What is Coaching?

Coaching is an interactive process that helps individuals and organizations develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results. Coaches work with clients in all areas including business, career, finances, health and relationships. As a result of coaching, clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and more fully use their natural strengths.

Professional coaches are trained to listen and observe, to customize their approach to the individual client's needs, and to elicit solutions and strategies from the client. They believe that the client is naturally creative and resourceful and that the coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. While the coach provides feedback and an objective perspective, the client is responsible for taking the steps to produce the results he or she desires.

Coaching is quickly becoming one of the leading tools that successful people use to live extraordinary lives. Through weekly coaching sessions, my clients identify what is most important to them and align their thoughts, words, and actions, accordingly. As your coach, I will work with you to identify what you want personally and professionally, and support you in achieving a life that you really want and love. Having a life you love starts with gaining clarity on your values, enabling more meaningful choices and consistent action. Your commitment to your life, through coaching, offers a means for more balance, joy, intimacy, energy, financial abundance, focus, and action in every area of your life.

Coaches:

* Help people set better goals and then reach those goals.
* Ask their clients to do more than they would have done on their own.
* Focus their clients better to more quickly produce results.
* Provide the tools, support and structure to accomplish more.

How is coaching different from consulting? Therapy? Sports coaching? A best friend?

Consulting - Coaching is not consulting. A consultant considers your problem, arrives at a conclusion and recommends a procedure to resolve the issue. A consultant provides professional advice and service that he or she develops. Consulting is often narrowly focused on specific issues and methods of improvement.

Coaching focuses on specific issues as well. Coaching may also expand to encompass the broader scope of the clients' life. A coach communicates with the client and together, as allied partners, they define the clients' goals. Through the coaching alliance and the process of client focused self discovery, coach and client discover appropriate solutions and activities, compatible with the client’s values and desires, to resolve the clients' issues.

In a coaching alliance, client and coach endeavor to find the clients own answers. Through coaching, a client has the opportunity to acquire new ways of looking at problems and to invent new solutions. In other words, the team of client and coach discover fresh tools that enable the client to create a better life.

Through coaching the client owns the solution, because it is through his or her own process of self discovery that the problem resolution is discovered. The end result, positive forward action, occurs because of the clients own reasoning assisted by the coach’s questioning and guidance. Values based goal setting assures maximum commitment to the clients' intention.

Therapy - Coaching is not therapy. We don't work on "issues" or get into the past or deal much with understanding human behavior. We leave that up to the client to know and figure out while we help them move forward and set personal and professional goals that will give them the life they really want.

Sports Coaching - Coaching includes several principles from sports coaching, like teamwork, going for the goal, being your best. But unlike sports coaching, most professional coaching is not competition or win/lose based. We strengthen the client's skills vs. help them beat the other team. It's win/win.

Best friend - A best friend is wonderful to have. But is your best friend a professional who you will trust to advise you on the most important aspects of your life and/or business? Have a best friend and a coach.

What is the basic philosophy of coaching?

Simply put, as humans we are all great, and we're all discovering what we really want and that we can get what we want faster and easier by having a coach who can help us.

Who hires a coach and why?

People hire a coach because

* They want more.
* They want to grow.
* They want it easier.

It's as simple as that. Coaches help a client get all three. Quickly.

What happens when you hire a coach?

Many things, but the most important are:

* You take yourself more seriously.
* You take more effective and focused actions immediately.
* You stop putting up with what is dragging you down.
* You create momentum so it's easier to get results.
* You set better goals that you might not have without the coach.

Does the coach work on personal goals or business/professional goals?

Both, actually. And, with the line between personal and business life blurring in the 90s, the coach is the only professional trained to work with all aspects of you.

Where does the coach focus with an average client?

We focus where the client needs us most. And, we tend to weave in the following discussions:

* Getting the client's Personal Foundation strengthened.
* Helping the client beef up their Reserve.
* Helping the client set goals based on their Personal Values.

