FIND ME A MENTOR- A consumers guide to choosing a Coach

Posted on December 06, 2012 by David Ruch, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Find Me A Mentor
A Consumers Guide to Choosing
A Personal or Professional Life Coach
by David Ruch M.Div. M.A.
Principal/Founder
Big Fat Happiness, LLC
A Different Kind of Journey…

So you are interested in finding a mentor or life coach? That in and of itself is a major step in your decision to develop the skills and talents you need. We think you should be proud of yourself for that initiative. It takes wisdom and courage to recognize when you have needs and to ask for help. It is not uncommon for most individuals to defer to whatever is happening to them or to keep attempting to solve their problems with the same actions over and over again. If they do decide to ask for help they often turn to family and friends who more than likely are not equipped to help them. Unfortunately our educational systems and most of the multi-layered corporate structures continue to influence people to follow rather than ask questions and seek solutions. Your interest in this article says you are one who wants to think for yourself and be the master of your own ship. As I read and watch trends it seems to me that there is a new attitude growing and it is showing up with individuals from various generations determined to shake things up, take back their individuality and work to secure their own future. According to the 2008 reports from the US Census almost 2,356 people move to entrepreneurship each and every day. Of course they don’t all succeed but at that rate it puts entrepreneurship at 78% of US small businesses with a whopping revenue of close to a trillion dollars annually. The US Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy estimates that there are roughly 30 million small businesses in the US currently and that they represent 99.7% of all employer firms.
On another note the so called “self help” moment is on the rise as well being estimated to be close to an 11 billion dollar industry. One facet of that growth reported to be the personal and professional coaching industry which is capturing roughly 2.5 billion of that each year.
Whether you are sharpening your personal life skills or starting a business, coaching can provide you a necessary platform to solidify your ideas and manage the process. The need for a coaching or mentoring relationship is often required when we experience rapid or extensive change in our work and relationships. That change can be an exciting opportunity to look at life with a new perspective or it can be the influence which leads you to retreat, resist and determine to keep things the same. What ultimately drives the decision you make is partially your hard wiring. Other motivators are your current skills, self esteem, and important support systems.

Daryl R. Conner, has written a very helpful book attempting to demystify change management and the leadership needed for managing it. Leading at the Edge of Chaos. One point he makes early in the book reveals that we all tend to manage change from our unique perspective of what we believe gives us balance. You could say we have a unconscious watcher that seeks to keep things on an even keel. the adage “the devil we know is always better than the devil we don’t” keeps us comfortable. The problem with balance as we know it is that what we may call and experience as balance in our lives does not always mean healthy or even happy. Unfortunately whether the balance we have in life is healthy or malfunctioning we feel most comfortable maintaining what we have rather than face ambiguity. If change is going to be successful for our organizations and the people in them we have to be able to anticipate the volume, momentum and complexity of what is coming and fully participate in its management. When we face change or some experience we see as a disruption to our balance we move through a series of thoughts, feelings and actions attempting to return us to a state more familiar to us. That process takes us through many and varying adjustments and assessments of the current and potential landscape looking for predictable patterns, control and ultimately solid footing back to the balance we know. Others define the process of successful change as the work of skillfully looking at four key elements. Need, or the answer to the question, what is it that is not working. Vision, the ability to see and believe that change is truly possible, and that the process and outcome will be good for me. Skills, the awareness and then development of abilities I can learn to help me become a better individual. Finally Action, designing an action plan that will help me actually move forward with my initiatives. Need, Vision, Skills and Action are the structures to be assessed when we encounter the need for change. Are you at that place? Are you sizing up your life and wondering what comes next?

The recession of 2009 has seen people taking on a renewed interest and personal ownership for their life work. More and more individuals who have experienced that lack of security in working for others are taking back the responsibility for their careers. Baby boomers who have seen a large percentage of their nest egg slip away are actively reengaging in the conversation about how they will reengineer the last chapter of their lives. Generation X and Y are looking for new models which afford them a greater work-life balance, allow them to express their values for creating a sustainable life experience and design short cuts to the solutions their parents depended on. All this is contributing to a society waking up to the possibilities of what can be. It is here that professional therapists, mentors, pastors and coaches can have their greatest impact.

Corporations are taking steps to address this new ownership by providing resources and programs to help their employees get more actively involved in owning and directing their own careers. Gone are the days where you could expect to work for the same company for most of your life and retire from that same place. Recently Harvard Business Review put forth a series of articles in a report, A Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need. The focus of the 5 or 6 authors was on coaching and mentoring within the larger corporate structure. Many if not all of the authors expressed the sentiment that it is almost impossible to fast track your career in the large corporate environment without some help from some internal and sometimes external resources. Many corporations offer sponsoring and internal mentoring programs through their HR departments designed to secure help for young hires who want to take advantage of the wisdom of those who know the ropes and can make opportunities happen.

