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About CoachVille
Our Vision: Everyone with the courage to play BIG in life has a great coach.
Our mission: To improve the quality of coaching worldwide
Our purpose: To provide a rich learning environment for ANYONE in pursuit of coaching mastery.
Our primary purpose here is to help you master the craft of coaching by providing a rich learning community. We support and inspire coaches all over the world in every form of human endeavor! Life coaches, sports coaches, career, business, business coaches, relationship and executive coaches; If you are dedicated to helping others win the games of life through great coaching, then we want you on our team.
A few things you should know about CoachVille...
1) Our memberships have A WEALTH of resources and tools. Basic Coach Membership is free. (Membership details are here) We realize that the number of things available can be a little overwhelming at times. Do not worry about trying to understand or use it all, that may take a long itme! Just find a few things that inspire or intrigue right now and enjoy them, use them right away. Then come back for more.
2) We have a LOT of members and many of them are highly active on the site and in teleclasses. The best way to meet people at CV is by taking classes. IF you connect with a few people in every class, soon you will have a growing network of professional connections.
3) We have A LOT of educational programs that will help you on the path to masterful coaching. Our programs are delivered via recordings, teleclasses and occasional live workshops. We are quite enthusiastic about what we do and we will keep offering our programs to you. PLEASE, do not feel pressured or SOLD to. We just want you to know about everything that we have available, join in only when it serves you.
4) Our Center for Coaching Mastery is really pretty amazing. We have great classes, a fascinating teaching method to help you learn and practice and it is a great financial value. Check it out!
Why we do what we do
Our primary purpose is to help you win the coaching game. As a coach your job is to help your players / clients play the games of their lives better and win the on their own terms; Games that TRULY matter to them; Games that challenge them to grow and inspire the greatness within them. While at the same time playing fairly, respecting everyone in the game and being willing to face losing from time to time.
It’s a BIG and a VERY IMPORTANT JOB. We honor that. We know that the world is a beautiful place and it will be even better when everyone has a coach for their games of leadership, athletics, health, business, relationships, spirituality, finance, creativity and everything else life has to offer. Any endeavor in life can be designed as a winnable game worth playing and coaches alone are charged with helping everyone win the game that matters most to them right now.
We know that coaching is an honor AND that it takes a lot of courage, wisdom and resourcefulness to be a great coach.
Our game is BIG and we play it seriously. In our opinion, once you get beyond the basic human needs for survival MOST suffering is caused:
a) when people play an unwinnabe game OR
b) when people play a game that does not truly matter to them OR
c) when people have a meaningful and winnable game but never get the coaching needed to play the game well enough to win.
Through great coaching - and the undeniable joy that comes with playing a challenging and winnable game - the almost epidemic experiences of confusion, overwhelm, frustration, isolation and apathy will be eliminated.
We feel that coaching can only achieve this kind of impact through a grass roots approach. This means we can win our BIG game ONLY by helping you play and win. We need YOU to win.
Three Key Words - Three BIG Desires
There are three key words for our approach that are fueled by three powerful human desires:
Innovation - Training - Community
Innovation
The desire to create
The practicing coach is a living environment for innovation. The issues, challenges and desires of every client co-mingle with those of the coach to create a tremendous desire to create. Because coaches work with clients with similar situations, the solutions that are co-created with any individual client create an immediate beneficial impact on every client in the coach’s practice
“Sythesis is the cornerstone of the new age”
-Ra Uru Ku, creator of Human Design
Training
The desire to learn
The practicing coach is a catalyst for human evolution because of the unquenchable desire to learn. Anytime a coach has a spark of desire to learn something - to play a new game - there is always a current or future client who has a need for the coachâ™s assimlation of that information. The coach generates a deep evolution-sparking understanding of what they have learned when they endeavor to apply it to life with another person.
“This is the timeless way of building: learning the discipline and shedding it”
- Christopher Alexander, architect, philosopher, author of A Timeless Way of Building
Community
The desire to connect
The practicing coach becomes a vibrant hub for human connection because they are naturally oriented around adding valueto the lives of others. Value-adding people become a gathering place both physically and virtually because we (humans) yearn to connect with others who share our values - people who are different enough to add something to our lives AND alike enough to mirror the part of ourselves we yearn to see.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing with someone else”
- Thomas Leonard. founder of CoachVille, The International Coach Federation, Author of “The Portable Coach”
What we offer
- CoachVille offers cutting edge coach training, business development and personal development programs
- CoachVille provides coach training for all levels of coaches through learning programs. These include internet based eCourses, live Teleclasses and on-site events
- CoachVille operates as the largest association/network of coaches worldwide
- CoachVille operates as the largest global think tank of coaches
Values-in-Action
What matters most to us, as an organization:
Style: We do not do bland. We do fun, quirky, innovative, and edgy.
Effectiveness: Our coaching/marketing tools WORK for our members.
Speed: We eliminate delay at every opportunity, by over-responding.
Freshness: We are big on R&D and experimentation. No recycling here.
