The Coaching Process & Frequently Asked Questions What is coaching? / What does a coach do? How do the coaching sessions work? Who works with coaches? Why should I hire a coach... and how could I benefit? What is the investment? Is coaching right for me? Who will be my coach? WHAT IS COACHING? / WHAT DOES A COACH DO? The essence of Personal & Professional Enrichment Coaching is this: In reality, each of us has a unique purpose in life, the potential for greatness, and full opportunity to achieve our ultimate success. We're all discovering what we really want, how to step up to the next level of achievement and fulfillment in our life, and how best to fulfill our purpose. However, working alone is not the most effective way to accomplish that. We can accomplish what we want and need to more quickly and easily by having a coach who understands the process, who knows how to listen, who helps us focus our thoughts and efforts, and who can help us achieve positive results faster and more effectively. Just as a sports coach helps athletes attain their peak performance, a personal and professional coach can help you recognize and activate your dreams and visions, move from ideas to action, help you reach your full potential, and help you become the person you want to be. Coaching is a profession that has synthesized the best from mentoring, counseling, consulting, psychology, business, finance, communications, transformation, philosophy, and spirituality. Coaching is a type of consulting, and a coach helps you and/or your company to: Identify challenges and goals Make productive decisions Create solutions Design plans of action Implement the plans of action Reach goals A coach continues to work with you to: Implement the necessary changes and overcome the inevitable obstacles Maintain a healthy balance between your personal and professional life Create more productive choices and gain greater freedom Remain open and alert to create and take advantage of new opportunities Bring out your personal best, keeping focused on your needs, values and visions A coach helps you set better, higher, more tangible goals, assists and supports you in the process of making the tough decisions, and helps keep you accountable as you take the actions that will bring you the results you really desire. A coach helps you build the knowledge and belief base that creates the confidence to handle challenges and overcome obstacles that have kept you from achieving your personal and professional dreams. top of page HOW DO THE COACHING SESSIONS WORK? Personal and Professional Enrichment Coaching is a client-centered cooperative relationship. The general focus of each session is for the coach and the client -- through questioning, listening, probing, suggesting, assigning, and evaluating -- to help the client establish greater clarity, focus, and direction, and to provide support for the client to resolve specific situations, as well as to establish and achieve both short and long term personal, professional, and life goals and dreams. The coaching process begins with an initial assessment session by phone, utilizing information from a pre-completed client questionnaire, where the client and coach work together to identify the client's real values, priorities and goals. This fact-finding and visioning session, establishing what the client really hopes to get from the coaching experience and from the coach as a resource, usually lasts one hour. Following this initial assessment/discovery session, the coach and client then embark on an ongoing cooperative process of exploration and discovery. The typical coach-client relationship involves weekly 30 to 45 minute telephone sessions. (Sessions are held 4 times per month, usually scheduled at the same day and time each week. The client initiates each call, prepared with any specific issues to be addressed, as well as any assignments completed during the previous week.) In each session, we' will focus on one (occasionally more than one) area of your life where you'd like to experience change, growth and resolution, work to discover specific outcomes you want, what might be blocking those outcomes, and how to create the results you desire. Some of these information will be established during our phone conversations; other parts of the process will be established as you do weekly "homework" (personal assessments, worksheets, reading, and/or specific actions and exercises) on your own. Additional support will include updates, reminders, and encouragement by brief emails, and -- when necessary -- brief phone calls between session appointments. These are particularly valuable for overcoming short-term difficulties or sharing progress. Coaching can focus in all areas of your life, from handling your personal and family life to improving your business. What we work on depends on you. Whatever you choose to work on, the focus will be on how to bring out your personal best, discovering the beliefs and thoughts that limit you in realizing your full potential, keeping focused on your needs, values, and vision, and creating plans that help you to advance to a better life. For some examples of areas which you might choose to focus on during our coaching relationship and sessions, click here. top of page WHO WORKS WITH COACHES? Students, parents, professionals, and