WEDNESDAY - September 23, 2026

HUMPDAY

Weekly Insight & Inspiration for Purposeful Leaders

THIS WEEK’S FOCUS

Even the Greatest Have a Coach

Why elite performers never stop being coached.

Coaching isn’t what you call in when something is broken. It’s what the best in the world use to become the best in the world and what they need to stay there.

A year or so ago I picked up the game of golf. I have full awareness that at my age, I am never going to be great at it, but I at least want to be good enough to enjoy the game and not be the one people dread having to play with.

For months I worked at it. I watched videos and practiced grip and stance and swing plane. I was convinced I had the mechanics down. While I could hit the ball and get a little distance, I kept “topping” it and I couldn’t figure out why. Everything YouTube told me to try just wasn’t fixing the problem.

And then I got a coach - game changer! In one lesson she saw things in my swing I could not see or even feel for myself. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention or giving adequate effort, but I was standing inside the problem so I couldn’t see it. She gave me two small adjustments that I never would have landed on in a hundred rounds on my own. One tweak to my grip. One change to my stance and that was it! Suddenly, the game clicked in a way it never had before.

I didn’t need a coach because I wasn’t necessarily bad at golf. I needed a coach because I couldn’t see myself from the outside, and there is no substitute for having someone who can.

The Myth We Need to Retire

There is a quiet assumption that lingers in healthcare leadership circles and it is that being assigned a coach means something is wrong with you. That coaching is a corrective measure, a signal that you are underperforming, or worse, that you are not the right fit for the role. It is treated like a warning sign instead of what it actually is, a positive investment.

That belief has kept talented, capable leaders from getting the one thing that could take them from good to exceptional. It has turned coaching into something people avoid instead of something they ask for. This mindset could not be further from how the best performers in the world actually think about it.

Nobody Gets to Elite Alone

Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian in history. Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls across two decades. Michael Jordan is, by most measures, the greatest basketball player to ever step on a court. All three are held up as the standard of excellence in their sport. Every single one of them had a coach, for their entire career.

Bob Bowman didn’t start coaching Phelps because Phelps couldn’t swim. Bill Belichick didn’t coach Brady because Brady couldn’t throw a football. Phil Jackson didn’t coach Jordan because Jordan couldn’t play basketball. These men already knew how to play the game better than almost anyone alive. They had a coach because knowing how to play the game and playing it at an elite level are two very different things, and the gap between them is exactly where a coach lives.

A coach doesn’t hand a great athlete a new skill set. A coach sees the one-degree adjustment the athlete cannot see from inside their own game. A coach knows when a body mechanic that used to work has stopped working. A coach asks the question that snaps a pattern into focus. None of that requires the athlete to be struggling. It requires the athlete to be serious about being the best in their business.

What a Coach Actually Gives You

The value of a coach was never really about correcting weakness. It’s about perspective you cannot generate on your own, no matter how self-aware or experienced you are. You are always standing inside your own leadership, your own habits, your own blind spots. You can read every book, study every framework, reflect as honestly as you know how, and you will still miss things that someone standing outside of you can see in a single conversation.

This is precisely what an executive or leadership coach offers a leader who already knows how to lead. Not remediation. Not a fix for something broken. A sharper edge on something already strong. The nurse leader who seeks out a coach while he or she is thriving, not when they begin to struggle, is doing exactly what an elite athlete would do by refusing to leave their own growth and success to chance.

Coaching Isn’t Just for Athletes

This isn't only true on a court or a course. Walk into the offices of some of the most successful companies in the world, and you'll find that their CEO’s, the ones running organizations worth billions, making decisions that ripple through entire industries, have a coach. Not because the board is worried about them. Not because a performance review flagged a problem. Because they've learned that no title, no track record, and no amount of experience replaces having someone in your corner who sees what you can't.

Some of these executives talk to their coach for fifteen minutes every single morning before the calendar takes over. Not to solve a crisis. Just to check in. Am I walking into today with a clear head? Is there something I'm about to miss? Am I about to react instead of lead? That brief, almost unremarkable conversation with a trusted coach is often the difference between a leader who's reacting all day and one who's actually leading well.

If the people running the biggest companies on earth haven't outgrown the need for that kind of daily guidance, it's worth asking why many of us have never even sought it out to begin with.

3 WAYS TO THINK LIKE THE ELITE THIS WEEK

1. Ask for help for the thing you can’t see. Find a trusted colleague that will give you honest feedback and ask, “What’s one thing about how I lead that I probably can’t see myself?” Only respond with a “Thank you” and be willing to work through their feedback, ideally with a coach.

2. Separate competence from mastery. Pick one area where you already perform well. Ask what the next five percent of excellence would actually require, then get curious about who could help you close that gap.

3. Reframe the ask. The next time you consider seeking out a coach, notice if you feel like you have to justify it. Practice saying, “I’m doing this because I’m committed to leadership excellence”.

A Final Thought

The best in the world are not too good for a coach. They are good enough to know they need one to be the best in the world.

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This week, find your version of that one-degree adjustment. Ask someone who can see what you can’t. You don’t need to be struggling to deserve the insight. You just need to be ready for it.

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I’d love to hear from you. Please reach out and share if you found this insight helpful, if you’d like to talk about it more, or if there’s a topic you’d like to see in a future Humpday. Stacie@LumisLeadership.com

~ Stacie

Previous Humpday’s can be found in the Newsletter Library at www.LumisLeadership.com

The “Humpday” was an e-mail originally created by a great leader and mentor - Marc Strode. He used the Humpday to bring insight and inspiration to his team every week. With his permission and at his request to Keep the Spirit - the Humpday lives on. Marc, thank you for being a leader worth following. Despite your love for camels, you truly are the GOAT!