Tomorrow's
Life Coach In This Issue:
Tomorrow's Life Coach (TLC) is a monthly online journal from the Institute for Life Coach Training (ILCT) that nourishes the intellect, intuition and inspiration of the personal and business coaching community. Pat's Ponderings The Lessons of the Honeyguide.
The honeyguide bird (whose scientific name is Indicator-Indicator) will wait for the hunter to leave some of the honeycomb and beeswax nearby for him as a thank you gift. The story goes that if the honeycomb and beeswax is not done in reverence to the bird, the next time the hunter is looking for wild game, the honey guide will sing loudly warning all animals of the approaching hunter. The Hadza leaders tell this story with the bird being the guide that leads them to life's sweetness. In coaching, the coach partners with the client to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has in much the same way that the honey guide does for the hunter. Coach training provides the foundation for the coach to be that "guide" in a client's personal and professional life. The Institute for Life Coach Training offers foundational training classes on a monthly basis and advanced classes throughout the year. For more information on our training, please visit www.lifecoachtraining.com/courses. Pat Patrick Williams Ed.D., MCC News & Features
Dr. Patrick Williams' Coaching Symposium In Sorrento, Italy Register by July 15, 2007 and receive a 10% DISCOUNT! This four-day seminar is designed to provide professionals an understanding of the theory, history and practical methodology of professional coaching as a field. The seminar will clarify the distinction between therapy and coaching. Participants will learn skills that are transferable from the field of therapy and identify skills that need to be "unlearned" in order to be an effective coach. Dr. Williams developed this workshop specifically for mental health professionals who would like to further understand the field of coaching and how they may incorporate coaching into their practice, or evolve their practice into one entirely focused on coaching. Live and video demonstrations, audio sessions, practical experience, and interactive worksheets will be utilized extensively to illustrate these principles and techniques. Live coaching and video demonstrations, audio sessions, practical experience, and interactive worksheets will be utilized extensively to illustrate coaching principles and techniques. Enjoy this interactive seminar, in a beautiful part of Italy, have fun and (if your tax professional agrees) write off the cost of the trip!!!! Date: Sunday, September 30th to Friday, October
5th, 2007 (six days, five nights)
Do you want to:
If your answer is yes to any one of these, you need to read this book! Those who choose to travel the road of success must also travel the road of continuing education. Success is about being prepared. Every time you read a book that contains the experiences of successful people, you are advancing on your own personal road to success whatever that work means to you. The authors in this book will help you expand your horizons and gain a whole new perspective on how to achieve success! PURCHASE Speaking of Success - World Class Experts Share Their Secrets Excerpt from Speaking of Success - World Class Experts Share Their Secrets Wright: So how do you define Life Coaching? Life Coaching is there for people who are relatively healthy and ready to design the future that they want, whether it's next week or next year or five years from now, and it's a co-creative process. When I say "whole person, client-centered co-creative," what I mean is that the coach is not the expert on anything other than coaching. I'm not the expert on my clients' lives, I'm not the expert on my clients' desires, but I will help bring out their best thinking and things they've never said before and not thought before. I have them speak it publicly, at least in conversations with their coach. It's a process of personal empowerment. Even if I, as the coach, have expertise or knowledge in an area where clients seek improvement, my primary responsibility is to coach them to their solutions, not to advise them or give them the answer based on my expertise. Coaches may share ideas and knowledge when appropriate, but it is only offered to the client as one possibility, not the only possibility. I may have Wright: How do you respond to the critics
that life coaches and wellness coaches are usurping
the turf of the mental health professionals? Seventy percent of therapy clients are female, so that means that most men don't go to a therapist, yet we know that they could benefit from it. We also know that a lot of the people who might benefit from seeing a therapist don't really need therapy—they just need private confidential conversation about what it is that they want to change in their life. So why should that have a diagnostic label and require the services of a mental illness professional? I think modern-day coaches are like philosophers and maybe the town priest or the older relative or the village elder who used to be available in tribal societies. Those kinds of people are not available anymore in modern culture. I think that mental health professionals need to know that when people seek and need proper professional treatment for depression, post-traumatic stress, bipolar disorders, and severe anxieties, etc., then they need to see a therapist. But when people just have problems in living and they are able to get coaching on how to get in motion and make some changes, then that's where coaching has come into play. The good news is that therapists who want to train can do both! They can differentiate between when they offer coaching and when they offer therapy. The other coaches who don't have a therapy background need to learn how to stay in the coaching mode and not start coaching their clients in overcoming depression. We do a lot on training coaches to know when to refer their clients to mental health professionals. I think life coaching really benefits both professions. Coaches will know when to refer to therapists, and therapists will need to know when to refer to coaches. The profession of coaching is not licensed, but it is self-regulated by those who join the International Coach Federation. We can talk a little bit more about that, but remember, professional consultants are not regulated either so the buyer needs to do his or her due diligence when hiring or engaging the services of a consultant or a professional coach. Wright: It's interesting you would say
that men and women as well need conversation. I had
an important conversation some years ago with a man
I admire, and he told me, "In this culture people don't
communicate, they just take turns talking." I was wondering
