First of all, let’s simplify and clarify terms.  There are four main flavors of coach out in the world: the Expert/Consultant, the Cheerleader/Supporter, the Parent/Babysitter, and the “Evoker.”  Different people are looking for different experiences, and being honest with yourself about this can save you time and money. These labels may be somewhat self-descriptive, but to ensure accuracy, let’s flesh them out a bit.

Expert/Consultant
The Expert/Consultant type coach is someone who has worked in your field for some time, has proven proficiency and success, and can give you advice regarding the specifics of the work that you are doing.  Buffini & Company in the Real Estate world would be a good example of this type of coaching. Interestingly enough, most “Life Coaches” fall into the “Expert” category, and establishing the criteria for their “expertise in Life” is pretty subjective.  The decision will probably come down to “getting along well” and “having a good feeling” about them.

Cheerleader/Supporter
The Cheerleader/Supporter type coach is pretty much what it sounds like.  Keeping you positive, keeping you focused, and keeping your chin up when things go wrong, are all in the realm of this type of coach.  If you have great organization and resources, but get tripped up by self-doubt, a Cheerleader/Supporter type coach can be very helpful.

Parent/Babysitter/Crutch
This type of coach is probably the most common style we see.  The approach begins with a given perspective, usually a linear, stepwise view, goals and goal-setting, measurable milestones, achievements, and competition to be “better.”  If the client doesn’t naturally have this perspective, they must try to mold themselves to this style, and hold to it.  The Coach is then in a position of “Enforcer,” holding the client accountable to the goals and timetables that have been set.  Of course when the coach isn’t there holding them accountable, they’re back to square one.  There’s no self-correcting, self-sufficiency built in to the model (that’s how the coach keeps making money.)

Evoker
The “Evoker” style coach evokes excellence from the client.  This is most common in sports coaches, and is the most varied in approach as well.  This type of coach must read the client’s strengths and weaknesses, understand their desired outcomes, and create an evolving program that matches these aspects in a way that will help the client to achieve those desired outcomes.  To evoke excellence in this way requires the coach to work with the client to essentially “re-wire” their internal programming, and their physical actions in congruence with a meta plan agreed upon in the beginning of the work.

The actual science behind this is in creating new specific neural pathways.  You already have neural pathways that are like the trampled down underbrush of a well-worn path you’ve traveled your whole life.  When you always think in a certain “chain of events,” the same neurons fire in the same area of your brain, and eventually it takes very little stimulus for that neural exchange to take place.  This is what becomes a “habit.”  This is also what becomes “auto-pilot” behavior, and the kind of thing you realize later that you did, and get mad at yourself.

To change this, you need to create a new pathway, and then spend some time trampling down the same amount of underbrush, so the new path becomes just as easy for the neurons to travel on as the old path.  This is the gist of the Evoker Type “Coaching Practices” in a nutshell.  It is a form of re-training your mind and your feelings, and your body, to respond in a different manner than they have in the past.  When you do exercises that stretch sleeping muscles, (including your brain muscles) those muscles are not only awakened at that time, but they tend to stay awake and contribute on a more regular basis.  For you musicians out there; this is like practicing scales.  Over time, your fingers become far more adept and agile.

When victims of stroke or brain injury lose a portion of their brain, they can re-train another portion of their brain to take over those functions.  With the right training and exercises we can certainly re-train our own brains to react differently to a stimulus that usually makes us “jump thru hoops.”

Bottom Line
Each type of coach will create a different environment for the client to work within, and it is entirely dependent on the client, their desired outcome, and their processing style, as to which type to choose.  Optimized Results works with the evoker approach, blended with a proprietary system called the Core Perspective Integration, which identifies your internal drivers, and re-wires neural pathways engaging the higher consciousness faculties of each perspective (rather than habitual compulsive responses.)  It sounds way more complicated in this abbreviated description, so please contact me if you’d like to learn more about this process.  The bottom line is simply that it doesn’t “change” you; so much as it works the way Michelangelo described his style: chipping away all the extra marble that obstructs the ideal You from being visible.