business owners. Individuals in transition -- including career changes, separation and divorce -- stay-at-home mothers returning to the workforce. Entrepreneurs ready to take their business to the next level. Visionaries and leading edge thinkers ready to manifest their genius. People seeking mental and physical and emotional and spiritual excellence, who want to fully participate of the party called life. All of these may use a coach to help them create, plan or accomplish personally and/or professionally. One of the primary things all "truly successful" people have in common is that they have coaches! They all have coaches or mentors who believe in them, guide them to discover their strengths, and challenge them to be more and to reach their true potential. They are the first to admit that, without their coaches and mentors, they would not be where they are today. For specific examples of coaching clients and why they choose to use coaching, click here. To read short quotes about coaching that have been published in U.S. magazines and newspapers, click here. To read an article Newsweek published about coaching, click here. top of page WHY SHOULD I HIRE A COACH, AND WHAT MIGHT BE THE BENEFITS? It really is OK to ask for help. In fact, it is a vital key that all truly successful people have learned. With that understood . . . Who do you turn to when you need answers? Who can you discuss your uncertainties, worries, doubts, concerns, hopes and dreams with? Talking to your work associates may be unfeasible...or even put you at risk. Friends and acquaintances may be concerned about offending you, so they tend to soften what they say, or tell you only what they think you want to hear. Family members, while well meaning, are often too emotionally involved to hear you clearly. They may bring their agenda to the situation. It is difficult for family and friends to resist giving advice, being judgmental or trying to talk you into or out of something. Your acquaintances, friends and family may have difficulty in relating to your dreams and desires...or of believing that you are capable of achieving them...especially if your aspirations are of greater than normal magnitude. Coaching is a great solution! Coaching works because you have someone you can confide in and get straight answers from. When you have a relationship where you can "tell the truth", you have a foundation for results. "Coaching is all about active listening, We all have spouses or significant others, friends, colleagues, or family, and they coach us sometimes. They're wonderful, and they want the very best for us, but the truth of the matter is they have an agenda, whether they know it or not. Whether it is a very positive one or a negative one, they have an agenda set around what it is that they're talking about with you. The coach has none. The coach creates this incredibly safe place. It is 100% confidential. No judgments are made about you because you can't clean your messy desk for two years, nobody is going to call you a terrible professional or make any judgments, and that's just absolutely incredible." -- Leta Beam Wherever you are in life, whatever level of success and accomplishment you have achieved, there is always a desire for more. More success, more money, closer relationships, a deeper feeling of meaning in life, an opportunity to express our life's purpose. It's in our nature to want to attain more, become more, be more...and we all have areas where we struggle with how to get what we're looking for. What are the benefits? A personal coach approaches you and your life with a new view. Coaches recognize that it takes courage and commitment to ask for their help, so clients aren't perceived as weak or incapable or victims. The coach sees the client as a strong, capable and competent person who simply needs some assistance in sorting things out, making plans, effectively implementing them, and successfully moving forward. Coaches concentrate on the future, on where do you want to go from here, and how to help you get there. A coach takes the time to find out what "winning in life" means to you, personally and professionally, then acts as a partner in encouraging and assisting you to live the life you want to live. A coach will challenge you, hold you accountable, and make sure you really do what you need to live up to your life's potential. Coaches work cooperatively with individuals who can use a fresh view, insightful suggestions A good coach will tell you what you need to hear...even when it isn't comfortable, and -- perhaps -- give a bit of a nudge (and sometimes an honest, caring push) to get the clients' lives moving in the directions that will make them happier, more abundant, and fulfilling. Even better, a coach will allow you to really listen to your better self. That's where the best advice comes from. To see The Coaching University's list "6 Benefits of Working With a Coach", click here. top of page WHAT IS THE INVESTMENT? The investment you need to make in a successful coaching relationship is more than just money. Your investment in coaching has three primary parts: 1) Time, 2) Effort & Action, and 3) Financial. 