Life Coach
Why Life Coaching Works
The best life coach will help you embrace your role as the sole cog able to set things in motion in your life and overcome difficulty and distraction to create the life you want to lead while also mitigating the effects of internal and outside criticism, doubt, derision or negativity. I am that coach.
Coaching empowers you to seek answers from within and take ownership of problems and challenges you may have consciously or subconsciously determined to be too overwhelming or difficult to access or act on with the consistency and effectiveness necessary to produce the desired long-term results. With the help of a coach you can realize your true potential in any number of areas through this “ownership” process. In this way, successful coaching results in your ability to extend what you learn throughout the process into your personal and professional life well beyond those initial 6 coaching sessions. It is truly the most important investment you can make.
Coaching, when done effectively, works in different ways for different people. Some clients thrive when provided with the real accountability coaching provides – having to show up and report on the effectiveness of the exercises, assignments or tasks assigned in the previous session. I keep my clients engaged through a motivational text or email, making sure they stay on track. Most clients will be looking to achieve specific goals or overcome nagging obstacles, but may have alternate learning modes or respond completely differently to “tried and true” coaching techniques. I customize every behavioral tool, communication technique or habit formation strategy to each client, factoring in their learning style and comfort level. This client may perform better with a pat on the back, that client a metaphorical kick in the ass. Pats on the back and kicks in the ass provided as required. The reason coaching works, is that the best coaches treat each client individually, calculating their acceptance of or resistance to certain forms of learning or coaching and developing customized, responsive and creative solutions that factor in the individual’s personality, motivational needs, comfort level, potential pain points, persistent blocks and additional resources or skills required to break through. I am that coach.
Two Types of Coaching
There are two primary types of coaching: performance coaching where I hone in on sharpening a person’s execution of a given job or task, for example coaching someone’s sales performance, whereas development coaching concerns itself with developing the individual, improving the way they think and address different situations in their personal and professional realms. The two often overlap, but the distinctions are important. If we use the example above, I can coach someone to exceptional sales results using performance coaching techniques and also teach them to better handle rejection in a sales career through development coaching.
Clients I help
My life coaching clients come from all walks of life, seeking all kinds of different things. I coach high-performing Wall Streeters, entrepreneurs and C-level executives struggling through a plateau. My small business clients often need help with their marketing campaigns or web content. I’m a peerless copywriter, on par with the top “Big 6” ad agency scribes. I coach transitioning college grads, moms returning to work and nine-to-fivers seeking a more lucrative or meaningful career. I am a resume genius. I coach women, men and couples having relationship troubles. I coach busy professionals on how to achieve a better work / life balance. I help people of all ages find their dating confidence. I teach dating fundamentals and totally revamp online profiles. Other clients need help managing difficult family relationships. A number of my clients come to me for coaching that helps them lose weight, improve their body image and acquire a permanent physical fitness regimen. Some of my clients come to resolve stress, overeating or an addiction to cigarettes or alcohol. Many of my clients seek help with a number of things above – and many other issues too numerous to list.
How I help them
How did coaching help the clients mentioned above? Well listening is one hell of a start, for sure. I listen closely to the various goals and challenges my clients present, peeling back the onion, not in therapy terms of digging up the past, but tracing back the tangled roots that lead to underwhelming, problematic or unsuccessful outcomes. Often, the presenting problem or obstacle (in the path of continued progress or success) as conveyed in an initial session turns out to be a red herring, and the underlying issue is actually something quite different than the client may have imagined. In coaching, as in opposed to therapy, we focus our attention on the here and now, and the way forward. We may look backward to find a root cause that will inform a customized, responsive solution, but we don’t stay in the past, rummaging around back there. In my coaching practice, and in coaching in general, we do just enough backward investigation to find the most efficient and effective path forward–to your desired end goal. There are times when therapy is a good supplementary option for a client and I have quality recommendations when applicable.
Once we work together to identify some of the obstacles or challenges presented on the path toward my clients’ ultimate goals, I design customized habit formation strategies and behavioral modification techniques tailored to strengthen their resolve, improve their confidence and empower them to acquire the precise skill sets necessary to thrive in their cherished personal and professional domains. I provide ongoing motivation, supplementing the findings we come to in our sessions with text message, email or phone support. My clients know that I’ve got their back while they expand their personal comfort zone to seek out and master pretty damn uncomfortable change in a number of areas.
