Coaching a client to find where they come alive

Ask a client what lights them up and you usually get a tidy answer that does not quite hold up. Gather the evidence instead.

The client needs their results in hand. Plan thirty minutes together, plus three weeks of light logging.

1. Start with the map, before they log anything. Open the client's The Five Types of Work, near the back of their Career Discovery report. Note their primary type and complement. Call it a good guess; the log will check it.

2. Set up the log. Once a day for three weeks, they note what filled the day. For each, two fast ratings: how absorbed they were, and whether it lifted them or left them flat. Thirty seconds an entry, no essays.

3. Read for the pattern, not the list. When the log comes back, find the entries rated high on both absorption and energy. Then the ones that left them cold. Cluster them, do not just count.

4. Lay the pattern over their five types. Ask which type (Analytical, Creative, Integrative, Influential, Operational) the high-energy cluster lands in. Often it maps onto their primary or complement, giving them their own proof. Sometimes it surprises them, the most useful part.

When the client sees it, that recognition is the work. Stop there; the questions below are built for it.

5. When you're ready to close, land on one move. Name the type of work to steer toward, in the client's own words. Then one small step this month: an ask, a swap, a project to join. Keep it small enough to happen before your next session.