This is what I think of the “life coaches” out there. And this is going to be controversial and piss a lot of people off. Not that I give a fuck.
Life coaches write a bunch of crappy blog posts or put up boring YouTube videos of themselves talking about life and then call themselves “experts.”
Their definition of what entails a good life centers around topics of finding purpose, passion, quitting your job to do what you love and socializing with people (because apparently you need a lot of friends and you have to please everybody in life to have a good life.)
Because the above topics are too general, their lead magnet to capture your attention, whereby they ask you to fill in your details to get their free newsletter or whatever is engineered to be more specific to capture your attention. It is usually entirely off-topic and has nothing to do with their so-called expertise in “life.” So, you’ll find that a lot of life coaches are also experts in picking up girls, creating a business online, social media or life coaching itself, whatever the fuck that means.
In order to show that they’re more qualified, some of them go for life coach training. In other words, instead of studying real, important things like psychology, sociology or philosophy, they decide to go to some place to study how to teach others how to live life. This is why others like to say life coaches are nothing but psychologists wannabes with no real qualifications.
Back up. To add to these fake qualifications, they’d be writing and making more crap videos to show their expertise, and what better way to show that than to simply bank on cliches and mask the lack of good content by showing how they travel the world, have quit their job or simply love life to the fullest with no real reason whatsoever like a loon.
You can absolutely bet there’s a bunch of terminology to empower you, like, well, empower, shift your paradigm, give yourself to the universe, affirm, discover yourself, get to your core being, your spirit or love yourself.
And finally, life coaches are pretentious enough to then charge people an exorbitant amount for their “coaching”, usually hundreds to even thousands of dollars per hour to hear them woo-woo you over Skype. That’s why I like to call them Skype Cheerleaders.
How does this all play out?
If that sounded too complicated, then let me dramatize it for you. Well, it’s not really dramatized since it’s EXACTLY how it’s like when a life coach approaches you.
Enter Ultimate Pretentious Life Coach Master of the Universe:
YAY
UPLCMU: Hi! Thanks for contacting the Academy of Life Inducing Energy Nets, A.L.I.E.N. for short! Because we’re but aliens in this precious thing called the universe and life!
Potential Victim: Oh hi. Yes, I’m looking for some life coaching, because for some unknown reason I’m lost in life and I can’t afford real therapy. I also don’t have many friends to go to. I may be suffering from depression. I don’t know.
UPLCMU: FANTASTIC! I’m so HAPPY for you! You’ve already taken the FIRST step to re-discovering the core of your very being simply because you told me what you just said. Even though I don’t know you, I’m so proud of you!
PV: Wow really? Thanks!
UPLCMU: Of course! You’re an amazing individual and I think I love you already.
PV: Thanks for loving me! Anyway I’ve a few questions…
UPLCMU: Hold on! Let’s start off this get-to-know-each-other session with some heavy-breathing meditation. We may be talking through Skype only, but I wanna hear that breathing ok? I want to hear and feel that negative energy come out! Ready? 1–2-GO!
PV: Err ok! (EXHALEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)
UPLCMU: GREAT job! Let it out. Let it out. Yes! Let that negative energy out. Now, take it in, take it in…
PV: (INHALEeeeeee)
UPLCMU: Awesome! Can you feel the positive energy going back to the core of your spiritual being? Don’t you feel empowered already?!
PV: I think I do! Yes!
UPLCMU: Now how can I help you today?
PV: Ahh well I’m pretty new to life coaching. Could you tell me about your qualifications?
UPLCMU: I’m so happy you asked! Well for starters I’ve traveled the world and went to a bunch of mountains. The sights alone made me cry like a baby and that experience makes me feel like I invoked the spirit of Ghandi himself.
Also, when I was 12, a lot of friends in school said I was so motivating. I was so inspiring! Some friends said I was like the white Oprah in the making. Oprah man! You can’t joke about something like that!
PV: Wow! Hey by the by, I’m a guy. I’m so shy in front of girls and I’m not used to it.
UPLCMU: No problemo homie! I can be your bro too! Yo! Right here right now? I’m gonna make you a winner yo. I’m gonna help you rediscover your life and make it a kickass one. So calm your titties! I got your back!
Did I mention I love drinking Bud Lime? We’re truly meant to be bros! Come on! BRO FIST OVER SKYPE!
PV: Ahh… (gently touch screen with fist)
UPLCMU: NOICE! By the way, I’d like to introduce you to other BFF who’s also a life coach. I want you to consider going for their Cuddle Party. The awkward human interaction inside will make you love humans and life.
