Three cheers to one of my favorite clients (!) for sending me such a great re-cap of our coaching experience thus-far! I absolutely love this comment because I think it addresses the basic “what is coaching, and WHY are you doing it?!” question that seems to arise more and more as I complete my transition from successful corporate sales exec to self-employed, full-time life coach. Much verbiage is given (and more easily understood!) to the executive side of coaching, but fewer people are familiar with the concept of individuals actively wanting to better their life, not to mention learning to enjoy the process as they go along! As Coach Brian Quinn says so succinctly, “Everyone talks about corporate coaching for executives. I say, if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for everyone!”
Coaching skills come from an ability to wholistically view a situation as it is being described to you and then ask salient questions of that person to help them look at what their choices may be in a given situation. You, as a coach, need great listening skills and then, more importantly, great cognition – which you do have – to outline possible scenarios for the client. It’s a dynamic – ‘think tank’ – type of experience to be coached. It actually has little or nothing to do with your (Stephanie’s) amount of life experience. It has everything to do with sorting out the client’s life experiences and injecting a fresh perspective in order for the client to look at their situation more objectively.
(Reproduced with permission on May 22nd, 2007.)
Learn more about coaching with Stephanie at www.celebrateyourlifecoaching.com.
