A great deal of people come to see me for money management. But let’s stop beating around the bush here. We all know what “money management” is: it’s wealth building!
As you know from listening to my radio show GluckRadio.com, I’m an avowed capitalist. I have no guilt in making money and helping my clients make more money than they already have. It’s the American way.
For the last 35 years I’ve been in practice, people have been answering the same question on their Client Intake Forms: “What would you like to achieve?” Before anything else, people write one thing and one thing only, and that’s ‘confidence.’
While no one explicitly comes to see me for “confidence boosting,” people do come to me to treat specific issues like drug addiction or weight loss.
So why are they writing confidence on their forms? How does one achieve that?
For those suffering from depression it can feel like you are the only person in the world experiencing these intense feelings of loneliness, isolation, and extreme sadness. It’s like being trapped at the bottom of an empty well with no one around to pull you out. Well, that’s not true. I’m there, reaching out a hand and promising you that I can help bring light and joy into your life once more.
For a lot of educators and coaches, the proof is in the pudding. If you are a barber, your hair has to look good. If you help businesses with their Google rankings, your business better be on page 1 of Google. But for other industries and skill sets, there does not need to be such a direct correlation between the teacher’s accomplishments and the subject he/she teaches.
An English professor does not need to have a Pulitzer to inspire great literary talents (nor can all literary geniuses teach!), the Yankees hitting coach doesn’t have to be an Alex Rodriguez to help Alex Rodriguez, and a life coach doesn’t have to be the father of four doctors, thirteen grandchildren; have financial success, cultural finesse, sexual intrigue, and a clean-record marriage; be faithful; and have a great rack of teeth.
No…A life coach does not give you some magic formula for the complete and perfect life. I don’t make miracles (but I make you feel miraculous). What I do as a life coach is analyze your current predicaments and pull from all potential resources to remedy those issues.
It’s piecemeal, it’s practical, and it works. A lot of people come to me thinking they need to get their life on track when really, all they need is an outside pair of eyes to see that the issue is really about a handful of very unsettling issues. While it might feel like a snowball effect, in reality, it’s a fixable set of problems.
So what does a life coach need? A life coach first needs a very good eye for the problems that affect people. He/She needs to know that one person’s unhappiness, based on the given information, might be work related and another might be relationship related. They need to be attuned and have the background and skill to pick a part the problem(s) in detail. Secondly, they need to help unmask the resources available to the client. Thirdly, and most importantly, they need to prescribe ways to implement changes based on these resources.
So redefine life coaching before you define your life coach. It will help a lot.
A lot of times you’ll hear a life coach or conflict mediator talk about getting someone on “the right track.” I never was particularly fond of this term because there is not just one right track, but many possible tracks that could be right for you.
There are many avenues on which we can find happiness; we are forever at the foot of thousands of different trails which lead to thousands more. Life can go in so many different directions that it makes the notions of “right track”/”wrong track” almost irrelevant.