about coaching
“Transformation doesn’t ask that you stop being you. It demands that you find a way back to the authenticity and strength that’s already inside you.”
What is Coaching?
Coaching is a creative partnership that inspires clients to maximize their personal and professional potential and unlock previously untapped sources of creativity, productivity and leadership.
Like any field, there are various schools and methods of Coaching. My initial training was in Integral Coaching through New Ventures West. An Integral Coaching partnership taps into clients’ 3 centers of wisdom and power:
Head — Thinking qualities: clarity, focus, and creativity
Heart — Gratitude, joy, and compassion
Body — Sensing qualities: presence, calm, and centeredness
More on Integral Coaching as a comprehensive response to life:
Why Hire a Coach?
We are all seeking fulfillment, purpose, and ease – in our work, in relationship with others, in relationship with ourselves. David Whyte posits that life “is a constant conversation. It is the back-and-forth between what I think is me and what I think is not me; it is the edge between what the world needs of me and what I need of the world.”
Working with a professional coach is a commitment to exploring these edges in service of living your best life.
A coach guides you in elevating this constant conversation – in raising awareness and uncovering blind spots, building the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ensure sustained commitment to your own unique developmental path.
More on how Coaching accelerates success:
How is Coaching different from Traditional Therapy or Performance Management?
Integral Coaching is different from other interventions – looking at the focus and desired outcomes of other support modalities illustrates how coaching is unique:
Performance Management focuses on advising in the name of achieving immediate business results.
Training focuses on providing information in the name of learning.
Behavior Modification focuses on rewards and punishments in the name of starting or stopping particular actions
Traditional Therapy focuses on emotions in the name of gaining comfort with feelings
Integral Coaching focuses on building awareness and offering new perspectives and actions in the name of long-term excellence through a self-correcting and self-generating paradigm
More on how Integral Coaching works:
Check out this short video by a fellow Integral Coach for a whimsical look at the process.