Most of us are not positioned in corporate setting where we are privy to those programs. If we are, we often find that except for the company initiatives they often do not even address a work life balance or take into account the family, relational and leisure life issues we face outside the work environment.

You might be thinking to yourself, “that is all well and good for others but there is hardly a piece of information I cannot find on the internet if I really want to learn something or pursue a personal life upgrade. Why is coaching more beneficial than for me to just research what I want to know for myself? There are books and experts I can access without hiring a coach.”

First of all you are correct, there has never been a time when the availability of information has been so prevalent than right now. You are also correct that it is right at your fingertips. While I would agree with you on those two points I would also add, all the more reason you might want a coach to help you wade through the piles of information and provide some insight to steer you clear of irrelevant material and time consuming trivia. For some things you probably can find what you are looking for. But your life goals and the skills necessary to achieve them can take significant effort and discipline and for that reason we believe hiring a professional to enhance the process is often complimentary to what you might be learning on your own. There are significant levels of insight that can come to you when you change in relationship to another human being that cannot be duplicated in learning on your own. Just for fun I Googled “Mentor” and believe it or not, 50,000,000 hits came up. Granted some percentage of those could be written off immediately. but say 1% are worthy of your investigation that is still 500,000 links you might be curious about. Coaches and mentors have spent thousands of hours helping others grow and change. They have explored various tools and resources which can significantly short cut the process for you more than you know.

So what is coaching and how does it work to help you better manage change and pursue the growth you need?

It is reported that there are over 33,000 coaches who want your business. Some of those are fly by night individuals who self certified their credentials or hung their shingle after a 4 hour webinar or weekend training if that.

Any number of these self proclaimed coaches, gurus, shaman, channelers, bodhisattvas, teachers, sages, business consultants and reincarnated saints are ready and willing to take your money and sell you their unique coaching product. If you are going to take personal growth with a professional coach seriously you simply must develop a game plan for exploring and discerning a handful of these resources. Personal growth junkies like I might call myself and a good many coaches have a knack for what works and what the pit falls might be. Secondly, most of the stuff you find out there still has to be broken down into sensible pieces so it can be applied practically to your actual life issues.

My hope is that when you finish this article you will know what coaching can do for you and have some key insights which will enable you to ask the questions you most need answered. In the end the answers to these questions will assure you of a powerful and effective coaching experience .

Coaching and personal mentoring has been a significant part of my life throughout my 30 plus years as a professional. From my work to successfully growing three businesses and managing the changes that constantly interrupted my plans to my own development as a person and coach. Regardless of what and how you have managed change and growth in the past, coaching may be the avenue you want to explore if you are wanting to add a powerful support resource to your growth team. As we have already said a business coach or life coach can help you develop personal skills, reinvent yourself and overcome the many obstacles you will face. As you begin your journey the best route is to anticipate interviewing a number of coaches so that you fully understand how they will influence you in helping you get where you want to go.

As we begin to look at the questions you need to ask a potential coach I want to stroll down memory lane and reacquaint you with a time when coaching might not have seems so foreign to you. From that vantage point you already have a perspective of coaching which is basically built on common sense. You understand or remember it as simply a relationship with someone who taught and modeled various skills or abilities. This step back allows you to appreciate how coaching as a role may have influenced your development whether it was a academic or athletic coach who mentored you or an unusually great parent who was ahead of the times and coached you in any number of life skills. You learned fundamentals from your coaches that helped you move forward and get better at the particular skill you were attempting to learn and master.

I often question why coaching as a resource for problem solving is difficult for some people to grasp. I’m at times confused because for most of us we simply have no issues purchasing all types of support, training, coaching and mentoring for our children but some where along the way we negate that teaching when we stop modeling personal growth for ourselves, rarely if ever pursuing coaching and growth opportunities as adults. As a parent of 5 I think the best thing I did and continue to do for my children when it comes to health and personal growth is to model for them what life long learning looks like. We cannot afford to stop growing as adults and often that means we need mentors and coaches to teach and support us along the way.

For most of us there is a break down in our values when it comes to professional mentoring. I think we can all agree that personal growth, skill development, insight, support with life transitions, resolution of personal and professional conflicts and the need to stay flexible in our career goals might at times require each of us to hire a professional mentor. We hire lawyers, bankers, accountants, financial and tax advisors, real-estate agents, doctors, dentists, even massage therapists and hair stylists to name just a few. Are the life goals we are achieving, our dreams and the legacy we will ultimately leave to our children at least as important to actively manage as some of the concerns addressed with these professionals? When did we decide that we would have to leave some of our most important personal growth decisions to passive conversations with our family members and friends or go it alone? As we said earlier the way we learn in our educational systems is partially to blame. It’s as if we are waiting for a teacher to hand out the syllabus and tell us what we must do to learn before the end of the year. When that doesn’t happen we assume we are fine. We no longer have a teacher telling us what to do, our goal must be to motivate and direct our own development.

