Coen de Groot - Coach Coen

What makes Coen a good coach:

Coaching skills

• Coach U trained - an extensive training with one of the world's oldest and best coach training organisations
• Founding member of CoachVille - a constant source of cutting edge coaching tools
• Attendant at the 2001 (Switzerland) and 2002 (Spain) European Coaching Conferences - top coaches, inspirational presentations, life changing workshops and a place to meet hundreds of fellow coaches
• Trained to NLP practitioner level with one of the UK's oldest NLP training companies
• Member of the ANLP - the UK NLP association
• Member of the ICF - the International Coach Federation, the coaching industry's independent standards and ethics organisation
• Active member of the 500+ strong Euro Coach List community of European coaches

Experience

• Coaching since early 1998, with a wide range of clients and topics
• Previously spent 5 years coaching and supporting clients through their PC problems, mostly at Shell head office

Life tools

• Widely read on time management, personal development, quality assurance, career change and much more
• With a deep understanding of many tools and techniques, which my clients can use to change their own behaviour and circumstances
• Parent with a strong interest in parenting from a place of trust

Interested in the big picture

• Regular reader of the mainstream and alternative press, including The Ecologist, Resurgence, New Internationalist, Guardian Weekly, Ethical Consumer
• Supporter of the Centre for Alternative Technology, Education Otherwise, Human Scale Education
• A member of many email discussion forums, on topics such as home education, coaching, website technology, Ken Wilber and the environment
• I keep up to date with the latest thinking, such as Ken Wilber's writings and Spiral Dynamics
• Bi-lingual (Dutch and English), giving me a Dutch, English and international perspective

Volunteer

• Owner/moderator of a community of 500+ coaches, maintaining a positive atmosphere amongst many diverse voices within this highly supportive network, as a volunteer for Coach U
• I have been a Scout leader for 3 years, preparing and leading the weekly meetings and regular camping trips

Characteristics

• An ability to recognise the special qualities in others
• A thinker as well as a doer
• Flexible, easy-going, yet driven
• Succint, jargon free and clear

And I have a life too :-)

• Regular Salsa and Merengue lessons
• Regular badminton games (currently on a winning streak :-)
• Camping, folk festivals
• Father and husband - I work part-time so I can spend every Tuesday (as well as the weekends) with our 3 year-old daughter Lucy
• Apart from the usual games, Lucy and I regularly play with my (growing, thanks to on-line auctions) collection of Fischer Technik - a construction toy from the 70s
• Regular piano lessons
• Finally, I read wide and deep