Need Clue About Life? Hire Personal Coach

When Claudia Flores found herself struggling to keep her vegetarian catering business going two years ago, she knew she needed some kind of help.

Divorced with a grown daughter, Flores wanted a lifestyle change, too. She just didn’t know how to make it happen.

She needed someone who could inspire her. Someone who could get her going. Someone who would hold her feet to the fire until she got things done.

Someone like a coach.

Featured recently in Newsweek, skewered on Comedy Central’s “Politically Incorrect” and slated for a future “Donahue” show, the personal coaching business has become the latest buzz.

Coaches are similar to personal trainers, but instead of exercising the body they work to develop the lifestyle, spirit and financial growth of their clients.

That’s exactly what happened for Flores. She met her coach, Shirley Anderson, through her catering business.

Anderson, a manager with the Advocate Program Inc., a pre-trial probation and diversion program in Miami, Fla., understood Flores’ dilemma and encouraged her to make a coaching appointment.

“I didn’t know what this was all about, but I called,” Flores says.

But, after one call, she says, she was hooked.

Two years of coaching later, Flores has sold her business and her home, returned to school and, in April, she will graduate from Miami-Dade Community College with a degree in psychology. She wants to go into counseling.

Describing the experience of working with a coach as “spiritual,” Flores thinks Anderson is definitely responsible for helping get her life in order.

“She helped me see what was standing in my way, keeping me from doing these things,” Flores says.

Personal coaching is a concept devised by Tom Leonard in 1992. A tax accountant and certified financial planner in Salt Lake City, Leonard decided he wanted to develop a lifestyle that allowed freedom and travel.

“For 20 years I lusted after this lifestyle,” says Leonard, who now travels the country in an RV, stopping long enough to receive calls from coaching clients.

He also trains coaches via teleconference classes in a two-year course he calls “Coach University,” which has administrative offices in Bradenton, Fla. He teaches his students that there’s a distinction between being a counselor or friend and being a coach.

While the backgrounds of coaches are as varied as the clients they serve, the reasons people seek coaches can be categorized two ways:

Some clients seek coaches to help them find a balance between their personal and professional lives.

Others want coaches to help them become more productive in their business or help increase their business.

“Folks come for a goal,” Leonard says. “They specifically want something.”

Susan Cumins of Miami, Fla., knew she wanted something, she just couldn’t figure out what it was. “All I knew was that I was very dissatisfied with my line of work - handling public relations and marketing out of the corporate office of a real estate company. I found that very, very limiting,” she says.

When Cumins contacted an old friend, Joan Torrieri, she was surprised to hear Torrieri describe her new job as a coach.

“I’d never heard of coaching,” Cumins says. “But it was just what I needed.”

Cumins signed on, and Torrieri helped her identify what was blocking her path to success.

If she could do anything, Torrieri asked Cumins, what would it be? “It took me three or four months to answer that question,” Cumins says. Finally, she says she discovered she “was the one standing” in her way.

Now Cumins owns a public relations firm in Miami, and is “very happy.”

“It’s like this, you’re not crazy but you need a counselor,” Cumins says. “I needed a counselor. I need someone to help me stay focused, sort out the important things from the trivial. The coach’s job is to help you move forward; the issue is - are you making progress toward making the kind of life, having the kind of business that you want?”

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