Coaching is a specific process of interaction designed to help you clarify and achieve your business/personal vision, goals or desires.

Coaching helps you break through limitations and obstacles that hold you back and develop the strategies, attitudes and actions you need to attain the results you’re after.

Coaching typically takes place over the telephone, so you can be coached from the comfort of your home or office or when you are on the road. In the coaching session, we focus intently on what you want to achieve. In a coaching session, I ask you very focused questions designed to elicit goals, ideas, strategies, obstacles, opportunities and solutions. I give you feedback, suggestions and assignments designed to stretch you and forward your agenda. I help you stay on-track with your commitments and measure your progress.

Coaching is effective because it provides structure, discipline and regular focused attention to what you want to achieve. In the coaching process, you break down those big goals that may seem unrealistic or unachievable into manageable chunks. The coaching relationship helps keep you on-track and accountable for the actions you take in pursuit of your goals.

Specificity is Crucial to Success

One of the major reasons people and organizations fail to live up to their potential is lack of specificity. The more specific you are about what you want, how to go after it and how to overcome both internal and external obstacles, the greater your chances of success. In the coaching process, we first make sure that you clearly define what you want to achieve. Then I support you in being as specific as possible about strategic planning, creating opportunities, managing obstacles, taking action, and measuring results.

How is coaching different from psychotherapy?

Most forms of therapy examine your present behavior, beliefs, relationships, and self-image and attempt to trace their roots back to relationships in the past. As its name implies, therapy treats a condition that requires healing. In general, therapy looks to the past to understand and work on the issues and problems of the present.

In contrast, the context of coaching is the future you want to have and designing the necessary plans, attitudes and actions to get there from the present. In the process, the influences of the past may come up, but always in the context of what you want to have in the future. Though coaching recognizes the traumas of the past, it assumes you are a whole person, capable of moving on and taking responsibility for your current and future actions.

How is coaching different from consulting?

In general, consultants are subject-matter experts who perform actual work for give expert advice to you or your company. Some examples of consultants are accountant, financial advisors, and training specialists. Coaching differs from consulting in a couple of major respects: In most cases, a coach is not a subject matter expert or specialist in your particular field, nor does he need to be in order to help you. You are the expert in your field. The coach is able to bring out the best in you because he is an expert in human performance and potential, achievement, motivation, communication, and group and interpersonal dynamics. Another way coaching differs from consulting is that the coach does not perform work on your behalf; instead, he helps you work smarter and focus on doing what you do best.

How is coaching different from talking to a friend?

A coach is an ally, but different from a friend in a couple of respects. First of all, a coach is trained specifically in how to work with you in clarifying and achieving your goals. Secondly, a coach brings objectivity and neutrality to the table. A coach is a non-stakeholder, off the playing field of your life and that's an important advantage. A coach's only agenda is to see you succeed at the goals you set. Finally, unlike some friends, most coaches are success-oriented, positive and know how to recognize and harness human potential.