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Coaching is a relatively new field, focused on helping
individuals identify their vision and goals, create a plan, and then put that
plan into action. It is a supportive relationship between the coach and client,
with a primary focus on clients achieving their goals, solving problems and
getting the best out of themselves and their opportunities. A coach is
devoted to the client's success, both personally and financially, and sometimes
acts as a sounding board, mentor, and at times, a challenger. Coaching often
takes place over the phone, although many coaches also work in person or even
via email.
People approach coaches for various reasons, including business
concerns, self confidence issues, to get in shape, family and relationship
issues, and when their lives are in transition. Coaching helps people achieve
their goals much faster than going it alone. People who are coached often go
much further towards a bigger vision than they would have on their own. Simply
put, coaching can accelerates ones personal and financial growth process.
Following is a brief excerpt about coaching from Fortune
Magazine:
"Coaching in its present form began in the 1980s.Thomas J.
Leonard, a financial planner in Seattle, was trying to help some yuppie
clients figure out what to do with their six-figure salaries and realized that
they needed more than just the traditional tax and investment advice. He asked
them if they wanted to talk more broadly about life issues, "and they
jumped at it," he recalls. "They had no emotional problems; they
didn't need to see a therapist. They wanted to brainstorm," he says.
Leonard gave up his financial planning practice and began
full-time "life planning" a couple of years later. At some point, one of his
clients suggested that he call it coaching. By the late 1980s he was training
others to coach. "I had an inkling there was something interesting and powerful
about this idea, he says." -Fortune Magazine, .2000
Various comments about coaching:
Business Coaching is attracting America's top CEO's because,
put simply, business coaching works. In fact, when "asked for a
conservative estimate of the monetary payoff from the coaching they
got...managers described an average return of more than $100,000, or about six
times what the coaching had cost their companies." Fortune, 2/19/01,
"Executive Coaching -- With Returns a CFO Could Love"
"A coach may be the guardian angel you need to rev up your
career" MONEY Magazine
"Across corporate America, coaching sessions at many
companies have become as routine for executives as budget forecasts and quota
meetings." INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY
"Executive coaches are not for the meek. They're for people
who value unambiguous feedback. All coaches have one thing in common; it's that
they are ruthlessly results-oriented." FAST COMPANY Magazine
"I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never
reach their full potential" --Bob Nardelli, CEO, Home Depot
"I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching
process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an
individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously
thought unsolvable," John Russell, Managing Director,
Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd
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