Cheering you on
Personal coaches help clients decide what they want out of life and how they can get it. Happy customers say the investment pays off.
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published July 27, 2004
What could be easier than retirement, right? Sleep late and play golf every day - just what you dreamed of all those years you were putting in your 40 hours every week.
But for many retirees, it's not enough. "When you get to the point where you don't want to play golf one more time, then what do you do?" Maureen Stafford says.
When Stafford, chief executive of Staffordshire Properties, a St. Petersburg real estate development company, started thinking about retirement, she knew she wanted more. "I needed guidance on how to focus," she says, so she turned to a personal coach, Andrea Henning of St. Petersburg.
"I got way more than I was looking for," says Stafford, 54.
"The coaching really focused on the quality of my retirement. Not the finances; it was sitting back and looking at my life after retirement, at my heart's desires that were unfulfilled and how to achieve them."
Alice Costanzo, 61, is another of Henning's clients. After she and her husband, Vincent, 58, went to a group coaching session, she says, "I was astonished at the insights, at the things to think about.
"There's excitement out there. We forget that. We think that's just for the young. No, it's not."
Coaching moved beyond sports in the 1980s and '90s as the business world began using coaches to train employees and managers. Just as athletic coaches helped to hone players' skills and strengthen teamwork, professional coaches worked in every kind of business setting to help people define and achieve goals.
A newer wrinkle in coaching is personal coaching, also called life or transition coaching. Life coaches work with individuals or couples and focus on relationships and personal goals.
Henning worked as an executive coach for 15 years. She helped companies solve many business problems, she says, but didn't feel satisfied with the long-term effects on her coaching clients.
"They would get really excited, say they were going to make changes in their lives. But the light would go out in about two weeks. I realized it was because the kind of coaching I was doing was not connected to what makes them tick.
"I wanted to help people live better lives."
So she started her own business, Being Authentic, about a year ago. Most of her clients are between the ages of 40 and 70, although they have been as young as 18 and as old as 85.
She still does some business coaching, but Henning specializes as a life transition coach for clients who are retired or planning to retire.
Coaching should not be confused with therapy, she says. "People should come to coaching not when they need to be fixed but when they want to do better."
Coaching is for people whose lives are basically good but who feel a need to make a change. The first step in the process is usually a free phone coaching session, then she helps clients define their goals.
Henning uses an assessment program that evaluates each client's satisfaction with six "life arenas": family, relationships, health, spiritual, career and leisure. (If clients need financial coaching, she can refer them.)
The assessment helps her tailor the coaching to the client's needs. "Everyone's values are different. You have to take a look at how you're living and ask, how is this honoring your life purpose, your values?" she says.
To discover those values, she asks clients to describe the five most significant events in their lives. "They're unique to each person. People have mentioned childhood stories, sports, holidays, family. Very rarely does work enter the picture."
Once goals are set, the coaching process usually goes on for three to six months, with three sessions of 45 minutes each per month. Henning does almost all her coaching on the phone.
"What I discovered is that there is safety in anonymity. People feel less threatened. No judgment is associated with a phone line.
"On the phone, they speak from the heart. Sometimes I can hear a difference between the voice and the content, and I can continue to drill down."
Coaching also includes homework. "Often homework is an inquiry. What are you tolerating in life? When people really look at that, they say, "Look at how much I'm not doing because of what I'm tolerating.' "
Personal coaches encourage and teach their clients, but they also require the client to achieve the goals they set. Henning says, "Coaching is so powerful because it's a person who is going to hold you accountable."
Life coaching has exploded in popularity over the past five years, but potential clients should be careful when choosing whom to work with, Henning says. "Before you hire a coach, look at her credentials. Coaching is an unregulated profession."
Because no laws regulate licensing or credentials, anyone can hang out a shingle as a coach.
The coaching industry has created its own regulating body, the International Coach Federation, to set guidelines and train coaches. It has more than 6,000 members and 14 chapters in 30 countries.
"There are about 200 coaching schools in the United States," Henning says, "but only about 10 are accredited by the ICF."
Henning took 116 hours of training through the Coaches Training Institute, plus additional training in retirement coaching.
