We at The Coach Connection (TCC) discovered in 2002 that the number one reason our clients ceased coaching before they accomplished their coachable goals was that they were forced to stop by their spouses or significant others, to include boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and partners. At first this phenomenon confused us. Upon further digging we found that the underlying reasons they were forced to stop coaching by their spouses to be funny and realistic. 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 and that our clients CONTINUE coaching. You too will laugh at how life coaching affects romantic relationships, both negatively when spouses are NOT told and positively when they ARE aware.

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 their success rates. 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 was not always 96%. In fact, our initial surveys in 2002 after more than a year of operations showed a success rate of approximately 83%. Although this success rate was exceptional compared to the approximate 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.

Virtually all of these clients had been forced to quit coaching by their spouses before they achieved their goals. All of these clients had NOT told their spouses or significant others that they were being coached, and the spouses told them to quit coaching when they found out.

But this did not make sense to us. Why had their spouses forced them to quit? So we conducted further follow up interviews with these clients to get to the bottom of it. We got an education about the true effects of coaching. We had some great laughs and have been laughing ever since.

The reason spouses forced our clients to stop coaching early was because they had accused our clients of having affairs.

But why were spouses accusing our clients of having affairs when it was not true?

The spouses observed a host of wonderful growth changes occurring to our clients during the first two to three cycles of coaching that were not as recognizable by our clients or our coaches. Both our clients and coaches were so focused on the next steps to achieve their goals they did not look at how far our client had actually grown in such a short time. Oh; but their spouses did notice.

Spouses noticed that our clients began making much 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 in the first place) virtually disappeared. Since the spouses of our clients had no reason to know why these very significant changes were occurring, they had to assume something. Virtually every spouse assumed that our clients must have been having an affair to all of a sudden and mysteriously become so happy.

Carroll was forced to stop coaching by her husband, because she was experiencing a second coming in her life.

Carroll was one of TCC’s clients 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 be alone without children from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM each day 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, and provide her fulfillment, 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 inner self to create her ideal second career that she experienced exceptional positive growth 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 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 blinked out 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 interceded and 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 still 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. Savvy wives frequently initiate coaching for their spouses (normally their husbands) in order to benefit from the many positive changes that their husbands experience during coaching. Caring wives really enjoy their husbands who have become more relaxed, have reduced or eliminated their daily frustrations and stress, who have gained considerable energy and have become happier more caring husbands, without any extra effort by the wives. 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. We have some of clients who are exhibiting such positive growth during coaching that their spouses (once again almost exclusively wives) strongly encourage (and laughingly sometimes insist) that their husbands continue coaching.

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 will improve through coaching they might also initiate coaching like so many smart wives have done before them.