What is a life coach?
I wasn’t sure, even after I had paid for one.
I had just spent an entire confusing day in front of my computer, thinking about affiliate programs and how to earn money online to no avail. I clicked from one site to the next reading potentially useful information but not putting anything into practise.
Help me Obi wan Kenobi Tim Brownson
I had heard Naomi at Ittybiz talk about an excellent life coach named Tim Brownson who had helped her. I visited his blog and liked his advice, his sense of humour.
And then I thought, enough! – I can’t keep wasting my time online. I need someone point me in the right direction. So, at the end of a frustrating day I signed up for 6 hours of coaching via Tim’s site and went to sleep.
On the other end Tim received a lump sum payment from someone he’d never heard of ( me ) which prompted:
Declan,
It’s cool to be sent random money, but what is this for? Are you wanting coaching?Cheers
After I had signed, scanned and sent some forms we organised a brief 15 minute chat via skype and started from there.
So what does Tim do as a life coach?
Short answer – what you want. One of the first things he sent me was a list of topics that I was to rate between 1 and 10. 1 being something that I really wanted to improve and 10 being something that I was perfectly happy with.
Things like work, business, health, mediatation, spirituality, time management – so we could focus on the things I was most interested in.
From there he asked questions to find out a bit about my values and motivations. He spent time learning about what I wanted to get from coaching and why I wanted those results before he advised me.
What really convinced me about the value of life coaching was how much attention Tim paid to what I was saying. He gave me plenty of advice, but more often than not he would hone in on something I said and effectively ask me why I had said it.
He stopped me dead a few times and after some thought I found myself thinking “Why did I say that?”
What gets measured gets changed.
That’s true of what you think and say as well as what you spend. Noticing where I was being negative allowed me a chance to re-frame the situation and turn it into something positive.
This might sound like a small change or something inconsequential but after a few sessions, for the first time in my life, I was waking up by myself every morning – no alarm clock, because I was eager to get in front of my computer and start doing what I really enjoy. I feel like I’m sure about what I want to do ( even if I’m still slow in getting there 
I wanted to fix some of the problems I had by availing of life coaching and I found that the majority of those answers I found came from myself. I’m not downplaying Tim’s role by any means, I couldn’t have done it without him but now if I come across a problem I start to think in the manner he’s taught me.
Sometimes that means asking some strange questions like
If I knew the answer what would it be?
At the start of one of our sessions I told Tim that I was frustrated because I’d had a really unproductive day.
“Fantastic” he said, “Now you exactly what not to do”
He’s a great guy to have a chat with and if Tim ever shows up in Ireland the drinks will definitely be on me 
With any kind of coaching or training, there’s probably going to be some slowdown after the coaching has finished and I did find myself slipping back into some of my old habits. But Tim has a huge amount of content on his blog and has published a book “How to be Rich and Happy” with John Strelecky which covers a lot of the techniques and exercises he uses in coaching. So I’ve been referring to these regularly to keep things fresh in my mind. Especially reframing and goal setting – they’ve been a huge practical help every day.
I can’t say that life coaching will work for everyone but I can definitely say that Tim’s coaching really worked for me. Of the 6 sessions that I paid I didn’t use the last one because I felt I had enough momentum to keep myself busy for months.
I eventually paid it forward so that someone else who needed some coaching could use it.
If you’d like help from someone who loves American football yet speaks with a British accent check out Tim’s blog and Life Coaching Offers.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I like this post. I find that making money online can be hard for some and to find help from someone that has been in the Internet Marketing business for a long time helps out allot. I love helping people reach their goals such as Tim has helped you I wish you the best of luck out here in the Internet world, but do keep in mind it changes all of the time…the marketing, the way people use the Internet and so on.