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  Reaching out: Ramon Llamba

Month one: Diet and workouts. Month two: lose weight, build up stamina. Month three: wear a small-sized tee shirt and join a 10-kilometre run. The action plan for Ramesh Rao — chalked out by his life coach — had clearly marked out every milestone.

In a year, the Pune-based vice-president of an information technology major had lost 35 kilograms and run two marathons. Not surprisingly, Rao was happy that he had decided to go to a life coach when he wanted to lose weight. 'After all, losing weight is a mind game,' he explains.

Rao's coach, Manish Gupta — founder, Chrysalis Consultancy — made a plan for Rao that included physical and mental targets. While a physical trainer handled the workout, Gupta set the mental milestones — the marathons and the tee size. 'He's now working towards his next goal — running a 42km full marathon,' Gupta says.

Pune-based Gupta is part of India's burgeoning life coaching industry — a client-coach interface that's broadly similar to therapy and motivation talk. These modern-day gurus counsel clients on ways to get unstuck — to change careers, repair relationships, or simply get their act together.

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  Rajiv Vij

India has over 2,000 trained life coaches — including 250 accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF). India, some experts estimate, has the second fastest growing coaching community in Asia, after Singapore.

The growth of the global self-development industry — life coaching included — has been fuelled by high net worth individuals' quest to better their lives. When Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan separated from his wife Sussanne Khan last year, he reportedly hired a life coach to cope with the emotional stress of a break-up and help keep his mind on work.

'Life coaching is for people who are successful and want to be exceptional,' says Shalini Verma, director, The Sky Scrapers Academy, a New Delhi-based executive and leadership coaching centre. 'We have coached over 250 clients — all in their late 30s and placed as CEOs, business heads, presidents and women leaders,' she says.

Mumbai-based life and productivity coach Milind Jadhav draws a similar client profile. 'People who sign up for the kind of coaching I do are ready to take on big challenges,' he says, adding that some of the largest global organisations — such as IBM, AT&T and Kodak — now have life coaches working with their senior executives.

Life coaching, clearly, is a booster dose for high achievers. 'It is not about motivating people, but supporting people who are already motivated,' he adds. It also comes with a price tag that needs deep pockets. Jadhav charges Rs 75,000 for a 12-session package conducted on Skype — one-on-ones cost many times more. He's worked with 50 people in his five-year coaching career.

Unlike psychotherapy — which often delves into the past to correct personal problems and traumas — life coaching is a tool to pep up the present and future. 'A life coach helps his client set a significant goal and achieve it,' explains Jadhav.

Last year, an entrepreneur stuck in a loss-making family business approached Jadhav. While working with him, the coach pushed his business blueprints aside and worked on overcoming his feelings of failure and guilt. 'That done, he found his own business solutions and started three new ventures. Coaching helped him deal with his fear and stress and made him decisive,' Jadhav recounts.

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  Bina Jhaveri

A CEO will tell you that life can be lonely at the top — and that, says Rajiv Vij, a Singapore-based life and executive coach, is a reason why successful professionals seek a life coach. 'Who do you share your business concerns with? Even if you have trusted friends, they may not be professionally equipped to help,' he holds. Vij's client list 'runs into hundreds' and typically comprises C-suite executives.

Moreover, given the lean structures of modern corporations, professionals often have no one to turn to for hand holding. 'Their seniors don't have time to mentor them,' Vij adds. Life coaches fill the gap.

But it's not always professional angst that brings people to a life coach's couch. Simerjeet Singh, founder of a Jalandhar-based life coaching centre called Cutting Edge, recalls counselling a 45-year-old marketing executive who had it all, professionally. 'He was on top of his game when he realised he wanted to write a book, not win corporate laurels,' Singh says. The coach helped him understand it wasn't an either-or situation — he could do both.

'I have coached people in almost every issue, from building confidence and communication skills, anger management, complexities of a start-up business, to finding their life purpose, becoming better parents and attracting soul relationships,' says Bina Jhaveri, master life coach at A to Zen Coaching, Mumbai.

Chrysalis's Gupta recently counselled a Pune-based entrepreneur who wanted professional morale boosting to build his sinking printing business. Besides resetting his business objectives and work practices, three years of life coaching helped him turn his life around as well.

'He's gone on a 1,700km cycling expedition, biked from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and is an avid sky diver,' Gupta says.

The processes that these knowledge merchants follow, however, vary from coach to coach. For instance, Ramon Llamba, founder of the Gurgaon-based Golden Age Transformation, uses Past Life Regression and Reiki as therapy tools. 'Sometimes I bring in astrology and Vaastu as well,' she adds.

Life coach Santhosh Babu brushes aside the use of therapies. 'As a coach I only work with people who can take responsibility and accountability for their actions,' he says.

Some argue that life coaching hasn't yet matured into a bona fide profession. 'It's still not an established field, doesn't have any barrier to entry or a prescribed body of knowledge,' a Bangalore-based HR consultant points out.

Anyone can declare himself a life coach as the profession doesn't require a licence to practice. And many have done so. 'The number of untrained people who put 'coach' on their business cards is 10 times more than trained coaches,' says Verma of The Sky Scraper's Academy.

There's, clearly, an industry evolving around the power of positive thinking. And the modern-day gyan gurus are making lemonade out of every lemon life throws at their clients.