What is Life Coaching and Why Do I Need It?

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Other than the “how is coaching different than therapy” question (which I’ll address in a later post), these are the two questions I get asked the most. 

What is Life Coaching?

Life coaching is a process that guides you to a deeper understanding of who you are and what you’re all about. Coaching helps you identify your strengths, values, dreams, goals, and life purpose. It is an inspiring, empowering, and insightful journey.

In a coaching session, you are the expert. The coach asks you powerful questions. The coach listens intently not only to the words you say, but the words you don’t say, all the while taking in your tone, facial expressions, body language, and energy and tapping into their intuition to pick up on the subtler details.

Coaches have an extensive toolkit to help you access your own brilliance, let go of limiting beliefs, face fears, and move through challenges. This video illustrates the journey rather simply and elegantly.


One of my favorite aspects of the relationship is the safe space that is created by designing an alliance based on trust and non-judgment. It’s an incredible feeling to be so heard and so seen by another human being. You have full permission to be completely real and imperfect and vulnerable.

In addition to massively expanding self-awareness, another huge part of the process is taking action. Once you have clarity around what you want, your coach can help you design a plan, set goals, and stay focused. We give homework (which you co-design with us) and we also like to throw outrageous challenges at you from time to time to encourage you to think big and step out of your comfort zone. It’s exhilarating.

Why Do I Need It?

I often get asked who hires me and what types of “issues” they have. Let me be clear. You don’t need life coaching because you are broken. As coaches, we believe that you are naturally resourceful, creative, and whole. You don’t need to be fixed.

You also don’t have to have a problem or issue to solve. In fact, many people who hire coaches are doing just fine. Oftentimes, they’re already kicking some serious ass. What they seek is even greater success and fulfillment.

Working with a coach is a great way to tackle a specific challenge, although the topic at hand is oftentimes more of a gateway through which we access deeper parts of your being that affect every area of your life.

Coaching can help you get unstuck, get out of your own way, get clear on your vision or dream life, and get you moving quickly in that direction. Coaching can guide you to aliveness, relaxing into your authentic self, and to living an intentional life aligned with your deepest values. I’ve watched people transform into more grounded, more fully expressed, and more vibrant versions of themselves. It’s as if they shed layer after layer of bullshit and each layer reveals more of what’s true. Eric Schmidt articulates it well here.


Personally, I agree that everybody needs a coach. But, here are a few more examples of when it’s especially helpful. You should consider hiring a coach if you are ready to stop being a victim of circumstance, reacting to the world around you, and feeling helpless or stuck. You should consider hiring a coach if you are ready to take responsibility for your thoughts, behavior, and happiness.

And you should consider hiring a coach if you simply want to grab your life by the balls and be even more awesome than you already are.

My Top 10 Core Values

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When I honor my values I feel grounded, vibrant, and alive. When I don’t honor my values, I feel imbalanced and uneasy. Sometimes even physically uncomfortable. 

I believe that getting clear on our core values and honoring them is an integral part of the journey to living a happy, fulfilling life. In order to honor our values, of course, we need to know what they are. In an effort to become crystal clear on my own values, I finally compiled a list. 

Here are my top 10 core values (in no particular order) and what they mean to me:

1. Clarity – know who I am, what I want, what I’m about, and why I’m here

2. Self awareness – know myself intimately (strengths, weaknesses, passions, quirks)

3. Authenticity – be unapologetically me, vulnerable, raw, and real and own it completely

4. Personal freedom – be in charge of my own experience, know I always have a choice

5. Radical responsibility –  be 100% responsible for my thoughts, actions, and impact

6. Radical honesty – say what I mean and mean what I say, be direct, and be clear

7. Respect – let go of judgment, be curious, be compassionate, accept others as they are

8. Connection – seek out, embrace, create genuine connections with others, soul to soul

9. Simplicity – let go of what isn’t serving me to create space for what’s most important 

10. Adventure – choose to make my life an adventure every day, spread joy, be playful

This list will continue to evolve as I do. But understanding what I deeply believe guides me to actively create a life aligned with who I am. When I take a wrong turn, I simply refer back to my core values, reevaluate, then course correct.

