Personal Coaching

The CEO of one of my nonprofit clients once referred to me as the greatest coach she’s ever had. I was struck by this characterization, and also a bit humbled (I had no formal coaching training at the time). But her words stayed with me long after I heard them, prompting me to enroll in a year-long coaching training course, which I completed in December 2022. 

 

The CEO’s words resonated with me because throughout my life, family, friends, and colleagues have called on me to help them solve problems, make changes (big and small), and think differently about their futures. These were sometimes one-off conversations, but more often they became an ongoing dialogue between the other person and me that we’d share and build over days, weeks, months, and even years.

 

Today, my job as a coach is to create a safe space for you to talk through your goals and challenges, and to dream big. There is no judgement, and no penalty for saying what’s on your mind. In this way, we will build a relationship that allows you to tap into your wisdom and align your actions with your values and desires.

 

In short, coaching can help you get out of your own way and move forward.

 

What coaching isn’t

Coaching is not therapy, although it sometimes can feel that way. But here’s the difference: therapists help people understand how the past impacts today. Coaches help people understand how today can be the springboard to a different future.

 

Likewise, coaching is not consulting. Consultants usually help people solve problems or manage projects, drawing on the consultant's years of experience or other skills, training, or expertise. Coaches, on the hand, help clients identify solutions through ongoing, focused dialogue that helps the client see their options and select the path forward that they know will be best for them. I was working as a consultant to the CEO who I mention above, but our conversations often drifted from solving specific problems to thinking expansively about the future and choice points that were coming. That’s when I was coaching rather than consulting.

 

My superpowers

I’ve certainly learned new skills through my coaching coursework. But I trace my innate strengths as a coach to growing up LGBTQ in somewhat rural Pennsylvania in the 1980s and 1990s. I learned to observe and listen during those years, because it was often dangerous to be too visible. Although today I am fully out and proud, I still tend to listen more than speak, and I’ve strengthened my powers of observation and presence through 20 years of meditation and other mindfulness practices.

 

Being LGBTQ has also allowed me to develop and cultivate a keen sense of empathy for people, especially those who find themselves at the margins in some way. I don’t claim to understand every person’s experience (e.g., as a white man I can't know what a Black woman experiences in America), but I do know what it means to feel invisible—or worse—and can use that empathy to forge authentic connections and establish trust and safety with my coaching clients.

 

What does coaching look like?

It all depends on the client! It can be as simple talking through solutions to one problem, perhaps even in a single session. It can also be much more long-term and complex, wrestling with several different or related problems. And the topics can include pretty much anything: family issues, other relationship dynamics, feeling stuck in your career, challenges in the workplace, or learning to manage your time and energy better.

 

What next?

No matter the topic, it’s important that we both feel we can work together. Contact me and we will set up a complimentary 30-minute conversation so we can get to know one another better and talk through how I—and coaching—might be able to help you.