It's now a few years that I do coaching sessions for university students, for co-workers within a big NGO and for clients. Here three tips that I think can help you make the most out of a coaching session:

A coaching session is about the conversation. Your coach doesn't need to understand everything in order to be able to help you. Instead of using half of your coaching session to share the context, just use 1-3 minutes to give the context of your situation.

If your coach needs more context to be able to help you he will ask you questions. If not you'll be able to start the coaching session right away, what happens most of the time.

Just by doing that you make your coaching sessions much longer and deeper.

A coaching session is a place to explore a problem, an idea, reflect. To make that happen I find that the best way you can prepare yourself is to come with a clear question and an idea of where you'd like to be at the end of the coaching session.

For a more technical coaching session that could look like this:

"My question is: how do I run a good interview? At the end of this session I want to have a clear plan."

For a more personal coaching session that could look like this:

"My question is: how can I feel less stressed and procrastinate less? At the end of the session I want to feel a sense of calm."

When you come to a coaching session you also come with a particular mental state. You might be feeling overwhelmed. You might feel blocked in a procrastination loop. You might feel curious and hungry for information. You might feel in getting shit done mode.

As a coach it helps me a lot when people reveal at the start of the session how they feel and what's the emotional mode that is needed to make you feel better.

I often ask in my coaching sessions: "What type of Daniele do you need today?"

If you're in an overwhelmed mode, you definitely don't need over excited Daniele that comes with a ton of ideas. Instead you want the calm and structured Daniele that comes with just one suggestion.

If you're in a mental state where you have energy, you might want the Daniele that asks you question to help you find by yourself the solution.

I know that technically the word coaching is used by many to include just coaching where the coach helps the person without giving any tips or tricks. That's what the academician call mentoring.

But as most people put coaching and mentoring in the same box, I do it to, and make sure that I know what type of interaction people are looking for through my question "What type of Daniele do you need today?". That question serves also as a way to see if the session of the day will be rather on the coaching side of things or rather on the mentoring side of things.