MetroWest Daily News -December 5, 2000
Hippest new trend is personal motivators
By Heather Anders
It's like having Tony Robbins on speed dial.
They call themselves life coaches, option process mentors, wellness coaches and wake-up artists. And for $250-$400 a month, they help the personally or professionally stuck get unstuck in four 30-minute sessions by telephone.
Some even toss in unlimited happiness level "check-ins" by e-mail.
"Everybody is getting on the quality-of-life bandwagon and realizing there's more to life than work and money," said Alana Anoskey, 34, a personal coach from Ashland. "They're turning to me to figure out what brings them passion and joy in life."
Part rent-a-friend and part motivator, personal coaches -- a.k.a. " partners in your success" -- are the hippest trend in self-help, particularly for those with lots of disposable income and a penchant for, depending on your outlook, self-indulgence or self-enlightenment.
According to Coach University, a $4,295 online correspondence program that trains people to become personal coaches, an estimated 11,000 full- and part-time coaches are burning up telephone lines across the country.
"By the year 2003, it will be as common to have a coach as it is now to have a personal trainer," predicts Thomas Leonard, a former Salt Lake City financial planner who founded Coach University in 1992.
On his Web site, Leonard, who is currently spreading the word from his roving RV in Europe, says that "no one was helping yuppie clients decide how many children to have and what kind of lifestyle was important to them."
Today, the coaching business is booming. According to Time magazine, Leonard's company expects revenues of $10 million in 2001.
Here in MetroWest, a tennis coach, an interior designer, a human resources director, a psychotherapist and an accountant are among the many now calling themselves life coaches.
It's a field dominated by women, according to Coach U's referral site (www.coachreferral.com). Some have traded in the not-so-lucrative title of social worker for coach, making better money from home with little or no overhead.
Ashland's Anoskey, a stay-at-home mom with a master's degree in psychology, is in the vanguard of this new, Rumi-quoting profession. She is also one of 3,800 students and graduates of this self-paced institution.
In "tele-meetings" conducted from her home office, Anoskey helps clients sort out personal and professional goals and find balance in this frenzied modern life.
"It's about getting passion back in life," said Anoskey. "For some people, it's as simple as figuring out they like to roller skate and don't roller skate anymore.
"Or a client could be a mom who always wanted to stay home with kids. But when she got there, discovered it wasn't what she imagined."
Like Anoskey, Maynard's Rosemary O'Connell, a 56-year-old grandmother most recently employed as an interior designer, is a personal coach and Coach U trainee.
"A coach motivates, acts as a sounding board, and holds people accountable," she explained.
And the beauty of it all, said O'Connell, soon to be coaching poolside from sunny Florida, is that it's all done over the telephone.
O'Connell, who received an associate's degree in community mental health, once worked as a hot line counselor. But it got too depressing, she said.
She stressed that coaches are not therapists. And anyone suffering from a traumatic situation -- or depression -- requires therapy.
What's the difference?
"Therapy deals with the past -- it's about what went wrong," O'Connell said. "Coaching is about the now and the future."
Hopkinton's Karl Wagner, a licensed psychologist and president of Powell & Wagner Associates in Cambridge, warned that no registration or state licensure is required to call oneself a coach.
"Anyone, theoretically, can be a coach," he said. "It falls upon the consumer to adopt a buyer-beware attitude."
That said, hiring a psychologist simply to inspire you might be "overkill," Wagner said.
Back in Maynard, O'Connell specializes in coaching women in transition. Clients include massage therapists, home-based business owners, baby boomers and fellow coaches.
Most coaches have coaches, O'Connell said.
Katherine Lee, a 54-year-old yoga instructor and founder of Health & Harmony Center in Littleton, first hired O'Connell in April.
Without a coach, said Lee, "I wouldn't sit down and write in my journal. I'd do Christmas shopping, or cleaning, or get snow tires put on instead.
"This way, I'm treating myself as well as I would treat a friend who I love. I'm taking time for me."
In Framingham, 33-year-old Tess Mikilitus described coaching as "a calling."
"I love to empower people," she said. "I have a lot of powerful energy, and I'm real intuitive by nature."
She is also entrepreneurial.
By day, Mikilitus is a certified public accountant and corporate real estate consultant in Boston. By night, she bills herself as a life coach as well as a money coach.
"I help people obtain financial freedom and discover what their wildest dreams are," said Mikilitus, who starts by asking clients what a perfect day would look like.
For some, said the coach, it's a hugely difficult question to answer.
She is a Coach U student -- learning to coach by dialing into regularly scheduled conference-call "tele-classes."
Mikilitus also plans on becoming a PCC (professional certified coach) just as soon as she earns the Washington, D.C.-based International Coaching Federation's stamp of approval.
Requirements include paying the $425 application fee, passing written and oral exams, and clocking 750 client coaching hours.
In a long-distance call from New York, Holli McMann credits Mikilitus with inspiring her to move out of state and helping her to land a better job within four months.
"She gave me confidence and helped me figure out where I wanted to be," said McMann, a former Boston auditor with an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
McMann, 36, now works as a software company controller in Manhattan. It's a more challenging job, she said. And yes, it pays more.
"Once they get clear on what they want their life to look like, then they can take action," said coach Mikilitus, who offers help with everything from attracting a life partner to career planning.
"A coach helps people get clarity."
(Beth Dinan, a CNC reporter, contributed to this story.)