Most importantly, I reinforce the key findings unearthed in our coaching sessions by writing and recording customized guided meditations that reach my clients on both a conscious and subconscious level. By listening to these recordings, a client can take in a wide range of beneficial information and alternate strategies tailored to promote ongoing momentum and positive change in a number of personal and professional areas.
Habit Science
Effective change is nothing more than a new habit, and the way we create effective new habits is to overwrite the undesirable habits that have blazed distinct neural networks in our brain with little new habits that we tend and strengthen until they grow to subsume those old unwanted patterns. Forming a new habit is difficult because it requires a combination of executive brain functions to construct what will essentially become a shortcut key or hot button that is the habit. During the formation process you’re drawing on different areas, so you become more vulnerable to relapse as you construct this little programming cue, but if you stick with it, executing it time and time again, it effectively becomes solid state and overtakes that unwanted behavior. The problem is, some of your least desirable habits have also been wired into a solid state, efficient little process that can reemerge if not consistently trod upon by your newer, more desirable habit. I teach my clients the most effective methods to understand and take on their highly efficient, bossy brains, while trouncing bad habits and building more effective ones that serve their long-term interests.
Putting It All Together
I employ a compassionate mix of leading-edge brain research, proven behavioral science and customized goal setting, system-building and habit-forming methodologies to motivate clients from comfort to accomplishment, from procrastination to project completion, and perhaps most importantly, from “shit happens” to “I make shit happen.” I utilize the latest high-performance and development coaching techniques, but do so in an accessible way that resonates with clients looking for down-to-earth, relatable and scientifically proven methods to overcome personal and professional obstacles and break through. Whether you’re struggling to realize goals you’ve imagined for years or simply looking to reenergize and connect with yourself in the midst of “outward” professional success, I’m your coach.
The coaching community is filled with jargon like “never provide an answer – lead the client to their own answers to create lasting change.” Now there is truth in this statement, but it’s also total bullshit. It’s incredibly important for clients to take ownership of the process, or the tools I employ–the work we do together–may only work “in this or that instance”, or fail to work at all. But here’s the thing, life doesn’t conform to coaching jargon, some clients respond better to different techniques…ones that fly in the face of every coaching school maxim. Sometimes a client is so stuck in their present destructive habit loop, or incredibly successful yet afflicted with a nagging feeling of “something’s missing” that some immediate answers spur action, and action is the key to progress. So, hell yes, I have the answers after doing this for so many years, and damn right I’ll provide them…but I’ll also make you work your ass off to find your own way, so you not only achieve your desired results, but you develop a custom tool kit that will help you through your next challenge, and the one after that…indeed a lifetime of challenges.
Oh yeah, and if it’s not painfully obvious by now, I’m a New Yorker, whose specialty is helping small fish, big fish, old fish, new fish, all-frickin’ kinds of glorious fish swim with (and eventually dine on) the sharks in this big New York City pond…or your pond, wherever that is. Employing a patented mix of “loving pat on the back meets motivational kick in the ass,” my BS-free life coaching style was forged in Manhattan over two decades, helping turn an eclectic mix of international executives, salespeople, actors, the LBGT community, abuse survivors, artists, persons with disabilities and corporate professionals into high performers in their personal lives and fields of interest or expertise.
Financial gain and high performance don’t automatically equate to happiness or even satisfaction however, so I apply a holistic approach to coaching that focuses on creating client-specific work/life integration strategies, self-esteem boosters, procrastination remedies, fear-fighters, anxiety countermeasures, self-compassion techniques and mindfulness exercises that ensure personal success doesn’t come at the cost of personal well-being. Relying upon proven techniques and exercises derived from the latest developments in High Performance & Development Coaching, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as bleeding edge breakthroughs in Neuroplasticity, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, I stir all that tasty alphabet soup up, adding a heaping dash of “whatever the hell works for you” to create a customized, personal program tailored to get you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow.
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The Half-Day Deep Discovery
The Half-Day Deep Discovery is a three-hour intensive coaching session (and 1-hour follow-up call) designed to drill deep into one particular area or problem in need of critical attention. We will dig deep into the obstacles holding you back from a more fulfilling professional or personal life, and introduce tools specifically tailored to modify the way you think about your challenges and the way you speak to yourself. We will introduce little sticky habits that will lead to the more important life changing habits that produce real change over time. You will leave with a radically altered view of your capabilities, a set of tools that will disable the blocks that keep materializing and an effective method of dragging negative brain-speak into mental garbage bin on your cerebral desktop where it belongs.
