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David Bentley chalks up 100th personal coaching column

posted 03/26/02
No one is issued an instructional manual listing the questions and answers of how to live life, but Personal Coach David Bentley helps "people discover their own answers."

Bentley, who this weekend wrote his 100th column for San Juan Islander, finishes each article with four thought-provoking questions.

"I use the column to make observations about life and then ask questions about what I observe. The name Outside The Box comes from what I do as a coach -- to get people to look at things differently," Bentley says. "Sometimes when we do that it's amazing what we can see."

Bentley first had to answer his own questions before helping others form their personal queries. Born to school teachers in New Orleans and raised in Southern Arkansas, Bentley earned a business degree in finance and worked for a large hospital holding company. He quickly advanced to "troubleshooting comptroller."

Contrary to his parents' advice and wishes, he returned to college graduated with a bachelor's degree in education and then a master's, specializing in reading instruction. After teaching six years in Louisiana, he left the South for the Northwest.

A one-year teaching position at Friday Harbor Elementary School stretched into a seven-year assignment. After 13 years in the classroom, he "loved" teaching but was ready for a change.

"Looking back on all the things I had done, including at that time 16 years of hospice work, I realized what I'd really been doing was coaching people," Bentley says. "I didn't realize it was a profession."

Bentley uses this Tom Laundry quote to explain his philosophy of coaching:

A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be

The similarities end there with NFL coaches and other athletic coaches. Bentley often must educate people about his coaching profession. He also does not want to be considered a psychologist. "I'm not looking at psychological processes or mental health issues, but I'm helping people set and achieve goals," says Bentley, who has referred some clients to mental health therapists.

"I help people find where there are, where they want to be and how to get there."

Bentley's clients come to him for a variety of reasons but most of them are "people making career changes or learning relationship skills." He also coaches "people wishing to just finding balance in their lives."

He uses "discovery learning" methods -- students learn through exploring -- to help his clients gain their own understanding. "It's just like teaching when the kids get excited about what they're learning, my clients get just as excited about what they're learning about themselves."

His clientele is about 50 percent islanders and 50 percent mainlanders. They've written some "wonderful testimonials," Bentley says. "I've had people complete what they were working on, but no one has quit on me."

Bentley receives some interesting referrals, though. "There have been lots of people who tell me, 'My husband, or my wife, needs to see you.'"

Friends often ask Bentley if he wished he'd quit his other careers and started coaching earlier . He answers: "If I hadn't had all those experiences I wouldn't have been able to coach as well as I can."