Life coach learned lessons in school of hard knocks

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This article was published 20/02/2010 (5940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL — Say “coach” and most think of Jacques Martin, Mark Trestman or the kid teaching your child to play hockey. The dictionary defines a coach as, among other things, a private tutor, which comes closest to the huge breed who style themselves “life coaches.”

The International Coach Federation in Lexington, Ky., promotes 15,000 credentialed members in 90 countries, including a couple of hundred members in Canada.

Think of Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chopra. Or former Glass Tiger lead singer Alan Frew or goal-of-the-century guy Paul Henderson. Or your local minister, rabbi or imam, or your psychotherapist, your drinking buddy or your mother.

None are members of ICF. We learn life’s lessons from almost everyone we meet, but suppose that you want a private tutor to guide you, your family or your employees to more health, wealth, peace, satisfaction and success.

“Coaching’s a partnership with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires people to maximize personal and professional potential,” said ICF spokesperson Kristin Hogue. Your mom, she added with a smile, is emotionally involved and doesn’t subscribe to a code of ethics.

Hogue said that for many people coaching is generally a later career just beyond their mid-life crisis.

“People from a background of law coach lawyers, for example. Some have had their fair share of trials and tribulations and want to reach out to people (who) may be experiencing the same things.”

That brings us to non-ICF member Rock Thomas. A child of divorced parents, he rebelled under joint custody until his father absconded to Australia with 11-year-old Rock, a brother and two sisters. His mother’s detective brought them back to a bitter court battle in which she lost custody.

“It’s never easy,” he admits. “I’m on my third marriage now. My kids are living a shared life.”

Later, as an in-flight service director for a feeder airline, after two leaves of absence and cashing in his RRSPs to fly to Australia to be with his cancer-stricken father, the airline pink-slipped him and outlasted him in a wrongful dismissal suit. In his late 20s, out of cash, going through a first divorce, evicted from his apartment, he moved in with his mother.

“It was probably the bottom for me. I couldn’t afford to fly to Australia again for father’s last few days.”

During this period, he moved nine times, underwent surgery for a non-malignant thyroid tumour, lost his hair to alopecia, and watched a cousin die from heroin addiction. That’s when he chose a new career path.

“People who go into real estate are often orphans from something else,” Thomas recalls. “It was, at first, a rough ride.”

He discovered modelling, which he describes as copying someone who has the results you want.

“Enter their world, find out what they think, what they eat, how they sleep, and aspects of their life down to the finest detail. I studied some of the most successful people on the planet. I realized that many got up as early as five o’clock and all had the same routine every single day. That was my turning point.”

His results skyrocketed. Five years after being evicted, he bought Quebec’s largest Re/Max franchise and for 10 years made it No. 1.

Thomas wrestled with blending financial success with his own values and integrity. He resolved it by extending his study into the world of human psychology as expressed by Tony Robbins, John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and Steven Covey, of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fame.

“I found a way that works for me. And when you find that, you want to share it with others.”

He started coaching colleagues and eventually sold his real-estate agency and took it up full-time when his clients showed real results.

“Their income increased, they lost weight, stopped smoking, started working out. I had a guy who said he hadn’t been intimate with his wife for seven months, and after one session they were back together again. If somebody is courageous enough to tell me where they want to improve in life, I totally believe that I can give them a resource, a technique, a skill, a thought, a habit, a direction, to focus on so they’ll improve and get a better result.”

Rock Thomas International today has five assistant coaches and provides business, executive and personal coaching, real-estate counsel, and sells books and CDs.

OK, coach, define success.

“I’ll give you a couple of definitions. It’s better to be in a position to give than in a position to need to receive, so I feel blessed that I’m in a position to give a lot. Another is definitely being able to do what you want when you want and wherever you want.”

— Canwest News Service