I believe it would be very helpful if you had a basic understanding how the personal coaching process came about, and where the coaching industry is today. This way you will be able to take much better advantage of the coaching resources available to you, without wasting your time, money, and energies.

Vikki Brock publishes an in depth History of Coaching

I am not a historian nor am I trying to be. I have relied on the 693 page doctorial Dissertation by Vikki Brock dated May 2008 entitled: “Grounded Theory of the Roots and Emergence of Coaching,” to provide much of the historical data for this section, as well as my own direct knowledge, and experience. Vikki’s dissertation is very recent, complete, dry (as a requirement to be a dissertation) and very lengthy. The above link allows you to download the full dissertation. I read most of it and its purpose was to describe the roots and development of coaching. She referenced considerable literature and many personal contacts, which I also referenced. Her dissertation and my personal experiences and knowledge converge to show that I believe that Thomas Leonard was the principal architect and driving force behind “defining, documenting, codifying training, and popularizing” the coaching process and coaching industry as we know it today. The coaching process described so often in this blog and used by The Coach Connection is a direct result of Thomas Leonard’s work.

The term coach originated in the sports field somewhere in the late 1880s, and has been a well-known sports profession with many different forms for years. “Even today, the term coaching often produces a mental image of a football or basketball coach, and depending on what the coach actually does, this analogy may or may not be adequate because the head coach is usually a general manager or chief executive officer responsible for running an entire program. The image of the quarterback coach or the offensive line coach is somewhat more accurate by enabling others to play through teaching. (Brock page 93)

W. T. Gallwey wrote his book in 1974 entitled “The Inner Game of Tennis” According to many people this was the first major transition from the sports coaching model of control and teaching to what Werner Erhard and eventually Leonard developed and fine-tuned into personal coaching.

Brock further shares on page 93 that “Gallwey’s 1974 inner game approach to sports was based on humanistic and transpersonal psychological principles, and “the concept that the opponent within is more formidable than the one outside” (J. Whitmore, 1992, pp. 5–6). According to Whitmore, “Gallwey was the first to demonstrate a simple and comprehensive method of coaching that could be readily applied to almost any situation” (p. 7).”

Thomas Leonard’s powerful influence on the personal coaching process

Thomas Leonard came on the scene from the financial world in about 1988, where he had a life-planning course entitled “Life Creates Your Life.” “Leonard is credited with codifying coaching into a curriculum to teach people how to be a coach and that could be taught globally, taught telephonically, in the early days of coaching.” (Brock pg. 313) Further reports on Leonard “Buck describes Leonard as a synthesizer working with “hundreds, thousands of people to create. But while he was collaborating he also had in his vision, a vision of himself being highly impactful, being a leader, being competitive against other companies doing similar things. He was intensely competitive and intensely collaborative at the same time” (Dave Buck, personal communication, June 29, 2006). Interviewees credit Leonard with popularizing coaching (S. Cluney, personal communication May 9, 2006; D. Peterson, personal communication, May 1, 2006; J. Selman, personal communication, July 7, 2006. In addition to codifying coaching, he launched Coach U in about 1993 and the ICF in 1994 (Appendix O).” (Brock page 313) Leonard also started Coachville in about 1999 and I understand was a behind the scenes developer of The Coach Training Institute in 1992. All of these organizations have had a profound affect on the development of coaching as Leonard saw it and even more on the entire coaching world.

Brock further reports on page 313 “Leonard’s contribution as a transmitter was codifying, popularizing, and globalizing the discipline of coaching. Leonard’s background is business, specifically finance, where he was working for (Werner) Erhard and doing life planning on the side. Leonard, and others such as (Laura) Whitworth and (J) Whitmore, took some basic ideas and applied their business background to creating an industry that is called coaching.”

From what I gather, Thomas Leonard was a real character with strong beliefs and was not prone to politics. He designed the personal coaching process in great detail and wrote about it for all to see. I believe the term personal coaching best describes the coaching process, because coaching is very personal. The term life coaching caught on in early 2000 because Hollywood and TV writers used it for their shows, and the general public gravitated to using the term “life” coaching. Thomas documented and popularized the new process he called personal coaching to assist people to improve their lives by focusing on the person within. In essence, Thomas and his partners designed, organized, documented, and developed this new process that would fulfill the one human void that none of the other nine major human improvement processes consider addressing and they are not designed or capable of fulfilling. They created a new human improvement process that concentrated on assisting people to discover and unravel the mystery of themselves. The greatest mystery in the world is not global warming, or whether the Cubs will ever win the series, but is ourselves. This new special human improvement process called personal coaching works exceptionally well to assist people to clearly, quickly, completely, and confidentially discover themselves, without any hint of judgment or guilt. Personal coaching provides people their own special, private, trustworthy and clear mirror into discovering their own five unique core components.

