01 The Standard

Working backwards from a real feedback conversation.

Lifework Coach Accreditation Pathway

Learn to lead the conversation that helps someone recognize what is truly theirs.

Lifework does not train coaches to hand down verdicts or administer questionnaires. It prepares coaches to read a person’s life history with intellectual humility, integrate character strengths, and guide a paying client through a grounded, life-changing feedback conversation.

Explore Module One → Read About the Practicum
“The route prepares a coach to read, prepare for, and lead a paying-client-standard Lifework feedback conversation around a real WOW Report. This is not a presentation. It is a thoughtful, responsive coaching encounter.”
From the Lifework Coach Accreditation Pilot Pack
Five-Stage Journey

How the accreditation pathway unfolds

Every candidate travels from their own lived experience of Lifework through rigorous intellectual foundations, report analysis, an observed real-client session, and ethical client enrolment.

Stage 01 Foundation Module

Start With Your Own Report

Revisit your own WOW Report and map its conclusions backwards to life evidence and the six-stage Lifework process.

Alistair-driven embedding:

Tutorial 1 tests understanding of the narrative-first sequence and distinguishing evidence from hypothesis.

View Alistair Tutorial 1 Threshold →
Review Module Details
Stage 02 Intellectual Foundations

Research & Conceptual Lenses

Explore Savickas’s Career Construction, VIA Character Strengths, Big Five/OCEAN, and Miller’s Motivated Patterns without treating any model as a verdict.

Alistair-driven embedding:

Tutorial 2 tests critical evaluation of research foundations, practice limits, and person-environment fit.

View Alistair Tutorial 2 Threshold →
Review Module Details
Stage 03 Practice & Delivery

Report Analysis & Debriefing

Master the Consultant Preparation Guide and transcribed Consultant Debrief Guide to conduct client-owned, chapter-by-chapter feedback conversations.

Alistair-driven embedding:

Tutorial 3 tests readiness to prepare a report, hold the Development Edge, and avoid premature advice.

View Alistair Tutorial 3 Threshold →
Review Module Details
Stage 04 Observed Practicum

Real-Client Feedback Session

Demonstrate paying-client competence by preparing for and facilitating a live, full-length feedback session with a real client based on an actual report.

Direct Action Link:

Coaches who have satisfied Tutorials 1 to 3 schedule their observed session with founder Jamie Pennington as client.

Schedule Observed Client Session →
Read Practicum Criteria
Stage 05 Commercial Readiness

Ethical Sales & Enrolment

Learn how to introduce, explain, and ethically enrol clients into Lifework without high-pressure tactics, premature promises, or transactional sales closing.

Future Sub-Page Link:

Features 3 realistic prospective client role plays to demonstrate client clarity, fee transparency, and respectful fit assessment.

Preview 3 Prospective Client Scenarios →
Review Ethical Principles
MODULE 01 Client Experience
Stage 1 · Own Experience to First Principles

From Life History to the WOW Report

Every Lifework coach begins by examining their own lived experience of the process. Before you interpret another person’s life patterns, you must understand how evidence, narrative reflection, and psychometric corroboration interact.

What You Study & Prepare

  • The six sequential stages of Lifework from Life History Interview to Coaching Conversation.
  • Why life history strictly precedes psychometric assessment in Lifework practice.
  • How the five evidence strands are woven into a non-diagnostic WOW Report.
  • Mapping your personal WOW Report conclusions back to original autobiographical data.

Required Reading in Course Reader

Chapter 1.1: The Lifework Client Journey (pp. 4–7)

Chapter 1.2: From Life History to a WOW Report (pp. 7–11)

Focus on client-authority language and treating all written patterns as working hypotheses.

Alistair Tutorial 01 Threshold

One-to-One Tutorial with Alistair

Alistair invites you into his bookshelved office, gestures to the comfortable armchair, and reviews your personal report-to-process map.

Tutorial Purpose: Alistair tests your grasp of the six stages, ensures you do not treat the report as a psychological verdict, and explores how you distinguish raw autobiographical evidence from interpretive synthesis.

What You Bring: Your own WOW Report, report-to-process map, and a 500-word written reflection.
Readiness Standard: Ability to explain why life history must precede psychometric scores without hesitation.
Connect to Alistair Tutorial 1 Session → ✓ Prerequisite for Stage 2
MODULE 02 Intellectual Rigour
Stage 2 · Research & Intellectual Foundations

Theory, Method, and Conceptual Boundaries

Lifework stands on serious academic and practice foundations. In this stage, coaches develop deep familiarity with Mark Savickas’s Career Construction, Peterson & Seligman’s VIA Character Strengths, the Big Five factor model, and Arthur Miller’s Motivated Patterns.

