Coaching is a straightforward and powerful tool for unlocking people's desires and dreams.

But it's not for everyone.

Some leaders are used to telling people what to do. In fact, some even enjoy the power and authority they have.

Coaching isn't for these people.

But if you want to...

• empower and enable those you lead to go farther faster
• multiply your impact by raising up mature believers who can hear and respond to what God is speaking
• free your schedule by not holding repetitive meetings with people who are dependent on you

Then coaching is most definitely for you!

Here are 10 ways coaching can help.

10. You don’t have to know everything for everyone.

Leaders who tell have to know what’s best for every situation and each person in order to be effective. That’s a lot of stuff to know! (And what if you aren’t right?)

9. People love it when you focus on them.

Active listening is the highest form of loving someone. When the focus is on the other...

Ever have an awkward conversation with a co-worker, client, friend, spouse, child, sibling... really anyone?

Awkward conversations include one or more of the following:

• Rambling one-sidedness
• The same stories over and over
• The same issues again and again
• Shallow skimming - chat about the weather followed by:
• Uncomfortable silence
• Whining
• Blaming
• The expectation of my coming up with an answer or resolution

I used to have conversations with one or more of these elements all the time.

Now, I just ask better questions. Powerful questions even.

In fact, when you have good coaching conversational tools in your tool belt, a lot more than your conversations can change. Awareness can be created. Destinies can be altered. Futures can be gained.

Here are just a few examples that have changed my life and the life of others around me.

• "Where do you want to be in 5 years?"
• "What’s holding you back?"
• "What would your life look like if 'that' was no longer an issue?
• "If you say 'Yes' to...

Simply put, our Bridges training courses were designed with you -- the trainee -- in mind. 

Here are 8 ways Bridges courses differ from many, or even most, training courses.

No. 1 -- At Bridges, we take very seriously how we certify our trainees.

All our cohort courses require individual interaction where we are looking for each person’s grasp of the concepts.

No. 2 -- We give personal attention to the trainee.

All of our training is face-to-face, not voice-to-voice. Not sure what that means? Many, maybe even most, coach training or destiny discovery courses meet the credentialing requirement for voice-to-voice through group phone calls.

No dis, but I have been on some of those phone calls and have not had the greatest experience. While technically it is live training, there were almost always too many people on the call to feel individually connected, AND oftentimes the trainer would ask someone to respond and they were not even there or it took a long time for them to...

Taking Destiny By Design doesn’t guarantee you a preferred future, and it’s not for everyone, but if you can’t say for sure where you are headed, it’s not likely you will get out of the fog by accident.

That’s kind of like saying your financial plan is to win the lottery.

It’s not very likely. Especially if you don’t play. 

Here's what’s at stake:

• Wasted time waiting for something to come to you.
• Unrealized potential, because you didn’t even know what to do.
• Missed opportunities never considered.
• Recognition of personal uniqueness: giftings, passions, calling, strengths...

People who need what you have to give are waiting for you to step up.

Not that God couldn’t use another, but why not be all you can be (and we’re not talking about the army)!

Understanding your Destiny by Design may be closer than you think!

Clarity seems to be a buzz word lately, especially in regards to goal setting.

I mean really, you absolutely need it to move forward well. No one orders an Uber but then fumbles with giving the driver a destination.

And yet...

Sometimes we do that with our lives.

It’s like the destination for our lives is more like a Sunday drive with no specific outcome clarified.

The Destiny by Design course includes an exercise that focuses on clarifying your Life Purpose Statement. When you have taken the time to drill down to your core and decipher your internal design, it becomes much clearer what your personal best nexts should be.

Clarity is a hoax when you fake it and pretend you have a clear next step.

Clarity is a hoax if you think it isn’t needed.

Clarity is a hoax if you feel it’s only general and not specific like you’re just supposed to be good all the time rather than knowing specifically what you are good at and how to invest in bringing your best self to the...

