What is a Life Coach?
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Niquenya's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | ||||||
|
What is a Life Coach?
As a home-based business owner and avid network marketer, I am always finding myself at various meet-and-greets throughout Chicagoland. Like a good little schoolgirl, my 30-second elevator speech is well-prepared to roll off my tongue at every introduction. My new acquaintances have a knack for exchanging quizzical looks at the end of my spiel before asking, "yeah, um, so what is a life coach?" Exasperated that my prepared speech is never enough, I began researching the definition of life coach in order to develop a more refined explanation to have at the ready. The following is what I have come up with.
A life coach is a person who partners with you to ensure your success. They act as your personal cheerleader in helping you to set goals and create a plan to achieve them. A life coach aids you in identifying your strengths and opportunities for greater personal and professional development. A life coach also works with you in developing a system of accountability to realize your intended objectives. Unlike a therapist or counselor, a life coach is very forward-thinking. Life coaches bridge the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be in the future. Life coaches have a mission to help ordinary people fulfill extraordinary dreams.
Life coaches come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have backgrounds in psychology or social work. Some are former business professionals. Many life coaches have no formal education or professional experience at all. People become life coaches because they have a very real desire to motivate others to be successful and have a natural gift for doing so. Good coaches use a combination of education and life experience to meet the needs of their clients. Coaches can choose to specialize in business, careers, parenting, dating, relationships, disabilities or general life. Most life coaches have been coaching unofficially for the greater part of their lives and just didn't know it.
The life coaching industry is still relatively new, having only been officially recognized for approximately the past thirty years. Because of this, coaching is still very much an unregulated practice. There are two major certifying boards attempting to change this: the International Association of Coaches (IAC) and the International Coach Federation (ICF). Both organizations have been around for about 15 years and each have rigorous qualification standards and testing that must be achieved prior to certification. There are many coach training schools available that offer training programs geared toward meeting the requirements of these certifying bodies. It is still a widely debated issue as to whether or not professional life coaches should be certified or not. As it currently stands, certification can definitely help to legitimize an aspiring coach but formal education and life experience can still be just as valuable depending on the target customer.
As for the coaching process itself, most coaching is conducted primarily by telephone or even email. Sessions typically last from 30 minutes to an hour. Life coaches practice effective listening skills to mirror client concerns and act as a sounding board for ideas. Life coaches use intuitive questioning skills to lead their clients onto a journey of self-discovery and growth. Most coaching relationships average about 6 months. Fees for coaching can vary greatly from coach to coach and are based heavily on the type of client being served. Most coaches, including myself, do offer a complimentary session to all first time clients.
Life coaching can be a very fulfilling career for the right personalities. If you are already a person who loves to reach out to others, is a great listener and you often find yourself in the center of everyone's problems, then you probably have what it takes to be a coach. And if you are a big dreamer but don't know quite how to turn them into reality, then a life coach is most likely the perfect answer for you.
© 2007 - All Rights Reserved.
What is a Life Coach - To learn more about this author, visit Niquenya D. Fulbright's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
|||
Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|||
George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
|||
Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|||
Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
