Coaching for Success

When you work with me, you embark on a journey that has the potential to transform your life. Your participation in the coaching process will bring you more success and personal fulfillment than you have ever experienced.

Have you ever been motivated to act, energized, or transformed, in either a small or a significant way by conversations you have had with others?

If so, you have already had a taste of coaching and its value, and much of this new coaching relationship will seem familiar and natural to you. However, don’t let the familiarity with the process mislead you. You relationship with me will be different from every other relationship you have ever had, and it can be more powerful than any other relationship you will ever form.

Your partner or spouse is extremely important to you; however, this partnership is not always the best context to dealing with a number of issues, especially issues related to work. No doubt, your friends offer advice at times; however, they have their own challenges and their accessibility may be limited. Sometimes professional associates can be helpful, but their interests and priorities may not always be aligned with yours. In addition, often times, your boss isn’t the proper person to consult with on personal concerns. In fact, sometimes she/he is the concern!

On the other hand, a coach is totally and unconditionally dedicated to accelerating your success and your sense of well being. I have no agenda except to assist you in becoming the best you can be. You are about to enjoy the privilege and benefit of having someone in your corner who is focused entirely on serving you and advancing your interests.

The Role of Your Coach

Sometimes people confuse coaches with traditional consultants. Unconsciously, people ask coaches to give advice. My role as your coach is not to provide answers or solutions. It is to help you develop the potential that lies within you, so you increase your capability to overcome all obstacles and achieve all of your goals.

Sometimes people expect coaches to serve as mentors. They want their coach to go before them and show them the way. However, my role is not to lead you. Rather it is to help you discover for yourself where you are today and where you want to be in the future. Once you chart your own course, I will accompany you on your journey and provide ongoing support, guidance, and encouragement.

Here is an illustration that will clarify the role and value of a coach. If a child asks you to spell a word, you can provide the answer, you’re essentially serving as a traditional consultant. You are helping to solve the immediate problem but you are not helping the child develop the necessary life skill for overcoming similar spelling challenges in the future.

On the other hand, if you help the child learn how to spell the word by sounding out each syllable, you are reinforcing a skill that the child can use with unlimited words in the future and without your being present. As a coach, you are developing the potential of the child, which will provide long-term benefits instead of simply supplying an answer, which only provides limited results and short-term answers.

In much the same way, I will resist giving you answers to your questions and solutions to your problems. That does not mean that I don’t know the answer or that I do not want to help. Rather, it is far more beneficial for you to learn how to develop your own abilities and skills, so you can meet your current challenges and future ones.

What is the best way to teach a child how to ride a bicycle? Should you present a PowerPoint presentation that informs the child about the dynamics of balance and the mechanics of pedaling (the consultant’s approach)? Alternatively, would you get on the bike and show the child how it’s done (mentor approach)?

Both or these approaches have merit, albeit limited. The time-proven method is to help the child onto the bicycle and provide support as the child learns through trial and error to ride. You may start holding the bike while the child develops a sense of balance. As the child starts to pedal, you can run along beside the bike, gradually letting go as momentum is gained. When the child teeters, you reach out to prevent a fall. When momentum is regained, you let go again. Over time, after trying, failing, and trying again, the child will eventually experience the thrill of individual success!

In a similar manner, as your coach, my role is to provide support guidance and encouragement as you move into the uncharted territories of your life and beyond the comfort zone of your experiences. You will gain more courage to strive for new goals, develop new skills, and reach higher levels of success when your coach is running along beside you.

Success is the continual achievement of your own predetermined goals, stabilized by balance and purified by belief. With my support, you will set goals that are in harmony with your values and beliefs and in alignment with your life’s purpose. In addition, with my encouragement, you will aspire for levels of accomplishment beyond anything you would have dared to attempt alone.

There is no quick or easy way to learn how to ride a bike. Similarly, coaching is not a quick fix; it is a process. As you move ahead with your life testing and measuring, trying and failing, and trying and succeeding, I will be in your corner offering encouragement and support as you discover on your own the solutions to any challenges that confront you.

What You Can Expect From the Coaching Relationship

Coaching relationships vary considerably. Indeed, one of the advantages of individual coaching is that it is tailored to the needs and personality of the person being coached. Nevertheless, all effective coaching relationships have some common characteristics.

Effective Coaching Is

Focused: I will focus on you and your goals. The spotlight will be on results, not extraneous issues.
Goal Directed: Coaching is not therapy. Your past will only be relevant when it affects your future goals. I am committed to helping you get where you want to go, rather than helping you understand where you have been.
Revelatory: The purpose of coaching is not to create potential, as you possess all of the potential you need, but rather to reveal and release it. In the safety and confidentiality of the coaching environment, you will uncover your deepest desires, identify your strengths, and unmask constraints that have held you back to this point. Only then will you be better able to take the right actions necessary to achieve your personal and professional goals.
Empowering: The coaching relationship creates a safe space for you to expand mentally. Because safety and trust are established, creativity is unblocked, possibilities are discovered, and momentum is initiated. I will not compete with you, or seek to be seen as an expert. I am only interested in empowering you, not impressing you.
Authentic: I will unselfishly and transparently offer you the benefits of my unique personal style, skills, life experiences, intuitive sense, and other strengths. Because our coaching sessions will be authentic, they will flow effortlessly and create great value in your life.
Holistic: Coaching will address and affect your whole life. You will achieve the greatest satisfaction when your personal life and your professional life are in balance and harmony.
Responsive: The coaching relationship is about listening and responding, not advising or fixing. I will use the technique of dynamic inquiry as a tool to help you unlock your potential and fulfill your purpose.
Synergistic: Because of the magical energy of co-creation, we will achieve more significant results together than either of us could achieve alone. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.
Experiential: When we immerse ourselves in the coaching experience, creative energy is released, and transformation results. The pace may seem slow at first; however, results come fast. Moreover, the results last because they are created on a strong foundation.
Transformational: Coaching will not simply help you solve challenges and accomplish goals; it will transform the way you solve or accomplish them. It will not simply improve your life; it will transform the way you live.

Are you ready to be coached and achieve improved results for yourself and your organization? If so, or call 314-283-3418.