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The 6-Month Total Transformation
From wherever you are, to wherever you want to be.
The 6-Month Total Transformation starts off with a 90-minute discovery and visualization session where we map out the areas in your professional and personal life in need of immediate and massive impact. That envisioning session will include the creation of immediate tools and techniques that will change your entire approach to how you view yourself, your challenges and your potential. The initial session will be followed by 10 biweekly hour-long coaching sessions where we hack our way through your most persistent obstacles, establish healthier habits and create new rituals and systems designed to promote real change, of the permanent variety. I will provide follow-up email support on a weekly basis to keep you on your path.
How will we achieve this “total transformation” of the permanent variety? To start with we’ll lean heavily on the latest developments in neuroplasticity, habit science and behavioral modification to be sure, but I will customize my approach to crush your most deeply rooted blocks and misperceptions, rewriting and recoding your habitual internal response to setbacks and challenges until the healthier, more resilient and determined you is back at the wheel, rather than being taken for a ride down that old familiar (and hideously comfortable) path. We will work together to create an effective plan of action, including specific goals and full accountability (I can be quite the taskmaster if necessary), enabling you to master whatever challenges you may have now and in the future.
My coaching objective is not like that endless therapy loop you may have experienced. The goal is for you to become so damn good at tackling your challenges and maximizing your quality of life that you just don’t need me anymore, but of course your referrals are always welcome. No offense to you of course, but I want you out of my office, off of my Zoom and out there kicking ass and taking names (and yeah, okay, handing out my business cards). All BS aside, your profound transformation isn’t just the juice that makes my job so damn rewarding, it’s also good for business. I’m in the transformation business and if you’re out there transformed you’re bringing me roughly three times the business you will while you remain my client. I’ve run the numbers. This is all to underline a hidden truism in my business model, the more I do for you, the faster I can get you out there kicking ass, the more you will eventually do for me. It’s one hell of a motivator, to be sure, but if I were all about raking in money I would have chosen another profession. I want you out there kicking ass for you, primarily, because honestly, despite the “hard data” that says you’ll bring me more business, helping you get over is what gives my life more meaning. It’s that simple.
Once addressing their most pressing issues, many clients choose to extend their coaching to either incorporate additional areas of their lives or help them gain traction on a new journey, but the focus will always be providing the most tangible, life-defining and lasting results in as little time as possible. I refuse to bullshit you with “change is so easy” blather, but there are ways of gamifying the most arduous elements of transformation, methods that appeal to your competitive nature. I use everything at my disposal and create a great deal of customized solutions that are specifically designed to propel you and you alone. Life is short; who wants to spend it stuck in the same old shit? “Bring me new shit to conquer…” I believe that’s from Macbeth, but don’t quote me on that, it could have been that Off-Off-Off Broadway production of MacShit I once took in, hard to be sure.
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Relationship Coach
If you’re like me, you may have tried marriage or couples counseling at some point in your life and found it wanting, and by that I mean next to friggin’ useless. Don’t get me wrong, therapy has its place and is of tremendous help – particularly when building your sense of self and dealing with issues related to past trauma, but too many therapists rely on a talk-only regimen that fails to yield optimal results. As crucial as personal insight is, by itself, it doesn’t lead to actual change… but I know what does. Nano-changes that lead to micro changes that lead to teeny-tiny changes which lead to small changes and so on. Bottom line: change leads to change. And change is action. If you truly want to change the direction of your troubled or failing relationship, you must take action. The key here is, that initial action doesn’t have to be some massively disruptive force; when it comes to meaningful change that lasts, the smaller the start, the more likely you will build traction toward consistent progress, rather than becoming quickly overwhelmed and giving up.
Picture yourself on a vast, seemingly endless sea in a small sail boat. If you move that boat’s rudder just a hair, you won’t notice much at first, but gradually, over time, even an infinitesimal adjustment at the outset of your journey will lead to a dramatically different endpoint. With some further small adjustments to the sail, the wind and keel will enable further course corrections, turning your slight change into a major new destination. But to get somewhere different you’ve got to start with some form of action. If you simply sit on deck with your partner and therapist recounting your profound new knowledge of navigation then postulate how much you’d love to change course and land on that life-sustaining island with the hot-bodied, scantily-clad reality TV stars (rather than the sharp rocks your heading for) what good would all the talk or wisdom in the world do? As you near those deadly rocks, in the throes of your consuming panic, you look at your beleaguered partner and are suddenly struck by another profound insight “Hey, I think this thing actually has a motor and a full tank of gas.” Without starting the motor, what frickin’ difference does it make?
