How It Works
We start with what most coaching gets wrong, because that is exactly what this is designed to fix.
Why most coaching disappoints
Frankly, most coaches don't have much to offer beyond pep talks and "accountability" – making you feel bad if you don't do something "on schedule." They don't have the training or experience to do much else, and they are often passionately convinced that their own view of the world is the right one for everyone they work with.
Good coaching needs two things most coaching skips, and you need both. A real why, and a real how.
Take the why first. Most coaching stops at the surface answer – more money, less stress, a better job. Those answers are real, but they are not the bottom. Your search for why is not over until you reach the feeling behind the feeling, and then the feeling behind that, down to something person-defining – who you are and who you want to be. That bedrock is where the durable motivation lives, the kind that survives contact with the actual work. Most coaching never gets you there.
Then the how. Most coaching hands you a method – do it the way the coach does it, the way the testimonials did it, the way successful people supposedly all do it. It ain't worth a hill of beans if it is not the way you get things done. You are you, not those other people. A plan only works when it comes from you, built from the kinds of action you are actually drawn to follow through on, the ones congruent with your sense of self. Learning from others is a fine starting point, but you make real progress when that gives way to something more organically you.
The right why and the right how together are more powerful than any clever what. My focus is to help you find more you.
What happens in a session with me
What I do is listen closely to what you say and what you don't say, and then, with compassion and humor, I challenge the beliefs and assumptions I think are keeping you stuck. I bear witness to your feelings, and show you the common humanity in those feelings so you feel less alone. Paradoxically, our biggest problems are simultaneously achingly personal and not at all unique to us. In the history of the 117 billion people who have ever lived, none of us is the only one to ever face the emotional or intellectual challenges that press upon us. Details and combinations matter, but the themes that transcend them matter more. My goal is to help you arrive at a response as personal as the problem you are addressing, in part by seeing it as less personal, and in part by drawing on Zen, Stoic, and modern psychological ideas that have helped many, many others time and again. Personal answers to personal questions are the only answers that actually stick. But those distinctly personal answers are often found by considering what is universal in the human experience.
Most of our sessions go something like this. You describe what's going on. I ask questions that push on the parts of the picture that seem incomplete or assumed. Together we work toward a clearer view of what you actually want, what's actually in the way, and what you can actually do about it. Usually the doing is a specific action, or set of actions, that emerges from the conversation or from your thinking afterward, which you try out to see what it produces. Often the most powerful move is a change in perspective that transforms your whole relationship with the problem, which is valuable in itself and also clarifies which actions are worth taking and which current behaviors should stop.
Here is a compressed example from actual work with a client. A father came to me after his child came out as trans. Rather than telling him what to think or feel, or doing an archeological dig on everything that came before this moment, we worked through what this meant to him, what kind of relationship he had and wanted to have with his child, and what his next actions should reflect. He developed clarity within the context of his own feelings and values, which in this case evolved how he felt, and freed him to act toward his child in a way consistent with his values, even though that was hard. This was three sessions, not three years. That is how good coaching is supposed to work.
If you want to know who you would be doing this work with, my background and what shaped this approach are on About.
Coaching is not therapy
Coaching is not therapy, and I'm not a licensed therapist. Therapy does deep excavation of the past – it's the right tool when the past is actively running the present in ways that take clinical skill to untangle. Coaching works with where you are now and where you want to be. Sometimes that comes after, or alongside, therapy. Often it happens without it. I will tell you if I think therapy is indicated.
What you will not get from me
No one-size-fits-all template for life, and no arbitrary schedule you're expected to perform against. I won't impose external goals on you or make you feel bad about the variability we all encounter in our own progress. And there is no pressure to continue past the point where our work together is genuinely useful. I'm here for the customized work of seeing how your thoughts, feelings, and actions are helping or hindering the life you want to be living.
Logistics and cost
At the top level it's simple. If we decide to work together, we meet weekly over Zoom.
Whatever you bring is something that has been hard for you to solve until now, so it's reasonable to expect more than a session or two to make the progress you're after. At the same time, neither of us wants coaching to go on endlessly, nor should it. We both want to see improvement in weeks, not years, which is exactly what coaching is good for. Accordingly, I offer six-week, eight-week, and ten-week packages.
Many coaches charge upward of $3,000 for six sessions. (For business-oriented coaching it can be $15,000 or $20,000.) Do you want to pay $3,000 for six sessions? I don't. Because I'm retired and work over Zoom without the overhead of an office, I can keep this genuinely accessible. My package prices are $900 for six weeks, $1,200 for eight, and $1,500 for ten – roughly 70% below the going rate. If we are a great fit but the fee is too much for your circumstances, we can likely come to an arrangement.
I recommend most clients start with eight weeks. That gives you enough time to experiment and reflect, rather than rushing to implement things you haven't really made your own. Six weeks is a little tight for most concerns. Consider eight.
Let's talk
Zen is very interested in the present moment. You want the problem gone, and taking it on is oddly the scary part, isn't it? This present moment, the one you are in right now, is a good place to begin. The introductory call is free, there is no sales pressure, and no upselling – just a conversation to see whether we are a good fit.