Last week, as the less-than-cordial tone of the 2008 presidential election juxtaposed with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11th, 2001, attacks on our country, I thought about what it means to be a life coach during this pivotal time.

This came to mind even more vividly as I watched John McCain and Barack Obama speak of national service at a televised forum at Columbia University. I felt a pull, a call to action. As life coaches, we guide people in bettering their lives. In doing that, do we have an obligation to implement “the greater good” into our sessions with clients?

We are living in a time when many people are feeling pinched financially and overwhelmed in their scheduling and don’t think they have anything to give, but I say the very solution to helping lift one out of a difficult situation is giving in ways that are proportionate and meaningful. It opens up channels in our lives like nothing else can. There is always something we can do. 

I know of what I speak.

My road in life coaching--a profession I had never heard of seven years ago--began as a volunteer right after Sept. 11, 2001. To say I was the opposite of altruistic prior to this is an understatement. While working as a television producer for Oxygen Media, I attended a “volunteer fair” on my lunch hour one day and found an organization that paired adult coaches with underserved children. At age 39, I figured it was about time I did something more than pay lip service to the idea of volunteering, so I excitedly jumped in and was assigned to coach a nine-year-old boy.

At the end of a mandatory all-day training for volunteers, the life coach running the program approached me and suggested I pursue life coaching as a career. “You’re a natural,” she said after watching me in action. Delighted that I had found a way to give that really suited me, but feeling my plate was already full, I didn’t give it much more thought as a full-time career path. Then I saw an ad in The New York Times that said, “Become a life coach.” I felt like something bigger was talking to me then, so I enrolled in an intensive training program to indeed become a life coach.

I intended it to be a side job, a way to augment my existing income. Then, in March of 2002, our show at Oxygen was cancelled and I was laid off, along with over 20 of my co-workers. Suddenly, life coaching became my safety net. I believe this is often how life’s most meaningful paths are born. Sometimes it takes a jolt (9/11) and then a brick to the head (a layoff) to actually see.

Once I started getting into the thick of coaching people while simultaneously trying to meet the financial challenges of starting a business, I began to learn the real meaning behind giving. Times were lean for a while and as I paid more heed to my emotional, physical and spiritual health, I started awakening to the concept of sacrifice. I realized just because money was tight didn’t mean I couldn’t share some. I didn’t have to be one of those whiners who talked about how easy it is for people like Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey to give because they have so much. It was a simple shift in thinking, if profound. For example, buying a banana for a homeless person on a New York City street was approximately 30 cents out of my pocket.

My fascination with the homeless grew and I began doing pro bono work through the local homeless shelter. It is one hour of my time per week, and it is some of the most satisfying work I’ve ever done.

I am far from the only person whose life course changed because of that fateful day when our country felt its vulnerability in ways it never had before. In my acquaintance alone there are many examples. One of my first life coaching clients was seeking direction after her fiance died in the World Trade Center a year before their wedding; she found that direction in helping others with their grief. A dear friend went from sports producer to the rigors of becoming a fireman. Others have forged meaningful paths outside of corporate environments they found stifling and hollow.

Every day I marvel at the people I meet who are seeking to do something more worthwhile or satisfying, who want to contribute to the greater good through careers or volunteerism. At even the hint of this desire in a coaching consultation, perhaps my call to action should be to more vigorously pursue it with the client, to dispel some of the preconceived notions I once had.

Maybe it is my duty to encourage people to rise above the fray of politics, to know that whatever happens in this election is for the greater good and ask this: What can you do besides pull the lever in the voting booth? What contribution can you make? What do you think would make this country and the world better? What can you do this month, this week, this day to further that? Is it better use of your time to bicker on a message board? Or, like one friend of mine, send a care package to a soldier?

What is my obligation as a life coach in these highly charged times? I think it’s to pay attention to a renewed energy and motivation to service.

Bill Clinton writes in his book, Giving, “ … almost everyone--regardless of income, available time, age, and skills--can do something useful for others and, in the process, strengthen the fabric of our shared humanity.”

That is the essence of our call.

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.