I recently had a prospective client ask, "Tell me...how does 'coaching' differ from a friendly chat?"   Her question was a good one, and I want to share my answer to her.

"Coaching can often feel like a friendly chat. In fact in my mind it should have a certain level of comfort for client and coach as well. If you have a friend who can help you sort through life decisions and issues with little or no personal bias and well- intentioned opinions, who can focus their attention entirely on you and what you hope to achieve in your life, who will champion and cheer for you both when you accomplish something great and more importantly when you feel like you've failed, who will help you discover the answers and power that lies within you, then you have a marvelous friend and probably don't need a coach."

Coaching is a partnership in which client and coach come together to discover and forward the client's goals and desires for her/his life. In co-active coaching, my role as coach is not to tell the client what to do and lay out a plan for how they're going to do it. Rather, coactive coaching assumes that you already have your own answers and the coaching process is in part about helping you to uncover them.

People come to coaching for a variety of reasons:

• Maybe there's an area in your life where you feel stuck and want to discover how to get "unstuck" and move forward.
• Things may be going well, but you really need an extra nudge to move from good to really good (even to great!) You are looking for a champion, a motivator to help you get to the next level.
• A person may be in transition-changing careers, changing relationships, recovering from illness or loss.