Several years ago, I made the daring decision to turn my therapy practice into a life coaching practice– and I’ve never looked back.

I’m going to tell you my story. It’ll only take you a few minutes to read it in its entirety, and it’s very likely that you’ll see yourself in it. At the end of the story, I’m going to reveal a secret I’ve never divulged before – and I promise you that when you learn this secret, your own practice and your life will never be the same.

These are just a few of the things you’ll discover from reading my story:

• Why the coaching industry is booming -- and why therapists are the best positioned professionals to dominate this cutting-edge – and lucrative -- industry
• How my coaching practice went global – and how my income reached new heights
• How you, as a therapist or mental health professional, can get paid handsomely for doing what you've been doing for years
• How to Practice Psychology's Superior Purpose through Life Coaching
• Why the profession of life coaching will be bigger than psychotherapy in a few years

It was the Spring of 1995. I had spent the last 16 years of my life as a clinical psychologist, and I was reflecting on my career. I had what most would consider a successful practice with a steady stream of clients. But something was missing.

The passion that had initially attracted me to the mental health profession was nowhere to be found. The truth was, I was exhausted and drained from dealing with problem patients. I was buried under mountains of bureaucratic paperwork, and annoyed by the managed care issues I had to deal with. Burnout was a term too mild to describe what I was experiencing.

I started asking myself…

"Is this really what I expected when I chose Psychology as my profession?" and…

"Am I earning the kind of money I expected to be making after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone?"

My answer was, "Not really."

Quite frankly, my profession had taken more out of me than I bargained for. Although I was earning what my peers would call an above average income, the money I earned seemed paltry compensation for the exhaustion and complicated efforts that constantly punctuated my work.

I had dug myself into the "mangled care" hole, and there seemed to be no way out. I resigned myself to joyless acquiescence, and was forced to accept the fact that there was no easy way of changing the way things were in my profession. I even seriously questioned whether psychology was the right field for me.

Then one day, I stumbled upon an insight that gave me an entirely new perspective on my profession. I figured that psychology is not just about pathology, diagnosis, and the treatment of human frailties. It is also the study of human potential and brilliance. Its higher purpose is not to repair what has been damaged, but to cultivate the genius that resides within the human mind. This is why I had chosen to study psychology in the first place.

I remembered a Chinese proverb I had come across previously:

All of a sudden, the superior purpose of psychology – that which attracted me to the field in the first place -- became crystal clear. When you treat the whole person, not the dysfunction, you unleash the most powerful therapy on earth. When you empower a person and show him what he can do – instead of focusing on what he can’t do (weakness) – you can improve his overall mental health and his life dramatically. A less obvious benefit is that the ensuing strength attained by the subject has the potential to prevent a dysfunction or render it inconsequential. By Chinese definition, this is the mark of superior "medicine."

Now, don’t get me wrong. I realized, of course, that there would always be fragile, diagnosable, psycho-emotional cases that require pathology, diagnosis, and traditional psychotherapy – and I applaud those who dedicate their lives to that endeavor. However, statistically speaking, less than 10% of the population fall into that category. The rest of the population ((90%) for whom psychotherapy is not indicated, could benefit from the wholistic (or ‘holistic’) approach, if you will, to psychology because there is no societal stigma brought about by seeing a therapist or being labeled ‘dysfunctional.’ Furthermore, men do not easily make it to a therapist’s office, but coaching offers a paradigm they can more easily accept. Both women and men, who see the value of having a "partner" in designing their future, understand the power of coaching.

Now, I can just hear you saying: What on earth does this ‘holistic’ approach to psychology have to do with coaching?

Read on – and I’ll tell you how the simple integration of the 2 disciplines liberated me from the narrow boundaries of my career, and how it can do the same for you.

Tapping Immeasurable Resources of Genius

We all know that psychotherapy deals mainly with emotional/behavioral problems and disruptive situations – and seeks to bring the client to normal function by focusing on his dysfunction. However, this model of psychotherapy had always seemed so limited to me.
I said to myself, ‘There has to be a more sublime, expanded model -- through which improvements could be manifested in people's lives.’ Holistic psychology made much more sense to me because when we focus on the whole person and set aside our preoccupation with that person’s dysfunction, we uncover immeasurable resources of genius in that person.