So basically coaching is a relationship where we learn ways to move ourselves forward. None of us can see all 360 degrees of our self definition and self expression. A great coach acts as a mirror showing you parts of yourself that you cannot see or are not aware of. Some of these hidden character traits, beliefs and patterns of behavior are influencing your life in ways that are detrimental to you getting what you say you desire. A great coach asks you the questions you simply are not wired up to ask yourself.

You do not want to leave your life to unfold by just following the crowds or succumbing to whatever happens to you. You get to craft the life you desire. We are happiest when we are pursuing what we want and equipping ourselves with the skills necessary to live at cause rather than effect. Coaching has been around eons of time and will continue to be an invaluable strategy of choice for years to come for people who want to get better at what they do.

You might be asking how is the coaching process different from other relationships that focus on change say for example a therapist or teacher? Having earned two post graduate degrees I would say I have benefitted from teachers and higher education. Obviously that process is primarily meeting the requirements of the program with teacher driving the process through organizing and presenting the required material. With psychology being my field of study and psychotherapy my chosen career as well as having been a clinical therapist for 20 years I have experienced great insights from both sides of the couch. The success of the teaching and therapy roles in our society have proven their contribution over and over again. It literally would probably require a small library to detail all the differences even within each role let alone to do a complete and adequate comparison of the three change models The varying roles, styles, theories and processes are vast. Suffice to say there may be more overlap in practice than most of us talk about. For the purpose of this article let me highlight a few differences. In short, coaching may be different with respect to traditional therapy in its presuppositions. Therapy has long approached human behavior from a perspective of disease and pathology. It’s developmental foundations being built on the medical model. Coaching attempts to focus on strengths, wellness and wholeness, often looking for how the vary strengths of the person can be increased and or mastered to bring more fulfillment, happiness and success to the individual. Coaching tends to look at behavior and the motivations of those behaviors rather than focus on historical trauma or emotional laden material from the past the way therapy might be experienced. Emotions and emotional content are important variables to notice but primarily as energy to be harnessed to move you forward. Coaching is more often than not offered in shorter time slots than therapy, is often completed by phone and is action oriented. It seeks to draw out from the client the wisdom and insight from within rather than the coach being seen as one with all the answers. Goals and action steps are the focus, moving you forward rather than looking back at history. Executives have used coaching for years to keep them focused on the few key initiatives that drive the business and guarantee success. Finally coaching gives you a co-equal partnership in reaching your personal best where the therapy relationship maintains that the relationship is between patient and professional. With a coach in your corner you can come at life with an expectation to problem solve and find solutions.

Of course there are varying expectations from your coach depending on what you are addressing and what will are attempting to accomplish. After motivation, one of the characteristics I look for in clients I want to coach is curiosity. Curiosity enables you to explore options and move forward with a flexible approach to change and growth. Curious about what? Curious about all aspects of your life. About your choices, behaviors, beliefs and actions.

Based on what you are reading, what about you? What do you want to change? How do you want to start or get a “do over” as we use to say on the playground? For each of us it starts with having some idea of what we are doing day in and day out and the degree to which it works or doesn’t work in making us happy, successful and fulfilled. We are all successful in parts of our lives. But if you are not happy and successful in most of your life why not? A better questions is what can you do to start now to make it different? The question is not to throw everything out and go back to square one. More often than not it is about nudging ourselves, taking inventory of where we are and what we most want. It is about having courage to step out and accomplish our goals and aspirations. It is about evaluating, eliminating and getting focused. There is enough time. We just need some help. All in all we need some idea of where we truly want to go and what it is that is keeping us from getting there. Confusion, chaos, fear, laziness, ignorance? All these sticking points can be addressed powerfully and successfully with the right coach or mentor.

Finally to finish these ideas and get on with our list, let me also add that coaching and mentoring is not just for those of us that like to self develop naturally. Yes some of us are wired up from birth to manage risk, change and approach learning opportunities more easily than others but everyone can learn and grow regardless of their natural tendencies. If you are one of those individuals that doesn’t move as quickly to personal growth or change, all the more reason you might benefit from a coach. Someone who will ask you the tough questions, help you clear the clutter and set some action steps in motion that are achievable. It can be helpful to discover the unique ways you have been wired up to grow. It is also important to celebrate your natural tendencies but then begin to find ways to address the things that do not come to you so naturally. You don’t always have to fix the places you are weak but you do need to take responsibility for 100% of your behavior and find ways to manage the things you do not do as well. In summary, here is a brief list of the issues a coach is especially able to help you address. These are complex and changing times don’t feel you have to manage alone.

