One of the things that frustrated me about the coaching industry before my training was how fragmented it all seemed.
You could find a “business coach,” a “life coach,” a “relationship coach,” a “divorce coach,” a “health coach,” a “career coach.” The list goes on. It made coaching feel like this incredibly specialist thing, where you had to find the exact right type of coach for your exact type of problem.
But here’s what I’ve learned: that’s not how coaching works.
You don’t need a divorce coach. You don’t need an addiction coach. You don’t need a business coach specifically, or a parenting coach specifically.
You need a coach.
The Universal Skill
The thing about coaching-the real power of it-is that the core skill transfers perfectly across every single context.
A coach’s job is to ask questions that help you think more clearly about your situation. Not questions loaded with advice, or questions designed to steer you toward a particular answer. But genuine, open, curious questions that help you access your own thinking.
The content of those questions changes dramatically depending on your context. But the skill of asking them-the ability to listen deeply, to notice what’s not being said, to ask the next question that actually matters-that’s universal.
Let me show you what I mean.
Same Skill, Different Contexts
In a Divorce:
A person comes to a coach and says: “I feel like I’ve wasted the last ten years. I’m devastated.”
A coach’s job isn’t to tell them it wasn’t wasted. Isn’t to minimise the loss. Isn’t to spin positivity. It’s to help them think.
They might ask:
“What specifically feels wasted about those years?”
This helps the person move from vague devastation to concrete thinking. Maybe they realise the relationship taught them something. Maybe they recognize they did grow, even if the outcome wasn’t what they wanted. Maybe they discover the “waste” is actually about specific decisions they made, not the entire decade.
The question itself is simple. But it does the work. It creates space for their own thinking to emerge.
In a Career Change:
A person says: “I want to change careers, but I’m terrified I’ll fail. I’m 45, and everyone says I’m too old.”
Again, a coach doesn’t say, “No you’re not!” or “Here’s what worked for me when I changed careers.” They ask:
“What specifically are you afraid will happen if you make this change?”
Or: “What does success look like to you in this new career?”
Or: “What have you successfully learned before that you could draw on here?”
The person starts thinking. Maybe they realise the fear isn’t about age at all-it’s about money, or identity, or family judgment. Or maybe they recognise they’ve reinvented themselves before and did just fine. The coach isn’t telling them anything. They’re creating the conditions for the person’s own wisdom to surface.
In an Addiction or Health Issue:
A person comes in and says: “I know I should quit drinking, but I keep falling back into it.”
A coach might ask:
“What’s the drinking doing for you? What need is it meeting?”
Or: “What have you noticed about the moments right before you decide to drink?”
Or: “What would need to be different in your life for you to not need the drinking?”
These aren’t questions about willpower. They’re not advice wrapped in questions. They’re genuine inquiries that help the person understand their own patterns, their own psychology, their own reasons. From that understanding, their own solutions emerge.
In Parenting:
A parent says: “My teenager won’t listen to me. We’re constantly fighting.”
A coach asks:
“What specifically are you wanting them to hear?”
Or: “What do you think they’re trying to communicate when they push back?”
Or: “What did you need from your parents at that age?”
Again-the question is simple, but it shifts the person’s thinking. Suddenly they’re not in a battle. They’re curious about their kid’s perspective. They’re remembering their own adolescence. They’re accessing their own wisdom about what matters.
The Pattern
Notice what’s happening here?
In divorce, career, addiction, parenting-the content is completely different. The issues are different. The stakes feel different.
But the skill is identical.
A coach’s job is to ask questions that help someone move from:
- Vague overwhelm to specific clarity
- Blame and victimhood to personal agency
- Stuck patterns to new possibilities
- Confusion to understanding
The questions change. But the underlying skill-the ability to listen, to be curious, to ask the question that actually matters-that’s universal.
This is why you don’t need a specialist coach for your specific problem.
Why Specialists Miss the Point
Here’s the thing: when someone positions themselves as a “divorce coach” or an “addiction coach,” what they’re often doing is combining coaching with mentoring or advice based on their own experience with that specific thing.
Which can be valuable. But it’s not purely coaching. And it’s also limiting-because their expertise is in that specific domain, not in the coaching skill itself.
A truly skilled coach might never have been through a divorce. Might not have struggled with addiction. Might not have raised teenagers. But they have the skill to ask the questions that help you think more clearly about your divorce, your addiction, your parenting.
And that’s actually more useful. Because they’re not filtering your situation through their own experience. They’re purely focused on your thinking, your resources, your answers.
What to Look For
If you’re considering hiring a coach, don’t get hung up on whether they specialise in your specific issue.
Instead, ask yourself:
- Does this person seem genuinely curious about my thinking? Or do they seem like they’re waiting to tell me what they know?
- Are they asking questions that help me see things differently? Or are they confirming what I already believe?
- Do I feel like they’re pulling my own wisdom out of me? Or do I feel like they’re inserting theirs?
Because those are the markers of good coaching-regardless of whether they call themselves a “divorce coach” or a “business coach” or just… a coach.
The Empowerment
Here’s what this means for you:
If you’re going through a divorce, you don’t need to find someone who specialises in divorce. You need someone who knows how to ask questions that help you think clearly about what comes next.
If you’re struggling with addiction, you don’t need someone who’s been through addiction themselves. You need someone who can help you access your own understanding of what’s driving it and what you actually want.
If you’re changing careers, stuck in a difficult family dynamic, overwhelmed as a parent, trying to build a business, struggling with health-the skill you need is the same. It’s the coaching skill.
And good coaching-real coaching-works because it trusts that you already have the answers. The coach is just asking the questions that help you find them.
