strength, the other side tends to get us into trouble, a weakness. Yet, they are both part of the same trait, it just depends on the context. For example, Jack’s persistence has helped him greatly in business, however, his wife gets frustrated with him for being so stubborn (there really is no Jack, but I have known many like him). In one context, his tenacity manifests itself as persistence, a great strength, but in another context this trait becomes stubbornness, a potential source of great frustration. Almost all personality traits have these two sides, very few are exclusively positive or negative.

In job interviews we are often asked whether we have any weaknesses. Thinking about it, this is really kind of a silly question. Of course, we have weaknesses; you have weaknesses, I have weaknesses; if we didn’t have weaknesses, (unless my theory is way off) it would follow logically that we couldn’t have any strengths, either – we would be blank persons and entirely uninteresting.

In my coaching work, I have learned that a much better question is “How aware are you of your weaknesses”, because only if you are keenly aware of which of your actions work and which don’t work, will you be able to build on your strengths and devise strategies to get around your weaknesses; to control them, rather than to keep running head-first into the same old brick-wall.
So, let us not be scared of facing up to our weaknesses. They are part of who we are and what makes us special. Developing a better awareness of our strengths and weaknesses is an important step on the road of becoming more effective in all areas of our lives and can be real liberating. A coach is a person who will walk with you for a while on this path.

Dr. Michael Affemann is a Life Coach, Executive Coach, International Consultant, Psychologist, and Founder of the Island-Time Institute, a Center for Alternative Medicine and Life-Coaching in the Heart of Pleasure Island.