Through this process, I am learning to 1) quickly recognize when my values are being stepped on,  2) calmly set boundaries and stand up for myself, and 3) be true to myself most, if not all, of the time.

Simplify. Prioritize. Clarify.

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Those three ideas changed my life.

A few years ago, I took stock of my life from top to bottom and realized that some things had to change. I was happy, healthy, and busy, but craved more passion, meaning, and purpose. Through searching, exploring, and peeling back layers, I discovered that as I found more meaning, I wanted less stuff. Less distraction. Less crap in my way.

And thus began a process, which developed rather organically, but that has since become a lifestyle: Simplify. Prioritize. Clarify.

Simplify.

I started to simplify things. Radically. I filled bag after bag with old clothes, nicknacks and jewelry and took them to Goodwill. I sorted through old papers and fed the recycling bin. I organized and deleted tons of documents, programs, and other unnecessary things from my digital world. Getting rid of things was part of something bigger, but at the time I didn’t understand what it was. I just felt – I knew – that I had to simplify my life. 

Turns out a big part of simplifying was learning to let go. I let go of material things that had nostalgic value, sure, but that I really didn’t need or want anymore. And ultimately I started letting go of bigger things: hobbies, habits, old stories.  The more I let go, the easier it became to see what was important and what was simply… distracting.

Prioritize.

As I created more space (literally and figuratively) in my life, I naturally started to prioritize. It felt good to ask myself brutally honest questions and be surprised by my own answers. I felt lighter, cleaner, and more alert. My mental, emotional, and spiritual bandwidth was given a huge upgrade.

I started making decisions based on what truly felt right, what supported my core values, what was aligned with who I am and what I’m about. I chose in favor of passion and purpose, rather than listening to external factors (or what I was making up about external factors, like what other people think or expect or how they’ll react.) Decision-making became a thrill rather than an ordeal.

Clarify.

The next step was obvious. I wanted clarity. Once you start living your life in a way that is aligned with who you are and what you’re about, it’s impossible to go back. So, I figured my next challenge was to get more and more clear on my values, my passions, and my purpose. This is what I’ve been most focused on for the last couple years and is the main reason I am so goddamn happy all the time!

The great thing about this process is that the more you do it, the more it becomes an unconscious way of living (rather than a conscious process.) Whenever I need to, I simplify by slowing down and letting go of the things, thoughts, and distractions that don’t serve me. Then I prioritize by choosing in favor of passion and purpose and following my heart. And finally, I get even more clear on who I am and what I’m about, which then informs everything I do and how I live my life.

How I Learned to Ask for Help

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I knew they were coming. A lot of them. But I never imagined there would be THAT many of them. They came in the door crying, laughing, embracing one another, and clearly ready to party.

I was alone – the only bartender on duty at a local dive bar that had been chosen as the gathering place after a funeral for the unexpected and tragic death of a guy my age. He had been a regular at the bar and it was a shock to realize he was gone.

Sundays were usually pretty busy and I was confident in my both my bartending skills and my ability to handle a large crowd by myself. But it soon became clear that this was going to be a shift like none I had faced before.

Within an hour the entire bar was full of grieving young people celebrating their friend’s life and mourning his death. I did my best to pump out their drink orders at warp speed, while greeting their moist eyes with sympathetic smiles and not letting anyone disrupt my rhythm as I poured beers, mixed cocktails, cleaned up, swiped credit cards, and handled cash. Luckily, several of the regulars were there. They cleared glasses, changed kegs, and retrieved bottles for me so I never had to leave the bar.

The next 5 hours were a blur. All I know is that when I finally left, I was more mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted than I had been in my life. Not to mention completely covered in beer. But I felt this deep sense of pride at having handled it. Holy shit, did I really manage that massive crowd for a whole afternoon all by myself? I felt invincible. I am so fast! I am a whiz at doing math in my head on the fly! How did I keep so many drink orders in my head at one time?

