EDGEWATER – In perhaps the ultimate act of walking the walk, Sandra Switzer has taken on a success coach of her own.
Though it seems ironic on the surface that a success coach would be coached, the Edgewater resident said she could not attest to her own services if she herself was above working with a coach.
Sandy Switzer, success coach and Edgewater resident, is planning to offer free workshops at Edgewater every other month. (Photo by Mason Souza/Sun Day)
It’s leaders like Switzer and high-profile celebrities working with coaches that help to distinguish the practice from therapy.
“I realize now that I want to be at point B, but I’ve been at point A for too many years,” Switzer said, explaining the needs of a coach’s client. “And something’s getting in my way, and I have a feeling it’s me.”
Switzer found a natural progression from elementary education to life coaching. After earning a Master’s in education, Switzer was leading staff development at schools where she taught.
“What I found myself doing was more coaching other instructors,” she said. “Rather than teaching them how to do best practice or how to inspire the children, I found myself inspiring them so they could inspire others.”
In 1996, Switzer made the switch to the corporate world and began coaching at Flexible Steel Lacing in Downer’s Grove, Ill. Switzer needed to be flexible herself, as she trained everyone from the CEO to factory floor workers.
Today, Switzer coaches privately and since 2004 has taught and worked as an academic coach in the adult professional studies program at Judson University helping students return to school.
“I’m kind of the ‘you can do it’ coach, and then I work with them attitudinally, and I also work with them on better writing skills and better college reading skills,” she said.
Taking a page from one of her influences, author Cheryl Richardson, Switzer seeks to coach clients to not only achieve academic or work goals, but personal and spiritual ones as well.
With clients ranging from 23-year-old students to Edgewater retirees, Switzer never heeded the advice to “find her niche” as a coach. Instead, she believes there is no stage in a person’s life she cannot help navigate.
Common concerns Switzer sees across the board are the “what now?” question, the search for internal harmony, how to take life as it comes, and how to foster positive relationships.
“I think your life experience plus good training allows you to help people to move along,” she said.
One of the trends coaches follow today is positive psychology, which focuses on human thriving rather than dysfunction. In order to stay abreast of this field and the latest in coaching, Switzer returned to school as a student, learning about new developments at the Coaches Training Institute in 2006.
Switzer’s methods gained her the attention of Jim Rohn and others in the field of coaching, who asked her to contribute a chapter to the book “Yes You Can! Reaching Your Potential While Achieving Greatness.”
“‘Yes You Can’ really struck me because as a child my favorite book was ‘The Little Engine That Could,’ and so [with] the title, I thought I could really contribute to that book with that philosophy,” she said.
One way Switzer breaks things down for clients is by condensing her method into four letters, her “ABCS:” Accountability, Barriers, Creating a plan, and Setting goals. Though she has her own philosophy on coaching, Switzer’s style is to let clients do most of the talking.
“Unless they ask me for my advice, I don’t give it. I just keep asking them,” she said.
Coaches ask the kind of open-ended questions — “What do you want?” “Where do you want to go?” — that can frustrate clients. Those pesky questions, however, can lead to the client discovering things they previously never realized.
Those moments of clarity are the greatest reward for coach Switzer. She recalled how a client from Edgewater had one such epiphany.
“Just this past week, she said, ‘Sandy, you helped me to discover what I need to do, how I need to do it, and when I need to do it,'” Switzer said. “‘And you haven’t told me any of it, but you helped me to discover it.’”
Switzer hopes to enable more people to reach that enlightened state, and she is doing so by setting a goal of offering 30 complimentary coaching sessions in 60 days.
“That’s the only way people are going to experience it, and if they don’t decide to go forward, that’s fine, but at least they’ve had an opportunity to experience coaching,” she said.
Switzer is bringing coaching and motivation to Edgewater as well. She plans to offer free workshops every other month on a different topic for residents. Her latest workshop was “Over 55 And Wiser, Not Over 55 and Old: Attitude is Everything” on April 26.
For all that Switzer has on her plate, one thing is clear: her coach must be very busy.
For more on Sandy: www.sandraswitzer.com