what you thought. We are used to the thirty-second soundbyte on television. We are used to drive-up windows and microwaves and Starbucks and text messaging with code—even the best friends you might have just aren't there long enough to really have conversation with you at a meaningful level when you need it. If you have a great spouse and great friends, you should give yourself a hug and give them a hug for that; but a coach is someone who can be there for you on a regular basis to listen —to really listen soulfully—to who you are and what you want. The second reason that I think coaching popped up on the landscape is the lack of connection. It's similar to the shortage of listening. There was an article in the Washington Post reporting that Americans are more isolated today than they were ten years ago. People don't know their neighbors, they don't have close friends, and they don't feel connected. In the world of business more people are entrepreneurial and self-employed and transitory, so there's a lot of isolation. That's where having a personal coach has come in vogue because it fills that need; so connection and listening are big reasons. Wright: Many critics say that this is
an unregulated profession and that they believe it's
deceptive to the public. How do you respond to those
critics? Coaches are not snake oil salesmen, although I'll be the first to admit that like any hot profession it does attract its share of charlatans. The public needs to ask a potential coach, "Where have you trained? Do you have testimonials of clients who have worked with you?" In this market today it's really important to ask the coach if he or she has trained at a school that's accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF). That would get rid of the charge of deception because there are ethical guidelines that accredited coaches have to follow. Anybody can go out and call themselves a coach, and if they're a good listener maybe they could say, "I coached so-and-so"—but if you really want to hire a professional coach you need to make sure that the coach has trained with an organization that has quality standards and quality training. Most likely that means he or she is accredited by the ICF. To hire a coach means to hire someone who is either certified by the ICF or is on the path of being certified. This is such a new profession; we've gone from having only 1,900 certified coaches worldwide in 2004, to over 3,000. We currently have over 14,000 members in the ICF—ten years ago we only had 200. It was a brand new membership organization in 1996. We currently have members in eighty countries, so it's truly a global profession. Even though it's unregulated it is ethically prescribed and membership does have its standards. Wright: Let me ask you a question and
see if I'm on the right track. After hearing you talk,
I think it would have been helpful to me many, many
years ago if I had had someone who was a coach who could
have helped me. I didn't ever consider myself ill, so
I never did feel the necessity to go to anyone to "fix" me.
But what you're talking about is that you could have
helped me determine those things I may not have thought
about, avenues I may not have elected to travel, and
options that I didn't have the right knowledge about
to go through the correct doors. Is that what you are
talking about? A coach will not tell you what to do or what to choose or how to be, but a coach will ask powerful questions that will evoke from you your deepest thinking. Even if I were to say to you, "What do you want— what do you really want? How would you want your life to be different than it is today?" You would ponder that for a while and I would listen to your reaction for several minutes. Coaching is not like having a conversation at Starbucks where your friend asks you what do you want and you say, "Hey, I want to get out of this job and I'd like to be retired." That's a good chat with a friend; a coach will go deeper. A coach will say, "What else? Tell me more." A coach will say, "So what have you thought about? What are your strengths? What gifts do you bring to this opportunity?" A coach will also say, "Why not?" You may want to move to Costa Rica and open a scuba diving shop, "Well, okay, why not? What stands in the way of that?" A coach won't say, "Sounds like a good idea, you should do that"—a coach will tell you, "If that's what you really want to do, let's talk about how to make that happen." Does that make sense?
With his bestselling Therapist as Life Coach, Pat Williams introduced the therapeutic community to the career of life coaching. Now, Williams, founder of the Institute for Life Coach Training (ILCT), and Menendez, senior trainer at ILCT—both master certified coaches extraordinaire—reveal all the basic principles and crucial strategies that they have taught to thousands of coaches over the years. Beginning with a brief history of the foundations of coaching and its future trajectory, Becoming a Professional Life Coach takes readers step-by-step through the coaching process, covering all the crucial ideas and strategies for being an effective, successful life coach, including:
Purchase Becoming a Professional Life Coach Monthly Pat's Coaching Forum Pat will be interviewing Dr. Diane Menendez, PhD, MCC and his co-author for Becoming a Professional Life Coach: Lessons from the Institute for Life Coach Training. They will be disucssing their book and some of it's essential lessons.
Date: July 24th This is a FREE call. Click here to register FREE Introduction to Coaching Call: Have you lost the passion you had when you entered the profession of being a therapist? Are you on the fast track to burn-out or are you already there? Do you want to add another income stream to your existing practice? Do you want to set your own fees and get paid what you are worth? Do you want to revitalize your work, reclaim your passion, and find joy in doing what you love? Join us for a free one-hour class that will introduce you to the wonderful career of Life Coaching. We want to share our excitement with you and give you information that you can use to help you decide if Life Coaching is for YOU. Topics to be discussed:
Dates: July 13th: Click
to register or July 27th: Click
to register Free Coach Referral Service This list is being offered as a free service to assist individuals in identifying and selecting coaches best suited for their particular situation. Click here for more information. Expand Your Business! Deepen Your
Coaching Skills!
Coaching Applications & Specialties
Additional classes, details and online registration at our course section. Some schedules may change; check listing or contact Edwina Adams, Administration/Registration, at edwina@lifecoachtraining.com. Where In The World Is Pat Williams? July 14th - 19th August 6th - 10th September 30th - October 5th What Pat Recommends
Tomorrow's Life Coach™ Patrick Williams, Ed.D., Publisher If you wish to use any of our content in a newsletter, magazine or other media (whether public or internal), please request permission. |
One
of the huge outcomes from my journey to Tanzania in
March was witnessing the honeyguide. This bird is the
size of a blue jay and alerts a hunter with a shrill,
then guides the hunter to a tree with bees, which hides
a honeycomb inside. The honeyguide will circle around
the tree to make sure the hunter is on the appropriate
path, acting as a personal GPS for finding the cache
of honey. There are several varieties of bees, some
small and non-stinging, some larger with stinging defenses.
The hunter will light a fire and smoke out the stinging
variety, but with all the trees, hidden within the hollow
of the tree, is a tremendous amount of honeycomb, bee
larvae and royal jelly, all delicious.
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