People often ask what is needed to actually launch a coaching practice.

The answer varies from state to state, but for most, the bottom line is that once you have completed the legal checkoff list for your state, you simply need to be good at your craft.

Most of us don’t check the credentials on the wall of the massage therapist, we just go back if they help us out.

Bridges Coaching Life coach certification is designed to help you do just that – actually help people out! While there is a Next Level Training that Bridges offers (contact us if you want to know more), the first level course was designed to be one-stop shopping. You will have everything needed (skills-wise) to set up sessions that actually help people.

Here are a couple of shout outs to a few of our alumni and their organizations!

Barb Ranck – Your Clear Next Step and Courageously Imperfect

"Barb shared, Hi Cindy! My site is https://www.cicandd.com which stands for CI Coaching & Development. CI...

We all have them, or at least we should.

Good leaders want to hit the mark. They want to make a difference. They want to be worthy of following. Good leaders want to help others toward achieving clear goals and helping them get there in the best way possible.

That being said – here are five fears all good leaders have.

1. Fear of missing the mark.
2. Fear of being status quo.
3. Fear of leading people in the wrong direction, or maybe just not the best direction.
4. Fear of nebulous targets.
5. Fear of a floundering pathway.

These healthy “fears” should fuel good leaders toward good leadership!

Yet most of us have probably had experiences where the goals were not inspiring and action steps were not actually clear. Sometimes, it seems we need to go back to a document or email to remember where we were going or what we supposed to be doing.

Good Coach Training will clear up these concerns and alleviate these fears once and for all!

Before understanding the coaching...

Do you know what an acorn grows up to be?

How about a kitten? Or maybe a tadpole?

Knowing what is “seeded” within you changes everything! And yet, many people don’t know what they are made of, or what they are meant to become.

When we aren’t sure of what’s in us, we run the risk of gambling with God’s intended destiny for our lives.

Psalm 139:13 says God knit us together in our mother’s womb. He’s the one who decided how tall you would be, what color eyes you would have, whether your hair would be curly or straight and so much more.

These external DNA markers make each of us unique, but wait - there’s more.

So much more.

We have an internal DNA that sets us apart from each other even more than how we look.

Our internal DNA consists of things like:

• Personality type
• Motivational gifts
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Five-fold ministry gifting
• 7 Mountains calling
• Personal passions and unique interest arenas

And the list could go on.

...

We don’t mean to, but it happens...

We set out to help people, but sometimes we end up not being effective at best, and possibly even hurting at worst.

Here are 3 mistakes well-meaning leaders make:

1. We tell people what to do.

In the long run, this approach can backfire one of two ways. One, if we are right, we have taught people they need to come to us in order to move forward. This puts a cap on our leadership potential to however many people we can meet within a day or week. Two, if we are wrong, it’s even worse. They can become bitter toward us or even toward God.

What if instead of telling people what to do we taught them how to discern for themselves?

2. We have the same conversations over and over.

Have you ever seen a person’s name pop up on your phone and had a little groan pop up in your heart? Be honest. Sometimes, we have the same conversations over and over with people who are stuck in some sort of way.

What if you were able to direct...

When I got my master’s degree I did these coaching “labs” on the side. Turns out they were optional, but I’m so glad I didn’t know that!

Let me explain.

The coaching “labs” were actually coach training and the education I received through them changed my life!

Coaching does not come naturally to most so when I was going through my coach training I really wanted a few things, so I really got seeped in the paradigm.

• I wanted to be coached, and experience what that felt like. I wanted to see if it really worked.
• I wanted to see others being coached so I could observe it being done well.
• I wanted someone to watch me coach and tell me if I was doing it right or wrong if need be. (To be honest, I was a little nervous about that, but I also wanted the affirmation enough to do it.)
• I wanted to have plenty of time to talk through the concepts with a certified coach and know I was heading in the right direction.

The training I took left me...