This forgotten paradigm of psychology seemed pretty exciting to me. But my challenge, of course, was how to transition from the traditional model of psychotherapy to one that embraced the superior, holistic approach.

Life Coaching: Practicing Psychology's Superior Purpose

Here’s where my story really unfolds. Back in 1996, coaching was a fledgling, but promising industry -- with a growing number of enthusiasts. Unlike traditional therapy, coaching entails working with people who already have a measure of "success" in their lives, but who want to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be in their profession and their personal life.

I had already been doing part-time executive coaching since 1990, partly to add variety to my practice, and partly to expand my business. Coaching appealed to me because my coaching clients were far from being problematic – instead, they were functional individuals looking to improve their lives. My job as coach was to help them determine and design the life they want, bring out their own brilliance and resources so that they can achieve excellence and create purposeful, extraordinary lives.

In 1996, I sought specialized coach training from Coach University and other advanced courses, graduated in 1997, and became a Master Certified Coach in 1998. Meanwhile, in my private practice, coaching went from being a part-time endeavor to a full-time career.

My Practice Went Global – and My Income Reached New Heights

Later, when I switched from in-person coaching to tele-coaching (coaching by telephone), my business experienced incredible, exponential growth! Tele-coaching made my services accessible to the global market -- and you can just imagine my surprise and delight when clients from all over the world eventually sought my coaching services because now, I was only a phone call away.

Now, there were absolutely no geographical boundaries that prevented people from availing themselves of my services! And this was powerful, practical … and personalized.

The secret behind my coaching success was simple. Somewhere along the way, my fascination with holistic psychology found its way into my coaching sessions with clients. I had gradually begun to integrate the superior paradigm of psychology with coaching. I had found a way to bridge the 2 disciplines into a state-of-the-art coaching method that was unlike any other coaching method available.

Little did I know that back then, I was pioneering what today is being called the science of Positive Psychology (popularized by Martin Seligman 4 years later).

Coaching Breathed New Life Into My Career

While all of this was happening, I realized that something amazing was underway. Coaching had literally breathed new life back into my career. Gone was the burnout that characterized my practice years ago. I felt revitalized, energized and enriched by the positive methodology that I employed – instead of feeling drained as I used to feel with my previous illness-based practice.

I found that I really enjoyed my clients and even developed friendships that would not have been proper or possible in traditional psychotherapy. Furthermore, the psychological fulfillment of helping people achieve personal growth and transformation was extremely gratifying.

As for the financial rewards, top coaches at the time were making $150 to $300 or more per hour, and I was happy to be among those who commanded high hourly rates – all without having to deal with managed care or third party payment.

Best of all, I didn’t have to abandon my mental health training at all – but rather found a way to enjoy it and contribute more significantly to other people’s lives.

Why the Coaching Industry is Booming -- and why therapists are the best-positioned professionals to dominate this cutting-edge industry

Earlier on, I touched on the exploding industry that coaching has become. U.S. News and World Report states that coaching is the second biggest consulting business, second only to management consulting. Start-Ups Magazine reports that coaching is the second fastest-growing industry in America, second only to Information Technology; and it is also the No. 1 home-based business.

There is an insatiable demand for life coaches in today's society -- and understandably so. When your profession consists of extracting the brilliance of others for their benefit, how could you possibly run out of clients? When your practice is one that helps people lead empowered, purposeful, extraordinary lives, why wouldn’t the world beat a path to your door?

As with any booming industry, uncredentialed individuals have come out of the woodwork calling themselves coaches. Because coaching certification is relatively new, and no regulatory agency has begun to monitor the industry, practically anyone with minimal (and oftentimes inferior) coach training, can call himself a coach. This is a disservice to the unsuspecting public, to say the least.

Mental Health Professionals: It's about time you got paid handsomely for doing what you've been doing for years.

