In the past decade or two, the field of coaching has exploded. Instagram, LinkedIn, and conferences are now littered with people like me, introducing themselves as “coaches” who can help unlock your untapped potential.

And yet, despite the growing prevalence and acceptance of coaching, many people (sometimes myself included) still wonder: What exactly is coaching?

The reality is that coaching is many different things and can mean different things to different people. It is a huge umbrella under which many disparate practices and modalities can fall. So here are some key distinctions that might be helpful.

Coaching vs. therapy

Of all well-known professions, coaching probably most resembles talk therapy. It’s usually a 1-on-1 setting where individuals get support that helps them experience more fulfillment or success in their lives, whatever that means to them.

Therapy tends to focus on processing and healing from past experiences and understanding how they inform present feelings and behaviors. It’s about integrating the past. The ultimate goal is to get insight that helps move through troubling emotions or toxic behavioral patterns.

In contrast, coaching tends to focus more on the future: getting clarity on the life and career you most want for yourself, and identifying and transcending whatever might be standing in your way. The ultimate goal is often to envision the future you most want for yourself and take meaningful steps toward realizing it.

Another way to think about it: If an athlete tears their ACL, they will likely hire a physical therapist to heal and recover their flexibility and strength. But even after they heal from their injury, they will likely still have a coach who helps them realize their full potential as an athlete.

In short, coaching is typically a support system that helps you envision and realize whatever future you most want for yourself.

Transferring knowledge vs. unlocking wisdom

Perhaps the most common misconception is that coaching involves an expert in a specific field transmitting knowledge to someone so that they can sharpen and expand their practical skills. And in fairness, this is often the case. For example, you might hire a marketing coach to learn specific, concrete marketing techniques. This form of coaching is mostly about learning from someone who has had success in a given field

But this is not actually what many, perhaps most, coaches do. In fact, coaches certified by the International Coaching Federation are trained to work in an entirely different paradigm. Rather than transferring knowledge and expertise to their client, the coach’s primary job is to help the client tap into their own innate wisdom. Coaches in this paradigm (like me) firmly believe that the client already has the answers they need. The coach’s job is simply to create the conditions in which the client can identify, deconstruct, and replace whatever limiting beliefs or perspectives might be blocking access to that wisdom.

Expertise coach vs. life coach vs. executive coach

There are now a billion different types of coaches: life coaches, career coaches, executive coaches, leadership coaches, purpose coaches, productivity coaches, mindset coaches, transformational coaches, and on and on. For me, it’s most helpful to think of three basic groups.

Expertise coaches are those with knowledge and experience in a specific field. They largely transfer knowledge to their clients. They probably don’t call themselves expertise coaches, but rather a “[their field of expertise] coach.”

Life coaches are typically those who help clients tap into their own innate wisdom so that they can expertise more fulfillment in their lives and careers.

Executive coaches may fall into either (or likely both) of these camps. But they focus specifically on professionals at or near the top of their organizations or founders/entrepreneurs trying to build a business from the bottom up.

When people ask me what coaching is, I often use therapy as a comparison. Most people now seem to know what therapy is and how it works. And coaching is similar in many ways. At its core, it’s (usually) an intimate 1-on-1 relationship where people get support in their lives and careers.

With that said, as I explained above, coaching has some key differences. So how does one decide between therapy and coaching?

Coaching and therapy are not mutually exclusive

There are a lot of ways to answer this. My favorite might be that coaching and therapy are in no way mutually exclusive. You don’t actually have to choose. In fact, many might be best served by having both a therapist and a coach, perhaps switching off every week. I have some clients who do this and it seems to offer a nice balance between looking back and moving forward. Something special happens when these two modalities work together.

The case for therapy

Let’s assume you have to choose either therapy or coaching. When might therapy be best?

First and foremost, in all cases of acute emotional distress or where depression, anxiety, abuse, or mental illnesses are a central factor in your immediate circumstances, therapy will almost certainly be a better fit. Therapists are trained to work with these issues and most coaches are not.

But even in situations where there is no acute distress but still a nagging feeling of discontentment or meaninglessness, therapy is often a good place to start. In fact, as a general rule, if you’ve never gone to therapy before, try that first. Nearly all of us have significant unresolved childhood pain standing in the way of the lives we want. Therapists are trained specifically to help you process and move through this. Going back to the sports metaphor, it makes no sense to go to a tennis coach if you’ve got a broken leg. You need to heal first.

