Sue Frederick Career Intuitive, Grief Intuitive & Soul Mate Intuitive & Author of I See Your Dream Job; I See Your Soul Mate & Bridges to Heaven

Need Help Finding Your Bliss? Hire a Coach
By SUSAN MORAN
Reprinted from the New York Times
Published: July 5, 2008

BOULDER, Colo. — A 43-year-old man is weary of teaching high school but has no clue how else to make a living. A 67-year-old man wants to leave banking but does not want to retire before leaving a more positive mark on the world. A 52-year-old woman is an emergency room doctor who loves her work but pines for more downtime.

All of them took part in a workshop in Boulder recently that was led
by a career “intuitive” named Sue Frederick — a former career counselor who draws upon her dreams, ancient numerology and conversations with spirits to “see your dream job.”

As the economic slump continues, many workers, even those who hate their jobs, are reluctant to look for more satisfying work. But others are turning to nontraditional career counselors and coaches to help them navigate transitions in their lives and careers.

These workers have read the umpteenth edition of “What Color Is Your Parachute?” by Richard Nelson Bolles and have mastered the Myers-Briggs personality test. Now they crave something more offbeat and probing.

Lucky for them, there are as many flavors of career counselors — and more recently coaches, including “psychic” and “intuitive” ones — as there are careers. Career counselors tend to explore psychological undercurrents with clients, and they often have a master’s degree in counseling. Coaches typically come from the corporate world and focus on goal- setting.

It is not just residents of Boulder, a mecca for all things organic and spiritual, who flock to Ms. Frederick’s “career intuition boot camp” and individual sessions in person or over the phone. “I don’t want to come across as a new age-y kind of guy with my head in the stars, because as a New Yorker type that’s the last thing I am,” said Gary Purnhagen, 55, who started his own management consulting business in Manhattan a few months ago after spending 20 years working for companies. “But going to Sue was probably the best decision I’ve ever made in terms of reaching out.”

Several months ago Mr. Purnhagen left a financial printing company that was laying people off. He trolled the Internet for counselors and coaches. When he saw Ms. Frederick’s Web site he was drawn to her big smile and her message that your dream job should make you giggle when you speak of it.

Then, call it coincidence or destiny, a consultant friend of his in New York suggested that he check out a career coach named Sue Frederick, and Mr. Purnhagen tossed his skepticism aside. Four one-hour phone sessions and $500 later, he said he is more focused, confident and trusting in his ability to build a lucrative clientele.

Ms. Frederick, 58, trained as a career counselor in the 1970s at the University of Missouri. She worked at the university and later in the private sector. But she yearned to add to her repertoire her self-described clairvoyance, which she says she discovered when she was a child who would dream about things that would often happen later that day.

Her husband warned that she would lose corporate clients if she called herself a career intuitive, but she did anyway. “Soon I had more clients than I knew what to do with,” Ms. Frederick told the 29 people at a recent workshop.

When career coaches jumped onto the scene a decade ago they were looked upon suspiciously by career counselors as inexperienced, brash interlopers. But since 1999, when the International Coach Federation began offering certification training for coaches, their reputation has risen steadily.

Today, roughly 3,700 people in the United States are certified by the federation. But anyone can call herself a coach; in fact, roughly 30,000 people do just that, estimates Diane Brennan, president of the federation. Hundreds of organizations offer some form of coaching certifications.

“A lot of people see having a coach as a prestigious thing, whereas going to a career counselor is often associated with having a problem,” said Maria Greco, a licensed professional counselor in Boulder with a Ph.D. in university administration.

A coach is more like a personal trainer, who coaxes clients to set and meet their job or career goals. A sure sign that you are talking to a coach is “five steps to” or “seven rules for.” The cover of Ms. Frederick’s 2004 book, “Dancing at Your Desk: A Metaphysical Guide to Job Happiness,” promises “The 7 Secret Steps to Finding Work You Love.”

At the other end of the career lifeline, a small but growing number of baby boomers are summoning career counselors and coaches. Keyren H. Cotter, 67, is a loan officer at a bank in Denver. With a Ph.D. in materials science, Mr. Cotter, known as Casey, worked for years in engineering before moving into mortgage banking. But it was not the mortgage crisis that recently sent him to Ms. Frederick’s career workshop.

“I ask myself, ‘What’s my legacy? Why am I here?’ ” Mr. Cotter said. “I’m at a period where I’m no longer motivated by money. I’m looking for something with more substance and more meaning.”

In the weeks since the workshop, Mr. Cotter saw Ms. Frederick for a one-hour session. He recalled that when he walked into her office she said, “I’ve been meditating on you. I think you should make movies.” Now he is considering combining his interest and experience in financing with documentary filmmaking.

