I guarantee that in our work together, I will:

• Provide you with professional, evidence-informed coaching.
• Treat you with respect, and use my training, skills, knowledge, and experience to enable you to remove barriers and make clear, visible progress toward what you’re working toward.
• Abide by the Code Of Ethics of the International Coaching Federation and industry best practices to ensure your psychological safety and provide the best coaching I can.
• Treat all information you share with me as confidential, except as described HERE.
• Listen to any concerns you may have and work with you to ensure that our time together is effective.

I can’t guarantee that you will reach your goal, because a lot of that depends on you and on other factors beyond my control.

But I will do my best to ensure you have the tools you need to succeed and the support you need to make that as painless as possible. 

My focus is strategic life coaching.

Intentional and designed to create a clear, tested plan of action, that you are comfortable with and confident you can use successfully, to achieve a specific goal or goals. 

I don’t coach clients JUST on professional goals or JUST on personal goals, but on what matters to them – at work, at home, and in any area of LIFE where they want to change something.

Working together in an organized, strategic process to to build, then successfully implement the steps you need to reach your goal(s). 

That means that our coaching process…

1. Begins with us working to really determine what your coaching goal is.

Some clients come in having this fully definite, with diagrams.
Some have a general idea, but they need some help getting a solid vision.
Others come in just knowing that SOMETHING has got to change … no idea what, or how, but this just can’t go on!

2. Once you feel good about the goal, we then figure out what you need to accomplish it, and how to get that.

Some of what you need may be external – a building permit, a certification, money, a personal assistant. Some may be internal – being able to set and enforce a boundary, believing that you have a right to say ‘no’, changing your routine to create time for working on the goal.

3. NOW we create a detailed plan for how you’re going to achieve your goal.

We build this in a way that works for YOU, and we build in small enough steps that every one of them looks achievable to you.

The most important thing to know about planning? Even the BEST PLAN is going to have rough spots that need to be sanded, weak spots that need some shoring up, or gaps that you just didn’t know to plan for when you started.

4. So, once we have a plan you feel confident in, we start implementing it.

And adapting it, when you hit something that doesn’t work quite how it need to.
And testing the adaptations. Until you are succeeding with you plan, and with you GOAL. 

Strategic coaching isn’t just about making a plan.
It’s about making sure that plan gets you to where you want to go.

Most of my clients work with me in a private coaching program. But I also offer Crisis Coaching, Group Coaching, and some hourly options. 

Looking for other coaching options? Feel free to reach out to me to discuss! 

I coach people who do very important, physically,  emotionally, and/or mentally difficult work – whether for pay or not – and who care a lot.

People like this are invaluable in our world, but can be at high risk of letting the needs of everyone around them overwhelm their own needs.

And letting the world use up wonderful people is a very bad idea.

Most of my clients do things like:

• Humanitarian and non-profit work

• Law enforcement, public safety, and responding to emergencies

• Medical and social work

• Caregiving for people with special needs, elders, people with physical or mental illnesses, or others who require extra support in their lives.

I also work with people who are dealing with a crisis.

This is very different from therapy, medical help, or legal assistance – it’s important to know that, and to seek ALL the forms of support you need.

Crisis coaching is focused on the work that needs to be done to:

• Survive the crisis

• Move through the crisis effectively, and

• Reduce your risk of this kind of crisis happening in the future.

For more detail, be sure to review my Services and Pricing Page. But here’s a quick rundown of current pricing: 

• 90-Day Transformation coaching package: $1500.
• INDIVIDUAL COACHING – starts at $200 per hour.
• PROJECT INTENSIVE – starts at $225 for one 90-120 minute deep dive into a topic, goal, or project. 
• TUNE-UPs – Available to all past clients, once per year – $25 for 30 minute session.
• GROUP COACHING – starts at $50 per person, per group meeting.

WHEN payments are due

All payments are due in full at contract signing.

If you need to pay in two payments, let me know and we can discuss options.

HOW to pay

I take payments via PayPal and Zelle, and I’ll provide payment information in our contract.

Refund Policy

Coaching Packages

I do not give refunds for sessions that we have already completed, but package refunds, pro-rated for the work we’ve already done, are available until 24 hours before start of the second session in the package. 

No other refunds are given, but I am happy to reschedule sessions with 24-hour advance notice or in case of emergencies. 

Ala Carte, Intensives, Tune-ups:

Refunds are generally not available, but I am happy to reschedule sessions with 24-hour advance notice or in case of emergencies. 

Because I ensure that the time we book for sessions in available for you, I will charge you for no-show / no-warning sessions except for in emergencies where reaching me was not reasonably possible. 

Group Coaching

Refunds are generally not available, but I am happy to reschedule sessions with 48 -hour advance notice or in case of emergencies. 

Because the group counts on participation and mutual learning, I will charge for no-show / no-warning sessions except for in emergencies where reaching me was not reasonably possible.

You have a right to expect confidentiality from professionals you hire and work with, including me as your professional coach.

→ Coaches are not protected by any client privilege laws, however, so I like to be fully transparent about how I will handle any information you share with me.

In general, anything you tell me is treated as confidential. I’m not going to post, publish, or talk with my friends – or your friends – about it.