1) Time: In order for coaching to be beneficial, a commitment of your time is necessary. The first time commitment is to honor your promise to make each scheduled call, on time, without secondary distractions, and prepared to address the issues at hand. In order to be properly prepared to make the most of each call, it will be necessary for you to have spent some time during the previous week taking the actions determined in the previous call. The amount of time you spend in that action will depend on A) the scope of the project you are working on, B) the specific steps (reading, assessment, introspection, action steps, etc.) necessary to make the progress you desire, and C) the rate at which you choose to advance. 2) Effort & Action: New results in your life do not come from doing the same things you have been doing. New and improved results are the results of new and improved thoughts, new and improved habits, and new and improved actions. New results do not come without change, and change does not come without a willingness to expend the necessary effort. Depending on your particular needs and desires, part of your new development will include a combination of actions you will take. Some of these may be: research, study of pertinent materials, writing out of goals and vision statements, strategic planning, practice sessions, contact and communication with others, targeted actions for targeted results, thought exercises to be completed. Each of these steps will require a certain amount of effort. It will require some degree of discipline, and it may require you to give up -- either temporarily or permanently -- some of the actions or activities you now spend time with. this will not be because your coach demands these particular efforts or steps, but because they are essential to what you choose to accomplish. If you are unwilling to make the effort to make changes in your life, It may be challenging. It may be difficult at times. However, if you make the commitment and keep it, your compensation -- in terms of the growth and productive results in your life -- will be well worth your effort. 3) Financial: While certain issues may be able to be handled almost immediately, more meaningful and lasting results come over a period of time. In order to maximize your results, we ask for an initial commitment of three months, after which month-to-month or custom arrangements may be made if you choose to continue our coaching relationship. For our current fees for Personal & Professional Enrichment Coaching, please click here. If you have additional questions or would like a no-fee 20 minute phone consultation to discover how we might be of benefit to you, please email us at Coaching@rsvp4success.com. top of page IS COACHING RIGHT FOR ME? Are there times that you feel you are doing all you can, yet it simply isn't enough? Do you sometimes feel like you've been 'put on hold," wondering when you will finally get to truly enjoy your life? Have you ever wondered if you missed your true calling? Do you ever feel like time is running out on your chance to make your "secret" dreams a reality? Rest assured, you are not alone. Are you: * Ready to try something new...and more meaningful? * In a time of career transition or life transition? * Needing some extra self-confidence and the clear realization that you can succeed? * Filled with great ideas and passion, but lack the structure and focus required to move forward rapidly? * Wanting to find your "ideal career"? * Starting a small business? * Wanting to expand an existing business? If you are sincerely prepared to commit to the steps you would need to take, if you would like to finally bridge those gaps between where you are and where you want to be, and if you want to get those results more quickly than you would otherwise be able to, then a personal coaching relationship could be very productive for you. For key questions you can ask yourself to better understand if coaching might be right for you, click here. top of page WHO WILL BE MY COACH? Your choice of a coach is an important decision. Entering into a coaching relationship with a talented, trained and experienced professional is an empowering step in making rapid and dramatic progress in your life and in your career. Your personal and professional coach will be Grady L. Dobbs, who has over 30 years experience in developing people and directly assisting them in establishing their direction in life, in advancing and accelerating their careers, in improving their personal and professional results, in setting meaningful short-term goals and life-long purpose, and in enhancing quality and balance in their lives. His extensive background in coaching, speaking, teaching, training, sales, management, and owning and running businesses gives him an exceptional ability to offer meaningful assistance in almost any area of your life. Just as important, his 40+ years of extensive research, study, and training in human potential, management, philosophy, spirituality, psychology, stress control and counseling provide him with a foundation that assures you professional and caring guidance and support. For a personal message from Grady about his coaching, please click here. If you have additional questions or would like a no-fee 20 minute phone consultation to discover how we might be of benefit to you, please email us at Coaching@rsvp4success.com. [Go To RSVP Home]-------- or -------- [Go to top of page]