All hail the generalist

You know those executive coaches?
Are they the “executive” or is it their customers?
And if it is their customers, isn’t “executive” really an old fashioned word?
Light grey broad pin-stripe anybody?

They use the word, I believe, to reflect glory on themselves. They are the executive.
And what do you need to become one?
A printer.
A business card.
C’est. Ça.
It is just marketing. And marketing is at its most offensive in areas of therapeutics.

As they bask in their own glory, what they are selling had better be good. Right?
But how many executive coaches teach themselves a few affirmations and a couple of NLP exercises, buy a nice suit, moisturise and label themselves corporate trainers or the like?
They are aiming high end.
Where the cash is.
But selling a specialised product in a specialised area makes you less than a “specialist”.

Would you really want a lifestyle coach that has never turned his so-called skills to say helping a heroine addict or a victim of homelessness or gut-burning debt?
Who has never visited the harder-edged side of society?
Would you really want to employ someone to trim the frayed fringes of your life when they are ignorant of the quality of textile beneath. Who has trained and targeted himself principally to lighten the overburdened wallet of people like you?

That is not much to be proud of.
And a specialist, it ain’t.

A specialist can help anyone in his chosen field (with the possible exception of language barriers)..
A specialist is a generalist of people and an expert in subject matter only.
A specialist in executives is a cynical ploy.

Let me give you another example.
Is a doctor of cruise ship medicine a specialist in high end cruisers?
Hopefully not.
He can treat 60 nationalities of crew members and passengers using skills of primary and secondary care and deliver the product of cruise ship medicine to each adult and child based on fundamental principles underwritten by several specialties.
Hopefully.

The generalist has the toughest specialty of all but the real message is this.
Once you have learned the skills that float your boat, expertise comes from applying them as broadly as humanly possible.