Get er Done! Why Sign and Utilize Contracts?

In the business, professional, internet, or any world with which you associate yourself. Professionalism, formality, closure and safety are all important. Read on to see why contracts move goals forward!

1. Formality. It adds to the REALNESS of the coaching relationship for BOTH the client and coach. As a coach I don't want some client joking around wasting my time if they aren't committed to changing. I take coaching VERY seriously. I've deliberately started and stopped smoking for 2 month segments specifically for the purpose of learning about the addiction so I could educate myself on how to help clients break it! I take coachign incredibly seriously and I need clients that are committed to changing as well! From the Client POV, I'm sure a sincere and focused client who' serious about achieving his/her goals WANTS a serious coach who's determined to make them realize their goals and potential!! A contract creates this formality to the coaching-client relationship.

2. Closure. A contract creates closure and certainty on the duration of the coaching. This is ESSENTIAL for goal-setting because it shows the coach and client how fast they ahve to move and what they will have time to cover or not. If the coach and client only have 2 coachign sessions, they'll most certainly have to focus on different things than if they had 10 coaching sessions. A contract creates closure.

3. Professionalism. This is the most simple and obvious reason for using a contract -- Professionalism! Real coaches, real clients -- real professionals, be it a businessperson, an actor, a performer, a therapist, anyone exchanging in a business agreement with a person who expects to get anything done, does work AFTER signing a contract.

4. Safety. Again, another obvious, but vitally important reason. Contracts ensure that expectations and needs are agreed upon and it provides the comfort of knowing that the client and coach both will provide the details of the exchange! From the service-provider point of view, this ensures you get paid, and from a client point of view this ensures you don't get ripped off! That mutual safety creates for a more lucid experience.

Heroic Journey of My Coaching Process

First off I noticed that the ICA Coaching Process Diagram resembles Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces 12-phases of the heroic Journey. Joseph campbell is an author of mythology and kind of mythological dissection. He went back and scrutinized myriad myths and plugging in some Jungian archetypes extracting some archetypes, he extracted these 12 stages that occur in almost every myth be it 1970s star wars or a 500 bc folktale. And the phases involve a departure, encountering obstacles, tests, helpers, return, seizing the elixir and others. so the coaching process resembles the heroic journey that a client will go through and experience!

The most fascinating connection I saw was that in 1998 I made an abstract self-portrait that strongly resembles the ICA coaching process! Except that mine utilizes more color, which I like. I have a confusion, dark cloud on the left side which is where the client starts -- from confusion, muddled doubt, fear, and its a rough, grey-black textured part of the abstract canvas. Then there's an up and down energy line which reflect the heroic journey and the end result is this warm smooth, red and yellow chunk that represents the achievement, the kindness and love. ST. Ambrose said, "Faith is in the beginning and love is in the end." On my coaching journey process, Love is truly the the end result of the coaching and the energy-heroic line has greens, reds, blues, and many colors of change. What's interesting is that instead of pillars I have 3 slivers of red and yellow surrounding the main sphere (the client's core and their compassionate reservoir which always stays the same and contains their infinite potential). Those slivers represent passion, love, and joy that are ALWAYS with hte client throughout the entire journey!! Unlike the pillar where they'd go through the truth-telling and listening phases and then a questioning phase, my model of coaching (that I painted 11 years ago) has these empowering qualities ALWAYS with the client throughout the entire journey that they can and should and do draw upon!!

So the Beginning of my client process starts at "muddled confusion and doubt and fear"

The Goal: is emergence into passion, warmth, and kindness.

Towards then experience of achieving the ultimate conclusion, the client typically has "the nascence of new ideas and new conclusions and journeys" but it doest get slightly steeper, but only because the achievement of this coaching process will be all the more fulfilling!

Additionally, my coaching model resembles the Dalai Lama's ever-increasing path of happiness, indicating that "yes" there are "peaks and valleys" in the achievement of that goal-process, however, the subsequent valleys (challenges) decrease in difficulty while the peaks (high points) exponentially increase in pleasure and success and total happiness!

And in my "canvas of the client process". there is a define starting "texture" (rough, complex, fearful) and ending texture (smooth, like rolling pastures of warmth and sucess and freedom).

So it's fascinating. I've been coneptualizing coaching and my coaching proces for 11 years. Since 1998 when I first designed my abstract portrait. That portrai will become my coaching model and my logo. Additionally 11 years ago was when I embarked on doing many free association techniques and stepping into and eliminating fear and ultimately expanding and empowering the truly infinite nature of my life. Everything I've done since then, since I embarked on my coaching journey 11 years ago, be it living in teh jungle or writing over half a dozen books, or over 300 articles, journeying ot costa rica, peru, europe, my computer science work, or running marathons, or experience and exploring soemtiems frightening or different parts of the world and the life experience...ALL of that has been part of my journey as a human becoming a coach. So that warmth or reds and yellows of passion and clarity is coaching for me, and I'm there, I've arrived!!!!!

So this is what I've devoted my life to (the past 11 years) into making myself the best coach I could possible be. Now for the next 12 years of my life, I will be getting paid to help clients maximize their own potential personally and professionally, just as I have coached myself to do (and have had literally tens of thousands of othe coaches, coach me in the process). So this is exciting and galvanizing!

And I'm massively stoked to have you depart from fear, doubt, and bumpy uncertainty, go through your own heroic journey, and then ultimately experience your pastures of smooth success and richly colored happienss!!!!! :D

So not only have I been training as a coach for the past 12 years (really I started the portrait in 1997), but I have developing my own model for the client's heroic journey during coaching!!

And EVERYTHING -- from Campbell's mythological heroicisms, to nlp training, to personal experiences -- has been moving towards more clarity for my coaching process!!

I've bene coaching for free for 12 years and it's been TERRIFIC!! Now i'm infusing affordable payment packages into my coaching so in addition to doing what I love, I will get paid to coach now too! Great! That will is terrific as well!