Daniel Martinage is the executive director of the International Coach Federation, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. He says that although the nonprofit organization doesn't formally track various types of coaching, retirement coaching is a growing niche.
"It fits very nicely into the idea of coaching for transitions in life," he says.
Retirees looking for a coach should interview several and ask for a trial session. "It's important to know how you two mix."
Rediscovered dreamsCosts for life coaching vary from about $200 to $750 per month, depending on the type of coaching and number of sessions.
Henning's client Stafford says coaching was well worth her investment in it. "What I got was her absolute undivided attention focused on my future."
Stafford, who is "partially retired," says she was financially prepared but had not really focused on what she wanted to do with her time.
"What I was looking for was what you might get from a kindly aunt, a grandmother, a good friend who knew me well, who could listen to me and say, "Here's what you're really saying, and here's what you're doing.' "
For her, phone coaching worked well. "It was the dialogue that was important for me. It was very convenient, very effective to do it on the phone."
Henning helped her focus on several goals, such as spending more time with her family. "You think you can't wait for your children to grow up and leave, and then you find yourself with that empty nest. Now I'm asking: How I can bring my children back into my life more in a healthy way, in a way that will help them?"
Henning also uncovered one of those heart's desires for her. "I realized I had a very deep desire to do volunteer work and community service. She helped me figure out how I could manage my retirement funding to be able to do that."
Alice and Vincent Costanzo retired recently to the Villages, near Ocala. She had been a secretary and he was a fire marshal in Patchogue, N.Y.
Alice Costanzo says, "When you retire, you just sort of settle down and think about how much money you have, whether it's enough for you to live decently. You don't think much about goals and dreams."
A friend invited the couple to a group coaching session with Henning. "I have to be honest with you, I figured we'll go, we'll listen, it will just be the usual whatever.
"We left the class and my husband said, "Wow. This is really good stuff.' "
Costanzo says she was surprised by the range of topics covered. "She talked about the stress factor, the fear factor. Guilt over children, that's a big one. One biggie was regrets. She got you to think about them, but then she talked you through into the present."
She says everyone in the group discovered goals they could pursue to enrich their lives. One woman talked about how an old hobby, knitting, could become a way of doing volunteer service by making blankets for a local hospital.
Another woman recalled her joy in painting years ago and vowed to take it up again. "She wasn't a Picasso or anything like that, she just got joy from putting paint on canvas, and she hadn't thought of it for 20 years."
The biggest change in her own life, Costanzo says, has been "basic self-caring. She talked about, have you thought about a moderately healthy diet, have you thought about exercise? It doesn't have to be punishment. I'm taking better care of myself, and I think of others in turn."
After going to four group sessions, Costanzo says she would "absolutely" recommend coaching to friends.
"I would do it again, to keep it fresh in my mind, to keep energized. I've never felt this way before.
"Because of Andrea and what she talked about, I really came around to thinking that these could be the best years of my life."
- Colette Bancroft can be reached at 727 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com
Tips for choosing a personal coachEducate yourself about what coaching can do. Read articles and check out coaching Web sites. If possible, talk to friends and family members who have worked with coaches.
Define your objectives for working with a coach. Do you want to work on personal goals, family relationships, time management? Remember that coaching is not therapy, and be sure you understand the difference and know which one you need.
Interview several coaches before choosing one. Ask about their qualifications and experience. Try a sample session. Ask for at least two references.
Know what you want in a coach. Coaching is an intensely personal relationship, so if you prefer a person of a certain age, gender or personal style, it's important to find a match. You should feel a sense of connection with your coach.
- Sources: International Coach Federation, Coaches Training Institute
For more information
International Coach FederationThe coaching profession's regulatory organization also has a coach referral service.
coachfederation.org
1-888-423-3131
Coach Inc.This organization includes Coach U, which trains business and personal coaches, as well as information on finding a coach.
1-800-482-6224
Being Authentic (Andrea Henning)beingauthentic.com
1-877-469-7284
Tampa Bay Professional Coaching AssociationThe group's Web site has a list of coaches in the Tampa Bay area.