I’m not sure how many people who follow this blog did not meet me through Changing Course. If you’re a Club member or on Valerie Young’s newsletter list, you already know about the Outside The Job Box Career Expert and Small Business Idea Consultant Self-Study Course. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click that link…but maybe wait until you finish reading this post!

It’s true confessions time, but I think I’ve already confessed this in pieces here and there. Two years ago I had started my therapy practice again, thinking it would be a great way to have a foundation to start a coaching business. Trust me, if you don’t already have a therapy practice, or you did in the past but don’t have an active practice, it’s an energy drain and will move you away from starting any other kind of business.

So at the end of 2006 I was finishing working with about three remaining foster care clients, looking forward to wrapping up my experimental return to being a therapist. I admire people who provide therapy for children, especially those in the custody of agencies like Child Protective Services, but I can’t be one of those therapists right now. Instead, I volunteer on the board and a committee at The Parenting Center in Fort Worth.

I was approaching my life backwards and sideways. I had decided to explore coaching because, in my quest to find a new business or new career after we sold our family’s child care and preschool center, I found myself getting excited by lots of different career change stories. For a long time I thought I was being fickle, getting excited about growing chocolate on Hawaii (who wouldn’t get excited about that?) or running a seasonal sailing excursion business in the Caribbean. Finally, I realized the recurring theme, the connecting point of my excitement, was how people found the courage to venture into the unknown, learn about their deepest values and passions, and bring their vision to life.

My backwards thinking slowed me down a bit so it took me a while to realize that helping people build self-awareness, develop their talents and interests, and make healthy changes in their lives was part of counseling. The problem was, it had been so long since I learned that in graduate school I had forgotten it, and the years of working as a therapist had blocked all the memories of other aspects to counseling.

When I looked for different types of counseling, I found it is overwhelmingly practiced as therapy. Counseling for personal development was hard to find. Little sparks of awareness helped me see that the approaches of coaching, which I had recently discovered, were very similar to the personal development model of counseling.

So coaching sounded like a great idea for me. Except the reason I wanted to help people by using my counseling skills was because I had counseling skills and thought it would be an easier transition. I keep clinging to my degree, my license, and my professional background like crutches when I know I can walk without them.

What I really wanted to do was help people find their vision, their calling, and bring it to life. Valerie has a business doing that, and part of her business is consulting with people on generating ideas, creating a plan, and making it happen. She first offered her training for other people to learn how to do this about two years ago. I was super excited! But when time came to sign up, I chickened out. I chose to join the Changing Course Club, then called the Fast Track program. It was a less expensive way for me to sample the process, hear from people who were in the program (they were club members and mentors as they went through training), and see if I had a knack for helping other people who are in the process of finding and transitioning to enjoyable work.

Three months into the club, I signed up for coach training through MentorCoach. I am greatly pleased that I did, and I value the skills and perspectives I developed during training and the support system of fellow students and graduates I now have. I will incorporate coaching skills in my life from now on.

But I realized coaching was a skill set to me, not a career. I still wanted to learn Valerie’s system for helping people figure out how they want their lives to be, including their work, and then planning steps to make it happen. So when she released the Self-Study Course I decided I would sign up.

Valerie surprised me, honored me, and humbled me (that’s no easy task, and it won’t last!) by asking me to help coordinate the members of the self-study group. Her previous training classes met by phone or in-person so they had ongoing connection. My challenge will be to keep people connected and interacting while they learn the material and decide how they want to design their own businesses.

How they want to design their own businesses. Oh, yes, I’m excited about that! I get to be an entrepreneurship advocate. That’s definitely one of the values that will define my business.

I have started my self-study course (just got it last week) and am already filled with anticipation. Valerie included several audios of actual consultations she has done, with transcripts and the clients’ responses to some exercises to help them discover their passions and identify elements they want to have in their lives. She spells out a process that is concrete enough to give guidance, but fluid and creative enough to adapt to very different individuals.

For me, Valerie’s process is the bridge. One “hole” in coaching I have routinely encountered is people aren’t sure what they want to do. In the coaching process, the focus is so strongly on action that the time for discovery is undervalued. Valerie’s process offers a guided way of helping people get clear about what they want to do, and then coaching picks up to help move them along once they’ve decided.

I believe this will be the core of the training process I want to include in my business for people who are just starting to wonder about changing their lives and changing their work. It helps me add another answer to my question, How will I work with my clients?

May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,

Steve Coxsey