A Life Coach Can Save You A Lot of Blood, Sweat and Tears

By Flip Meyer

Most people, especially those who are career driven, have been in a situation were they had to make choices. Choosing becomes complicated if you are the only one who makes the decision. Asking friends or family what they would do if they were in your shoes normally does not help much because they will tell you what they would do. In other words, this does not mean you should make the same choice they would. I was in such a situation in August 2003. I felt quite desperate because being 54-years-old meant if I were to make a choice in my career it would have to be pretty long term.

I have been working for the same company for 28 years and got a job offer from a competitor. My immediate reaction was that I must take up the offer because I was becoming part of the furniture at my present job.

I was quite desperate and indecisive and lost a lot of sleep worrying that I was going to make the wrong choice. It wasn't easy to ignore the allure and the excitement that the new opportunity seemed to offer. I needed a third party, and it clearly had to be a complete outsider, to look at my situation and help me to structure my thoughts and make the correct choice.

I was brought in to contact with Muriel Haber from Haber Resources International Inc in New York City. I am situated in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I had to call and establish a working relationship that would exist over the telephone. To a South African, where the rand exchange is 8 rand to the US dollar it seemed to be an expensive exercise. It has been, however, an investment - and worth every cent. Making the wrong career decision would have cost me many times more that the cost of the consultation.

Muriel is what I call a Life Coach. She is actually a Business Coach and a Personal Coach. She has several clients like me who have problems in their careers. She leads you to a direction and her skill is to sum up a situation in such a way that you are enabled to look at the people involved in your decision making from another angle. If we look at something our mindset normally is in one direction. We cannot see the wider picture.

In my case she helped me open my eyes and look with a new perspective. I became aware that some of my actions were playing into the hands of certain people who had agendas that were not compatible with mine. She was able to guide me into seeing that I had to make a decision because it was the right one for me and my future and not the one that suited only the needs of other people.

When we are at the crossroads in our career, we become very vulnerable. My view is that a life coach like Muriel is needed because it is the coach's job to look further than we normally do. Generally a decision to make major changes brings insecurities and stress. With the help of the life coach, we can structure our thoughts and focus on the essentials that need to be considered.

Muriel has a structure and because the calls from South Africa to New York are expensive, she didn't permit us to get bogged down in places that could have wasted time. We did not rush, but to me it has been a productive exercise, and in the end I am confident I made the correct decision.

Our personal lives also will be affected by any stress at work. A life coach looks at aspects like family, spirituality and other aspects outside our work.

Because the coach has experience and probably has seen other clients in the same situation, she or he has the ability to give us new insights into ourselves. Muriel's extensive business experience is able to help clarify what is going on around us. Her training in human behavior helped to clear the blindness towards others and ourselves that our anxiety can produce.

This has been my experience and I know of many executives who either have been, or are now in the same boat. They could save themselves a lot of blood, sweat and tears by asking for the support of a life coach.

-- Flip Meyer is a financial newspaper editor in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has attended more than ten annual general meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and has been the winner of several journalistic awards in South Africa. He has been involved in the media industry for the past 28 years. He reports on the activities on the New York Stock Exchange as well as other major equity markets outside the US.