coaching is…

According to the International Coach Federation (ICF):
Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. (Click here for more on coaching from the ICF)

From Kenny Moore’s biography of Bill Bowerman, Coach at University of Oregon, most famous for coaching Steve Prefontane, and Co- founder of Nike:
“We have no hard and fast training rules,“ Bowerman went on. “The vicissitudes of life usually teach an intelligent person what he can handle. It helps to have someone wise in the ways of candles to steady you as you grope toward the light. That would be me.“