What is Coaching?

Coaching is a partnership and ongoing relationship with a trained professional who is genuinely curious about your goals and aspirations and is focused exclusively on helping you reach them. Your goal may be tied to your work and career - to change jobs or professions, seek a promotion, or develop your leadership skills. Or it may be related to your personal life - to get fit, write a book, start a business, re-invent your social life, design your retirement life, etc.

Having a coach is like having a personal trainer for work and life. As your coach, I assume you are fully capable of working things out on your own, but would benefit with a little guidance, specific goals and targets, structure, feedback, increasing challenges, accountability, and encouragement. Most people realize faster gains, greater focus and more consistent performance when partnered with someone who is a skilled and unwavering advocate and ally.

Coaching redefines problems as puzzles — As your coach, I will be intensely curious about you and your patterns of thinking. We'll unravel and clarify your intentions, design ways to surface and test assumptions, and make sticky problems discussible. My job is to shine the light on the disconnection between your intentions and your actions. You'll discover blind spots and gaps in your reasoning, and unconscious 'habits of the mind'. I'll ask you challenging questions, encourage you to consider alternative perspectives, tell you some hard truths (gently), and help you convert your insights into a bold course of action.

Coaching is results-driven and fun — As your coach, I will hold you accountable for steady forward progression in the direction you choose. You decide the destination and the pace. You'll know coaching is working as you keep getting closer to your goal (and sometimes your goal will change.) I'll be more interested in where you want to go than where you've been; this future -focus allows the journey to be exciting, rewarding and fun. Getting what you want in life doesn't always have to be hard, serious work, you know…we'll laugh a lot, too.

Coaching isn't about "fixing" what's broken — It isn't therapy, advice, career counseling, consulting, mentoring, or new-age philosophy…Coaching IS a blend of the best attributes from these and other contemporary disciplines. The primary difference between coaching and counseling is that a coach is your partner in the discovery and planning process, not an expert with the answers. YOU are in charge of the process, and your coach guides you to the hidden perspectives and solutions that are already residing within you.