Personal, Life and Executive Coaching


Is Coaching Right for Me?

Coaching is very different from therapy. Therapy usually focuses on resolving illness, injury, or trauma whereas coaching focuses on enhancing achievement and fulfillment. Coaching is not psychotherapy, and emotional healing is not the focus of coaching.

Although I am trained in psychotherapy, I do not engage in the practice of psychotherapy with my coaching clients. If issues arise that are best dealt with in therapy, I will refer you to an appropriately trained, licensed therapist.

Coaching may be right for you if you enjoy exploration and challenge, can set and achieve goals, enjoy taking risks, and feel good about having a supportive, objective guide on the journey.


How Can Coaching Help Me?

Personal and life coaching can help you in several areas:

  • Achieve fulfillment and satisfaction – Are there areas of your life you’d like to improve?
  • Expand your horizons and yourself – Do you feel satisfied and fulfilled in your life? Are you looking to expand or develop in new areas?
  • Find balance, serenity, and meaning in your life.
  • Live powerfully – Are you doing what you really want? Are your relationships healthy and happy?
  • Personal transformation – What is possible for you? Do you want to make the possible a reality?

You can also use coaching for a variety of work-related challenges. Sometimes helps to focus on specific issues that coaching can help you effectively address, such as:

  • Creating personal fulfillment and satisfaction at work and at home
  • Dealing with difficult people
  • Effectively managing staff, a work group, or project team
  • Making a career transition
  • Becoming more assertive, less perfectionistic, and happier at work
  • Learning new skills, such as communication or leadership, to perform your job better
  • Finding work-life balance and coping with stress or change

Here is a summary of some other areas that coaching might help you with:

  • Executive Development – expand your abilities in interpersonal skills, effective communication, leadership, team building, or business development.
  • Students – finish your research projects and graduate!
  • Clinicians – expand your practice through action marketing skills.
  • Mid-life transitions – start a new career or learn successful aging strategies.
  • Start your own business or develop your entrepreneurial skills.

How Does Coaching Work?

Personal coaching focuses on your unique strengths and harnesses that creative power to bring your plans together. Typically, the coaching relationship is structured as follows:

  • We meet individually for about an hour each week, either in person or on the telephone
  • You take action toward your goals each week, building on your success and being accountable for your choices
  • I facilitate your progress through feedback, action planning, and follow-up. We have consistent dialogue on important issues and devise creative means for overcoming obstacles
  • We continue the coaching relationship until you are satisfied with the outcomes, usually from three to eighteen months depending on the complexity of your objectives
  • The primary goal of coaching is always to actualize your potential

The Coaching Agenda

The coaching process begins with establishing a connection and conducting an assessment. From there, we work at articulating the vision for your preferred future and take action to bring it into reality.

In the first few sessions, we’ll develop a coaching agenda based upon the problem you wish to solve, or the personal vision you wish to create.

The agenda follows naturally from defining both who you are and what you want to create in your life (at home or at work). We’ll assess your personal strengths, explore your interests, establish the values that drive you forward, understand your areas of passion, and learn about your life’s peak experiences.

Coaching is a co-active and holistic process. Co-active means that the coaching agenda originates from you, and the coaching relationship is designed as a supportive alliance.

You’ll have the opportunity through the process of coaching to increase your self-awareness, examine any self-limiting thoughts or behaviors that become obstacles to your success, and work toward self-acceptance of both your strengths and weaknesses.

Coaching is based upon a firm commitment to growth, and includes identifying and cultivating personal support that will increase the likelihood of your success.


Finding the Right Coach

Finding the right coach is critical to your success.

There are coaches providing services that come from all kinds of backgrounds, including coaches with no psychological training. While there are many great coaches who are not also therapists, having a coach that is also a psychologist allows you to take advantage of the full range of skill, knowledge, and experience in human behavior and change that a psychologist possesses.

It’s important for you to find a coach that motivates you by their interpersonal style. Equally important is your feeling that there’s a good match or fit between your style and the coach’s approach. You should feel comfortable being able to trust and effectively communicate with your coach.

Your coach should also provide the highest standards of privacy and confidentiality, and follow ethical guidelines, such as those developed by the International Coach Federation (ICF). Your coach should also have experience and training specifically in the coaching process.


My Coaching Style

As your coach, my role is to hold you accountable in reaching your goals. I will help you clarify your values, interests, dreams, and sources of inspiration. We will then develop goals that I will support you in achieving, without advice or judgment.

It’s my job to help you achieve faster and greater results by keeping you focused, productive, and on track. We’ll develop strategies and action plans to get the results you want.

My role is to help you identify blocks, patterns, and distractions that get in the way of your goal attainment. I work to facilitate the expression of your natural creativity and resourcefulness, and will help you learn new skills to create change in your life.


Personal & Life Coaching

Personal and life coaching in San Francisco.

What do you want to change? Personal or life coaching can help you with any type of personal goal you’d like to pursue. You set the agenda, and you pursue the goal.

I help people pursue meaningful goals that can provide them with the satisfaction, fulfillment, and results they want out of life.

