The event that led me to life coaching as a career

In 2004, Barbara, a woman I knew only from the Internet, asked me, “What do you know about life coaching?” I’d heard of the term, and as a longtime taker of personal growth courses and participation in things where coaching took place, I had some idea, so I replied, “I know something about it, why?” Barbara had been a very successful woman and was semi-retired at 55.  She told me she was considering a new career challenge, and wanted me to take a look at a website and give her my opinion. It was David Wood’s site, Become A Coach. David is an Australian coach who has mastered the marketing aspects of coaching. I then looked at his other site, Solution Box. I was immediately intrigued, and getting the idea that there was possibly a significant career for me that I’d never considered (or really knew about) before. I was also impressed that David learned his coaching chops at Landmark in New York, since I did the Landmark Forum in 1991. I became a subscriber, and read all the newsletters sent to me. I wasn’t aware at the time, but each issue, and each article, led me closer and closer to making a leap of faith. My friend Barbara ultimately decided this was not for her. Then I received a newsletter with David announcing that the school he co-founded some years ago, ICA, was now accredited by the ICF, and that the price would soon go up. I began to take a more urgent view, got some feedback from a few people on whether or not I might pursue this, and then took the ICA assessment quiz. The results told me that I was “already a coach” and it was “about time” I got paid for it. I took a deep breath and contacted the school, and by the end of that weekend, I was enrolled in coaching school, and took my first class around the beginning of May 2005, and successfully completed my training in April of 2007, with a graduation ceremony on Friday, June 1, 2007.