Our coaching conversations take place on the phone for 30-45min weekly, every-other-week, or once-a-month depending on your stage in the process. We generally start with weekly calls and spread them out in the latter months of the coaching relationship. As theCoach4you, I am also available to you in between sessions for email and text support.

Like any sustainable change, coaching requires time for attitudes and behaviors to shift. Unlike attending a workshop where the facilitator has a pre-designed curriculum, coaching is dynamic and fluid. Coaching is an ongoing conversation that responds to your needs in the moment, reinforces skills and behaviors to overcome obstacles that held you back in the past, and leads toward a compelling vision and effective strategy for the future.

I received much of my coaching and leaderships training at the Co-Active Training Institute, formerly the Coaches Training Institute. Two of the founders of CTI, Karen Kimsey-House and Henry Kimsey-House provide a great definition for Co-Activity in their book: Co-Active Leadership: Five Ways to Lead:

“We are all on a lifelong leadership journey, and every person’s journey is unique to them. Co-Active is a contextual lens to experience this journey from different orientations. As the pace of our lives has quickened, we have become increasingly action-oriented and results-driven. It seems expedient to dispense with all the “soft” stuff (being) and instead just push to “get the job done” (doing). Unfortunately, this leaves us feeling disconnected and desperate for meaning and belonging. We wind up with what we might call “the hamster wheel” experience of life, as we run around alone in circles, desperately trying to get things done, only to find ourselves right back where we started.

This is why it is so important to begin with the “Co.” Action arising from this place of being and receptivity is whole and integrated, rather than disconnected and driven. In order for us to experience life as whole, action must be grounded in being, in our sense of connection to a larger wholeness. When the Co and the Active go together, the action of our life is nourishing and fulfilling.”

If you are thinking about learning to ride a bike, a therapist will help you work through any lingering issues you might have due to trauma incurred as a child be taught to ride. A consultant will share with you their knowledge about the variety of bikes in the market and will make a recommendation on which is best for you. A coach, once you’ve decided you are ready to ride, will run alongside you cheering you on, will remind you of the skill and bravery it took to get on the bike, and if you fall off, your coach will challenge you to get back on. An effective coach does not give you the answers, they ask questions that guide you to the solutions you seek.

No. While I have a doctorate in psychology, I am NOT a clinical therapist. Most clients find coaching therapeutic, in that it leads to a sense of well-being, however it is not a substitute for clinical therapy with a trained clinician.

I am a big advocate of therapy. As long as your therapist feels the structure of coaching will be good for you, then coaching can be a great complement to clinical therapy as coaching provides, clarity, confidence, purpose, and the feeling that you have someone else on your team.

These terms are often interchangeable. Whether called personal, professional, life or leadership, coaching is a holistic process that takes into account the relationship between all areas of your life. Whether you feel a little stuck or are just craving a change in your career, relationships, physical health, emotional well-being, financial success, and sense of purpose – each aspect effects the others. I call myself a Life & Leadership Coach because when you become the guiding force in your life and live your values, personal and professional success will follow. (Defining success is one of the first things we’ll work on.)

Like top athletes, my clients understand the benefits of having a coach who can provide a different perspective, offer new strategies and tools, help discover things they didn’t know, and most importantly reframe and reflect back all the things they do know. Coaching helps individuals and organizations identify their strengths and values, expand their capacity and comfort zone, and actualize their potential. Most clients are healthy and successful yet might feel a bit stuck or ready to make a big change, and they are smart enough to recognize that the support of a coach will move things along with more speed, efficiency, and fun. Coaching provides a competitive edge over both external challenges and your internal critic.

No. My coaching services are not covered by insurance.