FAQs
How do I know this is worth my time? And money? This is a leadership experience. Assessment work. Coaching work. Challenge work. It’s all designed for you to benefit from gaining awareness and shifting yourself. It’s all designed to strategically, and prayerfully, connect you with what matters most to you and serve your leadership sustainability and growth.
I have discovered in my years of coaching and in life in general that when smart, healthy people are given a place to thrive, they bring their “A” game and the results are unpredictable and amazing.
How is this different from just talking with a good friend? They are worlds apart.
Friends are amazing when they sit in the trenches with us. And we need this intentional connection in our lives where we are having purposeful, honest conversations with others.Coaches care about your success, not about developing or maintaining a friendship. They boldly, professionally and ethically call us to look up and over the trenches to launch us into authentic forward movement. And they do so in an infectiously curious, respectful, unbiased and confidential way. The more work you do with a coach, the more confidence you gain about decisions your making, the more you act on those decisions and the more you bring a coach-approach leadership style into your everyday decisions and situations.
Is this specifically Christian? No. It’s non-directive, driven by your values, regardless of mine.
I’m not sure I’m a driven, high-performing leader? Someone asked me this once before going through this experience. She didn’t think she was qualified. Thankfully, she took my word for it and joined in on the experience. And she discovered that “those women” who she elevated as leaders were very much like her. She discovered she is a leader, she’s not alone, and she has a valuable voice.
So here’s the thing. If you’re in a position of influence over anyone in your work and/or at home, whether you have a direct report or not and you care to offer your best, you’re a high-achieving a leader.
Am I healthy? OK this is important. As you’ll see in the next question is not a counseling group. Counseling groups are amazing. If you feel as though you are in deep grief discouragement or depression, this is not the group for you. If you do not have someone in your life who you can talk with about these things, please let me know and I will gladly give you reference to some people who would be wonderful to talk with and help get you to a healthier place.
Now, if you are discouraged, disappointed, anxious, stuck, or see yourself heading down a path toward burn out and you want to make some changes to avoid deeper discouragement and depression, this is absolutely for you. Being healthy does not mean not struggling. It just means that you’re healthy enough to positively move forward when you see clearly the steps you want to take.
Is this counseling? No. Counseling and coaching come from different places. Because they deal with different things. As I mentioned above counseling works with people who are on a journey toward healing. Not that we aren’t all on a journey - we are- but being at a point on our journey where moving forward has become paralyzing is a time when counselors are an incredible resource. There are equipped with the tools and time to help l you heal. They know and direct a process to help move you to that place. They know what that place looks like for you. And they help you envision yourself being there as they walk alongside of you along the way. Because when you were at this type of a place on your journey it is very difficult for you to see that place for yourself.
Coaches however work with people who not only know where they want to go, but are healthy to see it themselves and healthy enough to take the steps they need to take to get there once they become aware of them. A coach comes along side you to help you get there. But not to define it for you. A coach comes along side you to help you gain awareness about how your values or beliefs might be barriers in your path, discover insight about what you really want based upon the awareness that you’re gaining and move forward toward that place where you want to be.
A general way to think about the difference might be that counseling helps you heal whereas coaching helps you move forward. Counselors give you a path towards healing, looking back and walking with you on that road. Coaches partner with you on your forward-focused path to help you get where you want to go.