Why TCC insists that our clients tell their spouses
about being coached.

Connecting For Results
Volume 2, Issue 70-September 24, 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Bill Dueease

When our clients do not tell their spouses or significant others they are being coached they are almost always forced to stop coaching before they complete their coachable goals. The reasons why this happens are funny and realistic when you understand them. In fact, the reasons our clients are forced to stop coaching when they do not tell their spouses are the SAME reasons so many of the spouses of our clients INSIST that our clients hire a life coach with TCC. Read on to learn what we had to discover by accident.

We at TCC constantly monitor our clients to determine how well they succeed at their coachable goals through coaching with their personally matched TCC Member Coach. We designed our entire company and the processes we use to maximize the success rates of our clients. We have found that our clients achieve their initial goals through coaching with TCC Member Coaches over 96% of the time. We discovered that only approximately 40% of coaching clients felt they had achieved their goals through coaching elsewhere during the research we conducted while designing TCC. Thus, our TCC clients enjoy a far higher success rate than coaching clients did before.

However, TCC’s success rate has not always been 96%. In fact, our initial surveys in 2002 after a about a year of operations showed a success rate of approximately 83%. Although this success rate was exceptional compared to the 40% success rate elsewhere, we wondered what went wrong with the other 17%. So we conducted follow up surveys with the clients who were not successful. We discovered some very interesting things in talking to the clients who considered themselves not successful.

Here is what we discovered.

Virtually all of these clients had chosen to quit coaching before they achieved their goals.

Virtually all of these clients had NOT told their spouses or significant others that they were being coached. Normally they just forgot to mention that they were using a coach, rather than actively keeping it secret.

In almost every case, our clients stopped coaching because of spousal interference. Their spouses or significant others insisted they quit coaching when they eventually found out about the coaching.

But these results did not make sense to us. So we conducted further follow up interviews with these clients to get to the bottom of why our clients ceased coaching because of their spouses. This is where we got a true education about the effects of coaching. We had some great laughs and we have been laughing ever since.

What our clients who had stopped coaching told us was that they were accused of having an affair by their spouses. Our clients were forced to stop coaching because they were accused of having affairs.

Why spouses accused our clients of having affairs when it was not true?

We discovered that our clients made significant changes during the first two to three cycles of coaching that were very recognizable by their spouses or with whomever they had a close personal relationships. These changes were not as recognizable by our clients or our coaches because both our clients and coaches were so focused on the next steps to achieve their goals they did not look at how far they traveled. Oh but their spouses did notice.

What their spouses noticed was that our clients began making far clearer decisions, they had much more energy and pep in their steps, they became more confident and relaxed, they were much happier, they voluntarily spent more quality time and energy with the people they loved, and the frustrations and stresses (that normally motivated them to seek coaching) that they had been exhibiting for so long virtually disappeared. Since the spouses of our clients had no reason to know why these very significant changes were occurring, they had to make assumptions. And the assumptions that virtually every spouse made was that our clients must be having affairs to become so happy all of a sudden.

Carroll was having a second coming in her life because of coaching but had to stop early.

Carroll was the first client I talked to who revealed that she quit coaching before she completed her goals because her husband accused her of having an affair. Frankly, I did not believe her at first. The place and time that her husband first accused her of having an affair was quite ironic, dramatic, and somewhat sad. Carroll was a 32-year-old mother of two children who had been married for almost 9 years. Her children were ages 8 and 5 and a half. Her youngest child was entering the first grade and Carroll would have time from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM each day alone for the first time in over 8 years. She knew she could not clean house all day and she knew she wanted to pursue a secondary career that would allow her to fulfill her passions and priorities, follow her beliefs, maximize her talents, and avoid as many our her self imposed obstacles as possible, without interfering with her first priority of being a full time mother and wife. When she discovered coaching through TCC she could not believe her fortunes. She was so ready and motivated to discover her ideal second career that she made exceptional progress during her first two cycles.

