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“We are all Porsches or Mustangs,” says Harwich life and busi-ness coach, Maggie French. “There is a

point when the used car becomes a classic. Someone has to come along and rewire it,” so it doesn’t end up in the junk yard, she says. Maggie sees herself as the mechanic who helps people rewire their lives so they can turn what they love into their second career.

Fifty-nine-year-old Maggie is in her fifth year as a coach. With a master’s in business and a former career as chief financial officer for various corporations, she offers individual and private

coaching sessions out of her home office. She collaborates with several area organizations, including the American Business Women’s As-sociation, the Harwich Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Harwich, and runs “Surviving to Thriving” workshops at WE CAN, a nonprofit that empowers women. She has recently found a niche in helping retirees find a second calling at an age when each person must redefine retire-ment.

“Our generation of baby boomers, we’re at the front of a whole new era of age,” Maggie says. “My father retired at 56. That’s what people did,” she says. “What he didn’t realize is that he was going to live for another 30 years.” Baby boom-ers have a choice to create a new career at an age

Turning people into classicsMaggie French uses

her own career change to coach others toward

their dreams

Maggie French built this koi pond

in the back yard at her Harwich

house. It’s a tranquil spot for sitting, thinking

and planning how to help people achieve their

dreams – and for just relaxing.

BY Laurie BaLLiett

“I guide people to merge their passions with

their business.”Maggie French,

harwich

liFe and business coach

Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod tiMes

See story, next page

Prime Time Cape Cod 01/08/2013

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when previous generations would retire, Maggie says.

Since people are living longer and healthier, the idea of retirement isn’t what it was for previous generations, she says. “I guide people to merge their passions with their business. I offer skills to help others find their authenticity...to find that passion within that you are meant to bring into this world.”

Maggie transformed her own life from working as an accountant for large corporations to helping people find their own success and happiness. “I knew there was something more out there,” she says.

When she was in college, she wanted to live the new feminist dream. She earned her MBA at the University of Hartford and set out to reach her goal “to become a female financial officer.”

After working as the certified finan-cial officer for several large corporations, Maggie had become a woman in busi-ness. By the time she was in her late 30s, she was the chief financial officer at the Visiting Nurse Association of Cape Cod.

“I was a bean counter. I felt too young to do the same thing for the next 30 years. Health care is not about health. Health care is a business. It grated against values that I hold very dear, and I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

She left her position, took a bookkeeping job and entered a nine-month coaching program to receive her International Coach Federation certification. When she turned 50, Mag-gie transformed her already successful life into one of following her new passion. She left the high-powered job to become the life coach that she is today, working on growing her new business, which is helping others find their own way to success.

“The successful coaches come from a source of authenticity,” she says. “I coach because I love to coach. I’m doing what I’m put on this earth to do.”

Maggie believes that your business is incorporated with your life. In a discus-sion on a cold winter day, she references Joseph Campbell, who is known for say-ing, “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” In other words, the money will follow. Maggie talks enthusiastically

about a recent shift in her work as a coach. “Spirit is purpose,” she says.

“There’s been previous groundwork, and somewhere along the line, you have to find yourself a Sherpa,” she says, of finding a coach to take you to that next place in your life. Sherpa’s go with a traveler and then eventually let the traveler lead their way toward the end of the path, she says.

She found her own guides in other coaches who inspire her, “the authentic ones, who were walking the journey of the self,” she says. Brene Brown, who discusses “vulnerability” on the popu-lar Ted Talks, and Shawn LeClair, who says to “live to that passion that you’ve always had and bring that forth,” are two of them.

In her coaching practice, she mentors others in an attempt to guide people until they can find their way on their own. “I’m doing what I’m put on this earth to do. Because it’s what I am, I will find the ways to get it out, because I am doing what I am supposed to do.

I don’t go looking, it comes to me,” she says.

“If you talk to any successful business person, they have a mentor who they can talk to on a regular basis. Not the boss, not the mother or the husband. We all need to cry, get angry, be vulnerable,” she says. In private sessions, French offers to work together once a week for three months. “Af-

ter that, it’s up to you,” she says, adding that some people meet once a month, some once every three months.

Maggie says you need to ask yourself what you need and what you want, so that you can move from one to the other, including the basics such as your income necessities.

“Sometimes you have to get a job, like at Stop & Shop, to get you over the hump,” she says. For example, Maggie re-cently accepted a part-time position as a bookkeeper for the Wellfleet Oyster Fest to help subsidize her growing coaching business. This job came to her as well; she did not seek it out.

“Most people get focused on the goal. The goals are future oriented,” she says. “In the goal setting, it is to be in the present, to be in the process. You say, ‘Is it the book, or is it the writing? Success-ful small business owners focus on ‘This is what I do,’ not, ‘Oh, everyone is going to the other shop.’”

In the “Surviving to Thriving” work-shop that Maggie runs as a volunteer for WE CAN, she asks the questions, “’Why are we on this earth?’ ‘What values, standards of integrity do we have?’ and ‘What is our life’s intention?’ Once you begin to be aware that you are of value and your values are important, we reawaken your goals. For a lot of women, they’ve put everybody but themselves first, and now they’re ready.” In a four- to six-week course of time, she helps pre-pare women to take the leap into their own life purpose.

“One woman wanted to be a balle-rina, but thought she couldn’t because she was too old,” says Maggie. “So we discussed, ‘Do you want to dance? Or be a ballerina?’” The focused questions helped the woman find her way into modern dance, something anyone can

do at any age. “When you can begin to laugh about being a 50-year-old in a tutu, you can open up your goals from surviving to thriving,” she says.

“I’ll work with anybody who has a spark of themselves, not just women, and I’ll work with all ages,” she says.

“You have to learn how to shift your energy from, ‘Oh, I can’t do that because I’m a 58-year-old woman,’ to, ‘Hell, I can do that!’” Maggie says.

The second tier of workshops she of-fers is called “Thriving with a Blast,” and then she offers private lessons that she calls, “Continuing to Thrive.” She also of-fers a less expensive option than private coaching: a round table of six people to work for six weeks with her. That option costs $150 for the program.

“How does a car become a classic? Somewhere along the line, someone had to put a catalytic converter in it,” Maggie says. It’s her metaphor about adjusting to the growing and changing world, and she continues to help others do that. Getting coached is a way to become that classic, she says. “Coaching is a process. The idea is to give you the space and place where you can be yourself.” u

AUGUST 201330

Maggie transformed her

own life from working as

an accountant for large

corporations to helping

people find their own

success and happiness.

Coaching optionswww.livingwhole.netMaggie French774-212-1826

Visit Maggie French’s coaching website, www.livingwhole.net, to find, under the Reference Library tab, a list of recommended books and articles, tools and exercise. One exercise, entitled Life Assessment, has you rate various aspects of your current life, chart your position on the wheel of life and make plans for where to focus your attention. The goal is to live a well-rounded life.

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