A Week in the Life of a Personal Coach

A Therapist-Turned-Coach asks 'Why Didn't I Do This Twenty Years Ago?!'

Mine was a noble and satisfying profession.  At least that's what I thought until after 16 years as a clinical psychologist dealing with problem patients, bureaucratic paperwork and the intrusion of 'mangled care.'  Nobility and satisfaction were not in my vocabulary.  My candle had burned from both ends, and in 1995 I realized I was, quite literally, burned out.  Coaching was emerging on the corporate and personal improvement landscapes as the new, exciting way to have a more purposeful life, both professionally and personally.  I had already been doing executive coaching part-time since 1990, both for the variety and to expand my business.  After special training in personal coaching and working with my own coach, I expanded into telecoaching with a client base from across the country and Europe.  In 1996, I realized that not only was I a valuable asset to my growing and vibrant client base, but coaching was breathing new life into me.  I loved having clients from every corner of the globe who contracted with me to coach them into more purposeful lives.  I found that I thrived on dealing with the discovery process of clients, rather than the dysfunction of patients.  I closed my psychotherapy practice and I shifted to full-time coaching, all done by telephone from my home office.

After three years of executive coaching, I believed I was equipped and experienced to train other therapists to become life coaches and either add coaching to their business, or make a full-time transition as I had done.  I knew I had to share the joys I was experiencing as a full-time coach and help others to find them as well.  I now divide my time between being a coach and being a mentor, teacher and trainer to others who wish to transition from therapy to coaching.  The following 'diary excerpt' is a snapshot of a typical week for me, both as a coach and as the founder of a coach training program.

MONDAY

I love Mondays!  After coffee and conversation with my wife, I make the 7 am commute to my office'30-feet across the living room and a right turn (rarely any traffic!).  I start my day reviewing emails and my calendar, scheduling call-backs and networking opportunities.  After sending a pile of email replies, I prepare for my first client call, an actor who makes films for corporate training.  He has sent me his response to my Coaching Call Prep Form, which I request from all my clients on a regular basis.  This highlights their successes and their challenges, and tells me what they specifically want from today's coaching.  My actor-client wants to develop more of his own business contacts and rely less on his agent.  He is also looking to move into other areas of business.  I marvel how different this is from therapy.  I was a busy, successful and effective therapist, but now I work with interesting entrepreneurs, executives, artists and professionals who love having a coach.  There is no stigma about having a coach, as there frequently might have been in having a therapist.  While my relationship with my clients is very professional, it is also less formal.  In fact, this client visited me in person once and we played golf together.  I end his call today with requests for action steps in the coming week.  He tells me again how much coaching has helped him stay focused, and how he even appreciates the 'gentle nudging' I do, holding him accountable and keeping his motivated.

I have a new client calling on the hour.  She has completed my Client Welcome Packet and has sent me her 'Life Story' and a desired goals sheet, a list of energy drainers in her work and personal life, and a life purpose worksheet.  I review all of this before our call.  I only schedule 12 client calls weekly.  Each is a 30-minute call.  For this call, however, I plan to allow one hour at no extra charge so that we have time to go over my policies, how the coaching relationship will work and to review in-depth the material she has sent me.  I have recently started asking my clients to send me a picture so I can make a solid connection with them.  I am repeatedly amazed at how intimate and professional the coaching conversations are without the benefit of normal visual and contextual clues that I was so accustomed to in therapy.  As I speak with this new client, I am reminded that our coaching connection seems to be enhanced by the convenience, the focused energy of the call, and the elimination of former 'office visit' distractions that occur in person.  All this, and no traffic jams or parking perplexities.

The call goes well, and we set her appointments for the rest of the month.  My next call is with a lawyer who wants help improving his business and balancing his personal time more effectively.  Going from call to call, rather than greeting my next client in the waiting room, took some getting used to, but now I have a rhythm to my coaching.  With my own coach I have designed my perfect work week, and I stick to it.  I only schedule coaching calls Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursdays are for catching up, writing, marketing, networking and open office hours if a client needs to call.  Fridays are my day, allowing me to keep my life in balance and making sure that I share activities with my wife and friends.  Being a workaholic is out of integrity with being a Life Coach!

