What is Life Coaching Anyway?

So you still may ask, what is a life coach? Which is one of the reasons why I am writing this article..To me a life coach is the return of that buddy in the village, town, tribe, or clan that studied the medicine, herbs, lore, history, art, psychology, politics, semantics, behavior, mythology, and religion of the world that is at his hands to heal you so the coach can benefit from your labors in your chosen trade as well. Either you call Them Priest, Rabbi, Shaman, Sufi, Pastor, Druid, High Priestess, Reverend Mother, or Life Coach; it is all the same. But the best part of a life coach to me is telling and listening to stories around the camp fire!

When Your car is broken, you see the Mechanic. When you need help straightening the stuff flying through your mind, you see a life coach. Each an equal trade with tradesmen who took the time to specialize something so you can do the same in your career. All equal, all one. Bring the marshmallows.

How Does a Life Coach Work?

A Life Coach is some one that pulls various teaching principles together from history and various cultures to help you grow in a healthy holistic manner. After accessing your past, your becoming, and your skuld, or should be. A humanistic market analysis, but the analysand is you How does this happen; very safe, serene, open, and nonjudgmental manner. Where do we meet; where we were suppose to meet all along. Which we did, or will. In your own personal comfort center, which is? Since we live on the surface of a globe, where the center is everywhere, your center is wherever you choose. I will travel to that point, no matter where it is.

Who shall we meet on our journey? You, yourself, the other you, and 3H, S.M.O.G., and Joe Smith. The person I usually meet within you first is 4H; Happy, Hear Anything, Honest, Hell of a Guy. When you are in this mood you will tell me anything without fear of shame, you trust me, you are fun, and truthful. In this mood your sins are true to its meaning; old Scythian archery term for missing your mark.

When we venture down the paths of your life and read the road maps of your future journeys; sometimes we hit potholes and road blocks. At these times we become like that guy who is arguing with his wife who needs not to ask for directions. Who has the kids in the back seat pulling pig tails and going through the "are we there yet routine!". This is S.M.O.G.; Sensitive, Moody, offensive, and Grumpy. The four dwarfs. We can listen to him for awhile, which this mood will appreciate; for it is the little bigger brother of Joe Smith who picks the fight and leaves the four dwarfs known as S.M.O.G to take care of his battles. He likes to air out all of Joe's dirty laundry, and some times he likes to trick you into believing its mine.
Tip! Depending on the school or individual training program, Coaching Certification for Natural Healing can be attained in a matter of a few hours or up to a year and a half. Employment possibilities for coaches include counseling business leaders, assisting in increasing personal career achievements, and personal life coaching.

Now Joe Smith is a man who likes hats and masquerades, but hates Halloween. Joe Smith can where the hard hat, fireman hat, Fedora, and policemen's hat. Which sometimes and sometimes not changes when he gets home; like Mr. Rogers changes his shoes and sweater. Joe Smith is your average mood that remains as long as you are calm. Even keel, paced (good or bad), content at the moment, and base line. Joe Smith should be an equal amount of King, hero, dreamer, and magician. The king coordinates and decides the actions to take. The magician creates the tools and gathers the information to accomplish those goals. The dreamer is the romantic that has the inspiration and love of life that influences the kings desires. The hero is the one who turns the dreamers desires into aspiration through the use of the magicians knowledge and tools to follow the King's orders. Ancient Jews believed God had four parts or positions made in the universe. He, God, was responsible for the idea, the Archangels the planning and diagrams, Angels the manufacturing and transportation, and Us the consumer and the end user. The President, Designers, craftsmen, and final consumer or the one who applies the idea. You are the one who gets to eat the ice cream cone. Also Joe Smith can either talk to others as a parent, a child, or another equal adult. But he will never talk to Mr. S.M.O.G. And the Dwarfs. When S.M.O.G. Comes out to play, Joe disappears and hides in some little corner in the brain and sits up from the floor covered in ju ju bees occasionally only to duck back down when Frankenstein is still on the screen. He disappears on regular frequency over a period of hours, days, weeks or month for S.M.O.G. To deal with all the stuff it does not want or can not face. Joe does not even admit S.M.O.G. exists in the unhealthy Smith. When this happens he at times is no better than Mr. Smith from the Matrix or the sleeper in the pod. Victim/aggressor or Aggressor/victim. "Who is the slayer, who is the victim, speak..." When the King, Hero, Magician, and Dreamer are balanced and happy we are (add your name here).
Tip! During an initial consultation I learned that Paul's priorities were spirituality and family. Using Life Coaching skills we quickly found out that although spiritual life and family were most important, more time and energy were in fact spent away from his family working in a stressful job that he no longer found satisfying.