Thomas traveled extensively coaching, speaking, and training wherever he could. He captured the imagination of many people to persuade them to become joint pioneers in this new process. The personal coaching industry has grown exponentially in only sixteen short years, because of Thomas Leonard’s vision, his energy, and more importantly because personal coaching works so well and so quickly to assist people to unravel the mysteries of themselves.

Personal Coaching has grown rapidly

Personal coaching has evolved into a very viable and recognized industry because people want to unravel the mysteries of themselves by discovering their own unique core components. Personal coaching accomplishes the exceptional goals it was designed to achieve. I do not believe that many people fully understood the universal ramifications and multiple uses of the personal coaching process. Maybe Thomas did, and that might be why he was such an outspoken advocate of personal coaching before he died in 2003 of natural causes. One of the many extremely valuable coachable goals of the personal coaching process is to discover and get your ideal income position like I did. Thanks to Thomas’s personal coaching process, and his personally trained coach, Thom Politico, who was my personal coach, I discovered and have been enjoying going to play every day in my own ideal income position for the past 8 years as the founder and owner of The Coach Connection.

The Coaching Industry today.

There are thousands of people calling themselves coaches. I estimate between 30,000 to almost 80,000 call themselves coaches. I have also calculated that from 15,000 to over 25,000 additional people per year enter the field and consider themselves some type of non sports coach. The good news for you is that you will have a vast number of coaches to pick from to find the right coach for you. The bad news is that there are so many different people calling themselves coaches offering different coaching methods, styles, philosophies, ethics, backgrounds, niches, and purposes, that it becomes overwhelming for you to wade through it all to find and select your best coach, who is undoubtedly out there. You are open to finding your best coach who can live almost anywhere, because you will want to conduct your coaching over the telephone. Your options are almost endless. Through knowledge, and understanding I want you to be able to easily and confidently find and select the right coach for you, so you will achieve your ultimate goals.

The number of Coach Training Schools has exploded. According to Rey Carr and the Peer Resources web site at www.peer.ca/coaching.html there are about 298 coach training schools. These sprouted up since about 1992. Vikki Brock reports that there are over 17 coaching related Associations. These were created since about 1994. Yet, I believe the coaching industry is still in the evolution growing stage. If you consider that each of these “Coaching Schools” produce only 50 people a year who call themselves coaches, the you can see how over 14,900 new coaches appear on the scene each year.

Anyone today can call himself or herself a coach. There are no rules, regulations, laws, restrictions or enforced codes. Coaches come from all walks of life with many different paths to their coaching status. The coaching community itself is also confused about how to determine what the coaching process is. According to Vikki Brock, page 2 “Inside the field there is much divergent thinking of what coaching is and whose approach is best. Outside the field there is even more confusion among clients and the public about what makes up coaching.” There are countless different coaching processes, programs, structures, and philosophies. Vikki further states: “There are many definitions of coaching, some of which contradict each other based on an influence by practitioner backgrounds, theories, and models.” And she further clarifies that “Most definitions assume an absence of serious mental health problems in the client and that coaching’s purpose is to affect some kind of change using similar knowledge, skills, and techniques.”

The coaching process described in this blog

I am not claiming that any coaching methods, styles, or philosophies to be better or worse than any others. Instead, I am strongly recommending that you find and use your ideally matched coach who practices the form of coaching that Thomas Leonard wrote about and trained countless others to practice. I am confirming that his coaching process has proven to be extremely effective and valuable to anyone who has used it under the right conditions. I know of over two thousand (2,000) people who have achieved great successes by using the personal coaching process organized by Thomas have. The simple reason I am recommending the personal coaching process is because it works, and because it is grounded in very sound, historical, and tested fundamentals.

Personal coaching is not a process I invented, or take credit for. I would like to, but that would be wrong. Thomas Leonard and his many followers and compatriots deserve all of the credit. In fact, this coaching process found me. I was not even smart enough to seek it. There have been many different forms of coaching that grew out of this process, and there will undoubtedly be others. But I believe that since the coaching process described by Thomas has proven to me to work so well, and had worked so well to many others before I found it, that it is worth recommending.

The incredible thing about the coaching process popularized by Thomas and is that it has historical roots and is widely accepted, but rarely described, consistently, and even less widely understood from the client’s point of view. Yet, it is so powerful and so remarkable that it has fostered a whole new way of thinking and an ever-growing industry. So there must be something to it.

Enjoy Your personal coaching

My purpose is to educate anyone who will listen about this personal coaching process, so you too will understand what it is all about from your perspective so you will recognize, understand, and take advantage of this remarkable human improvement process to achieve your chosen remarkable coaching goals including but not limited to discovering and obtaining your ideal income position.

Provided as an educational service by Bill Dueease of The Coach Connection, where “connecting great people with great coaches” is our goal. You may reach Bill by contacting The Coach Connection at 800-887-7214 or 239-415-1777 or bill@findyourcoach.com