If your idea of a coach is someone who stands on the sidelines during a game then you need to know more about Chieko Watanabe. She is a business and life coach.

"My job as a life coach," she said, " is to hold the vision for my clients... and what that means is I hold their end goal, their highest potential self and help them track towards it."

Chieko herself could have used this kind of coaching earlier in her life. She was born in Japan and came to the United States as a young girl, first living in Everett.

"At the time, Everett was very homogenous, so I was one of the few minority kids in my school," she said.

This bi-cultural environment and strict parents made for a very confusing and difficult life for her, so by her teenage years she had no decision making skills, and little life skills. Frustrated, she dropped out of high school and went out on her own.

She later returned to school and eventually graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in business, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. After spending some years doing business consulting for Microsoft and others Chieko took further education in business and life coaching and opened her office.

She has some simple rules she applies for getting people where they want to go.

"One is to have accountability and build it into your life so you are doing the things you say you want to do and the other is removing all of those things that drain your energy."

In her spare time she enjoys dancing and has recently taken up Belly Dancing. It has some lessons for her, too.

"I had to learn how to be creative and to improvise," she said.