• We are bombarded with options, information and choices. We need help sorting it all out.
• Life is becoming more complex not less
• More is being asked of you today than ever before. Relationships, family and work are potentially more taxing.
• Extended family and friends are less involved in your day to day and often not sophisticated enough to help you unravel difficult or time consuming issues you face.
• We cannot possibly be experts on all the new frontiers we are being asked to integrate.
• Change is not only coming at you more often but more quickly and with greater intensity and complexity with potentially greater risks.
• Besides your own life issues more and more of what is happening in the larger world context has the potential to cause you stress and worry.

So, if you buy my premise that coaching or mentoring just might provide you the support and resource you need, the rest of this article will introduce you to a series of questions you can use to determine what you need to know to find that perfect mentor. If you are still deciding whether mentoring is for you, see if some of the questions we explore give you a little more insight into the subject matter. As a simple nemonic, I have used the phrase “Find Me A Mentor” as the outline for the material I will be sharing. As a introduction to Big Fat Happiness, at the end of each section I have noted for you how we at Big Fat Happiness might respond to each of these questions ourselves.

It is my strong recommendation that you always take your time when choosing a coach and that you use this article as a guide. You are interviewing the individual you expect to be instrumental in helping you change your life and this is no small decision. Armed with this information you will all but guarantee for yourself the chance to select a coach or mentor that is right for you and assure a more positive outcome. By asking yourself and your potential coach these 13 questions you are well on your way to success.
F I N D M E A M E N T O R

F-FIGURE OUT- What is it I most want to solve, accomplish, gain or discover that influences my decision to find a mentor?
As an important first step it is necessary for you to take some time to ask yourself a few bold questions. The old adage, “if you don’t know where you are going you are sure to get there” and “if you aim at nothing you are sure to hit it” are appropriate here. They remind us that we must get clear about our passions and longings. I often ask my clients, “what do you love and what do you hate”. Both of these emotions are powerful drivers to get you thinking about what is working in your life and what isn’t. While a key part of a good mentoring relationship is having someone that can ask you tough questions you are not asking yourself, you can easily start this process as you look to find that qualified resource. What do you want? What does the ideal life look like? What dreams have you given up on that still tickle your interest? Where are you stuck? What do you want that if you had it you would be living a more fulfilled, happy and successful life? It will be a whole lot easier to interview potential mentoring candidates if you have given this some thought. Simply speaking, you may need a mentor who is a specialist in what you are hoping to learn. If you want to write that novel which has been in the back of your mind for years you more than likely will want a coach who has written a book or knows something about writing. It you want to start a business you will want a coach who understands business processes. Mentors are successful in taking you from A to B because they have what you want or at least have some defined processes to help get you there. Having an idea of what you want will act as a foundation for interviewing potential coaches. In a very short time of meeting and communicating with a coach you should be able to get some great feedback for designing the right fit. Big Fat Happiness provides a couple of ways for you to jump start this internal question and answer process. With our more immediate NOW Coaching product you are asked to get as specific as possible regarding what it is you want right now and what we can help you change? For our ACTION Coaching which requires a monthly commitment and provides a more in depth coaching solution we ask you to use our online intake to begin to define who you are and what you life is about. We have worksheets and questionnaires to help get those creative juices going and when appropriates powerful positive assessment resources that can help you drill in on your natural tendencies as they relate to values, beliefs, behaviors and skills. Often sections of this tool being included in the monthly price of the coaching. We will take whatever time is necessary to drill down, get to know you and fashion a coaching program that works for you.

I-INTEGRITY AND INTUITION- How do I feel in my gut about the company represented and the personality of the coach? First impressions are not the end all but I do want you to listen to your intuition as you go through the selection process. What are you hearing that you like from the potential coach? How does he or she come across? Do they seem like they are genuine and truly one who walks the talk? Do you like being with this person or if only on the phone is it your experience that they are truly listening and attending to you? Of course it is early in the relationship but as you interview the coach you have ample opportunity to get a feel for many key attributes. You want to know early on if you feel like the coach understands you. Do you feel like the style and approach works for you? For some of this you will be making “gut check decisions” as you experience the process. This second attribute or requirement in finding a mentor is one of the most important. Regardless of how successful or smart the coach might be if there is not some good natural connections going on my advice would be to keep looking. Your decision to move on takes nothing away from a good coach and may just expose a not so good coach if you encounter a strong negative reaction when you share your feelings. You should finish the interview with the coach with an excited and hopeful feeling in your mind and body and a sense of calm that the relationship feels right. Of course there might be a slight sense of fear which may even be masked excitement as you begin something new. The important point here is that you can and should trust yourself. If your coach has given you a sense of competency, wisdom and genuineness you will more than likely look forward to connecting and getting started. Don’t be too concerned if you have a few jitters. After all you are hiring someone you want to get to know you, especially your limiting beliefs and difficult life situations. You want to feel that this person has the ability to handle what you tell them and hold your process in confidence. If they are indeed worth your time and money you will feel their strength as a comfort rather than intimidation.

