FAQs
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
It is extremely important to do continuing education no matter what field one chooses. For me, I've always been naturally attracted to self-improvement and growth so I'm always reading and researching. I also make sure I'm staying on track by talking to my coaching colleagues and trading methods, ideas, and coaching sessions with them (yes Coaches are Clients too!).
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
As a Personal Trainer I realized my most successful Clients were ones that were willing to talk about their resistance to staying on track, obstacles and successes. Those were the Clients I connected with the most and since I had been trained as a Bodybuilder to approach exercise from a more spiritual perspective, it was natural for me to help these Clients discover what was holding them back from achieving their weight loss goals. From there, I was able to apply what I was learning to other parts of my life and it was actually my nieces and nephews that encouraged me to become a Life Coach!
- What advice would you give a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?
Ask the Coach if they have formal training and where. Ask if they attended their training in person or if it was all online (experiential training is quite different than online training). Find out the length of their training and make sure it was from a well-known school that has been in the business for a number of years. Sometimes people call themselves Coaches but actually have no training at all. There are also Therapists that call themselves Coaches, and have had no coach training; since coaching is different from therapy, my feeling is a Therapist should take some coach training as well. While I absolutely believe that life experiences add greatly to a Coach's abilities, it's my personal belief that all Coaches should have some type of coach training; whether that is through schooling or mentoring with another Coach, training helps a Coach understand the difference between being someone people turn to for advice, and being a Coach that helps someone find what truly motivates and inspires them to discover and create paths for themselves they didn't realize were there.