How It Works
We start with what most coaching gets wrong, because that is exactly what this is designed to fix.
Why most coaching doesn't work
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, because you need these two things: 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, a better relationship with a certain person, or with yourself. Those answers are real, and valuable, but they aren't even trying to be a why. They're just a what.
What is never what motivates us. Why we want that particular what is where motivation lives. Your search for why does not end with "to make more money". It ends with something closer to "to feel secure and have more freedom". And it does not end there either, but with something closer to why, of all the challenges that different people take on, why is that especially important for you at this moment in your life. Your search for why does not end with "to not get angry every time x happens", or "to have a better relationship with a certain person", but with something closer to of all the things happening in your life, if you don't have this, what exactly is it that you don't have, and why does that matter to you.
The feeling under the feeling is bedrock that even the most pragmatic what rests upon. And that is where durable motivation lives, the kind that survives contact with the actual work of seeing things a bit differently, trying things out, finding what works, and doing it until it works. Most coaching never gets you there.
Now let's look at the how.
Coaches are famous for handing you their One True Method
The right why and the right how working together are more powerful than anyone's do-what-I-say action plan. My focus is to help you find more you.
How we make it work together
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 thoughts and feelings, and help you arrive at a response as personal as the problem you are facing. Personal answers to personal questions are the only answers that actually stick.
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 small set of actions that emerges from the conversation or from your thinking afterward, which you try out and see what that produces. Often the most powerful move is a change in perspective that transforms your whole relationship with the problem, freeing up better ways of responding to it.
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 to produce what he currently thought and felt, 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 and his love, even though that was initially difficult. This was a few sessions, not a few 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 am 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.
Normal coaching impositions you will not get from me
No "masterclass" that is really just an advertisement, and not a class at all. 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
If we decide to work together, we meet weekly over Zoom.
Whatever you bring to discuss 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.
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
You want the problem gone, but taking it on is oddly scary and uncomfortable, isn't it? Zen is very interested in the present moment. 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.