Before You Hire a Coach: What Coaching Is and Isn’t
Understand how coaching differs from therapy, consulting, or mentorship—and how the right coaching can accelerate your personal and professional growth.
For accomplished leaders, coaching isn’t a “fix.” It’s a partnership designed to help you think clearly, act boldly, and move decisively into your next chapter. Yet coaching is often misunderstood. From Instagram captions to corporate programs, nearly everyone claims it. Yet few understand what professional coaching really does.
Many high-achieving professionals I work with arrive at our first session wondering:
“What actually happens in coaching?”
“How is it different from therapy or consulting?”
“Will this help me get where I want to go?”
These are essential questions. Especially if you’re accomplished, self-aware, and not looking to be “fixed.” You’re simply ready for your next chapter. And you want to do it with clarity, conviction, and purpose.
Let’s get clear on what professional coaching is and isn’t.
What Coaching Is
Coaching is a structured, client-led process designed to help you think clearly, act boldly, and grow intentionally.
In my practice, coaching looks like this:
A trusted partnership that centers you—the whole you, not just your role, title, or current challenge.
A space for clarity and honest reflection, where you can hear your thoughts, name what matters, and chart the path forward.
A forward-focused, action-oriented process, where insight becomes strategy, and strategy becomes momentum.
A mirror and sounding board, helping you see blind spots, challenge assumptions, and make confident decisions.
A catalyst for meaningful change, built on curiosity, discernment, and intentional design.
When coaching works, clients describe it as unlike any other conversation: safe but challenging, clarifying and energizing, strategic yet deeply human. Most of all, it moves you forward, helping you make decisions that shape your next chapter.
You lead the conversation. I follow closely, ask discerning questions, and help you connect with what’s true and possible.
What Coaching Isn’t
Coaching is not advice-giving, therapy, mentorship, or consulting.
| Coaching | Therapy | Consulting | Mentoring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forward-looking | Focuses on healing the past | Delivers expert solutions | Shares personal experience |
| Client is the expert | Therapist is the expert | Consultant is the expert | Mentor draws from their path |
| Builds clarity + agency | Builds emotional stability | Offers plans + execution | Offers guidance + opinions |
| Action-oriented | Insight + coping-oriented | Task + strategy-oriented | Relationship + example-oriented |
In coaching, I don’t tell you what to do. I help you create accountability. If something doesn’t get done, it’s not failure—it’s data. We look at what got in the way and redesign from there.
Coaching isn’t about fixing. It’s about listening more deeply to yourself, then turning that clarity into action. And if another resource like therapy, consulting, mentoring might serve you better in a given area, I’ll point you there.
What Happens in a Session
When I’m coaching at my best, I am:
Fully present, listening deeply
Reflecting what I hear
Asking the question beneath the question
Making space for processing
Holding up a mirror to your values and contradictions
Helping turn insight into strategy, and strategy into momentum
What clients are doing:
Reflecting, processing, building
Getting honest with themselves
Naming what they want and what’s in the way
Committing to what comes next
Learning and growing
The result: clearer decisions, forward momentum, and the confidence to step decisively into your next chapter.
But Can’t a Friend Do That?
Friends give advice, but they bring their own opinions, hopes, and biases. Coaching is different:
There’s no agenda other than yours
You don’t have to explain or perform
There’s no judgment
You’re not told what to do. You’re asked what you can and choose to do
That difference matters. It’s what makes coaching feel like both a relief and a strategic push forward.
And What If I’m Not “Stuck”?
Coaching isn’t just for crises. Many clients are high-functioning professionals navigating growth, transition, or opportunity. They’re discerning. They want a thought partner to help them make strategic decisions and accelerate meaningful next steps.
Is Coaching Right for You?
It might be, if you are:
Ready to reflect deeply and take bold, thoughtful action
Open to being challenged with care
Willing to try, experiment, and learn
Seeking lasting change, not a quick fix
Interested in clarity, not just productivity
It’s probably not the right time if you’re:
Focused primarily on healing past trauma (therapy may be better)
Hoping someone else will hand you a plan (consider consulting)
Not willing to do internal work
Just needing to vent
Final Thought
There’s a quiet kind of magic in coaching. Not because someone tells you what to do, but because in the right space, you realize what you already know—and start acting like it.
The right coaching partnership helps you make better decisions, move decisively, and step confidently into your next chapter.
Ready to explore if coaching is right for you?
Explore my coaching approach or schedule a short consult