Note: This is a real website. Sorry, I mean, a MOVEMENT.
PV: Wow awesome! That’d really appeal to me since I’m a vulnerable loser for people like you to shove ideas down my throat and stop believing in myself.
I’m nearly sold. Can you show me a testimonial you have?
UPLCMU: Yup! Sending over testimonial to you now…
“UPLCMU really changed my life. I paid my bills like she told me. As I’m writing this now, I just did my good deed of the day. Ever since she taught me how to be one with the universe, I’ve managed to attract girls who’re also balding at age 26.
Thank you UPLCMU! I’d be sure to write about this in my daily journal, which you also told me to do so.
- Horace, a new believer
PV: Wow! I’m sold! How much?
UPLCMU: You’re in luck! I don’t normally do this for others, but since the cosmos have brought us together, in this very moment, the little voice in my head told me I should give you a discount. For just $1000/hr, we can Skype video call any day of the week, but not weekends, because I need to go do Yoga with my dog.
Also, if you’re willing to pay for my Ultimate Master Universe Package at a low-low price of $5000, I’ll fly over to your house and give you ONE-ON-ONE coaching! I’ll also cook vegan meals for you.
PV: Wow! This is so worth it! Gee, since I don’t want to find a real therapist, I’m going to assume you’re a better deal since you’re so fun and cool and you use words like universe.
End Scene.
How the life coach can be easily created
Obviously, I was poking fun at them. But on a more serious note, here’s a plot twist:
This was how I failed in being a life coach in like a week.
A couple of years ago I was going broke. I really needed money to be able to fly abroad to see my girlfriend. I needed to start making money with this blog. I was desperate as fuck.
A fellow marketer then taught me, “It’s okay you don’t have a product to sell yet. You just have to offer your time. Call it coaching. Give a few free trials to gain testimonials. Oh of course they’ll give them to you, it’s free. Tell them that you’ll probably charge $100/hr for it in the future.”
And that I did. I even successfully coached a total of three people for free over Skype. One of them was very thankful and now we’re still friends. He claimed I made a big difference in his life and he couldn’t stop telling his colleagues about me.
But alas, come the end of my free trial, nobody bought my coaching even though it was a “low low” price of $100 (or was it $125) per hour to hear me speak out of my ass.
That was how I failed as a life coach. The question is then, why was it I failed? Did I not market myself well? Did my copy for the sales page suck? Was my price too high? Did I lack qualifications? Was my face not pretty enough?
The bigger moot point is: Do you see how easy it is to become a life coach and how I could have validated myself as one if somebody actually bought my bullshit?
All you have to do is to create a blog or platform, put up some mediocre content and then offer your time as a form of service. And no one will be the wiser of your expertise because it’s “life.”
Want better credentials to back up that fake expertise? Go get certified then.
Here you can be certified in 7 days. I don’t even know why it’s mixed with NLP training.
Here you can become a coach in 6 months, but don’t worry, you can learn in the comforts in your own home as all materials are delivered to your computer. Perhaps you’ll be a star student and be fully qualified at a shorter time because they also included their Coaching Training Accelerator program for free.
Fuck being a CEO man, in this Udemy course, you can learn and choose how to be a “consultant”, “guru”, “strategist”, “leader” or even a “friend.”
And for fuck’s sake, here you can learn how to become a coach for free.
The surge of internet certification has made it too easy for everyone. One can only wonder how doctors feel when they’ve to deal with patients who claim they manage to self-diagnosed their condition because of WebMD.
And what’s worse is if that the life coach tries to NLP your ass to make you fork out the money.
If it’s not obvious enough, the field of life coaching is entirely unregulated. Any fucking body can become a life coach!
The dangers of this pretentiousness
Is that, in a nutshell, they’re spreading an ideal that’s filled to the brim with naivete and generally wasting vulnerable people’s time and money.
Sweeping real pain under the rug
I cannot imagine how a person who’s suffering from real problems and trauma try to solve their shit with life coaching. This is extremely dangerous as the victim requires real counseling or therapy, not a life coach.
I’m no psychologist and definitely not a life coach, but to try to solve your pain through looking for something as generic as purpose, passion or wanting to be superhuman or whatever is definitely not going to work. Real pain can’t be alleviated with pep talks, cheer leading or from inspiration alone.
You need to put it in the work and give yourself time.
Naive message for young adults everywhere
You know how it is lately.
Drop out of college because billionaires out there did the same. Aim to change the world with your passion. Love life to the fullest. Money is not important etc etc.
