23 Dec Life Coaching vs. Business Coaching

As we all work to improve ourselves, many of us will come in contact with people who are coaches in the communities in which we live. Some of these professionals are Business Coaches, and some are Life Coaches. Based on the questions I am often asked, I realize it can be confusing to know who you should work with and why.

Life Coaching is as it sounds – it focuses around your life. It is a personal practice to help you get your life focused. Often this includes career coaching and discovery, while understanding your personal purpose and mission in life. Of course this is very critical to your long term success, as alignment of personal purpose is key to engagement and performance at work. A Life Coach may also work with you holistically around wellness to include exercise, nutrition, meditation, etc … Why? Well, it has been shown that peak performance as an executive is tied to your overall mental and physical well being, so these habits and behaviors do play into your success in career search and subsequent job performance.

Business coaching cares about you as an individual, and that is what we focus on here at our firm.  We believe that any leader we work with will be more successful if they know their purpose, if their personal values are aligned with their company, if they take care of themselves physically and mentally, etc.. However, personally we typically spend little time discussing these matters in our sessions. Business coaching, instead, is about identifying objectives and results desired in our clients’ current roles, what is preventing those from being achieved, and working to get past those blocks to move to new levels of peak performance. We focus on strategies, outcomes, relationships, and what needs to be enhanced or refined to maximize the best in that person. Can anyone have a business coach – well, yes. If you’re focused on growing to that next level and willing to do the hard work to get there, you could secure such a person. Generally, starting out in your career you are likely to have mentors early on, and move onto hiring a business coach at more of a senior executive level.

Have questions? We would love to talk more with you!