Navigate your life with help from a personal coach

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, October 16, 2004

When T. Sue Epps shares what she does for a living, people often don’t get it. Coaching?

“Mostly, they assume I’m a personal trainer at a fitness center,” the Stanwood woman said.

On her Sparkplug Coaching business cards, Epps labels herself “personal coach.” Her occupation, also known as life coach, has nothing to do with making clients sweat, although there can be an aspect of holding feet to the fire.

It’s really about winning the game of life.

“What I feel coaching provides is focus, clarity, emotional support and accountability,” said Epps, who came to coaching after her own life took an unexpected turn.

Epps was laid off from the Boeing Co. following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. With a background in organizational development, she had done executive coaching at Boeing. Study at the Academy for Coach Training in Bellevue, a state-licensed vocational school, set Epps on the new path.

Change is what it’s all about, said Sandy Gooselaw, a Lake Stevens life coach. Her career choice was an evolution from her resume-writing business, Best Impressions.

“I realized people who came for resumes also came with issues,” Gooselaw said. “We walk people through the steps of making life change.”

Costs, time commitments and coaching styles vary.

Gooselaw charges $65 an hour and meets weekly with clients.

“The first thing I teach is journaling,” she said. “If you put it down on paper, it’s easier to see what works. I give them assignments, such as dreaming a life.”

Epps works primarily by phone after a two-hour initial meeting. Her fee is $60 an hour.

“I’ve found fees from $60 to $600 an hour,” she said. The high end is likely for CEOs. “If a corporation is paying, fees are much higher,” Epps said.

In Bothell, Nancy Crawford Holm is a specialized coach. Her Lifeline Coaching Services helps adults with attention deficit disorder. With a master’s degree in pastoral studies and counseling, Holm said coaching and counseling “do overlap a little bit.”

Coaching offers practical strategies, she said. “It’s learning to build habits, one upon the other,” Holm said.

“With counseling or therapy, we look at healing, at how people are wounded or damaged,” said Kathy Wilson, marketing director of the Coaches Training Institute.

“Coaching starts with the assumption that a person is creative, resourceful and whole. It’s where do you want to go, rather than what do you want to heal from the past?”

Coaches Training Institute, based in San Rafael, Calif., was one of the first such schools, founded in 1992. It’s accredited by the International Coaching Federation, an organization representing more than 5,000 coaches.

Coaching isn’t regulated in any state. There’s nothing stopping anyone from hanging out a shingle. “It’s a concern,” Wilson said. “For us to be a viable profession, there have got to be some standards.”

Certification at her school takes about a year, with three-day weekend courses and six months in an internship setting.

If all that seems silly, consider examples local coaches have seen.

In Gooselaw’s first meeting with one client, she saw a successful, 43-year-old man – “new home, good job, family, everything was great.”

“After we talked a half-hour, he looked at me and said, ‘I am so unhappy,’ ” Gooselaw said. Within five months, he had achieved his goals of working from home for a smaller company, she said.

Epps has a similar story. “One client was just on a hamster wheel with all of her obligations,” Epps said. “One activity where she did feel peaceful was performing drama.

“She wasn’t in a position to give up her day job, but she resigned from a condominium thing she had to go to every week. Freeing up some time, she began to take acting classes,” Epps said.

I happened upon this topic while looking in the Yellow Pages for something else. There, in a hair salon ad listing services from image consulting to makeup lessons, was this: “Life coach.”

We’ve all heard choice bits of advice while getting haircuts, but this was new to me. Unfortunately, the phone had been disconnected.

Wilson said it’s a growing field, spreading from those seeking career change to anyone wanting to communicate better or find out what’s important to them.

“It’s people who wake up one day with a life that wasn’t what they wanted,” Wilson said.

Unhappiness, now there’s a growth industry.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com