The sign on Dawn Kiddie's desk couldn't be any clearer. 'The best coaches show you where to look, but not what to see,” it reads. It's a fitting mantra for the Bay of Plenty life coach looking to make a big difference.

And if life coaching sounds like a relatively cryptic concept, then worry not. You're by no means alone.

Tauranga life coach Dawn Kiddie. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

'It's the second-fastest growing industry in the world,” is the surprise claim made by Dawn – a married mother of three from Papamoa with several strings to her bow. 'Here in New Zealand, however, we know very little about it.”

Therein lies her first problem. But a quick glance at her current CV, not to mention her past, suggests getting the message across on a countrywide scale is by no means an impossible job.

Her determination is borne out of a pivotal event that threatened first her life, then her ability to walk or have children. They were challenges met by a steely-resolve and a flat refusal to accept the cards she'd been dealt.

Originally from Eketahuna, the then 23-year-old's car was hit by a fully loaded, 44-tonne truck. Such was the impact, the locket around her neck was found embedded in the front of the vehicle some three weeks later.

Having lost the amount of blood she did, Dawn was given a 10-15 per cent chance of survival. 'I was gone,” she admits. 'Everything was broken and shattered.”

Plans were hatched to amputate her leg, but after two-and-a-half weeks, and of its own volition, her limb twitched and was subsequently saved.

'I was told I would never walk again,” she says, 'and that I could be in a hospital bed or a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I needed to make a decision.

'I could either die, or simply refuse to live the life that was being offered to me. For months I had friends and family with me every step of the way, and I refused to believe that I couldn't walk.

'I had to get better, and if I've got that kind of determination, then I've got the determination to change people's lives through life coaching.”

A slow but remarkable recovery was made. So much so that today, the 40-year-old also runs her own personal fitness business, is an inspirational speaker, a celebrant and justice of the peace and a future author.

So how does she describe life coaching, and what can be done to bring New Zealand up to speed with a profession that is currently worth more than $2 billion a year in the United States?

'What hasn't been accepted in this country is what a life coach does,” explains Dawn, who studied psychology at Massey University.

'As a nation we're big on counsellors. Equally, consultants will tell you what you should be doing. But if you've made your mind up yourself, you're 10 times more likely to take notice because no one likes being told what to do.

'I make it very clear from the outset that I'm not a consultant, a counsellor or phycologist. I am a life coach, and I explain the exact differences.

'My job as a coach is to take you from the present and in to the future in the direction that you innately know that you should be going.

'Intuition is something people don't listen to these days, because we're institutionalised. We've forgotten how to use our own intuition, and that's what I'm trying to get back to.”

'I look at people's lifestyles, their family and work situations. There's no point saying to somebody ‘you need a holiday', because that's unrealistic and unhelpful. However, some people have simplistic needs that just require a bit of reprioritising.

'My job is to get to know people – their values, their personality and what drives them –so I can move them towards learning to live the life they love.”

With the onus on working with professionals, from pro-athletes to small business owners, there is a diversity at work that beats a path away from the mundane and the generic. Life coaching, says Dawn, should be anything but.

Her journey into inspirational speaking that began some 15 years ago came from a need to help people 'get off their butts and start living”, and despite a craving for a spot on the world stage, for now she is happy to inspire others on a one-on-one basis.

A natural ability to listen, coupled with a clear understanding of asking the right questions and knowing which ones to avoid, forms the basis of Dawn's ideology.

'What a coach needs to be able to do is to listen,” she says. 'That sounds simplistic, but it's where most people fail.

'It's also about reading the client so we can ask appropriate questions and help them take the next step.

'I can't come in with a standardised model and say: ‘I need this, this and this' because I'd be putting my values on to them. That's not fair, and it just wouldn't work. If you tell someone what to do, they'll get their back up and just like that, you've lost them.

'I aim to move people towards exactly what it is they want to do – their passions, their dreams, their goals – because all of those things are possible.

'I get to see the people I want to see and make massive changes in their lives. I get to see the faces of people who have got their health back, seen their families reunited or their businesses thriving.

'Every single one of us has a story, some tragic, some not, but we are given these hurdles so we can overcome them.”

'If I can help one person to change their life out of a room of 500, then my job is done. It's about loving yourself. Who is the most important person in the world? It's you. That's what people need to embrace.”

For more information, or to make contact with Dawn, visit www.your-life.co.nz