We use a map to tell us where we are and where we could go. We use a compass to navigate toward our destination. We use a torch to illuminate our paths when the going gets dark. Coaching is having a map, a compass, and a torch with you on your adventure called life.

Having been both a coach and a coachee for over a decade, I’ve been able to both experience and witness the effects of coaching, and I believe it is a powerful and unique relationship that transforms lives.

The first step is to look deep down. Together, we uncover your values, your beliefs, your mindset, what makes you tick… in other words, we honor your truest nature, your being.

Then we look up. We gaze at the height of your goals, your dreams. We inquire and investigate with wonder and openness, we give them form and color.

Then, we look forward. We integrate what we’ve learned about your being and your dreams into your actions. We cultivate a mindset and forge commitments for your path ahead. We put it all together and keep building your path forward with clarity, intention, and kindness.

Because it helps to get ourselves see the bigger picture, get unstuck and make wiser and kinder decisions.

I believe that we each have all the insights, intuition, and resourcefulness necessary to making wise and kind decisions in every aspect of life. But we don’t always make decisions that way, do we? Why not? I think it is because we get stuck, confused, or distracted, sometimes all three.

When we do, we need aides to shift our perspectives and get ourselves unstuck so that we can get back on track.

Over time, coaching has set me free from so many stuck moments in business and in life.It enabled me to think more holistically, more inclusively, and to let go of the minutiae. It helped me act in greater harmony with my values, to tap into both my intuition and intellect more fluidly, and to be more present with myself and people around me.

Despite all that is happening – especially since covid – I have been able to regain focus, clarity, and dedication to my path time and again due to coaching: both by being a coachee and a coach.

Think of our coaching time together as a wilderness exploration trip. We are going into what we call your “inner wilderness” to uncover your truest nature. My role as a coach is to help you explore and empower you to uncover insights from within you. Your role is to show up, be authentically as you are, and be willing to explore.

During our time together, we create a safe, judgement-free space within which you get to be curious, to think, to feel, to inquire, and most importantly – uncover. I will ask questions to enable you to get deeper. There will be times when I notice your wish to challenge yourself to go somewhere new, but may be reluctant to leave your comfort zone. Whenever that happens, I will empower you to get there.

You won’t come away from every coaching session feeling inspired, relieved, or even comfortable. But you will often come away changed. Typically my coachees come away from our sessions with some of the following things: new insights that they’ll apply immediately, a deep, chewy question to ponder over, or newfound commitment to an action they had previously lacked conviction to do.

I bring my truest and best self to our coaching relationship, and I ask that you do the same.

The Dalai Lama once said, “If I think of you as somehow different from me, if I think that I’m Tibetan, I’m Buddhist, an Easterner, I’m a monk or even something grand like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this kind of thinking automatically creates a gap between us. It results in a sense of unease. On the other hand, if I consider you as another human being, just like me, then that source of anxiety disappears.”

I see our coaching relationship in the same way the Dalai Lama sees human relationships. Just because I play the role of a coach, it doesn’t make me superior or inferior. I am here with you, as another human being, willing to listen, to be curious about you, and to coach. Both my father and my partner had said to me that most people would take multiple lifetimes to gain the diversity of experiences that I have gained in my life so far. It is my humble hope that through those experiences we discover the humanity that we share and uphold together.

Before I worked with a coach, I had the same question myself. I have been to therapy for years, received mentorship and served as a mentor, and am fortunate to have a great community of close friends with which to share my ups and downs.

It’s true – coaching shares several aspects of these other powerful relationships; they’re all relationships that are built on attention, empathy, and the unwavering trust that we have our counterparts’ best interest in mind.

The difference is that coaching focuses on unearthing insights and instilling accountability with the purpose of helping the coachee build a fulfilling life, through an equal-level relationship that is free from conflicting interests. Therapy and counseling typically focus on healing past traumas and developing coping skills. Mentorship is associated with a professional skill or trade and connotes seniority. Advisors create and deliver their own insights to the advisee. Close friends have vested mutual interest that can sometimes be in conflict with your independent growth.

A coach is most similar to a sherpa, or a mountain guide, whose role isn’t to climb the mountain for the adventurer, but to enable and empower the adventurer to climb it themselves.