The case for coaching

There are many circumstances where therapy is more helpful than coaching. Likewise, there are many circumstances in which coaching might be more helpful.

If you have a clear vision for what you want your life to be, but can’t quite seem to develop a plan or put your plan into motion, a coach is probably your best bet. Or, if your life is generally working fine, but lacking a clear sense of direction, purpose, or aliveness, a coach might serve you best. Coaches are trained to help you get clear on what you most from your life, identify what’s standing in your way, and create the structure and accountability needed to move forward until you have what you want.

Or perhaps this describes you: You’ve been to years of therapy, read several self-help books, and done quite a lot of personal work. And yet something still feels missing from or empty in your life. You can’t move past a certain type of behavior or relationship. Or you have a nagging sense that you aren’t living life to the fullest. Or perhaps the prospect of talking about your mom and dad issues once again now feels boring or unproductive. In short, for whatever reason, therapy is no longer feeling as alive or helpful for you as it once did. You’ve reached a point of diminishing returns.

In my mind, this is a great time to consider coaching. While similar to therapy, coaching is an entirely different modality and might help you tap into different insights or possibilities for your life. And it may simply be that you’ve gotten to a point where you’ve done enough healing, at least for now. You want to see what comes after all the healing. You want to be your most alive, your most actualized, your most you.

Many people in this situation either don’t know that coaching even exists or haven’t considered it as a viable alternative to therapy. Does that sound like you? If so, drop me a line and let’s explore if coaching might support you.

When I had my first inkling that I could become a coach, I faced a lot of internal resistance. I held a lot of negative connotations and cringe around the whole idea of “life coaching.” It felt like social media was littered with all sorts of coaches claiming to be able to transform your life, so often offering false promises and adorning their speech with buzzwords that to me felt hollow and even manipulative. I didn’t want to be in any way associated with that game.

Ultimately, I realized that coaching, like any field, certainly has its fair share of grifters and people who promise more than they can deliver. But it also has so many people operating from a place of genuine service, humility, and integrity. Coaching can be and very often is a powerful and noble support system. In order to allow myself to follow the coaching path, I simply had to make a steadfast commitment to myself to operate from this more noble place.

Here’s what noble, high-integrity coaching means to me.

Promises vs. possibilities

In my mind, coaching is most powerful and honest when it’s a practice in possibility. A coach ideally helps you see, acknowledge, and move toward the untapped possibilities in your life without making any assurances. In contrast, lower-integrity coaching makes big promises about unrealistic future achievements and too often leaves you hanging once you’ve paid

As a coach, I rarely, if ever, make promises about outcomes. The reality is I have limited control over what comes from our coaching relationship. Yes, I can be a guide. I can help identify the beliefs and behaviors that hold you back from the life and career you most want for yourself. I can open doors and pathways. And I can help you plot a path forward. But it’s always on you to decide if you will walk through those doors down that path.

Ego and grand visions vs. the self’s true callings

Some coaches encourage prospective clients to hold an almost impossibly bold and ambitious vision for their lives. While this can be a helpful exercise at times, it is often more about pleasing and motivating your ego that is so desperate to be seen as impressive, successful, great, etc. It’s often simply a tactic for convincing you to fork over your money.

Most of us have self-imposed limitations that disempower us and hold us back from the life we most want for ourselves. When we work through these limitations in coaching, often a “bigger” vision for your life will emerge. But that isn’t the goal per se. The goal isn’t greatness. Coaching isn’t for your ego. Coaching is for the most authentic you that lies beyond it. The goal is to set it free and let it sing so you can be whoever you really are. Often, that is something quite humble and “small.” And that is just as wonderful as something “big.”

Buzzwords vs. timeless virtues

Much of what I find cringy about some coaches’ social media marketing is that it’s littered with buzzwords, unnecessary adornments, or silver-bullet solutions. They have some novel framework or system that they claim will make complete sense of your life. They use a lot of words that sound meaningful, but are often not quite fully explained. They offer a feeling of depth and profundity. But when you really press them on it, there often isn’t much there.