Now with some people I can access any of these people in you. With some when S.M.O.G. Appears, I can get 4H to show up by slapping ones nose lightly or tapping another's forehead. The dilation and brightness of the eye will show the switch along with the mood change. But Joe Smith is the hardest to bring out at times. For him the only person that can access him is a little child.
Tip! You know what, the only people I know who search for terms like 'coaching' or 'life coaching' are..

The last personality is one Joe Smith uses as a fair weather friend when it suites or prospers him; 3H. 3H is Hedonistic, Hellenistic, and hung over. He promises the instant fix, the cure of the symptoms, and the reprications 3H grabs the bottle to forget about your problems. He is the trust me guy. He is Willie E coyote who keeps following his stomach even after the 400th time he falls off the cliff. He is the one leads us into the drunk cell or screams when the sun creaks in the window in the morning. He is the one who keeps the sleeper in his pod tuned out on t.V. He keeps us at work so we do not have to face our fear of self decision and direction. He finds it easier for others tell him what to do, so he can secretly do something contrary.

A Life Coach is a person who can get all these moods or personalities inside you to come to the table and ratify a treaty for prosperity, health, and happiness of your true Self. To introduce you once again to that little child within you and let him fly and grow up finally. So you can truly save your parents and raise healthy children of your own so our society will never vote another Bush or his like in office again. Or vote any one in to do anything we should be doing ourselves.
Tip! All of the sudden the barriers for individuals came tumbling down, now Life Coaching become aligned with human nature and everyone is happy to learn how to succeed and apply the principles themselves. But, with one major advantage, a Life Coach is still there for the individual if one is needed.

Come read other articles like this one at TheGuide or learn about an old cantankerous old man in the 20's and the pond he created. Come join the lifestyle @ Docspond

Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin has been a life coach for twenty years counseling people and propietor of his own Artistic company Norgeforge.

Developing a Marketing Mindset in Life Coaching: Part One

Most coaches get involved in coaching for one extremely compelling and valuable purpose - because they want to make a positive impact to the lives of others.

As a coach, the extent to which you are able to fulfil that objective is contingent upon two factors. Firstly, your skill and effectiveness as a coach; and secondly, on the number of clients you are able to affect through the application of your services. The purpose of this article is to focus on the second factor.

In the process of assisting people, it's also possible for coaches to develop a fruitful lifestyle for themselves along the way. In fact, these objectives are entirely complimentary.

Many business people, including coaches, fail to recognise the important ethical role that marketing plays in their business. In doing so they develop a mindset that is self defeating to themselves, their business, and their clients.

As a coach, you are in business. How effectively you operate your business is entirely contingent on you. There are enormously successful coaches (in terms of client numbers, income and coaching outcomes), and coaches that are barely able to etch out a living. The difference between these extremes is not their coaching competency, but rather their mindset. You may be an incredibly skilful coach, but unless you have people willing to use your services, your skills are of little to no value.

So what mindset does it take to be a successful coach?

A successful coaching mindset:

- Puts the needs of prospects and clients first;

- Actively seeks to assist clients attain their objectives;

- Is empathetic to the needs of clients and prospects;

- Doesn't limit the service offered to clients, and

- Acts as an ethical adviser.

It takes a Marketing Mindset to be a successful coach.

We regularly hear of coaches that feel as though marketing is ‘leading' and ‘unethical.' They feel as though it's too ‘salesy' and don't feel comfortable with it. For those coaches, we're going to explain why marketing is both ethically valid and commercially crucial.

Ethical Validity

There is an enormous (and growing) volume of people in society that would benefit from coaching services. Let's call these people prospective coaching clients, or prospects. These prospects have specific goals they'd like to achieve, or challenges they'd like to overcome, with a view to leading a better and more fulfilling life.

