By Christine Heiser
Staff Writer

Deb LeClair, right, talks with a client at Full Spectrum Wellness in Manchester. Courtesy Photo

He was at the tail end of his marriage. He’d just walked away from a 10-year career in radio, unhappy with the way the industry was going.

Steve Gamlin was confused, trying to run in a million directions at once but not really getting anywhere.

“It was like driving across country without a map,” he said. “You’ll eventually get there, but what a lot of wasted time in between.”

All he knew was that he was unhappy.

Then he discovered life coaching.

Life coaching is a relatively new field, which has grown out of such things as mentoring and psychotherapy, said Deb LeClair, certified life coach, licensed psychologist and owner of Full Spectrum Wellness LLC in Manchester.

People seek out life coaching for a variety of reasons ­ they want a career change, or they’re looking for help in their business or personal relationships.

But mainly, they just have a sense that things aren’t right in their lives.

“People hear a knocking, telling them something needs to change,” LeClair said. “They feel a tugging at their heart, saying, ‘I’m just not happy.’”

For Gamlin, who found coach Dan Wilson of Wings of Awareness in Salem, coaching was the key to changing his life completely.

“I’d studied a lot of motivational stuff, Tony Robbins and all that,” he said. “There were so many voices in my head, I got lost in it.”

His coach helped him to listen to himself instead.

“He kicked out every voice in my head but my own,” Gamlin said.

Gamlin has been meeting with Wilson for about four years now, which is longer than most people use coaches. He’s been a DJ for weddings and other events for more than a decade, but with Wilson’s help, he’s been able to branch out into other areas.

Two years ago, Wilson encouraged Gamlin to take a course in standup comedy at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts. He’s since performed in Boston and New York City, and he loves it.

“Five minutes onstage makes a whole bad day go away,” he said.

He’s also written a book of funny short stories based on weddings at which he’s been the DJ, called “Table 7, Your Centerpiece Is On Fire!”

Coaching enabled him to focus on the things that were really important to him and brought more balance into his life.

Betsy Black, a life coach in Concord, says life coaching is a holistic approach to solving problems. It differs from career counseling, for instance, because a coach helps a client see how their work fits in with the rest of their lives.

“We look at the whole enchilada,” Black said.

A coach works with people to discover what their personal values are and then helps them lay out a plan to accomplish their goal.

There is a spiritual element to coaching, LeClair said.

“The mind/body/spirit connection is important,” she said. “The spirit has an enormous amount of resources. We work on mind and body and forget the other sometimes.”

One of her clients played on the Manchester Monarchs, but he wanted to play hockey for the NHL. LeClair worked with him to take steps to achieve that goal. He found he was distracted, which made concentration difficult. But he was able to become more centered by practicing yoga and meditation.

Debby Hoffman was coached by Black on a radio show Hoffman hosted, and continued with the coaching afterward. About the same time, she was diagnosed with a serious medical condition. Coaching helped her through the rough patch, and helped her realize that even an illness couldn’t stop her from achieving her goal.

“She helped me discover what my gifts were, what I could bring to the table,” Hoffman said. “She’s a wonderful sounding board.”

Hoffman, a professional speaker who works in business networking, decided she needed to concentrate on helping others, including businesses, heal their spirits. She’s now writing a seminar on the subject.

LeClair is a psychologist, but a coach doesn’t have to be. People sometimes confuse the two, but the difference is simple.

“If you get in the car with a psychologist, you’ll be looking back to where you came from,” she said. “With a coach, you get in the car and look straight ahead.”

It takes about a year to certify as a life coach. Life coaches aren’t regulated, but most voluntarily follow guidelines set by the International Coach Federation, which call for taking classes, being coached then coaching someone else, and having a coach listen to a tape of your session.

Coaches work with clients in person or on the phone. LeClair has clients in Florida, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Some coaches charge a monthly rate, others charge per session, and they can work with up to 20 clients at any one time, Black said.

The time spent coaching varies from client to client. There are five-week “laser coaching” sessions to concentrate on one particular issue. But sometimes it takes years.

“These people are working on their lives,” LeClair said. “They’re working through health issues, relationship issues, career issues.”

But coaches aren’t there to tell someone what to do and when to do it, LeClair said.

“Coaching provides space, time, support and inspiration to find what changes you want to make and to sustain them to find fulfillment, to make a shift in a part of your life,” she said.

What coaches enjoy about their work is helping people find what fulfills them.

“It’s so satisfying when you see somebody spark, and they start to follow a path they’ve uncovered,” LeClair said. “You see the fulfillment. They start to bloom. They start to know what they are capable of.”

Gamlin keeps finding new ceilings to break through with his coach.

“Having a life coach has made me better at everything I do, across the board,” he said. “It’s made me a much better person and now I realize the impact I can have and do have in the world.

“My worst day now beats most people’s regular days.”

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