Frequently Asked Questions

What's Required for Coaching Success?

Success is a product of engagement in the coaching process — and both of us need to be engaged. Coaching can powerfully stimulate change, but only you can make it.

You will need to be willing to describe the outcomes you desire in specific terms — including how you’d know you were on a new path at the end of our concentrated session. Similarly, you need to want to and be willing to look within yourself; to connect with internal areas of support and resistance you might initially not relish “meeting”... and do this in ways that might feel unfamiliar and sometimes even a bit strange at first. And, you’ll want to feel willing to make a shift, with a sense that now is the right time to do it.

Finally, you need to be in good emotional and physical health; this is coaching, not therapy.  If your issue is one of years' and years' duration with significant emotional content, concentrated coaching can provide a boost in progress, but you'll likely need some form of follow-on support. That could be in coordination with a therapist that I work with, potentially in coordination with your own, or perhaps periodic coaching afterwards.

Moreover, although validating, this work is very different than what some call "recreational complaining" and is designed to move you beyond stories you already know from your past. I am an attentive and caring listener … and it’s even more important for you (not anyone else) to be able to witness hidden parts of yourself. “Minimizing story” is important to effective work that’s brief. It is all about commitment, depth, focus, and courage.



What Results Can I Expect?

If you’re willing to do that work around an outcome that's relatively circumscribed, most clients experience a significant shift in the three-hour concentrated session. I plan a 90-minute follow up within two weeks, and will work up to twelve hours total if required — eight, including the initial exploratory session, is the norm.  

If the issue has threads in many areas, you can expect significant shift in the first session, but will benefit from more coaching or other support to maintain you on the new path.

• For example, one client reached out to me at the end of several "years from hell" (lawsuits and a business that pretty much vanished during the crash of 2008, on top of a series of calamities including cancer and family difficulties during the early to late 2000s) that simply wore her down to the point of discouragement bordering on despair. She felt a tremendous sense of urgency about "getting back on track," but found it hard to focus on what "on track" even meant — let alone to retain the focus necessary to get or stay there.
• In this case, our first session ran nearly four hours, and we planned two 90-minute follow up sessions over the next two weeks. As she put it, it was utterly necessary to do this. She needed to "put a stake in the heart of the beast." Though she now has moments from time to time, they no longer dominate. She’s now finding herself increasingly focused, and getting back feels not only do-able but sometimes even exciting. We continue to talk once every two weeks to consolidate her progress as she unearths each new phase of her re-found path.

You may also find that what seems to feel "stuck" really isn’t — the "shift" isn’t going to a new path, but getting new insight on and deeper satisfaction with the path you’re already on.

• For example, one client seeking to invest in a new business was starting to question his seriousness about this after two years without a placement. Our initial session helped him get more clarity on the kind of investment he wanted, and the circumstances in which he’d be willing to throw himself back into an entrepreneurial situation. With that clarity, he realized he’d pretty much been doing what he wanted to — no "shift" required, beyond recognizing that he was largely acting to get what he wanted after all.

The goal is a sense of resolution, no matter how it unfolds. 


Do Clients Get What They Expect?

It depends. If you’re working with me because there is an area where you’re looking to make progress, and seek a significant boost in whatever form it takes, that’s a productive intention.

But sometimes — especially if you’re working on an issue of long duration — you’ll make useful, even powerful, progress, but not in the direction you expect.  It helps to be open to this, too.

• One example: another client, herself a therapist, was inspired by the "writers' stammer" case and interested in getting past her own long-standing writing challenges. The work she and I did was very useful for her, and when she concluded the session she was primed to start writing immediately. When she went to do so, however, she realized that her challenge about writing was tied to another life trauma … and writing wasn’t something she wanted to do immediately, if ever, until she did more work on the underlying issue. So the work we’d done became a unique input to her own therapy.  

In retrospect, she’s glad we worked together…found it a powerful and useful experience…and realized it would have been still better had we both done a better job of helping her stay open and curious as to the exact result she’d get.  

So, keep yourself open, too!


How Do You Charge for Services?

With all the business and incentive design experience I've had — and all the noise people make promising results but not delivering them — I decided to build my fee structure on the results I help you achieve, not the time it takes to get there.

What that means:

1. The charge is based on what we agree at the end of our initial session is appropriate to you given your economic circumstances, and the outcome we're shooting for.  That enables my services to be affordable to people who need them, and also in line with the value I create (fair to you, and fair to me).  In general, since I can work with about 75 paying clients a year, each client represents 1.5% of my income.  So the starting point is 1.5% of your (pre-tax, total) income.  I limit that to a range of $1500 to $5,000 total — not per hour. 
2. If our work through the concentrated session (about 4 hours into an engagement) doesn't produce an experience that satisfies you, I won't charge. By "satisfied" I mean that you're really comfortable with the value you see being generated. In fact, I prefer my clients to be delighted.  

Payment is by check, Chase QuickPay, and PayPal.  Services are offered through my coaching/consulting limited liability corporation, Concentrated Coaching LLC.

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