“It’s too early to know,” Mr. Cotter said. “But I know I’m getting unstuck.”

@Times - Inside NYTimes.com by E-Mail

When I work with clients, I see their gifts and potentials; what they came here to do; the careers they would love; and where they should live. This information comes to me as photographic images and strong messages that I transmit directly to my clients. Sometimes I see my client’s departed loved ones, who come to the session to offer career guidance.

This joining of two seemingly disconnected worlds--the divine realms and the world of work--seems to be my particular talent. I was born in New Orleans to a French Cajun mother who came from a long line of women with “the gift.” I inherited a double dose of telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition from her and her mother, and on back through generations of Degas women.

These unusual gifts were nurtured by the mysterious city of my childhood. In the haunted alleys of the French Quarter, most everybody gives respect to the “unseen” world in some form or other: voodoo, Catholicism, psychics, vampires, Mardi Gras. My early years were flavored with this spicy magic, from my Grandpa’s stories of the swirling Mississippi River to the unforgettable images I absorbed in the dark recesses of Crescent City life. I thrived on the rhythms of my crazy Cajun ancestors. And, like them, I heard other people’s thoughts and had vivid dreams of events that would happen in the future.

My psychic gift is most powerful now that I use it to help others. The precognitive images that I see help me guide my clients to their true work. But it took nearly 55 years to embrace this ability to see the unseen world, and to learn what it had to teach--rather than being ashamed or afraid of it.

One of my strongest experiences in confirming the power of the unseen realm began in 1978, when I met and married a fellow mountaineer, Paul Frederick. We were crazy in love and planning a family when, at only 35 years old, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and given two weeks to live. From the moment of his diagnosis, we were determined to overcome it.

We explored conventional and alternative healing methods, and quickly became immersed in energy work, visualization, herbal medicine and Native American medicine. Paul was part Cherokee, so his mother provided us with books and healers from the Native American tradition. She got us an audience with a famous Sioux healer, Chief Fools Crow.

Over the next few months, as Paul’s health deteriorated, I experienced many extraordinary other-realm experiences with him. Chief Fools Crow became Paul’s constant dream companion. Paul awoke each morning with a new story to report about something Fools Crow had taught him the night before. The most dramatic was Paul’s sudden ability to speak Lakota, the language of the Sioux.

In the last few weeks before he died, Paul woke up singing a Lakota death song every morning. He said Fools Crow taught him two songs--one to deal with the pain and one to help him die. When the doctors heard this strange singing, they thought he was either speaking in “tongues” or was delirious, and they reported this in his medical charts. In college, I had studied Native American history and was very familiar with the language of Lakota. I knew exactly what he was singing.

On a rainy summer day in July 1980, Paul slipped into a coma. For nearly 24 hours, the accumulated stress of the past year washed over me and, eventually, I fell asleep on the floor. As soon as I dozed off, Paul appeared in front of me. He was smiling and quite happy. He touched my arm and said, “Don’t worry. I’m free. But what are you waiting for? You said I could die in your arms.”

I awoke with a jolt and cleared everyone out of the room. Paul’s mother and I stood on either side of him. We rubbed his arms and legs and told him it was okay to go now--that we wanted him to be free. We told him to leave his body and fly out into the soothing summer rain storm.

As soon as we spoke those words, Paul’s breathing changed. He took one long peaceful sigh, and his spirit left his body. I saw it leave as clearly as you can see your hand in front of your face. It was an image I’ll never forget. It was Paul’s gift to me.

I could never again doubt the spirit world or my ability to see it. That final moment was a confirmation of what I was here to do. I realized for the first time that we are all in charge of how and when we die – even how and when we take our last breaths. And I knew with every cell in my body, that death was only a passage of the spirit into the unseen realms.

A few years later, my best childhood girlfriend died after a two-year bout with Leukemia, and my father died one month after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Though I wasn’t able to be with either of them when they died, they both appeared and spoke to me at the moment of crossing over.

By this time, I was clear beyond all doubt that we are spiritual beings having a human experience – rather than the other way around.

Today, I’m abundantly grateful for my work , which is my passion. My intuitive gifts are finally out of the closet, and I’m freely able to share them with others. The images and dreams that have always guided me are now guiding others through this work.

I'd love to work with you. Send me your name and birth date and we'll get started. I spend an hour prepping for your session, meditating on your path, and downloading intuitive guidance for you.

During our phone session, I'm able to show you the work you came here to do and the next step that's right for you now. We create a plan that moves you forward into the next phase of your life and work. You can read more info about my work on www.CareerIntuitive.org

Send me an email: Sue@BrilliantWork.com

Please visit my websites: http://www.CareerIntuitive.org

http://www.BrilliantWork.com

Email: Sue@BrilliantWork.com Phone: 303-939-8574