Transforming Awareness: Being a Life Coach

In October 2019, PETER J. REDING spoke with VICTOR KANNAN about being a pioneer in the field of professional Life Coaching. In part 1, they speak about the role of helping people to be authentic and raising awareness.

- VICTOR KANNAN

Q: Peter, thanks for joining me. We’re having a great day here in Atlanta; it’s pretty nice, sunny and cool and comfortable.

Same here in Orlando, Florida. And Happy Diwali to you and to those who are celebrating that today around the world.

Q: Yeah, this is Happy Diwali. The world is becoming a smaller place, with everybody celebrating each other’s sources of joy.

That’s absolutely true, and the world needs as much light as it can possibly get, so this is a particularly happy time for the world and not just for the Indian people who are celebrating Diwali.

Q: Thanks Peter. You’re a coaching profession pioneer, teaching holistic coaching since 1996. You’re also one of the founders of the Association of Coach Training Organization, and you have a book to your credit called Positively Brilliant Self Mastery: Reclaim Your Authentic Self Now. So you have enough in your DNA as a Life Coach. I would like to start off by asking, what is a life coach, what do you do as a life coach?

A life coach is really a facilitator of awareness of the client. We tend not to give it bias, we’re not mentors per se, we’re not educators, nor are we parental authority figures. A professional coach will ask questions to reveal to the client who they really are, and what they really want to do, and what brings a sense of satisfaction, completion, fulfillment to the client. Then we ask the client if they’re willing to do that. So I’m in the business of raising awareness.

Q: That’s a pretty broad base. In terms of raising awareness for a CXO, who’s supposedly already aware, how does that happen? When they advance, do they become less aware? Or is it the general risk of life?