Prolific author Eric Maisel offers sound advice and food for thought through The Coach’s Way, a dynamic guide designed for business and personal coaches of various experience levels. The work of coaching others to realize their goals and improve performance requires disciplined strategies for introspection and self-reflection. With self-awareness as the grounding lesson in becoming a better coach, the book offers helpful tips for folks considering coaching as a profession and a refresher for those who want to enhance their craft. He shares examples from the business world, but his primary audience is people seeking to maximize their creative pursuits.

People work with coaches because they want to improve an aspect of their life. Coaches help others to navigate challenges and cultivate novel approaches to solving problematic patterns of behavior. I serve as a leadership coach for organizations looking to enhance diversity and inclusion efforts. I found the book a helpful guide in seeing how I may enhance my interactions with clients. I appreciated Maisel’s emphasis on helping others as the foundational purpose of coaching. There are important lessons on how to encourage and hold people accountable to sustain the practice of newly adapted skills. The learnings also are relevant for people managers who help improve the performance of work teams.