I know there are reality TV shows that play up the hard core, take no prisoners type of coaches and mentors but this is not the kind of relationship you want. Trust me, you will get farther in your work if you feel safe in the relationship. The work you will be doing will be hard enough without you worrying about being afraid of your coach. You will be able to concentrate on your goals and aspirations if you experience mutual respect, compassion and acceptance from your coach. Big Fat Happiness will take all the time you need to get your questions answered and get you what you need before you make a decision to work with us. Big Fat Happiness brings a wealth of experience and wisdom to your coaching process. With an emphasis on self awareness and self compassion at the core you can rest assured we are going to do all we can to create a safe and effective environment. Keep talking to us about any concerns you have. We will share with you whatever it is you need and want to know about our journey and how we got where we are.

N-NO RISK GUARANTEE- Can I anticipate a guarantee if the program is not for me? There may be no greater initial measurement of a coaches confidence in their skills or abilities than whether or not they will attempt to push the risk to you the customer or take the risk on themselves. A professional coach, mentor or consultant bringing their A game should be able to assess whether what they are bringing to the relationship, all things considered will be helpful more than the client. Sure the client has a sense of their motivation and desire, their history of how they have managed change in the past and possibly a clearer picture of where they want to go but the professional has been here before. He understands first hand from his body of work how people in general move through transition and growth opportunities. He knows what he knows, is skilled and has seen his work change lives. A coach that is not willing to guarantee his work is suspect to me. You are taking a significant risk when you step into a relationship that will in many ways require your time, energy, honesty and openness. A coach worthy of their fee will want you to get the choice right more than he or she should need to secure their income. If after a few sessions you do not believe the process is yielding some early level of benefit you need to be able to walk away and recover any money you have paid, especially money spent on anticipated services beyond the ones provided. No one can predict with 100% accuracy whether the coaching experience will be successful. Within a reasonable time you will know if the relationship and style is a fit. With that being said, I say let the coach bear that initial risk. Big Fat Happiness wants you to have a secure feeling that what you are about to begin is designed to help move you forward. If for any reason you do not feel after a session or two that what is happening is helping, we don’t want your money, we want your happiness. We will do what we can to make the adjustments or agree to refund your money and help you move forward. We will even put it in writing if that will help you get started.

D-DESIGN- Will this coaching program provide a uniquely designed program that addressed my issues specifically? With the plethora of programs on the market promising to heal every woe and even grow hair, it is not always easy to know if what you are buying, even good programs will actually solve the problems you face. Sometimes of course they do. More often than not the experience leaves something to be desired. Take it from someone who prides himself on being able to decipher self help programs and make them practical. We at Big Fat Happiness even re-package some material we find that makes sense to us but lacks practical application. These become our webinars where we help individuals define down to earth solutions for what is presented in the various programs.
What you are buying is going to work for you where you most want and need the help or it will be one more program you buy and put on your shelf or sell in a garage sale six months later. More and more programs are being designed for a mass audience and have limited personal impact. When and if they do have a personal impact it is often because the user was savvy enough to make the application. Often the individual has to adapt and maneuver the material to fit their issues. There are many great, certified, experienced and highly trained coaches on the market who will take the time to focus on a unique approach to what it is you want to address. As much as you can define early on what it is you are wanting to accomplish, to that same degree you enable yourself to define the best medium or tools to work with. Coaching can be offered on CD’s, DVD’s, in books and through seminars and webinars. You can attend conferences or have the program delivered virtually. If you are looking for one on one coaching know that going in. Some coaches are better teachers and will use their time with you to instruct. Others are better at process or a working through model. Talk openly about what type of experience you hope to have with your coach. At Big Fat Happiness we do have a variety of learning and coaching processes. From our single session NOW Coaching to webinars, assessment/analysis sessions and ongoing monthly coaching called ACTION Coaching, we have a number of places you can get started that fit your needs.

