The Mentor is an experienced person that you typically seek to learn from them and get their advice. A Coach is trained to listen and provoke deep reflection through humble inquiry so that you learn about yourself and tap into your own natural drive and instincts to generate change.

Yes, but these are two distinct roles, and the Coach must be clear what role they are in when interacting with a client during a session.

A Coach works to improve performance where a Therapist works to address mental injury or illness dealing with thought patterns and behaviors. Counseling mainly focuses on understanding, resolving, and healing emotional pain. Coaching addresses personal goals, strengths, and action plans. It is focused on the present and future.

Yes, but these are two distinct roles, and the Coach must be clear what role they are in when interacting with a client during a session.

Close friends, spouses, work colleagues and family members have the best intentions, and they have an important place in your journey. But they are not trained to listen, ask the proper questions, and lead a conversation with a specific goal in which you are the driver. Coaches are like a copilot, and they are trained to refrain from telling you what to do or influencing you to lean in a certain direction that is not of your own personal conviction.

There are many sources of information and people that are influencing you every day. The Coaching session is a safe space for you to reflect and bring out your own thoughts, ideas, goals and barriers without being interrupted, judged or influenced. The power of listening to yourself creates awareness to uncover different ways of looking at your own circumstances, which leads to an authentic will to take action on your own terms.

Coaching sessions are structured in such a way that they conclude with a commitment from the client to take action on the topic discussed. There is always a good chance the client will deliver because they came up with the action on their own so they own it and they will hold themselves accountable. The Coach will serve as a witness and supporter of your commitments during the coaching relationship to hold you accountable as well.

Absolutely. In fact, it is sometimes better so that the Coach can be more objective and minimize bias creeping in during the interaction. Coaches are trained to be neutral and not analyze or judge their clients. Coaches don’t need a lot of detail either so it’s up to their clients how much they want to reveal about themselves, they must just know enough to ask the right questions.

Coaching is a deep thought-provoking process that takes time to adopt and turn into change. Perhaps it takes about 3 sessions at a minimum to establish rapport with the Coach and see some effects of the coaching process. Clients usually space their sessions about 3-4 weeks to digest all the content of the session and carry out their action plans because the reflection usually lingers well beyond the session itself.

Yes, they should be. My CoachRice training, at Rice University Doerr Insitute for New Leaders, is bound by the International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) ethics and standards of behavior. An agreement is signed between the Coach and client which includes a confidentiality clause and among other things, clauses clarifying that coaching is not to be used as a substitute for counseling to treat mental disorders as defined by the American Psychiatric Association or offer mental health care, substance abuse treatment or other professional advice by legal, medical or other qualified professionals. In my role, I either serve an individual as a Coach or as a Therapist.  I will not work with an individual in both capacities.

Link to ICF Ethics Standards