Business coaching is the practice of providing positive support and feedback while offering advice and strategies to an individual or group in order to help them recognize ways in which they can improve the effectiveness of their business. Coaching is an excellent way to attain a certain work behavior that will improve leadership, employee accountability, teamwork, sales, communication, goal setting, strategic planning and more.

Personal coaching is a relationship that is designed and defined in an agreement between a client and a coach. It is based on the client's expressed interests, goals and objectives.

A professional coach may use inquiry, reflection, requests and discussion to help clients identify personal and/or business and/or relationship goals, develop strategies, relationships and action plans intended to achieve those goals. A coach provides a place for clients to be held accountable to themselves by monitoring the clients' progress towards implementation of their action plans. Together they evolve and modify the plan to best suit the client's needs and environmental relationships. Coaches often act as human mirrors for clients by sharing outside and unbiased perspectives. Coaches may teach specific insights and skills to empower the client toward their goals.

Coaching is not counseling or therapy.

Through the coaching partnership, personal responsibility and motivation to reach desired outcomes/goals is elicited to determine where attention has been "now" and to determine what the business or individual is willing to do to close the gap to get what they want in the future.

Through coaching and support, skill-sets are enhanced, personal investment and mindset are established to support accelerated results and lasting significance. Staying at "cause" is the main supporting goal of achieving all "outcomes" hence our approach.

Since change and transition are a natural part of "the human condition" and change, transition, and resulting circumstances sometimes put individuals and businesses at effect in life, coaching offers an objective assessment with thoughtful feedback that pulls out strengths, and core aspirations to empower individuals / teams to radically transform their lives and career.

Business and life consulting / coaching can be combined as long as you can bridge the two together or you simply keep them parallel, supporting the goals of each.

We use NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)… a cutting-edge, behavioral technology, with a defined set of guiding principles, attitudes, and techniques about real-life behavior. It allows you to change, adopt or eliminate behaviors, as you desire, and gives you the ability to choose your mental, emotional, and physical states of well-being.

WHAT IS NLP?

One of the foremost authorities on NLP, Robert Dilts, explains:

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a name that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interface and communicate with other people and our programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create. Neuro-Linguistic Programming describes the fundamental dynamics between mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay affects our body and behavior (programming).

NLP is a pragmatic school of thought - that addresses the many levels involved in being human. NLP is a multi-dimensional process that involves the development of behavioral competence and flexibility, but also involves strategic thinking and an understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind behavior. NLP provides tools and skills for the development of states of individual excellence, but it also establishes a system of empowering beliefs and presuppositions about what human beings are, what communication is and what the process of change is all about. At another level, NLP is about self-discovery, exploring identity and mission. It also provides a framework for understanding and relating to the 'spiritual' part of human experience that reaches beyond us as individuals to our family, community and global systems. NLP is not only about competence and excellence; it is about wisdom and vision.

WHAT IS COACHING?

The terms Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Career Coaching and Personal Coaching all refer to a process of helping normal or high functioning people achieve their full potential. Coaching may be applied to work related or personal goals and may be used with an individual or with a group of people working as a team.

TYPICAL COACHING GOALS: WHAT IS ACCOMPLISHED IN COACHING SESSIONS?

Positive goals for improvement may be professional, career, education or work related. Goals may be to improve work performance or to expand upon or make changes in career or profession. Goals may also be personal, life style or quality of life related. Coaching is focused upon heightening ability to achieve potential, to promote optimal level of functioning and to enhance the effective application of motivation to achieve specific goals.

WHAT DOES THE COACH DO?

Coaching is a cooperative and interactive effort. The professional coach evaluates, clarifies, challenges and supports a client in actions to achieve performance goals and to achieve greater satisfaction in work related and/or personal related areas of life.

WHAT ARE THE INITIAL STEPS TAKEN IN COACHING?

WHY USE A COACH?

If we think about the role of a coach in sports it helps to clarify what a life coach may offer. A world-class athlete already has the talent and skill to compete in the top echelon of his or her sport. Why would such a supremely talented athlete need to have a coach? Because top athletes know a coach can help them identify certain training or performance actions that will help them achieve up to their maximum potential. The coach helps the athlete make full and efficient use of his or her talent and skills. A similar principle is involved in Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Career Coaching or Business Coaching.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COACHING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY?

Psychotherapy is a method of treatment for symptoms of emotional disturbance, such as anxiety, depression, panic attacks, obsessions or compulsions. Treatment may be directed at the overt expression of the symptom or it may include exploring personal family and history information in order to determine the cause of the symptom. It involves dealing with mental or emotional suffering, or dysfunction, internal conflicts, and psychodynamics. It is usually conducted in face-to-face meetings in the office of a psychologist, typically for 1 hour weekly sessions. Treatment is directed at a diagnosable mental or emotional disturbance and is often covered as a benefit under a medical insurance plan. We refer all of these clients out.

In Coaching, we are not addressing symptoms of an emotional disturbance. We are working with healthy, well functioning individuals who want to improve and expand upon their level of functioning rather than upon treatment of an emotional disturbance. It is future oriented, progress oriented and action oriented. The basic assumption in coaching is that an achievement oriented person wants to function at a higher level, to be more effective and to make positive changes in his or her life.

HOW DOES COACHING WORK?

Coaching is a way of helping a person expand upon his or her perception of new possibilities and thereby upon an awareness of freedom to make choices. The coach does not tell people what to do, but helps them define the changes they want to make and the goals they want to achieve. It helps them take the step from wishing, yearning and hoping to actually taking practical steps in a realistic, productive way. Coaching focuses upon future possibilities; not past mistakes. It enhances a new learning process and implements effective action through a deliberate process of observation, inquiry, dialog, and discovery. It helps a person recognize and draw upon their strengths and under-utilized psychological resources and to overcome limitations, frustration and disappointment.

HOW IS COACHING CONDUCTED?

Because the coach is dealing with someone who is psychologically healthy, there are practical options to face-to-face sessions. Coaching is often conducted with clients by means of telephone conferences. Because of the well defined and circumscribed nature of the goals and because of the cooperative interactive nature of the coaching procedure, this process can be effective using periodic consultations of typically 60 to 90 minutes.

Contact us today to schedule a free 1-hour consultation.

Joel Smith	702.544.9907	joel@mindsetdynamics.com
Jan O’Brien	702.858.9191	jan@mindsetdynamics.com