No matter what incredible realizations your marital counselor or therapist may have helped you come to, if you weren’t given concrete steps and behavior-based exercises to turn those insights into action, your relationship counselor failed you. I will not fail you. That is not to say every relationship is salvageable – with my help or anyone else’s, it means that saving a relationship takes more than talk, understanding or even communication. It takes action, accountability and want-to by both parties. Therapy has its place (CBT/DBT in particular), and coaching is not therapy. While therapy often strives to uncover the origin of our behaviors, coaching concentrates on a “from this point forward” approach, delivering exercises, assignments and tools tailored to promote that almost imperceptible course correction (spawned by action) that over time can lead to dramatic life change.
It’s paramount to gain insight, into ourselves and into our partners, but simply “talking” once a week to me or anyone else won’t turn that insight into actionable steps that will lead to positive, transformative change. I will help both you and your loved one gain the critical insight you need and turn that wisdom into concrete action that will ensure you improve your overall communication and build go-to coping mechanisms and bounce-back strategies to employ when you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, unheard, stressed out, angry or resentful.
In my life coaching business, I leverage cutting-edge research and diagnostic skills while I work closely with clients to identify and defuse potential triggers, reshape deceptive self-perceptions, build self-confidence and recognize destructive patterns and habits–all leading to healthier relationships through a healthier you.
When you and your significant other agree to be coached by me, I do a hell of a lot more than just listen intently and ask “how does that make you feel?”. I take in all your emotional intensity, all the feelings conveyed, every bit of detailed information I can before creating practical exercises and tools that I customize to meet both of your needs, factoring in your individual learning modes and personal comfort levels–employing real measures empowering you to tone down your triggers and relieve your pain points. And while I make sure I hear everything you’re saying, I won’t just sit there during our session; I will provide specific exercises I want you both to try and we will work together diligently to review the effectiveness of our joint plan as we continue modifying our approach until you both agree you’re headed in the right direction, a path that moves you forward, rather than spinning your wheels churning up the same old crap.
Sometimes couples come to me seeking an amicable separation and end up rebuilding their relationship, sometimes despite both party’s best efforts to reunite the best the path forward may turn out to be that amicable split. The most important factor is to learn from and do our best to correct the mistakes we make and work diligently to modify self-defeating and destructive behaviors so that we not only give our current relationship a fighting chance, but gradually pare down our very human luggage from that check-in trunk to some handsome carry-on Tumi’s that will not only improve our current situation but ensure we don’t repeat and recycle behaviors that would lead to a similar result in our next relationship – should you determine separation to be the best way forward.
To get to what works for your relationship, I might leverage the latest behavioral science from the West and mix it with peer-reviewed mindfulness exercises based on thousand-year-old traditions from the East. If whatever we come up with doesn’t show promise we’ll either tweak it or scrap it until we arrive at something that does. I work my ass off to discover and deliver the most meaningful results for you. For example, one of many go-to tools I use to help both individuals and couples navigate personal relationships is what I refer to as my “Lock Down Corner” strategy. Based on the need for top NFL cornerbacks – and all premier athletes and competitors for that matter – to retain a short memory (in this case forgetting that just-completed pass in order to successfully defend the next long ball), I work closely with my clients to shorten their retention of information that doesn’t serve their long-term interests. This technique effectively counteracts your trigger pressure, easing your foot off your emotional accelerator so that you can reflect before speaking or acting out in resentment or anger. In our relationships with loved ones, often those few words said or that brief cold shoulder brandished in the heat of the moment is piled on top of past slights imagined or real, adding up to an explosive reaction that dwarves the immediate perceived affront. To maintain more harmonious relationships, I help my clients attain greater mindfulness, addressing the situation at hand like the isolated incident it is, and confronting it without the added-on anger or intensity (or stockpiling) that results from grouping perceived or real slights into a noxious slag of rage that seems to come from nowhere.
When we do our best to shorten our memories and live in the present, we allow our partners the same break we deserve when we too resort to our petty frustrations, annoying nitpicking, occasional bitching or sudden temper flares. It’s a process and it takes a great deal of work to undo all the baggage we’ve allowed to build-up or simply tamped down for so many years – but the results can be extraordinary – if not exactly lifesaving, relationship-saving. And that is only one of the many techniques in my relationship-mending arsenal. Contact me now for a free couples’ coaching consultation.
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