The first time I observed a coaching session, it felt like peeking into someone’s bedroom. It seemed private and intimate, not my business. At the same time, it felt exhilarating to observe this person’s discovery and watch the insight unfold. Part of me wanted to look away, part wanted to look further; it was both sacred and beautiful.

When I enrolled at Professional Christian Coaching Institute (PCCI), I didn’t really know what coaching was. If I had to describe what...

Dec. 30, 2019

On Christmas Day, I went to the emergency room with pain in my left chest and trouble breathing. After a series of scans and blood tests, the doctors concluded I had a blood clot in my left lung. Officially it's called a pulmonary embolism.

"So I won't be going home tonight?" I asked.

The doctor's serious, I-know-more-than-you look on his face answered the question.

Apparently a pulmonary embolism is serious. Each year 60,0000 - 100,000 people die from it and it calls for...

Although spiritual gifts are vital to the health of Christ’s Body on earth, a survey revealed that the majority of respondents (63%) didn’t have a biblical understanding and/or a practical application of spiritual gifts.

This is troubling because not only are spiritual gifts part of God’s strategy to build the Church, but they’re also central to experiencing joy as a Christian. According to Pastor Ray Stedman, “The value of your life as a Christian will be...

A few months ago, I received an email from a young man who was desperate. Suffering from two chronic injuries, he was forced to lay on his back all day long. He felt isolated and hopeless, and asked if I would seek God for a word for him. He wasn’t sure he was hearing from God clearly.

So I agreed but went a step further. I took some guys to his house to pray with him. Since then, he’s become a good friend, and although we’ve continued to pray for healing, he hasn’t...

Do you know the difference between coaching and mentoring? A study by the International Coach Federation suggests you may not. In the 2017 Global Consumer Awareness Study, respondents were asked to select the definition of coaching among other modalities such as mentoring, consulting, training, and counseling (yes, they’re all different).

Of 27,000 respondents, 30% correctly defined coaching, but 70% did not. According to the study:

“This shows that, while many consumers have a...

Three years ago I was searching for more fulfillment at work. I had been in sales and marketing for 13 years, and though the company was successful, something was missing. I felt if I kept doing the same thing for much longer, I would look back with regret.

One of the questions I asked was, “What am I wired to do?” You can get an idea of what you were made for when you understand how you were made—purpose informs design.

I turned to CliftonStrengths. I had taken the...

As I shared in "Giving Employees A Home," only “6 in 10 U.S. employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work,” which drives disengagement in the American workforce (Gallup). Since clear expectations are critical for employees, our company has established a unique role and outcome statement for each position.

Everyone from the CEO to the newest employee can access each other’s role and outcome statements. Doing this was a big effort between employees...

I stepped into a Human Resources role at EnergyCAP, Inc. (ECI) in 2016. Since then, I’ve been interested in the subject of employee engagement. I’d read the statistics from Gallup that said only 33% of the American workforce was engaged, which meant 67% were in some way disengaged.

I wondered how our workplace would stack up to the rest of the country, so as a company we took Gallup’s Q12 engagement survey. The Q12 survey contains 12 questions, which Gallup has perfected...

When I was head of marketing for EnergyCAP, Inc., my job was to create qualified sales leads for the Sales team. Since I have a passion for publishing helpful content, my tendency was to focus on content. We published ebooks, case studies, blog posts, slide decks, and videos aimed at attracting and educating potential clients. But that was only part of our plan.

Had we just focused on content, we would have missed a lot of leads. Some of them loved content, but not all of them did (sad). Our...

Note: This guest post is an open letter from my wife to the members of the Penn State fraternity in our hometown, who photographed nude pictures of unconscious women and posted them online.

March 20, 2015

Dear Young Men of Kappa Delta Rho,

Take a moment and dream with me:

It’s graduation. You worked this season the hardest you knew how. So you graduate, celebrate, say goodbye to the chapters of your life you will never redo again. Excited because you got a job in your field. Not a dream...