Daniel L. San Diego

What's the obstacle that would have prevented you from investing in coaching?

So probably the biggest obstacle with coaching would be if I felt that the tasks that I would have to do as part of being a client would be outside of my comfort zone, to the point where I felt like I couldn't do it. If the coaching was done in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, that would prevent me from going forward with any type of coaching.

But on the contrary, I did not feel that way when you and I first started our sessions. I felt actually very comfortable talking, and you actually helped me guide myself through the small challenges I had at the time.

What did you find as a result of investing in coaching with me?

Well, there's a lot. You helped me with both relationships and career advice at the same time.

You helped me through the challenges of dealing with a relationship that wasn't going in the right direction. I wouldn't quite call it toxic, but you helped me think through my investment in the relationship and the other person not reciprocating. It was time to worry about myself, think about myself, and do good for myself. That relationship ended.

I was also going through a layoff at the same time, on top of the challenges with my relationship. You gave me all the skills with interviewing and reaching out to find the next job. You told me that resistance is just a paper-thin wall that you can easily punch through and that sometimes we put up mental barriers for ourselves, but in reality, the more you keep pushing through it, the more results you'll actually see. I managed to get two job offers and one of them was the job that I have now. You've helped me navigate through the whole corporate structure and build networking skills.

Career skills and dating parallel one another because reaching out and meeting new people is scary at first, but you eventually have to put yourself out there in order to see what you get back.

What specific feature did you like most about my coaching process?

I liked how you were very attentive with the homework that you've assigned and you gave good feedback. You didn't just say, "Hey, that sounds fantastic. You're doing great!" You looked at everything through your own experience and challenged me in a way that made me think about it a little more. The first draft isn't always a good draft and you were very good about saying, "If you think about it like this and maybe change something here a little, you can understand a little bit differently." I appreciated that because not many people do that.

What were three other benefits from working with me?

One of the benefits was actually getting in touch with myself to go through all the things that I feel anxious about, like dealing with people, work, or just life in general, and teaching me to take a step back just observe that the feelings I'm feeling are just natural. Recognizing those feelings was a good thing because the moments of anxiety would just go away a lot quicker. A lot of those things sounded like great advice, but at first it was hard to put it into practice.

So the second benefit was that you're patient. You didn't just give me a piece of advice and expect me to go out and live it that day; it took a little bit of time. You were patient, but also gave good constructive feedback on scenarios where I've succeeded with doing that.

The third benefit was you pushing me to my limits to at least send out invites to people on LinkedIn and being persistent and on top of that. You have to build a habit of doing it and you made sure that I held myself accountable in keeping to that habit.

Would you recommend someone else work with me? Why?

Yes, I would definitely recommend someone work with you. Job hunting is difficult and it was new territory for me when we started. There are a lot of transferable skills that come along with trying to better yourself when it comes to talking to people outside of work. Those skills can easily work for landing the job you want, getting the interview you want, or even reaching out to people in similar fields and other companies to see what's out there.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

You had a good practice exercise where you made me name five things to set boundaries for myself. Whether it was a job, interview, or relationship, you had me name 5 things that I must have and 5 things that are deal-breakers. It helped me with job hunting because I decided not to blindly apply for jobs and send out 5,000 applications like a shotgun. I decided to actually take the time and read the job description because I know what I want.

You also taught me to do a risk assessment by weighing the pros and cons. At first, it was more for dealing with stressful situations, but it's also good for dealing with any situation that could come around in the future.