More specifically:

• I WILL – with your written permission only – share specific comments or situations in my marketing or training materials. These do not need to identify you personally if you’d rather they not. 
• I MAY share specific comments or situations with a mentor coach, without identifying you personally.
• I WILL NOT share any information about you with anyone in your life, unless you have asked me, in writing, to do this.
• I WILL NOT share your concerns, ideas, intellectual property, or personally identifying information with anyone else EXCEPT in a few rare circumstances:

1) I reserve the right to comply with a court order or subpoena to testify in a court of law if I feel that is appropriate and needed.

2) If you are in immediate danger of serious harm, I reserve the right to cooperate with emergency services and/or you medical providers and/or friends or family you have indicated are safe people for you, to increase your safety and/or reduce your risk. 

3) If you indicate that you are harming or intend to harm a child, elder, or other vulnerable person, I reserve the right to alert emergency services of the danger to the person or people.

I publish my confidentiality process clearly here on my website specifically so that you can make informed choices about what you want to tell me.

It is never my goal to ‘get you in trouble’, embarrass you, or to make things harder for you.

And I am aware that outside intervention, especially if it isn’t something you choose, often creates more problems that is solves.

I have supported people in crisis, in emergencies, who were considering suicide, who were beyond their capacity to cope as a caregiver, and who had committed crimes, without any outside intervention.

That is almost always the best choice, and it is always the option I will try to get us to.
 

To be fancy and formal, and based on the ICF definition of coaching, coaching is:

Working together in an organized, strategic process to empower you as the client to build, then successfully implement the steps you need to reach your goal(s). 

Okay, but what does that mean in the real world?
I see life and professional coaching as very similar to the type of coaching a good sports coach does: Skillfully see what is working and not working for his or her athletes, and using his or her knowledge, training, experience, and insight to help those athletes:

1. Improve in the areas that benefit their goals, and
2. Decrease things that stand between them and their goals.

That’s pretty much my job, too.

A sports coach isn’t the one out on the field / course / court / pitch scoring the points that deliver a win. And no amount of lifting or batting practice or speed drills by the coach is going to achieve a win.

Just like I won’t be building your dream business or enforcing the boundaries you set with your boss. I won’t be calling in respite care when you need a break, or taking away your work phone while you’re in the ICU hooked up to a bunch of tubes.

Those are actions you might choose to take. Or not.

But my job is to enable to you figure out what actions you need to take, and how to take them efficiently, effectively, and successfully – with less stress and time investment than if you were trying to figure it all out on your own.

I do that by:

• Listening. It’s honestly a coach’s main job! I will listen to both what you say, and what you DON’T say.
• Digging into areas that you’re unclear on.
• Gently probing into areas you need to unpack, but aren’t very comfortable with, to make sure they don’t hold you back.
• Helping you identify any blind spots and unhelpful beliefs that are in your way.
• Walking you through what it is you want to accomplish, what is currently in the way of that, and what you’ll need to have and do to move from where you’re at to where you want to be.
• Collaborating with you to build a focuses, strategic plan to accomplish your goal(s).
• Supporting you to test, troubleshoot, adapt, and implement your plan.
• Cheerleading, commiserating, and helping as you learn and test new skills, new thought patterns, and new ways of working on what matters to you.

For more details on the meaning of coaching here at MMC, also check out the Working Together page.  

How is coaching different from therapy?

A lot of therapists are adding coaching to their practices in recent years, and some coaching have a therapy background, so I get how confusing this can be!

So what’s the difference?

1. Types of training and credentials.

• THERAPISTS are usually licensed medical providers, and their licenses usually require training in psychology, marriage and family therapy, social work, or similar topics. 
• COACHES don’t currently have to be licensed. And we are trained in coaching-specific knowledge and skills. While we don’t have to be certified, most of us hold one or more certifications related to coaching.

2. What our work focuses on and how we work.

• Unless you’re rich enough to pay a therapist without insurance, THERAPY usually only deals with diagnosed mental illnesses, determined buy the criteria in a specific medical manual (called either an ICD or a DSM manual, if you’re the curious type). COACHING can focus on anything from parenting, to changing jobs, to learning how to find good dates … to hundreds of other topics.
• THERAPY also typically focuses on the past and the present – what caused the illness or symptoms, what impact they’re having, and how to decrease or manage the. COACHING is largely present and future focused – where are you now, and how do you get to where you want to be?
• THERAPY usually assumes that the therapist is the expert, and they will provide expert advice which the patient will use. COACHING assumes that you are the expert on your situation, goals, and needs, and that the coach’s expertise is focused on assisting you to make the most of your resources, fill in any gaps, see things that you might not notice on your own, and achieve your goal or goals.
  
• THERAPISTS tend to give more advice, while COACHES tend to ask more questions and spend more time listening. 

3. What we can and can’t do in our practices –

• Many THERAPISTS can bill your health insurance for the cost of your work with them. COACHES usually cannot.
• THERAPISTS, depending on their training and licensing, may be able to recommend or prescribe medications. COACHES don’t do that, unless they are also medical providers and you are their patient.
• THERAPISTS can prescribe specific medical care. COACHES may suggest that you seek medical care, but we do not prescribe or enforce those recommendations.

As a coach, I don’t provide medical care or advice. However, if in our work we agree that you need mental health care in addition to, or instead of coaching, I will be happy  help you seek a therapist’s or other health professional’s support.