How I Started Life Coaching

Early one morning as a man walked along the beach, he saw an unusual scene. Thousands of starfish that had washed up on shore were dying in the sun. In the distance he noticed a young woman picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean, one at a time. When he came close enough to her to be heard above the waves he said, “You’re wasting your time. There are thousands of starfish along this beach front. You can’t possibly make a difference.”

She reached down, picked up a starfish, and gently threw it as far as she could, back into the sea. “I made a significant difference to that one, didn’t I?” as she reached down to pick up another.

That’s how I feel about being a Life Coach. Coaching works. One person at a time. One changed life at a time.  In 1998, I traveled from St. Paul, Minnesota to visit my married daughter in Chicago, Illinois. One evening, so she didn’t have to alter her plans, I agreed to go with her to a meeting of small business owners.

That night the speaker was a Personal and Professional Life coach. She talked about how life coaching helps people to live more effective and joyful lives. She discussed how people sabotage themselves and stay stuck. 
Then she asked us all several questions:

1. What is the benefit in not knowing about your sabotaging methods?
2. How do your “but, but, but” responses protect you–and from what?
3. What is the next most important step you need to take?
4. Are the excuses you tell yourself (and others) true?
5. And when one of the people in the group responded to a question with “I don’t know” she said, “What would your answer be if you did know.

I was fascinated. It’s like a voice inside me whispered, “This fits you, Joan.” While sitting there that day, I remembered the on-purpose statement God and I had been working on: I, Joan C. Webb, empowered by my growing friendship with the Triune God, help set people free.”

Soon after that serendipity meeting, I took coaches training and started with one client (I call each client a “coaching partner.”) Twelve years and hundreds of coaching hours later, I remain amazed about how the coaching process works. Life Coaching is a professional relationship that enhances the coachee’s ability to effectively focus on learning, making changes, achieving results and experiencing fulfillment–as the person God created him/her to be.

Have any of you experienced working with a Life Coach? What was it like for you?

Perhaps I’ll write more about the rewards of life coaching later.