It's time for lunch.  Today, and every day of my four day work week, I enjoy a two-hour lunch, usually with my wife at home.  Today my wife has prepared a salad with chicken and a citrus dressing.  Occasionally we'll go out, but we both enjoy eating healthy at home.  Sometimes I will even take on the cooking ' I'm good at leftovers!  But my wife enjoys putting good food together and I enjoy eating it.

As a coach, I talk with people about decluttering their lives.  As I pace my office after lunch, gesturing wilding with my next client, I happen to glance around the room and think that perhaps I need to do a bit of that here in my own office.  Yes, I walk and talk and gesture as I coach.  (A telephone headset is a must for someone who spends as much time on the phone as I do.)  Pacing, rocking, gesturing and doodling are good exercises for the phone-bound.  I think better on my feet, anyway.  Sometimes I close my eyes and visualize my clients when I speak to them.  I'm not hyper, just energetic.  Therapy was draining.  Coaching is energizing.

I bend over and pick up some paper clips that have fallen to the floor, and I congratulate myself that although some might not agree, I have come a long way in the tidy office category.  After all, doesn't every man have to have a few things on the floor?  Whatever I engage in during a call, however, I am always listening, always there.  My body may be pacing, but my mind is always focused.

I finish this day out with a few more calls, jotting down notes in client files, reading and sending more emails, including supplying some resources for clients such as an editor willing to review a manuscript, or the name of someone good at designing business plans.  One of the greatest parts about being a coach is that I don't have to have all the answers.  I don't have to be an expert, but I AM a resource.  At about 4:00 pm I pop out of my office and holler, 'Honey, I'm home!'

TUESDAY

I have scheduled today light with coaching calls since I have a meeting downtown with the Rotary Club.  I am naturally gregarious and extroverted ' a true 'people' person.  For that reason, I had some initial reservations about a home office and all client contact by phone only.  Was there a potential for isolation?  But I have found if I network with other coaches in the area, get involved with my community and deliberately build in 'face time' to my schedule, I thrive on the balance.  For me, however, it is a way to connect and keep real.  My business is not in my community right now, but my presence is.

Before my Rotary meeting, however, I conduct a one-hour call with one of my two mentor groups.  There are therapists transitioning into coaching, whom I coach with about practice building, marketing, case review and their own personal blocks and challenges.  I have two such groups, the other also meeting for one-hour, on Thursday afternoons.

I receive a call today that is a real delight.  A college in Canada is interested in opening an office locally to provide coaching graduate degrees.  I am thrilled to be considered a potential partner in this endeavor.  I think we are on the verge of what Family Therapy schools may have looked like in the 60's, starting as institutes that trained therapists, and eventually becoming graduate school programs.  Education is one of my passions, and being a forerunner in establishing educational programs that grant degrees in coaching, or at least provide specialized quality training, would be a dream come true.  We discuss the planning of our upcoming spring workshop for 75 experienced therapists and coaches from all over the world to receive training on the application of the Ericksonian Technique and Neural Linguistics Programming (NLP) to coaching.  All of this will take place during four days in the beautiful mountains of Colorado ' my backyard.  I am excited about the possibility of actually starting a college, and I eagerly anticipate every future call, meeting or other step that puts us closer to that reality.

After my Rotary meeting I conduct piece of very important business ' completing all the necessary arrangements for my trip to Maui next week.  My wife and I intend to enjoy some vacation time together in the warmth of the islands.  I won't have any client calls scheduled, but I will be teaching some classes by teleconference.  Unless I tell them, they won't know that I am sitting on the beach in my tasteful shirt and shorts.  I will continue to teach a few classes in the early mornings from there, but the rest of the day I'm free to play.  There are times when vacations can be taken and I still service my clients, some or all ' as I choose.  And there are times when I decide that this vacation is merely for pleasure ' no work allowed.  But the choice is mine.  Because of the nature of my work, I could take ten to twelve weeks off a year ' if I wanted to.  On this trip to Hawaii, my business is running in the background the whole time, but it is not intrusive, and my wife has no problem with it.  It's times like this that I have to pinch myself to see if I'm really living this life of a coach, or this is merely the hungry dream of an overworked, stressed and frenzied therapist who could never take a vacation from needy clients and mountains of paperwork.  Nope.  It's real.  I have the tickets to prove it!

