4 out of 4 stars
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In life, people hope to reach certain goals and make some changes that will benefit them. It can be a difficult task to figure out how to attain these goals, and for some people, knowing which direction their lives should be heading in isn't their strong suit. This is where a coach comes into play. One can employ the services of a life coach, financial coach, career coach, sports coach, or health and wellness coach, and the choice of a coach depends on what one aims to achieve. However, finding the right coach is an even more difficult task. In Finding Your Coach: Diving Deep Within, Melinda J. Kelly offers advice on the things to consider when trying to find a coach. In three parts of the book, the author summarizes how one can find the right coach by knowing one's self, knowing the coach, and defining success on one's own terms.
I've worked with several coaches to achieve a few things. From my parents to teachers at school, supervisors at work, and fitness coaches. Some experiences worked out well and some didn't. But I've never really settled down to think about why some of them didn't work out, until now.
The book begins by asking a series of questions that help us determine if we are introverts or extroverts. The author believes that determining if we are introverts or extroverts will help in self-discovery and development when answering some interesting questions featured in the book, like "Do you seek parental approval? Do you need to be a nice person? Do you need to be the smart person? Do you need to have everyone like you? Do you have issues with authority figures? Do you need to be loved? Do you think you are so smart already that you don’t listen?" The author goes further to give us advice on how to go about answering each question with real answers and not just answers we want to hear.
I really enjoyed reading the first part, as it was like I was having an interaction with the author. The book didn't feel like it was just about finding a coach. It went beyond that at times by giving the readers useful life advice, which made it feel like the book was a coach. The question I really related to the most was the one about seeking parental approval always. The author stated that "we learn to please our parents, then our teachers, then our professors, then our bosses, and then our spouses." There is always the tendency to transfer this attitude towards a coach, but Melinda adviced us to focus on ourselves more than pleasing the coach.
The author includes several personal stories that will make the book more relatable to the readers, like when she used comparisons between her, her mother, and her grandmother to help the readers to better understand how the definition of success differs to different people. Including John F Kennedy Jr's motivational story to show the importance of doing things at your own time also helped. However, there were certain stories I didn't relate to, like the story of the person who had a mental health issue and favoured working with an energy/healing coach over seeking professional medical help. There were also a few abbreviations that weren't explained in the book, like MD, LCSW, and MFCC. This wasn't a common occurrence, but it disrupted the flow of my reading when it occurred, and this was what I least liked about the book.
Finding Your Coach is exceptionally well edited. I didn't find a single error throughout the book. I also liked the way the book was organized. I liked the quotes from philosophers, like Aristotle and Lao Tsu, included at the beginning of each chapter. These quotes gave me a lot to think about and set the tone for each chapter.
Finding Your Coach is an educative book. Even though I've known about some of the things the author talked about before now, there were still a lot of things that I learned. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. I mentioned a few complaints above, but I don't think they are good reasons not to give this book the maximum rating. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in acquiring the services of a coach and people who want to know more about self-discovery and development.
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Finding Your Coach
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