By including these with what the client wants from us, we help the client have fewer problems and focus on what's going to make them the most successful. We've found that clients really enjoy the approach.

Why does coaching work?

Coaching works for several reasons:

* Synergy between the coach and client creates momentum.
* Better goals are set -- ones that naturally pull the client toward the goal rather than goals that require the client to push themselves to the goal.
* The client develops new skills, and these skills translate into more success.

Why is coaching becoming so popular?

Coaching is becoming popular for several reasons:

Many people are tired of doing what they "should" do and are ready to do something special and meaningful for the rest of their lives. Problem is, many can't see it, or if they can, they can't see a way to reorient their life around it. A coach can help them do both.
People are realizing how simple it can be to accomplish something that several years ago might have felt out of reach or like a pipedream. A coach is not a miracle worker (well, they are, sometimes) but a coach does have a large tool kit to help the Big Idea become a Reality. Fortunately, people now have time and resources to invest in themselves in this kind of growth.
Spirituality. If you've tracked the phenomenal success of James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy on the NY Times best-seller list during 1994, you get a sense of just how many people are willing to look at, and consider, the notion of spirituality. Wow. Many coaches are spiritually based -- even the ones who coach IBM and AT&T. America is getting spiritual quickly. (Our working definition of spirituality? How connected you are with yourself and others.") The coach helps the clients to tune in better to themselves and others.

Please, give me some context about coaching...

A personal coach does just what an athletic coach or music teacher does, only in a more complete and bigger way. A coach challenges you and takes the time to find out what winning in life means to you. A coach is your partner in living the life you know you can accomplish, personally and professionally. A coach is someone to hold you accountable for your life, to make sure you really do live up to your potential.

No matter where you are in life, there is always a desire for more. More success, more money, closer relationships, a deeper feeling of meaning in life, etc. It is the nature of people to want to attain more, become more, be more, and we all struggle with how to get what we're looking for.

Most people believe that "hard work and doing it on your own" are the keys to finding the life, success, money, or happiness that they seek. They believe that a price must be paid to attain what they want, and often that price is poor health, not having enough time to enjoy life, strained family relationships or lessened productivity. The saddest part is that, even though this effort may result in more of something, it is often not the something you had in mind, and you are back where you started, or worse, further from your real intentions.

Athletes and performers know about this trap. They know they need someone else, a trained someone else to help them set goals, discover real needs, and work effectively toward ultimate goals of excellence. So, they are willing to hire a coach or a teacher. No serious athlete or musician would expect to progress very far without one.

What about people who are already doing great in their lives. Why would they need a coach?

They might not need a coach. But it is helpful to find out: Are they doing what they most enjoy? Are they tolerating anything? Is life easy? Are they going to be financially independent within the next 15 years? Do they have what they most want? We've discovered that, often, people need to expect more out of their lives. A coach can help in this process.

Can a dependency be created between coach and client?

Not really. The client may "need" the coach in order to maximize an opportunity or accelerate their growth, yet not be "dependent" on the coach. Anyone who's up to something "needs" structure, advice, support and a place to brag, so in that sense, the coach is necessary. But an emotional, psychological dependency is not created. The coach works with people who are just fine and strong enough on their own. Remember, we're not resolving issues here. The coach is helping the client to create a better future: More success, more money, and a higher quality of life.

Can coaching hurt someone?

No. How? We aren't doing psychological work. We're not trying to control the client's thinking. We're not cattle prods; we're partners.

Can I hire a coach just for a short-term, special project?

Yes. Some clients hire a coach to help them accomplish specific goals or projects. Usually, however, the client keeps working with the coach after that because there are even more interesting things to accomplish.

How long must I commit if I start working with a coach?

Most coaches ask for a three to six month commitment but usually let you stop immediately if coaching is not working for you right now. Very, very few coaches ask for a written agreement or contract. (As a coach, I never did, and my practice stayed full. And while clients do come and go, I don't think a contract is wise.) For the corporate client, however, a signed agreement is simply good business.