M-METHODOLOGY- How will my coaching relationship work? What do the ground rules for our work together look like? This area for questioning includes many of the nuts and bolts kinds of questions as well as issues of confidentiality, style, and theoretical approaches. As we have said earlier, there are many more coaching styles and acceptable underlying principles being put into practice in the coaching industry. than we can evaluate here. New change management models, entrepreneurial business models, coaching models with an emphasis on the use of unique technology such as social media marketing solutions. The sky is the limit. There are any number of coaches training program providing training in a weekend and advertisements that say coaching is something anyone can do. There is probably not an activity you could choose to participate in that does not have someone listed as a professional coach there to help and guide participants. There are various coaching programs which are built around spirituality and metaphysical philosophies that propose past life regressions and angel guide channeling. I don’t present this laundry list necessarily to discourage or offer up disparaging remarks for the variety of solutions being offered, only to say that you have to be prepared for any and all sorts of solutions be propagated in the market and choose wisely. I don’t think it is unrealistic to want to know how a coach understand the change process, or how he understands addictive behavior or mental illness for that matter. You may have some potential coaches raise their eyebrows in response to you asking them to explain their model but if they cannot articulate how people change and grow in general and what is happening in the process of transformation of a business or a personality, again I would keep looking. This document is not the place for us to clarify how we at Big Fat Happiness see and understand these questions as much as it is for us to tell you we will have this conversation with you any day of the week. You are welcome to visit our website at www.bigfathappiness.com to read our philosophy and our principles of coaching. As far as some of the definitions around how the coaching relationship works there are a number of places where our website and print copy speaks to that. You are more than welcome to give us a call or drop us an email to have us speak to any issue for which you are wanting more information. We know it can get confusing out there with various healers and shaman claiming to have special healing powers or insights into angelic solutions. Trust your gut and keep asking for what you need until you are comfortable with the answers.

E-EXPERIENCE- What life experiences should I look for in my coach? In determining the type of coach that will most naturally contribute to your success you will want to learned what life experiences they have had that might prove beneficial to you in your coaching relationship? This can be a tricky question as is referenced in this story of a school teacher when applying for a position told the administrator “I have 20 years of experience” to which the administrator replied, “I have heard that you have 1 year of experience repeated 20 times”.
There is a difference. Listen, anybody over the age of 25 has 25 years of experience doing something. Be careful and inquisitive as you interact with your potential coach. You are listening for stories of life lived as well as lessons learned. Don’t be bashful here. The stories should not be all of successes with no bumps and bruises, scars and failures. There should be a few stories that reveal the capacity to fail, be discouraged, struggle and overcome. You are not looking for superman here but neither are you wanting a coach that has too many unresolved struggles of their own. They should show in their demeanor as well as their character that they know how to manage difficult situations and you should be able to sense the degree to which they have their life on track. Balance is good, success is good, happiness is good. You are looking basically to understand two paths. One, who has this person become as they have finessed their journey and two, what have they accomplished. Both are equally important questions and give you a barometer with which to measure their ability to teach you what they know and or relate to what you might be going through. You may actually prefer to know your coach is a recovering alcoholic if you are also working the program. You may want to know that he survived a bankruptcy if you are running a business and feeling financial stressors. As we have said all along any one of these areas of questioning might be a deal breaker for you. If so, better you know ahead of time before you get too engaged. Big Fat Happiness has placed a large amount of copy on our web site to address who we are and where we have been. You are free to inquire about any information you need to hep you get clear on our experiences. I know the caliber of coaches we attract at Big Fat Happiness and want to be sure you feel comfortable that we have been where you are or have walked in your shoes.

A-AVAILABILITY- How often should I anticipate that I will be scheduling coaching sessions? This is an element of the coaching relationship that is almost always clearly defined. Coaching is traditionally offered in a block of time such as a 30 minute session once a week or in various other time frames and frequencies. There is usually an amount of time in between each session so you have adequate time to take the actions steps that were discussed on the call. Generally the coach will schedule you a consistent time each week. This is your time and you are expected to come to the call ready to address whatever was discussed the session before or any other new business you want to talk about. I would guess with most coaching I have experienced the coach attempts to solidify his or her schedule and make your ongoing sessions as routine as possible for convenience sake. Sessions are usually paid for on a monthly or quarterly billing cycle. Feel free to ask your coach how flexible he or she is in some of these issues and determine what impact a rigid or loose coaching schedule has on how you best address issues. Big Fat Happiness has taken a different approach to the issue of availability. Our Now Coaching product has been specifically designed to offer 20 minute coaching sessions for the personal and professional issue you want to be coached on as close to a time when you want to talk as is possible. Whether you have an ongoing relationship with a mentor, coach or therapist in place or not you are free to use this service as often as you want for immediate availability. These sessions are defined, paid for and scheduled on line at www.bigfathappiness.com and are just under $50.00 for the 20 minute session.
You also have the flexibility to email us at nownow@bigfathappiness.com and request a initial session for free. We provide a short email summary of each coaching session so you can be fully present on the call without the hassle or need of taking notes. We know that some of the most powerful drives for change happen to you in moments and to the degree you have the option to talk to a coach closer to those moments we think that alone can make a difference and be invaluable in moving your forward.
Our goal is to do our best to be available when you are ready to talk.

