Coaches go deep - into the real stuff of life

Coaching in business and life presents the same basic formula. In order to thrive, you must help the client see – to make order out of the chaos inside them and all around them.

When a person hires a coach – to go for something important to them – you can be sure that they will bump up against growth-related issues. As a result, coaches must be ready to delve deeply into life and create awareness of what is happening both inside and outside.

In order to do this we must get past our “fear of doing therapy”. Coaching and therapy share the domain of psychology but they are different things and it is essential that we stop trying to compare and contrast them. The more you talk about what you are NOT, the more you are affected by it. A few key points:

Talking deeply about life is NOT the sole domain of psychotherapy

Talking about the past is NOT the sole domain of psychotherapy

Coaches are teachers. And one of the areas that coaches teach about is “how life works”.

Anyone with a life is qualified to share what they have learned from their own perspective.

As long as you are not diagnosing and attempting to heal a “mental illness” you are not doing psychotherapy.

I think it is inevitable that therapists will see coaches as invading their “turf” to some degree but we have to stop focusing on that and start focusing on doing great coaching. I think the new definition will help.

One last point. My friend and colleague Barbara Weiland-Marks (a trained psychotherapist) says it best: “You can’t legislate personal growth”.

– Dave Buck in his latest “State of the Ville” CoachVille Members Announcement