WEDNESDAY

Another tough commute to my office this morning ' I had to stop and pick up a few pieces of lint on the carpet in the living room.  Once settled, I prepare for my first client, one that I confess is somewhat difficult, and a little draining.  (Yes, even coaching has a few of those!)  He is a frustrated dentist, unhappy with his practice, where he lives, where he works, and the fact that he is in poor physical health.  In addition to coaching, he is also seeing a psychologist for depression, and is on Prozac.  To tell you the truth, if he decided to terminate with me tomorrow, it would be a relief!  But he says coaching is helping.  This person is what we call a 'Restorative' ' they have issues to resolve, or have recently resolved them and are now in the restoration process.  Restoratives are coachable, but their progress is slow.  My coaching sessions with this man feel like the old therapy days to me ' the ones I thought I had left behind.  He is a whiner and spends most of his sessions complaining.  I have discussed this client with my own coach who says I need to have a 'courageous conversation' with him about my observations.  As I have become more comfortable at knowing how I want to coach, and who I want to coach, I decided to tell him, masked in some humor, that for me the complaining was not productive and eats up all his session time.  I told him that I would grant him five minutes at the beginning of every call for a 'BMW' session ' bitching, moaning, and whining!  He laughed and then used the next five minutes in the BMW mode.  I then asked the very brilliant coaching question, 'What do you want from today?'  That seemed to lighten him up and caused a shift in the way his coaching sessions could be used.  I still have my doubts, but we'll see.

After this call, I take a few deep cleansing breaths and then spend the next hour with my VA (virtual assistant) in Dallas, who manages my coach training school enrollments, marketing, and billing for both my students and my coaching clients.  This profession is another amazing offshoot of the virtual age.  We worked together for six months before meeting in person.  I was glad to hear, however, that she is moving to Colorado this summer.  It will be great to have her across town for my business needs.

This afternoon I attend a meeting as a recent new member of the local County Mental Health Board.  I thought this would be a good way to give back to the community, since I have some 20 years of experience in caring for those with mental health issues.  However, after four months of this, I'm not sure it's for me.  I have the greatest respect for this field, and I know they need help.  But this may not be the place for me.  My coach tells me I'm not being honest with myself, and that I may be living out of integrity if I continue on the Board.  My passion now is coaching and being instrumental in having it permeate all society, not just those with money or the ones at the top of their professions.  Everyone can benefit from coaching and I want to help see that they do.  I may need to revisit this Mental Health Board decision.  There's a flickering idea taking shape that the Probation Department may be interested in coaching for kids.  That excites me!

It's time to take a break from the marvel of the telephone, so I spend the next hour reviewing changes I want to make on my website.  I monitor this site for visitors and keep posting updated relevant information as often as possible.  I also write a monthly e-zine called 'The Therapist Coach Connection,' free to therapists who have an interest in coaching.

A quick glance at my watch tells me it's noon.  I've been at my desk since 7 am.  I learned early on from my own coach that I must continue to avoid the pitfalls of being sucked into the home office vortex.  A little self-care time is needed.  It is January and 40 degrees outside, but sunny and beautiful.  It's a great day for ice skating with my wife on our nearby frozen lake.  A good coach understands that getting away from the rigors of the office is a must to staying healthy, and 'walking the talk.'

After a wonderful skating adventure I return to the office (with red cheeks!), take two more calls, and then call it a day.  My most productive work is done early in the day, so I schedule the first part of the day a little more top-heavy.  Also, living in the Mountain Time Zone allows me to have client calls on both coasts and Europe early in the day.

One of the calls this afternoon is a faculty meeting with the staff that teaches my classes.  We teleconference on Wednesday afternoons for ideas for new courses, current classes, conditions and challenges.  Right now I am also teaching a class two days a week.  I am co-teaching my own basic curriculum called 'The Basic Life Coaching Training Intensive' which is a 30-hour course over 15 weeks for therapists transitioning to coaching.  Each class has about 15-20 people.  I originally taught this in 1998 and then turned it over to the faculty, but the teacher in me needed to maintain some contact, and we are also taping these sessions to offer product for those who aren't able to take the telecourses.

