Take Yourself to the Top : How the Secrets of a Leading Life Coach Will Help You Achieve Success

A recent trend in personal development is life coaching: it's somewhere between having a personal trainer and a therapist, someone to check up on you and make sure you are doing what you need to do to achieve your personal and professional goals. Life coaches focus on the future not the past, they look at obstacles to success and fulfilment not to open them up for introspection but to overcome them and achieve goals. In this guide the author acts as the reader's own personal life coach. She shares her secrets for getting out of a rut, learning how to go beyond "just getting by" and taking charge. This book is for those ready to make the leap to the next level of success. Inspiring case studies of Berman's clients back up her tips.

Laura Berman Fortgang, like fellow personal coaches including Cheryl Richardson (Take Time for Your Life) and Thomas Leonard (The Portable Coach), has distilled her knowledge into book form. (For the uninitiated, personal coaches are like personal trainers--only they work to motivate you to perform at your peak on the job, instead of in the gym.) Her corporate clients have included Johnson & Johnson, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Prudential Securities.

Berman Fortgang says you need to identify the hurdles that are holding you back--even if it's a boss more cognitively absent than Dilbert's--and then do something about them. That's easier said than done. She's also big on making a five-year plan, something that may actually require hours of self-analysis and/or the assistance of a career counselor. But for anyone who feels in a rut but is also truly devoted to investing the time it takes to improve professionally and is willing to take risks, Take Yourself to the Top could be the answer. Berman Fortgang writes like a kinder, gentler Tony Robbins; you get the sense that she's genuinely concerned with bringing out the best in people. And there's targeted information in here for everyone: salespeople, workers on the verge of burnout, wishful entrepreneurs, and those just struggling to make ends meet. Admittedly, the advice in this book takes much more self-discipline to follow than would a dozen sessions with a personal coach egging you on in person or over the phone, but then, you also save the $200-a-session fee.