What Is Individual Coaching?
What Is Individual Coaching?In Individual Coaching Sessions, I will be your faithful companion as you gain clarity on both long-term vision and next steps.
As an ICF-certified coach, our coaching sessions are always based on the questions and work YOU bring to our sessions. In pure coaching, my role as coach is to ask powerful questions so that you can discover what is right and true for you. Our coaching relationship encourages you to take the next steps you want to take to get clarity and move in the direction you want to go.
Ready to sign up, or want to ask a question? Contact me.
Why Coaching?
To Get Clarity
Coaching is an excellent tool for getting clarity. A trained coach’s powerful questions help unlock what is already inside of you, waiting to have permission to become real.
To Accelerate Directed Movement
Each coaching session ends with an invitation to take action about what you brought to coaching that day. By committing to action steps, coaching helps accelerate movement towards your desired future.
To Solidify Learning and Growth
Studies have shown that coaching after training increases application three times more than training alone.
Is Coaching for Me?
Likely, yes. There are coaches that specialize in just about everything from parenting autistic children to 6-figure job changes to living well through cancer treatment and about everything else you can imagine. (Look for a coach with an ICF certification like me to ensure they have been trained.)
One of the great things about coaching is that it is all about powerful questions. Your coach doesn’t need to be excellent in your field — they just need to know how to listen well, ask powerful questions, and support your own discovery and movement.
The majority of my coaching base comes from clergy, people in transition or retirement, and people of faith– although I’m happy to work with a wide range of clients. If you are interested in finding out if I would be a good coach for you, sign up here for a free 30-minute consultation.
How Much Does Coaching Cost?
Coaching can range in price from free to over $400 an hour. Often, the cost has little to do with the training or ability of the coach and more to do with what any particular market will support.
If I were a full-time coach, I would need to charge $140 per session in order to support my family. Because I combine coaching with other work, I am able to charge $80 per 50-minute session.
Cardboard Dog Coaching Single session: $80
Cardboard Dog Coaching Six-session package: $360
EasyRegister for Individual Coaching
- Complete online registration (below)
- Print, complete, and return Individual Coaching Agreement 2021
- Pay by check or credit card (below)
Pay by Check
Send a check for $360 to:
- Cardboard Dog Coaching
- Helen Svoboda-Barber
- 3 Indigo Creek Trail
- Durham, NC 27712
Pay $360 by Credit Card/Paypal
How are Coaches Trained?
Unfortunately, people can call themselves coaching without having any training at all — so research carefully when you’re considering connecting with a coach.
The gold standard of coach certification is ICF, the International Coaching Federation.
ICF has 3 levels of coaching certification. The most common is the Associate Certified Coach (ACC) which includes a minimum of 60 hours of training and 100 hours of coaching. Professional Certified Coaches (PCC) have at least 125 hours of training and over 500 hours of coaching. Master Certified Coaches (MCC) have over 200 hours of training and 2,500 hours of coaching.
I have my ACC certification and am working towards my PCC.
What Happens in a Coaching Session
Before our session, I will send you a 5 Minute Prep e-mail. This has a few questions to help you think about what you want to focus on during our 50-minute coaching session. Some people find it useful, others ignore it. It’s up to you.
At the beginning of our session, I’ll ask you what you bring today. We will spend some time getting clear on the topic, and through the use of powerful questions and other mental exercises, I will be your faithful companion as you get more clear on your next steps.
As a coach, I will embolden you to commit to actionable steps you would like to take towards your goal. I will help you clarify these steps and we will do “gut checks” to ensure you are really working towards your desired future, and not simply more “shoulds” in your life.
What’s “Cardboard Dog” About?
As I was beginning my coaching work, a friend told me the story of a tech company. When employees got stuck on a problem, they needed to talk it out with someone in order to get to their next breakthrough.
They tried talking it out with their bosses, but the bosses were distracted. They tried talking it out with the cleaning staff, and found out that the cleaning staff stopped what they were doing, paid attention, and the employees’ breakthroughs came quickly. But the cleaning work wasn’t getting done. Next, they tried talking to their company dog and found that the complete focus and attention from that dog was exactly what they needed to think through their issue and get to the breakthrough. One dog wasn’t enough to go around for everyone, so the company created cardboard cutouts of their company dogs. There were enough cardboard dogs for everyone who needed to talk. Employees could come to the cardboard dog and be reminded of the full attention they received from their company dog. They knew they could say silly, scary, outrageous things to the cardboard dog, and it would be OK. The cardboard dog was there, just for them, to do the work they needed to do then.
I realized as a Coach, I want to be your Cardboard Dog. I want to be your faithful companion — focused on you, letting you lead, sniffing out the truth, and supporting you on your way to your desired future.
Send a message or set up a free 30-minute conversation to find out if coaching is a good fit for you.
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