Hey Brooke,

I have been reviewing your becoming a coach podcasts and I’m wondering if there are some preliminary steps I need to take. I work as a spiritual care professor and I want to do coaching as a small business (a day or two a week) along with teaching – my contract gives me the time and freedom to do this. I plan to go through your podcasts (thank you!). I’ve recently completed the MBI training and am not yet certified. So I’m a beginner in the life coach world but a teacher/leader in the spiritual care world. I’ve coached 5-6 clients for pay over time and I am nearly finished developing my own system/process for coaching that I’m quite proud of. (I did another training about 10 years ago that I’ve been integrating – coaching, spiritual direction, emotional intelligence). I will be on sabbatical from January to August to write a book about my system. It’s a coaching for ministers book for my teaching career that I also hope will jumpstart my coaching business.. I may develop my practice as a coach for ministers. I’d like to coach 5-8 people while I am writing the book, mainly for experience, certification, testing my process, becoming rock-solid in my confidence in my coaching process and my ability to deliver tremendous value to my clients. How do I find those 5-8 people. Should I start your system, try the friends-and-family route, referral marketing, a letter to all my former students about being part of a trial/clinical research group? At what point will I be ready to start your becoming a coach process?