What to Expect From Life Coaching: Your Real Questions, Answered

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In last week’s blog, I answered the top five questions I receive from people interested in working with a professional coach. So many of you reached out with more questions—different questions than the five I addressed. So this week, I want to shine a light on these more recent inquiries.

1. I’m working with a therapist. Does it make sense to work with a coach simultaneously?

Yes! Therapy and coaching are the power couple of personal transformation. There are places where they overlap, and an experienced professional will know where to draw the line, but for the most part, they are incredibly synergistic.

Coaching focuses on moving the client—not the patient—forward and helping them create a more conscious and deliberate life. Coaching comes from the worlds of sports, entertainment, and business, not medicine. It is for people who are doing well in life, are often highly functional, and want to access a higher level of their own potential. The ideal coaching client is someone who wants to move from functional to optimal. In my eyes, they are a lovely blend of always-reaching and already-enough.

But it is almost impossible to build a future if we have a total lack of awareness of our past and present patterns and behaviors. If we do not know where we are coming from, it is really difficult to understand where we want to go. This is where therapy is uniquely qualified to help each of us. Many of us have spent years in therapy and have gained a grand novel’s worth of knowledge about why we are who we are and why we do—or don’t do—what we do.

But if information and knowledge alone led to behavior change, we would all be billionaires with six-pack abs. Excellent coaching helps us move from information to insight—literally, a new sight from within—and from knowledge to action. This is no different from what the best business and sports coaches do with their clients and teams.

I want to share an important lesson I have learned over the past decade as a professional coach. Today, as opposed to even a few years ago, there are so many different kinds of therapy, and some, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, seem to me to be very similar to coaching. Do your homework and don’t get too hung up on modalities and titles. Choose the professional who takes the time to show you their work and brings value before you pay them a penny.

Lastly, if you believe that you need to end one thing—coaching or therapy—before you begin the other, let that thought go. Doing both together only supercharges your growth.

2. When will I know my coaching is complete?

Many coaches want their clients to feel that coaching is a “need” in their lives, as though there is something wrong with them, and coaching for a certain period of time will “fix” them. That is not my view of this work. I see coaching as a “want,” and a high-level one at that. The ideal coaching client already has a life. They are not broken. They do not need to do this work—they want to do this work.

Therefore, how long you work with your coach is entirely based on your desire to access higher and higher levels of deliberate life design and self-exploration. Note, I did not say self-improvement. You can get a bachelor’s degree, and that’s an accomplishment in itself. But many of us want a Master's and maybe even a PhD. How long you coach depends on your desire to keep growing and how much value you’re receiving from the work.

That said, it takes time for significant shifts in patterns, emotions, and thoughts to affect our daily lives. Although I have at times agreed to work with clients for three months, I have almost always found it too short. It is best to make a real commitment if we want to see lasting results; that means at least six months, and ideally a year. Many people, including me, choose to work with a coach continuously, much like one might work with a trainer. I see my coach as an indispensable investment in my commitment to grow my life to new heights.

3. Is confidentiality a given in the coaching relationship?

Absolutely! Every conversation, including discovery conversations that may take place outside of a paid engagement, is confidential. The client can tell the whole world who their coach is, but the coach should not do the same unless she has the client's explicit permission. There is an exception to this, and that has to do with referrals. My own business is entirely based on referrals. As such, if an existing or past client refers someone to me who becomes a new client, I will thank the referring client, and they will know that I’m working with the person they referred.

4. How much does a really good coach charge per hour?

Elite coaches do not charge by the hour. They base their fees on their ability to help their clients achieve desired results. Often, those results are priceless, but we have to choose a dollar amount so we can exchange services. Therefore, whatever your coach charges, do not divide it into hours in your mind. You would be doing yourself a disservice. Instead, ask yourself whether achieving the goals you have set with the potential coach—during the preliminary discovery conversations—is worth that amount of money to you. Understanding the value versus the price of something is a skill many of us are missing, and that, too, is something a good coach can help you learn and practice daily.

In the world of AI, hourly coaches are becoming less useful. But a coach who accepts the role of being your partner in co-creating a better life, through presence, access, and experience—not just a 50-minute block of time—will only become more valuable.

I hope I’ve answered most of your questions, but as always, don’t hesitate to reach out. I LOVE to talk about coaching!