One of the fascinating aspects of physical therapy is how experience in the field and lessons learned from it can be blended with other pursuits. Ron Eig, MEd, BS, PT, CPC, has discovered this firsthand by delving into the realm of life coaching.

A 34-year physical therapy veteran who currently works full-time as a home care PT for Gentiva in Florida, Eig also recently earned the designation of certified performance coach. In fact, Eig and his wife Ann, a registered nurse, established their own company, Coaching Life's Journey (www.coachinglifesjourney.com), in June as an adjunct to their professional lives.

"We graduated in June from a course offered through Resource Realizations, which is headquartered in California," explained Eig. "The coursework was provided in Tempe, AZ, consisting of five three-day weekends spread out over 10 months and including seminar, experiential and practice work. In between each of those weekends, there was a lot of online education and practice coaching between other students. We also had to enroll our own clients and conduct a minimum of 80 hours coaching with them."

Starting Out

The Eigs have been married for five years and currently reside in Port Orange, FL. But Eig's own journey has had many twists and turns, professionally and geographically along the eastern seaboard. Growing up in Woodbridge, NJ, outside New York City, Eig wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life until a television special inspired him.

"I was still in high school when I saw a program on TV about returning Vietnam veterans and the rehabilitation they were receiving for combat injuries," he recalled. "It was all physical therapists working with them and that's what first got me excited about it. I watched that show and said to myself, that's what I want to do."

So Eig went to the University of Connecticut to earn his bachelor's degree in physical therapy, graduating in 1974. His first job in the field was at a small community hospital in Sussex County, New Jersey.

"It was out in the country and we pretty much did some of everything - inpatient, outpatient, all types of conditions. Because back then there wasn't a lot of specialization. Your choices were pretty much hospitals, nursing homes and some home health."

Eig stayed at that facility for about four years, then married his first wife and moved to Massachusetts for another four years. While there, he worked at another small community hospital and provided home health. He also earned his master's degree in rehabilitation counseling at Springfield College.

"I always thought it would be a good combination to have PT experience plus some counseling and coaching background to work not only with physical but also mental aspects of rehab," said Eig.

However, staying in Massachusetts was not in the cards for Eig.

"It was actually pretty depressing there in terms of the pay," he related. "I think salaries were so low in Massachusetts because of the number of PT schools and many facilities tended to prefer hiring new grads. So there I was with a master's degree and roughly eight years experience, seeing new PTs getting jobs in other states for basically double what I was making."

Eig began looking for other opportunities and in the early 1980s was offered a job as department director at a rehab hospital in Asheville, NC. He and his wife at the time moved there, but stayed for only a couple years before divorcing. That turn of events led Eig to the Jersey shore, seeking to begin a new chapter in his life.

Down the Shore

"I ended up buying a sailboat and living on it for about eight years," he commented. "I also started my own business, which was basically a temporary physical therapy staffing company. So I had contracts with many local outpatient clinics, nursing homes, school systems and home health services. My staff included one other full-time therapist and a couple part-time PTs."

But in the early 1990s, Eig saw many of these clinics and nursing homes get bought up by national companies, which would juggle their own staff to fill previously open positions.

"So it wasn't as lucrative anymore, and I started going down to Florida in the winters. I would take seasonal positions and come back to Jersey in the summer to do a lot of sailing. Usually I'd go down around the beginning of November when it started getting cool and come back in the middle of May. I did that for probably four years until it became tiresome to go back and forth. So I just decided around 2000 to stay in Florida full-time."

Eig moved to the Fort Myers area and worked for about five years in the school systems of Lee County and Collier County. During this time, he met Ann and they soon married.

"I lived in a small villa and Ann has two daughters so we needed a place that was bigger. At the time, one of her daughters was moving to start chiropractic school in Port Orange, FL. Her other daughter had a significant behavior problem, which led Ann to enroll her in a specialty boarding school in Utah."

Coaching Course

As it turned out, that was how Eig and his wife became involved in coaching.

"The boarding school offered seminars on personal growth, focusing on the choices you make and being accountable when your daughter returns home," explained Eig. "So from that first exposure, we continued to attend seminars, eventually helping to put them on. The facilitator of the seminars got to know us and highly recommended we go to the coaching academy to become coaches. We agreed and that's how it all came about."

Ron and Ann began taking the seminars about four years ago. They moved to Port Orange about a year later and Eig started to work full-time for Gentiva. The couple then began coursework through Resource Realizations in September 2007.

"At that time, I don't think we really were thinking about starting a business," he said. "But toward the end of the training we decided that's what we wanted to do. We were encouraged to decide on a niche area based on what we were passionate about, which situations we would be excited to work with and who we had been attracting as practice clients."

Healthcare Niche

In Eig's case, the answer in all three cases was fellow health care professionals.

"So that's my niche," he continued. "I want to work with them on their professional goals, personal issues and relationships. That's where the life coaching comes in. The program we went to isn't only concerned with performance. Meaning we don't just say, 'OK, you're goal is to get this job-let's get you that job.' It looks at the job, but also at your personal growth, your relationships and how it all interconnects."

As the Eigs seek to grow their coaching business, Ron continues to work as a PT while Ann maintains her RN position.

"Eventually I would like to see my work shift from full-time PT to part-time PT and part-time coaching," he said. "I would still always want to do therapy. But I would like to build up the coaching quite a bit more. What's nice is it's done almost strictly by phone so it doesn't matter where the person is. In fact, some of my clients live in California, New Mexico, Tennessee, really all over the place. So it works out well to do at night when it won't interfere with my PT job responsibilities."

Impact and Influence

Despite his coaching career being only in its nascent stage, Eig has already been greatly influenced by the techniques.

"I think it's just an amazingly powerful way of being with people," he related. "And the whole first weekend of coursework was about how we 'be.' That means looking at yourself and determining where your values are, what's important to you and how you want to interact with people. It emphasizes coming from a neutral place when talking with somebody and being non-judgmental. It also encourages being curious about where that other person is and more interested in what he wants than what you want."

According to Eig, the methods produce great results with clients as well.

"During the course, we did a videotaped exercise where we had five minutes to do a mini coaching session. Time after time, we'd watch these videos in class and you'd see in five minutes how much could be accomplished. It just cuts through a lot of the clutter. Coaching doesn't much care where you've been and what's happened to you. We're more concerned about where you are right now and where you want to get to. What you want to accomplish and what's getting in your way. It's a very direct approach that suits me well. And the techniques have so many implications for life even if you're not going to be a professional coach."

Furthermore, there is great applicability to physical therapy.

"Physical therapy and coaching relate quite a bit," concluded Eig. "For example, when I work with clients or patients about compliance, determining if they're doing their exercises and if not, what's getting in their way? Is it because they don't know what their goals are? Or why they're supposed to do them? I also use coaching a lot with family conflicts or with people who are in transition, such as somebody who just had a heart attack and now has to change his lifestyle. The bottom line is these skills are invaluable for working with other people."

Brian W. Ferrie is managing editor of ADVANCE and can be reached at bferrie@advanceweb.com