Letter to Prospective Clients

Dear prospective client,

It’s an honor to coach someone. I appreciate your interest, and offer this brief description of my approach to help you decide if coaching is right for you.

I have coached leaders for most of my career. My Presence-Based Coaching approach is unique in the field, and integrates somatics, mindfulness, integral psychology, and neuroscience within the context of a robust model of human development.  I have been certified by New Ventures West, and am currently a Master Somatic Coach with the prestigious Strozzi Institute, as well as certified by the International Coach Federation. Two influential books, The Mindful Coach, and Presence-Based Coaching outline my own coaching models and have been widely praised by leaders in the field.

Presence-Based Coaching uses concrete, real-world challenges and commitments as catalysts to develop specific new leadership competencies and capacities.  Along the way, you will build your leadership presence, resilience, and aliveness. Actions,  practices, and exercises designed specifically to you engage you with your world in new ways. You will  develop effective and creative responses that support your boldest commitments.

Many coaches focus solely on goal achievement, leaving clients dependent on the coach for motivation and structure. Presence-Based Coaching seeks to develop the whole person. We bring attention to your development as a whole leader, including cognitive, emotional, somatic, relational, creative, and spiritual domains.

The process begins with an exploration conversation in which we discover if we're a good fit. If we proceed, an intake process leads to jointly defined, competency-based outcomes for our work together. (A variety of other approaches including interviews, 360 reviews, and other instrumentation can be included if desired.) Outcomes can address a wide range of professional topics such as creating purposeful work, balancing conflicting demands and priorities, navigating political challenges, empowering others, and other specific leadership issues. Career and life changes, relationship challenges, and finding greater joy and fulfillment are also frequent coaching topics.

Once we agree on outcomes, I design a development program, unique to you, that includes self-observation exercises, practices and readings that require new ways of seeing and new actions in the world. We commit to this program for a fixed period of time, generally six to twelve months. Of course, real issues and problems serve as practice opportunities. We meet regularly by phone or in person to review what you’re learning and to refine the program.

In addition to the specific outcomes of your coaching program, you will learn to become increasingly self-generative. This means being able to respond with presence and creativity to challenging situations, as well as taking charge of your life-long development. At the end of our work together, we’ll plan how you can continue your development on your own.

Our work will generally include:

• Initial conversations and assessment.
• Joint development of coaching outcomes.
• A unique program of self-observation, exercises, reading, and practices.
• Robust, on-going conversation in the form of weekly or bi-weekly conversations, with virtually unlimited additional support by phone and email as requested by you.
• A password-protected website to organize session notes, messages, resource files, action items and practices.
• Mid- and end of program assessments against program outcomes.
• A plan for your on-going growth and development after the conclusion of coaching.

If this sounds like the right coaching approach for you, I invite you to call or email with your questions.  Thank you!