Of course, many coaches create frameworks and systems, myself included. That’s all well and good. But interrogate it. Search for the deeper meaning beyond the buzzwords. Powerful coaching doesn’t actually require any of that. It usually boils down to cultivating the timeless virtues: wisdom, courage, creativity, authenticity, and peace.

Them vs. you

A coach of mine once told me something to the effect of: “A good coach makes the client believe that the coach is amazing. A great coach makes the client believe that they are amazing themselves.” Your engagement with a coach, whether in person or through social media, should put YOU at the center. If a coach seems to be centering themselves and their own desires to be seen as talented, impressive, insightful, noble, great, etc., be careful. Ultimately, a coach’s core goal should be to get you into reflection about YOU. And this usually happens by letting their own personalities, values, beliefs, etc. take a backseat so that you are front and center

Every coach has their own unique style and approach. Here are a few core tenets of my approach to coaching so you can assess whether we might be a good fit for each other.

Adaptive

Many coaches offer their clients a well-established, defined, often linear system for change or growth. These systems can relate to something concrete like marketing or weight loss. But they can also relate to something less concrete like well-being, mindset, purpose, etc.

I do not take this approach. I certainly have several exercises that I take clients through when helpful. And I have a whole emerging philosophy around purpose that I sometimes bring into the fold if relevant. But more often than not, coaching with me is mostly devoid of any obvious, stable system or consistent approach.

I strive for my coaching to be highly flexible and adaptive. It changes depending on where you are in your life and what you’re looking for. If you need help setting goals, we will set strategic, realistic goals that help you get where you want to go. If you need help staying accountable to your goals, we will create a stronger incentive for you to follow through on what you’ve said you will do. If you need help cultivating more work-life balance, we will cultivate practices that help even the scales. If you need help warding off a sense of despair and hopelessness about the state of the world, we will work on holding today’s reality from a different perspective. If you simply need some human connection, we can just connect as humans – no “coaching” whatsoever.

The work we do is informed first and foremost by whatever best supports you. You don’t adapt to me and my system. I adapt to you.

Simple

Sometimes what clients need is something quite practical and concrete: goals, accountability, practices, tools, etc. But I find that more often than not, people already have the knowledge and discipline they need. What most holds them back in their lives and careers is the unconscious beliefs they adopted as children and that still run their lives. Often, a client will have what we might call a “core limiting belief.” This is the whopper, untrue story about themselves or the world that stands between them and living the life they most want for themselves. For example, a core limiting belief might be:

• “I don’t know.”
• “This isn’t it.”
• “I can’t do it.”
• “I’m an idiot.”
• “People are idiots.”

Usually, if you are not following through on some big project in your life or not able to cultivate the types of relationships or career you want, it’s because a limiting belief like this is holding you back.

The goal of coaching then becomes quite simple. We bring these unconscious, shadow beliefs into the light. We talk through whatever tangible situation is most relevant in your life, going deeper and deeper until we get to the very roots of your disempowered relationship with it. We then seed a new belief that better allows you to move forward from an empowered place.

I like to think of our minds as like a wagon going down a muddy road. We go down the same path (i.e., belief) so often that it becomes a rut we get stuck in. So we have to consciously pull ourselves out of the rut and set out on a new path (i.e., a new belief) to achieve different results. This can be really difficult at first. The old rut keeps pulling us back in. But if we stick to it, a new groove begins to form. Eventually, our new, more empowered belief becomes second nature, something we slide into and guides us without much effort. And when we can do that, our lives and careers set down a whole new trajectory.

Kind

Perhaps my core value in life and coaching is kindness. If all else fails in coaching, I lean on kindness. I believe that if I can cultivate a relationship where goodwill, trust, respect, empathy, and care are the norm, good things will happen. So above all else, I strive to be kind in all situations.

Sometimes being kind might be inviting you into rest, rather than endless discipline and striving. Sometimes being kind might be offering you affirmation and praise for a job well done or a powerful moment of vulnerability. Sometimes being kind might be offering you plain advice when you ask for it, even if that isn’t necessarily “good” or by-the-book coaching. And sometimes being kind might be something fiercer – being the only person in your life willing to tell you an uncomfortable truth or holding your feet to the fire when you lose focus or resolve on an important commitment.

Regardless, as your coach, I promise that kindness will always be the foundation of how I relate to you.