By WALE AKINYEMI

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In my last article, I said that nothing exists that did not first exist as a dream and that a society lacking dreamers will not progress. I also mentioned that containment is manifestation of a mind that refuses to dream its way out of its current state. However, it is one thing to have a dream and a totally different thing to birth the dream.

What do the sports greats all have in common? The truly great ones whose names defined their sports like Muhammad Ali for boxing, Tiger Woods for golf, and Venus and Serena Williams for tennis? Football clubs have coaches, basketball and athletic teams too. Why? Because every champion has a coach!

The role of the coach is simply to midwife dreams. Every US president in recent times, who did well and won two terms, will tell you how they had coaches. President Barack Obama in his memoir A Promised Land talks of the people (not presidents) who coached him to become president. The coach of a champion does not have to be a champion but has to be gifted in making of champions.

According to Forbes, the global coaching industry was worth $1 billion in 2016. In 2019, another study estimated the market size of the coaching industry in the US alone was $15 billion with the average yearly growth rate of 6.7 percent, meaning the industry could reach $20 billion in the next one year.

Yes, some that are crying out that the industry is not regulated and that this opens the door for quacks. Maybe they have a point. Every industry on the face of the earth has its authentic and its wannabes. The Bible gives a good remedy for this in 1 Corinthians 13:10 (Amplified Bible): But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).

The cure for mediocrity is excellence. The cure for the fake is the authentic. In an industry so vast, the proof of the pudding should be in the eating! Does the session deliver on its promise? What is the before and after story of participants? What do the authentic and non-paid for testimonials say?

One of the world’s most successful coaches is Anthony Robbins who came from a broken household to build a $6 billion empire and coach business legends. He has coached presidents like Clinton and Trump, worked with Hillary Clinton and Obama, coached some of the biggest CEOs in the world yet he ascribes his success not to some certification but to being coached himself by someone else!

At age 25 he had counselled a president, trained executives, worked with athletes and had acquired a castle overlooking the Pacific Ocean and yet he had only a high school education. How did Robbins whose life seemed to be falling to pieces get to the place today he has courses where participants pay up to $1 million? When he was earning $35 a week, he sacrificed $40 to pay for a seminar hosted by Jim Rohn (who later became his coach) and he heard information that would change his life and the lives of countless others forever.

Dreams are the seeds of greatness. Where are the dreamers like JFK who dreamt of putting a man on the moon? Quite simple. When the midwives emerge, the dreamers will be birthed.

A nation without dreamers is doomed. Dreamers without midwives will struggle to articulate their dreams.

Wale Akinyemi is convenor of the Street University (www.thestreetuniversity.com) and chief transformation officer, PowerTalks. [email protected]