The next day I walked into my happy hour shift standing a little taller. Maybe even sporting a touch of arrogance. Psh. Happy hour. This is going to be so easy…

Then it happened. The manager showed up. I threw my shoulders back and prepared to receive his praise. But as soon as I saw the look on his face I realized that was not what was coming. He was livid. He kept asking why I didn’t call someone and ask for help.

I didn’t understand. “But I didn’t need any help. I was fine…” I kept saying. It made no sense. I made us SO much money. Everyone had a great time and honored our lost friend.

He finally looked me in the eye and said “I know YOU were fine. But that’s not the point. If you had called for backup, we could have served twice as many people, made twice as much money for the bar, provided an even better experience for the customers, and done an even better job honoring our lost friend.”

Oh.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my ego. It wasn’t about what I could handle. It was about everything else. That was when I learned to ask for help.

Just because I can do it by myself doesn’t mean I should.

This can be a hard truth to accept if you have any amount of ego or pride dwelling inside you. Which I suspect most of us do. As a woman who has always felt strongly about being independent and able to take care of herself, it took me a long time to really understand this – to understand that by recruiting help or support I could potentially be more effective, more impactful and more powerful than I could ever be on my own.

I no longer see accepting help, not to mention asking for it, as a sign of weakness or incompetence. That came from a place of wanting to be seen a certain way, not from seeing myself as I am.

I now view accepting help, and especially asking for it, as smart. When I know myself, including my strengths and weaknesses, I can better see where I could benefit from reinforcement, advice, feedback, or an extra hand (or mind.)

I know now that while I may do and create great things on my own, I can do and create even greater things with a little help from my friends.

OWN IT.

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My tolerance for conformity has gone down. Being like everyone else is boring. Living a life built on “I should” or “I’m supposed to” is tragic.

Luckily things are changing out there. More and more people are flying their freak flag. More and more people see the value of being who they (truly) are. Boldly and unapologetically.

I have a vision in which this is the norm, rather than the exception to the rule. Where people feel free and inspired and trust their inner wisdom, rather than seeking approval from external sources.

Where people OWN IT. Or want to learn how.

Learning to own it has been a recurring theme in my own personal growth journey. As I’ve jogged, sometimes sprinted, and often stumbled down this path, I’ve fallen in love with the concept. Hopelessly, madly in love.

It informs how I live my life (authentically), how I treat others (with respect), and it’s one of the main tenets of the my message to the world.

What does it mean to own it? This picture sums it up pretty well:

Image

I’ve had this picture as the wallpaper on my iphone for probably over a year and it still brings me to my knees every time I look at it. I didn’t even know where it came from until I looked it up today. THANK YOU Karen. Your little girl has become an icon for me.

“There is nothing more badass than being who you are.”

This quote, attributed to Darren Chris, is the essence of what owning it means to me. Knowing yourself. Accepting yourself as you are. Being proud of that uniqueness. Being vulnerable and real and imperfect.

Back in April I put on a two day workshop for women with my dear friend and fellow coach, Nikki Armytage, in London. We called it Powerful Woman. Own It.

The difference between the women who walked into the room on Saturday morning and the women who walked out on Sunday afternoon was all it took to convince me that people are hungry for this.

Nikki has sinced launched Electric Woman, a campaign created to inspire women to embrace their Electric Woman. Badass.

Now that I’m paying attention, I see such a huge difference in people when they’re owning it vs. when they’re not. It’s inspiring when someone trusts their inner wisdom and goes for it. When they have the courage to be wrong and be okay with it.

I really like Rachel Wilkerson‘s Fourth Rule: “Thou Shalt Own It.”

ImageSo, go ahead. Own it. Whatever it is. Be yourself, do your thing, take responsibility for the consequences and hold that head high.

I dare you.