Ben Olsen was a professional actor when God called him into a helps profession and now he serves as a leader of the Global Center for Coaching. (click for more...)

Website: www.GlobalCenterforCoaching.org

Ben Olsen shares how he grew up in a faith-filled home centered on community and participation, placed his faith in Christ at age 10, but drifted away during his teens. He pursued acting professionally for about 16 years — including six years in New York doing primarily Shakespeare — before a defining moment where he felt God calling him to make a clear choice. After returning to his faith, he found his theater background being redeemed when a Christian school invited him to teach theater.
Over the following 25+ years, Ben worked in various "helps professions" — addictions recovery, wilderness therapy, and pastoral counseling — before enrolling at Western Seminary. There, a coaching class instantly clarified what he had been doing all along. He pivoted fully to coaching, eventually took over the seminary's coaching program, and has since spun it off as the independent Global Center for Coaching. The organization offers accredited online training for both those seeking a professional coaching credential and those who simply want to sharpen their relational skills. Ben emphasizes that, unlike counseling, coaching is forward-focused and treats the client as the expert of their own life, with the coach's role being to help people discover what God has already placed within them.

NEXT WEEK: Dustin Garrett

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