As a coach you have a certain duty of care to assist these people. You can only begin to assist them once they're utilising your services. Marketing is the link between the prospects desire and your ability to assist them fulfil their desire.
Tip! All of the sudden the barriers for individuals came tumbling down, now Life Coaching become aligned with human nature and everyone is happy to learn how to succeed and apply the principles themselves. But, with one major advantage, a Life Coach is still there for the individual if one is needed.

Marketing only becomes unethical in the circumstance that you are not able to fulfil your marketing promise to your client. In this instance you've misled your client, either knowingly or unknowingly, and have acted unethically.

On the premise that prospects will seek a coach to assist them attain their specific goals, it's the ethical obligation of coaches to help prospects select a coach that will best be able to assist them. To do this coaches should fully, comprehensively and transparently disclose to prospects what services they offer; where their specialties lie; what experience they have; how they've assisted people with similar desires in the past; and how using their services will benefit them. Or to state it more simply, to undertake marketing.

Commercially Crucial

Marketing is commercially crucial because it links prospects that desire a certain outcome with skilled professionals trained to assist them achieve that outcome. It identifies you as someone that may be able to assist prospects with their pre-qualified needs. By seeking out information on coaching services, prospects have already identified for themselves:

1. That there are certain things in their life they'd like to attain or challenges they'd like to overcome.
Tip! Because there are no universal standards for the life coaching profession, there are no universal standards for schools. Also, because well-paid coaches generally work in a niche, those niches are such that they are developed by the coach independently of any training they might receive.

2. That a coach is a person with the requisite skills and experience to assist them.

3. That they are willing to invest financially in the process.

The above is an extremely important point, and one that coaches need to accept.

As we explained earlier, coaches generally come from one of two schools of thought with respect to marketing.

The first school of thought perceives marketing to be ‘leading' and ‘salesy.' They come from the paradigm that by marketing you are proactively influencing someone in their decisions. Or specifically that you may make someone do something they would not otherwise do. We call this train of thought the Influencing Paradigm.

The second school of thought accepts that prospects are people that have identified for themselves their need to invoke change. And they've identified that a coach will assist them make that change. They recognise that the prospect has made the intellectual link between their needs and how they want those needs to be fulfilled. We call this train of thought the Service Paradigm.

The thought processes of these two perspectives are entirely dipolar. One positions the prospect as someone reluctantly influenced into utilising a service, and the other positions the prospect as a proactive individual capable of determining their needs that has actively sought out coaching services.
Tip! There are two options to successful implement the entire process of reflection and change, one being to undertake the task alone. The most efficient way is to follow the process and steps in the ‘A Life Coaching' Self Life Coaching guide as per link details above.

As a coach, it's critical that you put yourself in the second paradigm of thinking. Only then will you be able to ethically fulfil your objective of assisting your clients. And only then will you be able to fulfil your symbiotic goal of building a successful coaching business.
Tip! A Life Coaching http://www.alifecoaching.

By putting yourself in the Service Paradigm of thought you will recognise that to assist clients meet their objectives, you should:

- Actively promote your services through compelling advertising that clearly describes what you can offer clients.

- Understand that as a coach and a trusted advisor you are often in a better position of knowledge to ascertain your client needs to assist them attain their goals.

- Be empathetic to the needs of your clients and actively offer solutions to them through various products and services.

- Value your client's intellect and decision making ability.

- Do not pre-empt your client's wants and hence limit the range and scope of products and services you offer them.

- Always acts as an ethical adviser.

Once you embrace the Service Paradigm to marketing, you'll realise that marketing provides you with a much greater opportunity to fulfil your primary objectives - to assist your clients, and to build a successful coaching business. These objectives become complimentary and you create a truly win-win situation between the desires of your clients and your own desires.

In the second part of this article we'll provide you with further information on how to develop your Marketing Mindset and a Service Paradigm.
Tip! It started out as a simple idea - show the undoubted link between something as thoroughly modern as life coaching - and the wisdom of the ancient sages. After all - so many of the best coaching quotes are from hundreds or even thousands of years back.

While an individual would like to improve an aspect or certain aspects of their life so they can achieve a specific goal, or set of goals.

Life Coaching Institute is Australia's leading coach training organisation. Learn more about LCI coach training programs and receive a FREE GIFT at http://www.lcia.com.au/lz