Life Coaching

Life Coaching

Coaching is a highly individualized service that helps you reach personal goals intended to live your truest, fullest self. In addition to being a licensed Psychologist, I also work as a Life Coach. My approach to coaching is also informed by my broad diversity of experience. I work with engineers, managers, entrepreneurs, Christian leaders, medical doctors, and other professionals. I help clients deal with difficult co-workers, personal challenges, and dysfunctional work environment issues. I work with my clients to clarify and prioritize their goals and work through difficult situations. I work with individuals from across the country.

Comparing Individual Therapy and Coaching

While there are some similarities between coaching and psychotherapy, they are distinct disciplines. Psychotherapy is a healthcare service and is usually reimbursable through health insurance policies. This is not true for coaching, as it is focused on personal fulfillment and not mental health treatment. Both coaching and psychotherapy utilize knowledge of human behavior and the necessary motivation for behavioral change. They also both employ ample space for reflection and interactive counseling techniques. The major differences are in the goals, focus, and level of professional responsibility. Read on if you would like to learn more about the differences between these two valuable services.

The focus of coaching is the development and implementation of strategies to reach client-identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction. Coaching may address specific personal projects, life balance, job performance, and satisfaction, or general conditions in your life, health, or profession. Coaching utilizes personal strategic planning, values clarification, brainstorming, motivational counseling, and other counseling techniques.

Although therapy and coaching often utilize many of the same techniques, the primary focus areas of psychotherapy are identification, diagnosis, and treatment of mental and emotional issues. The goals of psychotherapy include alleviating symptoms, understanding the underlying dynamics which create symptoms, changing dysfunctional behaviors which are the result of these disorders, and developing new strategies for successfully coping with the psychological challenges which we all face.

Deeply exploring personal history gives psychotherapists a disproportionate power that creates a fiduciary responsibility to protect the safety of our clients and to “above all else, do no harm.” The relationship between us as coach and client is specifically designed to avoid the power differentials that can occur in the psychotherapy relationship. The relationship is designed to be more direct and challenging. You can count on me to be honest and straightforward, asking powerful questions and using challenging techniques to move you forward.

If you have a desire to make a change but have been unable to, then let’s work together. I work with individuals through challenging times, to help them live more fully and authentically as their best selves. Individuals often successfully work with me after struggling for years to change the barriers that keep them from their best lives.

My Coaching Specialty

I have a unique background that equips me personally to do coaching with business executives, entrepreneurs, and engineers – as well as other professionals. I worked in business consulting with the Boston Consulting Group. I also co-founded a venture capital-backed technology startup company in the Bay area, serving as its CFO for six years. My clients’ needs represent a combination of issues of personal and family life, management stresses, issues with problematic co-workers, and work-life balance – as well as the emotional and spiritual issues that face us all. Additionally - as a minister and frequent consultant to pastors - I also know the stresses of modern ministry and am familiar with the myriad of issues encountered in the organized church.

If this information sounds like I could be helpful to you, give me a call today and let’s set up a time to talk about how we can work together!