Coaching is what coaches do as they cajole, coax, nudge, encourage and otherwise prod people to be the best they can be.
Who have benefited from it? So many. Actors, amateur and professional athletes, corporate professionals and even children.
American actress Reese Witherspoon was coached by producers and artist TBone Burnett in performing as a singer in preparation for her Oscar-winning performance as June Carter Cash in the movie, Walk the Line. Ballroom dance coach Charlotte Jorgensen coached actor Richard Gere in ballroom dance technique for the American version of the movie Shall We Dance. Angelina Jolie worked with street fighting and yoga coaches to prepare for her role in the movie Tomb Raider.
Amateur and professional athletes frequently work with personal trainers to assist them to develop greater strength, skill or range of motion. Yuri Hanin, a coach of Olympic athletes in Finland , uses the techniques of Emotional Intelligence to help athletes improve focus, increase motivation and use their full emotional spectrum to succeed. Dr. Robert M. Nideffer, author of The Inner Athlete has worked with world-class athletes and elite-level coaches to assess and develop intrapersonal and team interaction skills.
Over the past 10 years, corporate professionals have been employing personal or business coaches to reach peak performance in their personal or professional lives. Multinational firms often contract with coaches to develop leadership or team-building skills in their top performers, and many have in-house coaches responsible on a full time basis for the development of key staff.
Even kids have coaches. Their tutors in academics are their coaches. Coaches in the sports they want to excel in.
However, there is still a more powerful "whole person" approach to coaching. This is called "integral coaching."
Integral coaching was designed by people who recognize that in order to change how we do something, we have to think about all the aspects of a person.
This approach considers:
• our mood and relationship to ourselves, our ability to manage ourselves
• our language and how we speak
• our body, the activities and practices we use
• the way we deal with tools, space and time
• our relationships with others including our ability to listen and connect, or understanding the ways in which we fail to connect with others.
And we are lucky for this approach will be introduced here in the Philippines through the program, "Coaching to Excellence."
Imperial Consulting is bringing Julie Layne, a professional coach trainer. She is a Schilling and Maure partner who is certified by New Ventures West as a Coaching to Excellence Instructor. She has been training professional coaches and coaching executives in a variety of industries since 2004. Julie Layne is also a former professional dancer, qualified body worker and a singer-songwriter in US albums. She has worked in the high technology industry as a project manager and trainer. She is accustomed to high paced, high pressure environments in which optimum performance is a must.
(If you are interested to attend this program, it will be on March 14 and 15. For more details, contact Louie Angsico at 438-8428 or 0915-9454060 or e-mail him at langsico@hcd.com.sg.)