Sometimes the problem is not where the real problem is.

You may come to coaching because something in your life needs attention—a decision, a relationship, a transition, a recurring pattern, a desire to move forward, or perhaps a sense that despite everything going reasonably well, something is still missing.

We can begin there.

Good coaching can help you see possibilities, make decisions, move through obstacles, and take meaningful action. I have spent decades doing exactly that.

But sometimes, even after we understand the problem, know what to do, and make changes, something remains unresolved.

That is where I have become increasingly interested.

Looking a little deeper

Most coaching naturally asks:

What do you want?
What is getting in the way?
How can you move toward it?

Useful questions. But sometimes another question becomes more important:

What do you believe getting what you want will finally give you?

This doesn't mean abandoning goals or disengaging from life. We still make decisions, pursue meaningful work, build relationships, solve problems, and do what needs to be done.

But we may do all of that from a very different place.

How I coach

I don't begin with a fixed system and fit you into it.

I listen—to what you say, what you don't say, the assumptions underneath the problem, and sometimes the question beneath the question.

Our work may be practical and action-oriented. Or we may look more deeply at how you are seeing the situation, how you are seeing yourself, and whether what you have taken to be true actually is.

After many years of coaching, teaching, and contemplative inquiry, I have become less interested in simply helping people improve the self and more interested in helping them see more clearly what is already here before all the improvement begins.

Sometimes seeing differently changes the problem itself.