Yes, but what exactly is coaching?
Coaching is a methodology of personal development in which a coach supports a client or student (called coachee) in identifying and achieving a personal, professional, or sports goal. It is not a psychological service, much less a therapy, but comprises a methodology and a life approach.
Coaching is a process relationship based on the discovery and development of personal potential. In other words, it is a relational process aimed at helping a person or a group of people to acquire greater personal awareness and responsibility or to overcome barriers that hinder performance improvement.
Thanks to the Life Project Management coaching method developed by Andrea, you can:
- identify your real goals
- make them S.M.A.R.T. (clear and more achievable)
- verify they align with your values
- break them down into micro-goals to make them within your reach
- think in a positive, strategic way
- activate the motivation needed to overcome the fears that block you
- use the emotions triggered along the way to your advantage
- strengthen your talents and fill in your gaps to accelerate the process
- apply project management tools to make things happen
What is a Goal
Anything can be a goal, as long as it’s S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-related).
Some random examples of S.M.A.R.T. goals that the Life Project Management method can help you achieve are:
- change jobs in six months earning 20% more
- take a four months sabbatical trip to Asia
- run 10 km in 50’ within 3 months
- 50% increase of your business income in one year
- discover your ikigai in 2 weeks
- relocate to Canada within 8 months
… the limit is your realistic fantasy
The support of a coach in sports is indispensable to achieve positive results. So why don’t you apply the same criteria to what you value most (life)?
Understanding this concept can make the difference between “trying” and “succeeding.”
Who am I to be a coach?
Values
My idea of coaching is to provide people with a method that helps to recognize and realize dreams.
Having a method is vital, and mine combines project management with life-coaching and emotional intelligence.
The values that underlie my experience and who I am can be summarized as follows:
Ethics – I always act with honesty and moral integrity in dealing with all stakeholders, and not take advantage of people’s weaknesses for my gain.
Self-Criticism – I continually ask questions about how to improve and enhance my products/services. I maintain a constant open-minded attitude to accept and treasure criticism.
Constant Training – I never stop studying and training to offer complete and up-to-date products. I also experiment on myself what I offer to the market.
Concreteness – I go straight to the heart of the matter without wasting time on details with low added value (see Pareto Law 80:20). Paraphrasing: make things happen.
Consistency – I try to be an example that demonstrates you can take control of your life to accomplish what you want.
Resilience – Preventing periods of difficulty and training to cope and overcome them, based on the principle that any situation is temporary.
Balance – I maintain an appropriate balance between professional and extra-professional life. An imbalance would lead to a decline in performance on both sides.
Direct experience
In short: born in 1975, had Ulcerative Colitis since 1998. After 14 years of career, I left Italy at 40 for a management position in Dubai. Two years later, I left the corporate world to write, travel and, later, discover my vocation for coaching and consulting.
After making numerous trips during my vacations from work, in 2018, I crossed the entire South America by land from north to south in 299 days, moving on foot, hitchhiking, and by public transport. Between 2019 and 2020, I explored Southeast Asia for eight and half months until the Covid-19 emergency forced me to return to Europe. In the fall of 2020, I embarked on and completed the Camino de Santiago.
I base in Portugal now, but tomorrow, I don’t know.
The Method
Over 16 years of career in the corporate world, both in Italy and abroad, and specific experience in project management, has allowed me to acquire an approach focused on the achievement of objectives, which I have also applied to my method of life coaching and counselling.
Specific experience and preparation have allowed me to achieve the PMP (Project Management Professional) certification issued by the Project Management Institute – the world’s highest authority in the field.
Since June 2019, I’ve been a certified life coach according to the Wave method based on emotional intelligence, defined as the ability to integrate thoughts and emotions to make decisions and sustainable choices over time. It’s a concept that refers us to stop lying to ourselves and start to grow in the direction of our desires.
Emotion is the origin of everything: we do things because we have the conviction that we get a pleasant sensation from them – joy, light-heartedness, etc.- or, on the contrary, we don’t do things because of unpleasant emotions – sadness, fear, etc. – are activated in us.
My coaching method (Life Project Management) combines aspects of Project-Management-Best-Practices, Life-Coaching Training, and Emotional Intelligence to help develop the mindset needed to “dream methodically” to make things happen.
My professional experience, the choice of life-changing decision made, and putting everything on the line at over 40 years old despite a chronic disabling disease, have been an extraordinary training ground of life, method, and awareness.
I have chosen to make this baggage available to those who are not fully satisfied with their existence, those who want to identify and achieve their goals, and strengthen their effectiveness. If you’re willing to change your present lifestyle choice, then this personal development idea is for you.
The constant search for my ikigai – the reason for my existence, which lies within what I love, what I can do, what the world needs, and what someone is willing to pay me to meet – has led me to walk the entire path from Lourdes to Santiago de Compostela (along the so-called “French” route) and undertake spiritual rites of various kinds: family constellations, yoga, the dance of the five rhythms, meditation, ayahuasca, and shamanic breathing.
Beyond the coaching experience and method, I’m convinced that working on identifying our level of ego is vital. Please note: I am a scientist by extraction, therefore a skeptic by nature. If something is not perceived or demonstrated to me, I find it hard to believe it exists. Yet, I am benefiting greatly from the world of spirituality. Sometimes, I’m not sure what the origin is, but I’m pragmatic: if practice makes me feel better and has no undesirable effects, I continue to practice it. Vice versa, I interrupt it.
The Wave Analysis
Where he deems it appropriate, Andrea asks his clients to perform the Wave Analysis.
An online questionnaire of 60 questions conceived to picture the coachee’s potential on each competency of emotional intelligence according to the Wave method.
The result is a graph similar to the one you see below and it is used as a sort of “map” during the coaching path.
First coaching session (for new customers only)
For those who never had coaching sessions with me, the “entry door” is the 1h introductory session.
A new beginning
Introductory coaching session
(new customers only)
- Satisfied or refunded
- Discount on next purchase
Subsequent coaching sessions & packages
Superhero Package
10x 1-to-1 coaching sessions
- Satisfied or refunded
- 10% off on next purchase
Gladiator Package
5x 1-to-1 coaching sessions
- Satisfied or refunded
- 5% off on next purchase
Step by step
Single 1-to-1 coaching session
- Satisfied or refunded
- Discount on next purchase
Do you still have doubts?
Because I learnt through direct experience, thanks to two drastic life changes, so I know what it means to turn everything upside down. Also, because my method, a combination of project management and emotional intelligence, is powerful. If you think about it, everything starts with emotions and ends with it. We do and desire things, power, and everything else to feel good, i.e., to feel pleasant emotions. Or we get stuck because we feel fear or other unpleasant emotions. That is why I like to define project management as "the art of making things happen."
Then, if you ended up on this page, there's probably something about my story that resonates with you. 🙂
Certainly not. I am a coach, and not a psychologist. Therefore, I do not deal with issues of psychological or psychotherapeutic nature.
Not exactly. For me, ethics is a core value. For example, if you request I help you commit murder or work on psychological or psychotherapeutic issues, I will refuse the assignment.
Of course, it does. You decide the goal of the coaching process. Then, I help you focus, analyse it, and do things to achieve your goals.
One hour.
It depends on your needs. Generally a path lasts a maximum of 10 sessions. The duration of each session is 1h. The interval between one session and the next is generally 1-2 weeks.
The coaching sessions take place only online via Zoom.
It is possible to hold coaching sessions in Italian, English, or Spanish. I'm gearing up for Portuguese, but it will take some more practice. 🙂