What is EXECUTIVE Coaching?

All coaching is the same no matter what you call it. 

Whether you call it life coaching, executive coaching, purpose coaching, or creativity coaching, coaches identify growth and development opportunities. With executive coaching, sometimes the only difference is that the company is paying for it.

A coach is not a therapist. A therapist is concerned with things like safety, story, and setting. They are willing to focus on the past, listen to the client talk about their wounding and provide or prescribe tools to help the client manage the process of healing. 

A coach is focused on the future self (or state) and accountability to the client’s vision of that future. The role of the coach is to see the nascent potential — the glowing ember at the heart of the individual and to breathe air onto it, fanning the flames of growth and becoming. 

The goal of any coach should be to provide feedback on behavior, strengthen client performance, and nurture underdeveloped skills.

One former coaching client had scheduled a Walk and Talk session with me at a local park. She was in a horrible living situation, had been offered a great opportunity out of state, and was conflicted on whether or not to pack up her family and move — or stay put where she had laid down some roots and made some friends. We hadn’t gotten more than five yards when I needed to challenge some of her beliefs. She told me that my language was “triggering” for her and that she felt like I was telling her what to do (I wasn’t). 

I stopped walking and told her we could not move forward until she understood two things:

1. I was not there to listen to her whine and complain about what she believed she couldn’t do. I was there to see the white-hot light inside her that could do anything.
2. If you paid a personal trainer to help you get physically fit, you wouldn’t get half-way through your reps and ask her to stop telling you what to do. You’re literally paying her to do that thing.

I gave her a choice: Stop now, get your money back and find a different coach or we move forward and I continue with what you’re paying me to do — provide coaching.

She chose to move forward. She also chose to move. Her family is now thriving in their new home.

Sometimes, a coaching client will be dealing with blocks or obstacles. The most common tendency is for the client to see these obstacles as external to themselves — somewhere out in their environment, or maybe in the form of other people. In the rarest cases, like when a person is in prison, this is true. Most of the time, though, these blocks are internal. They are psychological. The aim of coaching is to gain clarity around these obstacles, getting objectivity or distance from them until they seem small and insignificant. 

The highest outcome is that the client surrounds themselves with people (mentors) that are skilled at navigating these obstacles, and ultimately sees themself as someone who is skilled at navigating, confronting or avoiding these blocks altogether.

This is not the same as doing mindset work. Mindset is focused on the science of neuroplasticity and describes how the brain and mind respond to things like effort, criticism, challenges or the success of others. Carol Dweck has written extensively about the difference between Fixed and Growth mindset. 

But, if we are not oriented to a North Star, performing our Noble Commitment in the world, fulfilling our sacred calling or vocation, or living out our purpose, why would we ever be motivated for growth? Why would we ever bloom where we are planted?

Coaching is the act of helping others identify that purpose and take control of their life in order to move toward that purpose. It is the art of helping others become the lotus and rise from the mud.

Most of the executives I coach want to feel like they are making meaning in the world. They believe there is “something more” to their work than the meetings, budgets, and bottom line. 

They care deeply about legacy and are concerned about who or what is next. In the best cases, they have two people lined up behind them and are focused on teaching them everything they know. Some are lost — overwhelmed by strategy, mastery, empathy, or power. They know that if they are not in control of their lives or business, someone else will be. 

Hiring the right coach helps you realize you are exactly where you need to be, that you are equipped with everything you need and that you can take control of your life or business. Simply being seen as someone who drives strategy, walks the path of mastery, fosters empathy and stands in your power is sometimes all we need to make it so. 

Are you ready to be seen or acknowledged in this way?

Who better to be in control of your life than you?


From world-traveling author and musician to founder of a global interfaith movement to innovation consultant, Joran Slane Oppelt has blazed a creative and uncompromising trail. In addition to coaching and consulting CEOs at some of the world’s largest organizations, Joran (and his wife Jennifer) have started and sold two businesses of their own. If you are wanting to boost your accountability, work your growth edges, and really step up as the leader and CEO of your business, schedule a Discovery Call today and see if Executive Coaching is right for you.

Join Amplified -- Joran's free Executive Coaching group -- here.