THURSDAY

If you have read this far in my weekly diary you may be asking, 'is this guy for real?'  Is coaching really that great?  Is his day really that easy?  Doesn't he have any problems ' other than the whiny dentist?  Come on, how can work be fun?  If you're into stark reality and the dark side of things, this day's entry is for you.  This is the day I unpack my new computer.

I can honestly say that my business really has little down side.  If it does, I haven't found it after five years of practice full-time.  As a life coach with a home office, I do have to be conscious of the possibility of isolation in the job, but I have my clients, my students, my colleagues that I meet with by phone, and I have my 'face time' with my community involvement here locally.  However, like all other businesses, I am somewhat of a slave to something we seemingly can't do without ' technology.  If you ask what I don't like about my work, this is it.  Coaching is not dependent on the computer, but it provides an additional channel for communication that opens doors around the globe.  Through the wonders of email and web sites I can get acquainted with the clients I have in Indonesia, Sweden and Scotland, and they can send me reports of their successes and challenges.  I am not willing to forego this incredible tool, but there are moments, and today offers one of those.

My computer arrived yesterday between coaching calls, but I restrained myself and waited until today to unpack and set up everything.  After hours of unwrapping, plugging and replugging, juggling and jiggling, I have made a discovery:  some computers don't communicate well with other computers ' just like people.  It seems some life principles cannot be escaped, no matter to what arena they are applied.

When I began my full-time coaching in 1996 I can proudly say that I had never even turned a computer ON, let alone actually done something constructive with one.  I realized this was something I needed to do, and thankfully, my first coach actually was technologically gifted ' a rarity in the coaching industry, at least until recently.  I considered anyone gifted who was able to plug everything in, turn on all the right buttons, and actually see something on the screen other than a relentlessly blinking, small but annoying, little white line.  At that time I had to experience a little honest embarrassment and humble myself to ask the tough question like 'where does this round thing go?' referring to my AOL CD.  My coach was great, but I ended up hiring one of those 20-year-olds that are both with computer genes to teach this old dog some new tricks.  I had a daughter that age, but there was no way I was going to hire my daughter to do this!

As I struggle today with peripherals that apparently don't speak the same language, or are deliberately refusing to communicate just to annoy me, I calmly remind myself that everyone else out there has computer horror stories too.  It's not just me, and it's certainly not just my business.  In the five years since those early computer learning curve days, I confess that I continue to want to toss the whole thing out the window, but before I actually act on that fiendish impulse, I remember that this contraption connects me worldwide with clients I may never see.  I restrain myself once more.

I push aside this tangle of state-of-the-art technology to take a scheduled 'between sessions' call.  For the next half hour I laugh my head off with my client who tells me stories about his efforts to get a book published.  And I get paid for this?  What a great diversion from the wires, plastic boxes and blank screens scattered across my desk.  This call again reminds me why I do what I do.

My final call of the day is with my own coach, whom I talk with three times a month.  I have had six different coaches since 1996.  Some I have met with for many months at a time, and others for just short term coaching on specific areas like writing or publicity.  My current coach is a business coach, an expert on small businesses like mine.  He keeps me focused and creative in spite of myself.  As I share my familiar frustrations and woes in the relentless challenges of technology, he helps me discover how to run a business and not be the business.  Some have asked me why the coach needs a coach.  Simple.  I still want to grow; and life-long learning is part of this profession.

Twice a month I have another of my mentor group meetings on Thursday afternoons for an hour, but not today.  Tonight my wife and I are out for an evening of sushi and a movie.  I don't think about technology once tonight!

FRIDAY

I don't work on Fridays!  Or I might just spend some time in the office organizing files or reading a few email, but then my wife and I usually head out for a getaway weekend, camping, hiking or just doing nothing but spending time together.  The office door is shut.  That's why I became a coach.  That, and the fact that there are no insurance companies to bill; I get paid in advance; and I work half the time I did as a therapist and get paid twice as much.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that I only schedule calls for three weeks out of the month, leaving the fourth for whatever I want to fill in with.  But there's even more ' I am actually instrumental in helping others greatly improve the quality of their professional and personal lives, and unlike therapy, I love every minute of it.  I'll gladly endure a day or two of techno-terror for that.  I don't regret the years as a therapist and the great changes I witnessed in my clients (most of the time), but I was ready for a change and for now, I have rediscovered my passion and am living my life on purpose.

Published from the Psychotherapy Network