Should you decide that you want to take advantage of an ongoing coaching relationship with Big Fat Happiness, our ACTION Coaching product provides you with a uniquely designed coaching relationship and strategy specific to your needs. With this product your coach will explore how you best change and what availability might work best for you. In that way he or she can more closely coach you when and how you want to be coached. You have the flexibility and option to set up a regular time each week to be coached or you can text or email your coach for availability each day of the week. For one monthly fee you can be coached as much and as often as you and your coach can schedule your sessions. There may be some months that your coaching sessions are light and others more intense. We also do not have strict time requirements for your coaching calls. If you need 5 minutes a day for 5 days or 90 minutes in one session you and your coach have the freedom to do what works. Obviously, what we ultimately want to provide is a blend and balance that can meet your unique needs rather than have you adjust yourself to our schedule. Availability is a key factor in successful coaching. Do not overlook this aspect of the program you choose.

M-MONEY- You knew we would come to this eventually. So how much should I anticipate coaching will cost? Coaching can come in all varieties and packages. I was recently at a seminar where the individuals leading the seminar boasted of coaching services being secured for thousands of dollars a session. It seemed in the discussion that the more one paid for coaching the better it was. I have paid thousands of dollars for coaching programs that provided no direct individual coaching. It is all in what you are looking for, who you want as your coach and sometimes how gullible you are. The coach’s value is ultimately determined by what someone will pay for a seat at the table. If I could make one recommendation here it would be to not let this variable overly determine which coach you choose to work with. It is one of the thirteen areas you need to explore and negotiate but there is not always a correlation of cost to value. You can find poor coaches charging expensive rates and good to great coaches charging reasonable rates. Some of it has to do with the goals, aspirations and sometimes the ego of the coach more that a honest reflection of their skills and abilities. Be careful, trust you intuition as we have said and take responsibility to determine if you are getting a value for your money. We at Big Fat Happiness have our pricing on our website for our NOW and ACTION products. We exist to instill happiness and alleviate suffering. We desire to run a profitable business and help people at the same time. We know we are expensive for some and cheap for others. It is all relative. When and if we believe we need to raise our rates to cover our costs, provide WOW experiences and make a profit we will. We believe for the value our rates are reasonable and manageable for most people who truly desire a professional coaching experience. Come with your questions and above all let’s have a conversation.

E-EDUCATION- What education or training qualifications should I look for in my coach? Education and specialized training represent one of the key coaching requirements necessary for assuring you that the coach you choose to work with is qualified. This qualification is the one in which you will find the most variety. I just did a quick web search for coaching training programs and noticed it pulled up roughly 7 million hits. There are as many coaching training programs out there as there are issues to address in coaching. With a little effort, some of the better programs differentiate themselves from the also rans by length of training, supervision requirements, leadership and structure. There are also many coaching and consulting resources who represent and market themselves emphasizing other criteria other than coaching certification credentials. These professionals rely on years of practical experience or “street credibility” which they have gained in their specialized area of expertise whether it be in business or another enterprise. They may have entrepreneurial skills they have mastered as they have built companies or various levels of expertise learned in formal and sometimes more informal educational programs. When you are evaluating this particular qualification you will want to listen closely to the coaches emphasis on what he has to teach and how his expertise and mastery has been gained. Doing so will assure you of a closer match of the right credentials to help you get where you want to go. Big Fat Happiness coaches have been trained by David Ruch. David personally screens all his coaches for the right mix of experience, professional education and training. The mix of these attributes is more important for coaches selected to work with Big Fat Happiness than any one attribute particularly. To coach with Big Fat Happiness requires understanding our philosophy and principles of coaching as well as how the unique and proprietary coaching process functions. David brings his life work as a clinical therapist, his post graduate training in psychology and theology, his experience consulting with various businesses and his intense practical mastery of the change process to each client he works with and each coach he trains. As always we want to have this issue be a conversation so you can feel you are in the right place when you select your coach.

N-NATURAL FIT- How important is it that I like my coach or should I pick someone who scares me a little? We have already touched on this some under Integrity and Intuition. Suffice to say we think it makes more sense to have a coach you resonate with. There is obviously a difference in feeling respect for your coach and feeling fearful or intimidated. We would say that having an excitement and an openness towards your coach as representative of a deep belief that he or she has something to teach you is a great place to be. Remember sometimes it takes a while to get use to working with a coach and exploring behaviors and feelings you may be a little reticent to discuss. Take your time but after a few session if you feel you are dreading the coaching experience that should tell you to take another look at the issues which may be causing you to fear and see if you can get comfortable talking about them or if nothing else, allow yourself to move on. You can find an absolutely wonderful and talented coach, one that even comes highly recommended by people you trust and still not find that natural click. This is going to be something that you just get a feel about. If you are pursuing Big Fat Happiness for coaching do not hesitate to bring up any concerns you have with your coach and get them sorted out. We will be the first ones to recommend a different solution if we are not the right fit for you.