During the middle of her second cycle, she made special arrangements to get a baby sitter on Friday night, made reservations at a romantic restaurant, and asked her husband to go to dinner. She was so excited about her progress towards her second career that she wanted to share everything with her husband and she wanted to re-ignite the fire in their marriage that had faded for various reasons, including neglect and attention to the kids. She was going to brag to her husband about being coached. At dinner before she could talk, her husband accused her of having an affair, because of all of the changes he had noticed in her (all positive). She then happily told him about her coaching experiences with her coach, who was a mother, located over 1,000 miles away and was 20 years older. But this was early in 2002, life coaching was not that well known and he did not believe her. He was so convinced that she was having an affair that he forced his wife to stop everything. The harder she objected the more he was convinced of the affair. So Carroll had to begrudgingly call her coach and stop coaching before she could even complete the second cycle.

So in 2002 we at TCC began a new policy that our clients had to tell their spouses or significant others that they were engaging a life (or career, business, or other type of life coach) coach through TCC before we would agree to initiate coaching. The success rates of our clients rose from 83% to 96% with the installation of our new policy. However, we must also reveal that the number one reason that the approximately 4% of our clients do not achieve their goals is still caused by spousal interference. Many times we are told that new finances come into play that prevent paying for further coaching. However, upon deeper discussions our clients frequently reveal that their spouses are the ones who disallowed further payments.

Smart spouses become our clients’ greatest cheerleaders.

Smart and confident spouses (Normally wives, whom appear to be ahead of husbands here) have realized the wonderful changes that will occur to their spouses through using a life coach. They cannot wait for their spouses to become more relaxed, reduce or eliminate their frustrations and stresses, become happier, gain more energy, and take control of their lives to spend more time and energy with their family, so they frequently initiate coaching by their spouses (normally their husbands). Many of our successful male clients contacted TCC because their wives had suggested it, or in some cases, even insisted that they call TCC. And the results these wives enjoyed from the changes in their husbands as they progressed through life coaching were apparently very worthwhile. We have received anonymous phone calls from a number of wives over the years who have just said thank you, and our coaches have undoubtedly received even more.

Conclusion

You will experience a host of very beneficial changes in your attitude, energy levels, and personal stress levels because of using the right life coach. Yet, you and your coach will not recognize these changes as much because you two are so focused on completing your goals that are still in front of you. (Picture flying as the pilot and your coach is the copilot. You are both focused on flying forward and not on the progress already made, but the passengers in the plane do notice the progress made.) But, your loved ones, even your boss, and coworkers WILL recognize these significant changes in you. If more husbands, bosses, or even coworkers really knew how much others would improve through coaching they might also initiate coaching like so many smart wives have done before them.

We welcome your opinions and comments.

Bill Dueease
Editor
______________________________________
Sharing this Newsletter: We invite you to share this e-mail newsletter with others. The material is copyrighted by The Coach Connection LLC so please forward the whole newsletter and not just a portion of it.

Subscribing or Unsubscribing to this newsletter: Connecting For Results is a free, biweekly, subscription-based, e-mail publication from The Coach Connection, LLC. If you would like to subscribe to this newsletter put: "subscribe to newsletter" in the subject of an e-mail sent to: connecting@findyourcoach.com. If you want to stop receiving this newsletter send an e-mail to: connecting@findyourcoach.com, putting "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Using The Coach Connection (TCC) is the easiest, most efficient, least costly, and most enjoyable way to find your ideal life coach. Calling TCC puts you in touch with a highly trained and personable advocate who can save you time, money and energy by finding your ideal coach for you to connect with. Start having the life you really want.

1. Call us for your Free, No Obligation, Confidential Consultation to learn more and decide about coaching for yourself at: 800-887-7214 (toll free in the US and Canada) or 239-415-1777. (We answer the phone by the fourth ring.)

2. Request that we call you for your Free Consultation,

3. Contact us by e-mail

4. Attend a teleclass entitled:Is Engaging a Life Coach Right for Me? or Is Becoming a Life Coach Right for Me?