What Color Is Your Parachute?

Questions to Understand You Better

(Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of space on the form for your answer, after each question below.)

1. Why have you decided to work with me?

2. How can I have the most impact on your life in the next ninety days (three months)?

3. List three key goals you want to accomplish through our work together.

4. What stops you from achieving what you want in question #2 or #3 above?

5. Project ahead one year: As you look back, and things went well, how did you benefit from our coaching relationship?

6. What are your expectations from our work together? How can we exceed these expectations?

7. What else is helpful for me to know about you?

8. Explain your background (use the same format as the examples below).

Examples: 

1. After thirty years as a commercial insurance broker, I hit a wall last May, and decided to change careers …

2. After twelve successful years in the high-tech industry, I found myself unfulfilled in finding a satisfying career. Over the years, I read countless books on the topic of finding one’s true purpose in career pursuits, but was still missing a sense of purpose and clarity on what I wanted to do …

3. After working for twenty years in the investment industry I decided to start my own company …

4. Etc.

2. Before Each Session, Preparation Form

Please fill out this form #2 for each coaching session. It should be filled out and E-mailed to me twenty-four hours before the next coaching session to assist me in preparing for that session.

(Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of space on the form for your answer, after each question below.)

Commitments that I made to myself on the last coaching session and what I accomplished since we had the coaching session:

The challenges and opportunities I am facing now:

The one action I can take that will most affect my current goals and provide the highest payoff:

My agenda for the coaching session is:

3. After Each Session: Reflection Form

Immediately after each coaching session E-mail me form #3.

(Copy this onto another sheet of paper, and leave lots of space on the form for your answer, after each question below.)

This week’s commitment:

My greatest insights during this session were:

What you, my coach, said or asked during the session that impacted me most:

What I’d like you, as my coach, to do differently/more of/less of:

How I feel I am evolving from our work together:

What happens in a counseling session is our responsibility, not just the counselor’s or coach’s.

The forms, above, are one way of our taking responsibility. Another, is that when you first contact prospective coaches for distance-counseling in particular, you have a right to ask them: (1) “What training have you completed, relevant to distance-counseling, such as telephone skills, and supervised counseling?” (2) “How will our distance-counseling be organized and scheduled?” and (3) “What will the two of us do if and when interruptions occur during a session, at either end?”

You must always remember: distance-counseling, attractive as it will be for many, as necessary as it will be for some, definitely has its limits.

To the caveman, the technology that enables all this to happen in this twenty-first century, would be jaw- droppingly awesome. But, good career counseling or coaching is not just about technology. What is really truly awesome, in the end, is simply our power to help each other on this Earth. And how much that power resides, not in techniques or technology—though these things are important—but in each of us just being a good human being. A loving human being.

A SAMPLER

The following Appendix is exactly what its name implies: a Sampler. Were I to list all the career coaches and counselors there are in the U.S. (never mind the world), we would end up with an encyclopedia. Some states, in fact, have encyclopedic lists of counselors and businesses, in various books or directories, and your local bookstore or library should have these, in their Job-Hunting Section, under such titles as “How to Get a Job in …” or “Job-Hunting in …” Now, let me repeat this:

I did not choose the places listed in this Sampler; rather, they are listed at their own request, and I offer their information to you simply as suggestions of where you can begin your investigation—when you’re trying to find decent help.[50]

Do keep in mind that many truly helpful places and coaches are not listed here. If you discover such a coach or place, which is very good at helping people with Parachute and creative job-hunting or career-change, do send us their pertinent information. We will ask them, as we do all the listings here, a few intelligent questions, and if they sound okay, we will add that place as a suggestion in next year’s edition.

What kind of questions? This directory appears nowhere but in this book, so we may presume you are interested in this book’s approach, and if you need a little help it is help with the process in this book. We tried being broader in the past—there are obviously excellent counselors out there who have never heard of this book— but it turned out that our readers wanted counselors and places that have some expertise with Parachute, and can help job-hunters or career-changers finish the job-hunt in this book.

So, if they’ve never even heard of Parachute, we don’t list them anymore. But even among those who have, we can’t automatically assume they’re good at what they do, no matter how many questions we asked them. So we list them and leave the research to you.

You must do your own sharp questioning before you decide to go with anyone. If you don’t take time to research two or three places, before choosing a counselor, you will deserve whatever you get (or, more to the point, don’t get). So, please, do some research.

The listings that follow are alphabetical within each state, with counselors listed by their name in