Some areas that coaching can help you with:

  • Enjoy dating and finding the right mate
  • Build a successful relationship with your partner
  • Grow, change, or modify your career
  • Start a new business
  • Cope better with stress or job burnout
  • Find balance in your life
  • Grow older gracefully
  • Expand your personal fulfillment and life satisfaction
  • Find personal meaning
  • Clarify personal values and align your life to match
  • Develop a sense of spirituality

Coaching can help you achieve any goal you set for yourself!


Career Coaching

Career coaching

A significant part of our life is dedicated to finding and building a career, and it’s a necessity to get the things we want. Perhaps you’re not in the career field of your choice, or maybe you’ve tried one career and are ready to begin another – maybe it just hasn’t turned out to be as satisfying as you thought it would be.

If you find yourself complaining frequently about your job, feel bored most of the time, or consider yourself “burned-out” at work, then you might want to consider a career transition.

I can help you explore your experience and interests, make a game plan, work with you while you test the waters, and help you develop attainable goals with specific action plans to achieve them.

I help you identify your passions in the work arena, encouraging you to take control and find a career that is both satisfying and fulfilling.

Stuck in Middle Management

You’ve worked hard to get where you are, and have made the right moves to reach a position in middle or upper management, but aren’t sure what to do next.

Should you stay in your current position? Should you make a move? Not sure if you want to be in the same position in five years?

Coaching can help you explore the possibilities and make a plan that puts you in charge, rather than waiting for the organization to decide your fate.

I help people explore all of their opportunities, combine their wants and needs into an actionable plan, and help you move forward in new directions.


Work-related Coaching

Work-related coaching

You enjoy your work, but are having difficulties in the work setting – such as dealing with a difficult supervisor or maybe you were recently promoted to a supervisory position and have no experience. Learning how to maintain your work-life balance, enjoy your working relationships, and succeed at your goals in the work place are all important areas for coaching.

I help people with work-related issues learn new skills and reach personal goals that provide them with a sense of competence and satisfaction in their job.


Executive Development

Executive development

Executives are under enormous pressure to perform, moreso now than ever. Business leaders are becoming increasingly aware that many of today’s business problems are related to the people who do the work. Learning new skills in interpersonal communication, leadership, team building, and other areas may give you both the competitive edge and personal satisfaction you’re looking for.

Coaching can help you solve specific problems related to your business or role in the organization, and it can help you enhance your skills. First, we’ll examine your competencies, strengths, and weaknesses relevant to the problem. Next, we’ll set specific objectives to be reached, and determine how progress will be measured. Specific behaviors that need to be improved or changed will be part of the program. We’ll customize a coaching program that fits with both you and your organization so that your personal and professional goals are in sync.

In our coaching sessions, we’ll focus on learning new skills and practicing new behaviors. You’ll have the opportunity to get important and instantaneous feedback to help you move forward.

Psychologists have the expertise to enhance the effectiveness of human behavior. I work with executives to help you develop skills that advance your career, solve your business or personnel problems, and make you more interpersonally skilled.


Entrepreneurs & Business Owners

Entrepreneur coaching

Own your own business – or have you always dreamed of starting your own business?

Starting a business is a significant undertaking involving risk, responsibility, change, and passion. If you want to explore the possibilities of starting a business, or are currently running a business and need help growing your business, consider coaching.

I help future and present business owners harness your creative powers to develop and maintain the business dream that you want.


Aging Well

Aging well

Would you rather start a new career or business after retirement? Do you want to remain active, involved, starting new activities and setting new goals? Marriage not working? Family didn’t turn out how you’d expected? Ready for retirement, but not ready for golf?

With coaching, you can begin relieving some of the pain associated with growing older. You can begin to re-invigorate your life by developing a sense of vision, mission, and purpose.

I help people work through the problems and difficulties associated with aging by helping you develop new attitudes, deal with specific problems, and learn effective coping skills. Every age has its benefits, and you deserve to be a part of it.


Book Coaching

Book coaching

Have you ever read a self-help book, tried to follow it and apply it to your life, but it ended up not sticking? You might want to consider what I’m calling “book coaching”. Why not start setting your goals based on something that interests you, and something that you’ve found helpful?

You find and bring your favorite self-help book, and we’ll focus a coaching agenda on helping you reach your goals related to it. We’ll use the book as a road map, and work together to develop strategies and action plans that you can implement to get the most out of your book.


Fee Schedule

I offer an initial, half-hour consultation at no charge. The purpose of our first consultation is to determine your needs, whether we are a good match, and to explore a possible coaching agenda. There are several coaching service packages available that include in person or online meetings, as well as email and text message contacts. Contact me for more information.

In-person Coaching

Clients that live in the local area may prefer to meet in-person for their coaching sessions. Typically, each coaching session lasts 45 minutes, depending on your objectives. You may also elect to consider telephone coaching if it is more convenient to your lifestyle.

Most clients prefer to pay monthly for their coaching service package. Please contact me to discuss your specific situation and how I might best help you.

Telephone Coaching

You might consider telephone coaching if you are outside of the local area, or if it fits better for your busy lifestyle. Coaching sessions are usually 30-40 minutes in length, and occur between 3-4 times each month.

Please contact me to discuss your specific situation and how I might best help you. Cash, checks, and credit cards are accepted. Most clients prefer to pay monthly for their coaching service package.


For More Information

Prospective clients usually have questions about whether coaching might work for them, or whether their goal is appropriate for coaching, so please ask!

If you have questions about coaching – please contact me.