Community: We help members connect and contribute to each other.
How Our Members Experience CoachVille
- As a place where they can be intellectually challenged.
- As a place where they naturally become more creative.
- As a place where they accelerate their personal evolution.
- As a place where they can contribute.
- As a place where big ideas can be freely tossed around.
- As a place where they can access what is new in coaching.
- As a place that they can call their professional home.
- As a place where they add to their skill sets.
- As a virtual community, available on demand, 24/7/365.
How Our Work Gets Done
CoachVille is a virtual organization (no traditional offices) run by a small Leadership Team. The operations and member services teams are comprised of approximately 15 full and part-time staff and volunteers.
The 1000-person volunteer R&D helps us creates and polish content.
Our products/services are delivered mostly online or via conference call, and via live events.
What is Coaching?
A few definitions we like...
Coaches help people play better and win the games of their lives on their own terms
Coaches Inspire an individual or team to achieve a desired result
Coaches unleash the greatness in people
The CoachVille Story
CoachVille launched as a global virtual community for coaches on June 2, 2001, founded by the late visionary Thomas J. Leonard, a key player in the creation of the field of personal and business coaching. Its mission... to improve the quality of coaching worldwide, and to provide a home for every coach. Its guiding principle: "Adding Value for the Joy of It." Thomas lived his words, and while in its early days, CoachVille membership was $79 for a lifetime, on August 29th, 2002 the doors to CoachVille were thrown wide open, and membership became free for all who wished to join the growing ranks of CoachVille coaches.
Thomas felt that "Everyone is a Coach." Not a professional coach perhaps, but certainly a coach in their own way. From his perspective coaching was a set of advanced communication and relating skills, with knowledge and experience woven in. Our best guess is that the greatest source of growth in coaching is actually in the non-professional sector, meaning that managers become more coach-like in their dealings, ministers weave in coaching skills to their professional skill set, even accountants round out their style to including a coaching approach
Within its first 100 days, CoachVille grew to become the largest network of coaches worldwide, reaching 5,300 members. Currently CoachVille membership stands at 30,000+ with members in 175+ countries.
Asked what contributed to the phenomenal growth of CoachVille, Thomas wrote: " Here is our best guess...
1. The price point is fairly irresistible. Our low cost structure, online automation/technology and the volunteer support model makes this possible.
2. The lifetime (vs. annual renewal membership) is a compelling model. Given high delivery cost structures, few virtual networks, schools or associations can afford to adopt this model.
(editors note: as it turned out, we could not afford to do it either, and have since gone back to an annual membership model)
3. The 80% of folks who are coaching in some format simply who will not join a traditional coaching school or a traditional association, will join CoachVille given our a fresh model that is entirely value driven.
4. The CoachVille rate of evolution and product development is very high. This is appealing because it keeps CoachVille fresh and exciting.
5. CoachVille member referrals bring in 48% of new members. That is incredible/good and keeps CoachVille momentum sustainable.
6. CoachVille is a worldwide phenomenon. We are on our way to members in 100 countries and then a presence in those countries."
Thomas Leonard passes the baton to Dave Buck
In February 2003, Thomas Leonard died suddenly and tragically. The will Thomas had prepared stated that Dave Buck would inherit his estate. Thomas had made Dave his sole beneficiary for the purposes of continuing the work of CoachVille. After his passing CV was run for a short time by a management company selected by the executor of the estate. In January 2004 the estate distributed the “asset” known as CoachVille to Dave Buck and Dave became CoachVille CEO.
About Coachville Programs and Services
CoachVille offers a wide variety of coach training, business development and personal development programs for Coaches.
Our Graduate School of Coaching provides a la carte training programs for professional certified coaches who want to continue learning AND who need to obtain Continuing Coach Education Units (CCEUâ™s)
The Center for Coaching Mastery offers a complete certified coach training program for savvy professionals business owners, managers, executives and new coaches.
All of our certified coach training programs are accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF)
Here is just a sample of our course offerings...
- Coach-Two-Win: Mastery Quick Start
- Coach-Two-Win: Master the Method
- Coach The Game
- Coaching Basics
- Mastering Change
- Environmental Design Coaching
- Inner Awareness Coaching
- The Power of Groups
- Teleclass Leader Training
- Coaching Proficiencies
Member Benefits
One of the hallmarks of success at CoachVille is the abundance of resources and programs available free to all members. This includes coach training, such as the Coach the Coach audio series and 3-Step Coaching Models. CoachVille offers an abundance of coaching tools, including an extensive collection of forms through the Thomas J Leonard Coach Training Center.
Books by Coachville Founder, Thomas J. Leonard
The Portable Coach: 28 Surefire Strategies for Business and Personal Success (Scribner, 1998) by Thomas J. Leonard
Simply Brilliant: 1800 Success Tips and Life Lessons from America's Top Personal and Business Coaches (Coach U Press, 1999) Edited by Thomas J. Leonard
Working Wisdom: Top 10 Lists for Improving Your Business (Bard Press, 1998) by Thomas J. Leonard
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