So, the Life Coach from Tony Robbins thought that I would make a great Life Coach. Of course, she also wanted to sell me several months worth of coaching through them.
Throughout the next several days, I couldn’t stop thinking about Life Coaching. I went to the library, did web searches, and talked to some of my friends and those I’ve mentored over the years. I got the thumbs up over and over. So many people told me that they thought it would be a perfect fit for me, since I’ve already been more or less doing life coaching for several years.
In my searching, I found that a lot of web-based training programs seemed very good, but they wanted a great deal of money for what they were offering. At one point, I was tempted to go back to the folks at Tony Robbins, but that was a fleeting thought given the huge expense.
Back to the actual task of life coaching for a minute. Almost all of the training programs taught the same things. Focus, good listening skills, asking just the right questions, offering encouragement, keeping people on track, etc. They just had different styles of implementation. As each day passed, I became more and more convinced that I could not only do life coaching, but be very good at it. One conversation sealed the deal for me.
A young man I’ve been mentoring since he was in middle school called me. We talked about several things, but at one point I asked him if he had ever heard of life coaching, and if he had, what were his thoughts of me becoming a life coach.
He told me that just a few days before, he was speaking to a therapist he had been working with for some time. The therapist was happy to tell him that she felt like they had effectively dealt with all the issues that he had initially brought to her, and that their sessions together were coming to a close. Then she said that, in order for him to stay on top of the goals they had laid out for him to accomplish, he needed to seek the services of a life coach.
You just found your first client, he said. To me, this was just the affirmation I had been looking for, and I began moving quickly to find a training program to meet my needs.
I love what I do in my career, but for some time I felt like I was not able to focus on what I’m best at, and that’s helping people through their problems. Instead, I find myself spending a lot of my day dealing with administrative stuff, basically pretty boring.
So, on a part-time basis, I could begin re-focusing on something that I’m good at, and something that I know offers people the help they need. How cool would that be?
More about the training program I chose, and what’s happening now will be in tomorrow’s post. Isn’t this exciting?