What You Study & Prepare

  • Career Construction and Life Design: micro-stories as authoring future career pathways.
  • VIA Character Strengths: identifying signature strengths and spotting when a strength becomes a liability.
  • Big Five (IPIP-NEO): understanding energy, working pace, and person-environment fit.
  • Art Miller’s SIMA: identifying recurring motivated skills and satisfying achievement patterns.

Required Reading in Course Reader

Chapter 2.1: Savickas & Career Construction (pp. 12–15)

Chapter 2.2: VIA Character Strengths in Practice (pp. 16–18)

Chapter 2.3: Big Five & Work Environment Fit (pp. 19–21)

Chapter 2.4: Motivated Patterns & SIMA (pp. 22–24)

Alistair Tutorial 02 Threshold

One-to-One Tutorial with Alistair

Alistair pauses thoughtfully, sets down his fountain pen, and challenges your commentary on where psychometric models fail if unanchored by narrative.

Tutorial Purpose: Alistair tests whether you can use multiple conceptual lenses with intellectual humility, avoiding dogmatism and never reducing a human life to a type code or percentile.

What You Bring: Completed source-to-practice commentary comparing Savickas, VIA, Big Five, and Miller.
Readiness Standard: Demonstrating how to hold strengths and development edges without diagnostic labelling.
Connect to Alistair Tutorial 2 Session → ✓ Prerequisite for Stage 3
MODULE 03 Consultant Craft
Stage 3 · Report Analysis & The Debrief Encounter

Facilitating the Lifework Debrief Conversation

A Lifework debrief is not an explanation given to a passive listener. It is an active coaching dialogue structured around five distinct chapters, where the coach asks crisp questions, allows silence, and helps the client claim their own insights.

What You Study & Prepare

  • Mastering the 5-Chapter Debrief Architecture from opening ground rules to future horizon.
  • Holding the Development Edge: exploring shadow sides of core strengths with compassion.
  • The Consultant Preparation Guide: 90 minutes of systematic pre-session analysis.
  • Designing client-led inquiry questions rather than prepared interpretive conclusions.

Required Reading in Course Reader

Chapter 3.1: Preparing to Read a Lifework Report (pp. 25–29)

Chapter 3.2: Running the Lifework Debrief Conversation (pp. 29–33)

Study the transcribed Consultant Debrief Guide for exact conversational phrasing.

Alistair Tutorial 03 Threshold

One-to-One Tutorial with Alistair

Alistair leans forward, checks your session plan for an unreleased practice report, and asks: “What question will you ask when your client rejects Chapter Three?”

Tutorial Purpose: Alistair evaluates your readiness to enter the live practicum. He probes your discipline in letting the client speak, handling resistance, and maintaining psychological safety.

What You Bring: Completed report analysis worksheet, opening contract wording, and debrief plan.
Readiness Standard: Clear demonstration of a client-led stance with no pre-packaged career advice.
Connect to Alistair Tutorial 3 Session → ★ Final Gate for Practicum
STAGE 04
Observed Client Practicum

Arrange Your Meeting with a Real Client

Accreditation is awarded for demonstrated competence in a live coaching room, not for reading documents alone. In Stage 4, you facilitate a 90-minute feedback conversation using an authentic Lifework WOW Report.

The Practicum Client Setup

In the pilot cohort, founder Jamie Pennington acts as your client using his real Lifework WOW Report. This gives candidates the unique opportunity to debrief the architect of the methodology while testing their real-world coaching presence.

Assessment & Observation

Sessions are recorded via Sybill AI for structured objective review against the 6-dimension Lifework Practicum Rubric. Assessment remains entirely human, conducted by experienced executive coach assessors.

Ready to arrange your Stage 4 Practicum?

Ensure you have completed Tutorials 1, 2, and 3 with Alistair and received your readiness endorsement before booking your live observed session.

Schedule Meeting with Real Client → Direct calendar coordination with Jamie Pennington
STAGE 05 · Commercial Practice & Client Enrolment

Ethical Client Enrolment: Moving Beyond Traditional Selling

Most coaches do not have a background in aggressive sales, nor should they. Lifework believes client acquisition is an extension of coaching itself: helping prospective clients find clarity, determine mutual fit, and make an unpressured decision.

01

Clarity Over Persuasion

The goal of an exploratory conversation is never to “close” a prospect. It is to create the space where they discover whether Lifework is what they truly need.

02

Radical Fee Transparency

Discuss investment, time commitment, and required emotional effort upfront. No surprise add-ons, artificial deadlines, or urgency tactics.

03

The Ethical "Not Now"

The highest mark of an accredited coach is having the courage to say: “Given where you are right now, Lifework is not the right intervention.”

Simulated Role-Play Suite

Assess Your Enrolment Craft Across Three Distinct Client Scenarios

In Stage 5, candidates demonstrate their ethical enrolment craft through three simulated prospective client conversations: a restless senior partner, a mid-career crossroads seeker, and a hesitant career-changer.

Explore the 3 Potential Client Scenarios → Detailed scenarios and interactive role play launching in Phase 2