I remember seeing some life coach friend on Facebook declaring loudly how proud he was of his friend for “courageously” quitting school to do what he loves.
We all know about that recycled crap.
Look, education is a privilege. Get it done and over with if you can already.
You can have your passions and ideals, but it’s going to take a lot of balancing and tweaking in the real world. To think that all these ideals are easy, like overnight success is plain immature and setting up the foundation for a life full of struggle.
You can’t change the world if you don’t even know how the world currently works…
… but yeah I guess you can call yourself a life coach and start servicing people.
The money factor to believing you’re cured
I’m not going to go deep into this one, but straight up, if you spent a large sum on some coaching program, both you and I know you’re going to want to believe your problems are solved only because you spent that much already.
A few thousand dollars on some shitty coaching and you’re going to tell others you wasted your money and you’re still filled with problems?! Impossible.
Or perhaps it was the “endorphin” from the large amount of inspiration that was force fed into you that’s giving you the high, so much so you’re already blind to your problems.
You may be high, but whatever goes up, comes down eventually.
Marketing can be that easy
You know, it isn’t just life coaching. There’s a lot of crap going around the internet.
The crap is always alive and kicking because of marketing. That is why ONLY the headline of something draws you to click on a link. That is why only a single bullet point in a sales copy makes you want to buy.
That is why you think life coaches are cool and can cure all your problems.
They aren’t just life coaches man. They’re SuperHuman, World Class Heroes, Life Empowerers, Motivator Unlimited or whatever. I just Googled these terms for fun. Give it a try. Just pair it up with life coaching. It’ll show up.
How do you know they can help you? How did they reach out to you?
Simple. It’s life. They cover everything. Want the balls to quit your job? Balls to you. Want more purpose? They’ve it in storage. Want to learn how to make money even though nobody is even making money at all? They’ve got that covered.
And how do they make you think they’re qualified?
Again, easy. Get certified online. Then lie about how awesome you are. That’s where the claim they sleep as little as four hours a week, girls are attracted to them like magic, they don’t eat at all or they’re never angry.
Complete lapse in judgment of yourself
Some people do need help. They want help. They want that guidance. Then what happens when you excessively rely too much on somebody?
You destroy your own abilities to make judgements of yourself and things around you. You stop believing in yourself that you can absolutely do something on your own.
Think about it. For whatever that’s out there in this world, somebody started doing it on their own first. If they can do it, so can you you.
This is fucking dangerous. If you can’t ever believe in yourself, what is life?
The dangers of chasing happy
Happiness is a dangerous drug. Hustle culture and self-helpers are always talking about how important it is to be happy.
And if you are not happy, then there must be something wrong with you. It may not be put across like this explicitly, but the atmosphere it creates certainly comes across as just that, that if you aren’t feeling happy, then you’re wrong; you’re simply not doing enough and it’s your fault.
Happiness is fleeting. What’s more important is a fulfilling life and you can only be fulfilled through challenging yourself and getting over your struggles.
In fact, trying to become happy instantly or through a short time (as it is implied to be achievable through mere blog posts and videos) is a deluded task. Aim to be better instead, not happy.
You don’t need life coaching. You just need to get a life
I don’t mean that in a condescending “stop being a pussy” way. I meant that you can start being responsible for yourself and make a life for yourself.
There’s no magic pill or training program for anything that’s challenging in life. You just have to take action.
If you want more friends, meet people by going out and keep an open mind. Don’t be judgemental, or at least, practice it wilfully.
If you hate your job, quit it already or at least make a plan on when to quit exactly.
If you’re feeling depressed, go see a doctor or go help others.
If you’re feel somewhat down, go talk to a friend.
If you want to know more, go to your local library and read.
If you want to gain passion, just try out all sorts of shit until your heart and mind clicks.
If you want a boyfriend or girlfriend, ask your crush out already.
If you want to lose weight, stop eating so much shit and exercise.
If you’re suffering from deep trauma and real pain, please just see a doctor. You never know what you may have.
I can go on and on.
But basically, you don’t need to pay a large sum for the fantasy of a better life that’s supposedly attained from listening to some asshole on Skype.
All of the above is of course, easier said than done. But nobody ever said that life was easy or even fair.
The bigger question is whether you’re capable enough to solve your problems on your own. And the answer is yes.
Life is meant to be challenging. Nobody escapes their hardships. You’re meant to fuck up. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Don’t take up a life coach. They only make you feel better without actually solving your problems.
Take a shot at life instead.
