You are all aware, I am sure, of the countless coaches that exist out there. Basketball coaches, football coaches, business coaches, life coaches, cockroaches (sorry, I couldn’t help myself!).
Apart from the first two and the last, which are self-explanatory categories, we have something like “sort of” coaches in the middle. Business coaches are OK in my book, provided, of course, that they provide actionable insights based on experiences drawn from a diverse business background. (I can’t take very seriously someone who has spent an entire life in HR, sales, marketing, finance, or any other noble practice, but has never sought to understand how all these tie up by either moving between departments, or moving up the ladder and having Income Statement responsibility.)
But life coaches? Seriously, what good is that? Even worse, most of the people who are sold life coaching services, aspire to become life coaches themselves…
And so, everyone’s a coach!
Because what other use does a life coach have, but attending their sessions in order to “copy” their methodology to further transmit useless “knowledge” further beyond. So, people see someone who has effectively built a business out of thin air and (rightfully?) believe that they can also get access to easy money.
Just like with social media: People believe they can make easy money by becoming “influencers” and whatnot and fail to realize that in reality they are the product that drives the website’s profits. In the same sense, life coach clients believe they can get access to a methodology to make easy money, when in reality, they are the money. They are the product.
Except social media are online spaces in which one can grow almost in perpetuity, whereas in the life coaches’ case, there will eventually come a time when not only they will have ran out of helpless victims in their immediate vicinity, but they will have also filled the area with competition (their previous helpless victims).
And just like any other make money quick Ponzi scheme, this will collapse as well. Until the next one…