Last weekend’s Elevated Talk symposium in Montego Bay brought together a line-up of motivational speakers and life coaches headlined by Iyanla Vanzant, regarded as one of America’s foremost spiritual teachers.

The motivational speaker is easy to define — one who makes speeches intended to inspire or motivate. The life coach, not so much.

We sat down with Elevated Talk conceptualiser Patricia ‘Ricia’ Leslie for an eye-opening discussion on the subject. We asked: Who is a life coach? What do they do? What qualifies one for the profession and critically, how much does one earn as a life coach?

Who is a life coach?

A coach is neither a counsellor nor an advisor. A coach helps clients define and achieve their goals, whether they be career related, educational, personal, or all three.

The role of the coach is to bring all the clients options to their awareness so they can decide their next appropriate step with all the information they could possibly have in order to make a conscious choice. The function of the coach is always to deal with what comes from the client, that is the only agenda. Whether it feels like its taking you off course or not, if it comes up it is relevant.

What does it take to be a life coach?

It takes three things:

1.Ongoing personal development

2. Self-development in the key skills

3. Willingness to serve

Personal Development

To me this is the most crucial step and lays the foundation for how well you will perform as a coach. It involves exploring the inner landscape of your thoughts and feelings. This is where you discover who you are, what makes you tick, why you do the things you do, and how to deal with issues that trigger you.

Doing this work you will discover your core beliefs and whether they serve you or whether it is time to discard them and create a different reality. There are books and courses that can aid you along this path.

Attending workshops and seminars are key in progressing the self-development phase. You must be open and willing to explore the shadow in you as much as the light, as this duality is in all of us. It is not healthy to deny any aspect of self. In fact, the more you try to suppress negative emotions, the more you will find yourself in situations that bring the emotion to the surface. Every emotion is relevant; how you handle the emotion is key. The issue is not the problem, the problem is how you perceive the issue.

Personal development is an ongoing process; it never stops. When you believe you have resolved an issue it can emerge again for you to process at a deeper level.

Self-development in the key skills

One would need to enrol in a recognised coaching course in order to learn, then implement and practise the key skills in life coaching. Once you have completed an accredited course you will be certified as a life coach. This would normally involve documenting a certain number of hours coaching clients on an unpaid basis.

In the spiritual life coaching course I studied under Iyanla Vanzant at Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development, these skills were underpinned by spiritual principles. Examples of these were awareness, acknowledgment, intuition, non-judgement, care-frontation, self-fullness and projection. The spiritual principles are the core of my work with clients as a spiritual life coach, as spiritual law, and principles support the process of moving towards your goal.

Willingness to serve

As a coach you have to be willing to put the needs of the client first and foremost. Whether it feels like its taking you off course or not, if it comes up, it is relevant.

There are times when the coach feels ‘this is something I’ve seen before and this is what needs to happen’, but he/she needs to step back and recognise the unique individual in front of him/her, and allow the client to arrive at their own conclusion in their own way.

Being a coach means putting aside your own ego in order to give the client whatever it is they require for their own individual progression and development.

How much does a life coach earn?

How much does a life coach earn?

National Coach Academy says, since they are business owners, coaches set their own rates and they can vary widely, anywhere from US$25 per hour to over US$300 per hour.

A 2012 study it did found that the average income for full-time coaches was over US$83,000, while that for part-time about US$26,000 a year.

Payscale.com says an entry-level coach can earn about US$47,000 per year, moving to US$60,000 by mid-career, and US$80,000 once established and experienced.