T-TIME- How much time should I anticipate the coaching process will take for me to get what I need? Of course people change at a pace that is unique to the individual. There is no right answer here. At times depending on what issues you are bringing to the table and how well you understand where you want to go, you can at times estimate how long you think you might want to work together. Although some coaching programs are sold in single sessions many are sold packaged by the month, quarter or even a full years worth of coaching at a time. I have purchased single session coaching for consultations and I have purchased year long programs. Obviously the farther out you are going to commit your time and money the more you should really understand what specifically you are buying and whether or not that guarantee we discussed earlier is in play. It can be difficult to know where you might be in three months or six months let alone a years time. Depending on how highly recommended the program comes to you and how comfortable you are with unknowns it can be an adventure or a situations that leads to buyers remorse. My advice is for ever month you are purchasing a program in advance give yourself at least that many days to determine if you know everything you need to know to make a wise decision. Understand what the advantages are for committing yourself months out. Is it a price break? Is the program one that builds on itself and it takes that long to cover all the material? If you don’t have to commit long term, don’t. Let your experience be your guide for how long you will stay.
We already mentioned with Big Fat Happiness both our NOW and ACTION Coaching programs give you the timeframe you are committing to up front. for the NOW Coaching you are basically committing to 20 minutes at a time and only when you decide you are going to log in and purchase a session. For our ACTION Coaching we like you to commit to 90 days but tell you up front if after 30 days you say the program is not for you we refund within 10 days all unused months. We want you to stay coaching with us as long as we prove to be helpful to you, no more and no less.

O-OBJECTIVE FEEDBACK- What tools will my coach have that can help me objectively identify valuable insights about myself? Professional coaches bring tremendous intuitive skills to the process of change that are often deeply rooted in compassion, reason, and wisdom. To be frank some of my coaches have been down right transformational. A good coach can listen in between the elements of your “story” and bring key questions and powerful insights which open a whole new perspective you more than likely could not come to on your own. A coaches training in communication skills, change process and the ability to create space for you to bring your ideas is down right magical. That being said, sometimes it can be helpful if there are objective assessment tools that you can participate in that give a more scientific reference to self exploration. Some of my most powerful leaps in personal growth came from participating in objective questionnaires and online assessments tools that have been standardized on healthy populations and which reveal unique characteristics about my values, behaviors, motivations, competencies and relational style. It is an added arsenal for a coach to be able to provide their clientele these influential tools. Ask your perspective coach if he uses programs of this nature that can be made available to further your learning. We at Big Fat Happiness are proud to have partnered with a powerful assessment company called InnerMetrix. They provide a wide range of assessment tools which we can provide to our clients and which can give insightful objective feedback about you that it would take months if not years to discern through conversation only. We have used these tools extensively and participate in ongoing training so we can deliver these to you. Ask us about when and how these might be helpful to your ongoing self awareness. Some of the tools are included in the cost of the monthly coaching programs.

R-RESOURCES- What other resources might be available for me through coaching with your program? This in some way is simply a wild card and at times can round out or individualize your coaching experience all the more. While most often not a game changer in making a decision whether or not to select a coach, knowing that there are products and services and unique growth opportunities can be a plus. We have seen offerings like Master Mind groups, retreats, ongoing blogging communities where clients who are coaching with the organization can have access to low cost add on programs and experiences. Big Fat Happiness does provide community connections through it’s routine blogging, Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as a partnership with Kiva, a micro financing company through which we have created a Kiva -Big Fat Happiness Team. This avenue allows you to participate in helping under privileged entrepreneurs all over the world. We know that insight which comes from ongoing conversations with other participants can be icing on the cake for your growth experience and are always brainstorming with our clients what other ways we can enhance their growth, success and happiness.

So there you have it. We have just reviewed 13 great exploratory questions to ask any organization you might be interviewing with the intent of hiring a mentor or coach.

As we said, be curious.
Obviously we are passionate about helping people change their lives through our coaching programs and want Big Fat Happiness to be the place you think of when you are looking to add a professional coach as part of your success team. Please do not hesitate to call or email us with your questions. Let’s get started and make the next year of your life a year to remember.

I appreciate you taking the time to find us and for interacting with us. Now get out there and get the coaching you need.

David A. Ruch M.Div. M.A.
For the past 30 plus years David has worked in private practice as a full time therapist, has provided business consulting and coaching to individuals and companies and now more recently provides those services under the banner of Big Fat Happiness, LLC As owner and founder he strives to make coaching available to all who desire it. His passion to bring unique, playful and powerful change solutions to individuals and businesses drives his work. He is often heard saying, “the pursuit of happiness doesn’t have to be so scary or difficult to do, we believe it can be done with playfulness, excitement and a sense of wonder.” David is a husband and father, poet and song writer. He can be contacted through the website.
www.bigfathappiness.com

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