I believe that psychologists, psychotherapists, counselors – and helping professionals in general – are the ideal candidates and the most well-positioned professionals to transition into the lucrative world of coaching. That’s because they already have the requisite skills for effective coaching, such as. . .

• Listening and building rapport
• Encouraging
• Facilitating change
• Empathy
• Intuition
• Respect for confidentiality
• Strong boundaries
• Re-framing
• Objectivity and being non-judgmental
• Unconditional positive regard
• Acceptance of emotions (they’ve heard it all)
• Master of powerful questions and inquiry
• Good problem-solving and "possibility thinking"

I also believe that mental health professionals, when properly trained, stand to be the most results-producing life coaches anywhere. Those with no previous mental health training are equipped to only pan the surface of their clients’ potential, whereas a therapist is equipped to dig deeper to the pure vein of untapped human power that lies beneath.

The Secret I Promised to Reveal

At the beginning of this story, I told you I would reveal a secret. Here it is: Presently, less than 15% of those training to be coaches are therapists.

What does this mean to you?

In case you haven’t realized it yet, the advent of life coaching has made your skills as a therapist supremely valuable and marketable. However, of the trained coaches that are out on the market today, only a small minority are therapists.

When you consider that therapists have the distinct edge in skills and experience, and that only a few have realized it yet, now is the time to get specialized coach training and tap into the lucrative coaching boom before the rest of the industry "jumps on the bandwagon."

I got into coaching while it was still in its infancy, and I am living proof that there are extraordinary advantages when you’re one of the first to enter a growth industry. Coaching is still a very young industry, and clearly, if you take early advantage of this growth industry while it is still "virgin territory" among therapists, you stand to benefit tremendously.

If you’re not yet convinced that coaching is destined to become a standard in the mental health profession, here’s another little-known fact:

FACT: Twenty-three (23%) percent of therapists are presently offering coaching services to their clients.

What this means is that although 77% of therapists haven’t "caught on" yet, a significant number have already discovered the rewards of offering coaching. And many of them are not coaching full-time, but only with a few. By all indications, the coming years will see the majority of therapists transitioning into life coaching for the very same reasons I became a life coach.

The fact that you’ve read this far is proof positive that you have the same challenges and the same desires as I did when I got started on my life coaching journey -- that is, to reclaim the passion that attracted you to the mental health profession, and to avoid the frustration caused by the "medical model" of illness-based psychotherapy and its managed care issues.

The Premier Coach Training "University" for Therapists

Those of you who know me well, know that my passion is coaching and I’ve always wanted to be instrumental in having it permeate all society, not just those with money or the ones at the top of their professions. In addition to coaching high-powered professionals, therapists/counselors may also help coaching be available through schools, agencies, churches, and other venues.

In response to the increasing demand for specialized coach training for therapists, I founded the Therapist University in 1998 (which I’ve recently renamed the Institute for Life Coach Training). It’s the first-of-its-kind training institute designed to cater to the hundreds of thousands of therapists that are expected to transition to coaching in the coming years.

I’ve designed a curriculum that provides the quickest way for a therapist to translate his/her skills into coaching skills in as little as 30 hours of tele-classes (spread out over 15 weeks). I’ve incorporated the whole person approach to coaching, the superior paradigm of psychology, as well as the powerful principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Ericksonian Hypnosis. This model has proven successful in producing results among my own coaching clients.

Because I know that most therapists worry about how to market their coaching services when they do become life coaches, I’ve also included a module in the curriculum that provides valuable practice-building tips and lessons on marketing easily and effectively.

Because I’ve been in your shoes, I understand that it’s not always easy to train for a new career while maintaining your therapy practice. So I’ve made it as easy as possible for you by delivering the training via tele-classes. That means you never have to leave your home or office to attend your training class – we train you by phone in half-hour sessions. What could be easier? Click here to get a FREE 1-hour Introductory Class.

I predict that the profession of life coaching will be bigger than psychotherapy in the next few years. The fact that life coaching has become one of the most desirable careers is not at all surprising. When you coach people to discover their potential, you become the catalyst of change, and you empower them in all aspects of their lives. Very few professions on earth could be as noble and rewarding as that.