Thursday, September 18, 1997

Personal coach can help balance priorities of life

By Renee C. Lee / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Companies that want to get the best work out of their employees might need to help those workers learn how to enjoy life a little more.

Employees overwhelmed by too many demands on time, both professionally and personally, sometimes don't perform up to their personal standards. What they need is time out to organize their lives and make more time for leisure, said Jeannine Sandstorm.

An "executive coach," Sandstorm works with individual corporate workers and corporate teams to help them identify and fulfill a vision for their lives.

"It's as if I am their private board of directors giving them permission to organize their lives to take care of themselves first," Sandstorm said. "My job is to help support them in their decisions."

Sandstorm, who is based in Dallas, has worked as a coach for 20 years. She has a doctorate degree in human resource development and has worked as an educator.

Her clients range from financial services and oil and gas companies to major consulting firms, she said. She charges $500 per month for two to three hours of focused work with private clients and up to $3,000 per day for a corporate team.

The goal of her sessions: teaching clients to evaluate their core beliefs and values so that they can begin to prioritize how they use their time, particularly their leisure time.

She offers her clients this advice:

Look at their core values by asking themselves, "Who am I?" and "What do I want in life?"

Take off the plate any activities that no longer support that vision.

Reprioritize and refocus the activities left on their plate. At this point, they should have more time to do the leisurely activities they want to do and realize they can chose to do something that is fulfilling for themselves.

Reorient their lives, their family and friends -- and their expectations of them -- around who they are and what they want to do in the next stage of their lives.

Some people end up putting everything back on their plate because they haven't learned that it's OK to have leisure, Sandstorm said.

Annual checkups or a time out is often needed to see if the plan they originally mapped out is still working. If it's not, they can go through the coaching process again.

"The challenge is to define leisure for themselves and to know that that definition will change over time," Sandstorm said. "We plan for leisure being as valuable as everything else. That's the balance."