What does life coach do? Is one like a therapist helping resolve one’s inner issues, a guidance counselor providing a direction one might find fulfilling or a concierge with specific resources one will find useful for achieving one’s goals? I suspect good life coach provides a little of all three, but what’s the primary focus?
I think it’s like a therapist, only focussing on your strenghts and wants/wishes and possibilities, instead of focussing on your problems.
So, basically a therapist without the social stigma.
You won’t get a lifecoach paid for by any medical insurance, but if your have a high-profile job, they might offer to pay for one.
“Don’t you even think about dying on me! Come on, beat that heart, beat that heart! Now breathe! Breathe!”
It’s probably not that.
They do not do anything. It’s a scam.
Laugh all the way to the bank.
We wear natty attire, scowl alot, look at our watches from time to time. Usually our arms are crossed, and normally we’ve got something in one hand, something with writing on it that is folded up. Occasionally we shout at the referees, or life’s players.
If you’re a Bobby Knight-style life coach, can you just choke people to “motivate” them?
My SIL (yet another one) had one. She was in her new house for a year and hadn’t unpacked any boxes. She was depressed (d’ya THINK?). So her doctor put her on something and her Life Coach told her to unpack a box a day. She didn’t because she was too depressed and didn’t want to. I hope she didn’t pay this woman too much money to pretend she was her mother. :rolleyes:
Wow, I’m usually as opinionated and hijack-y as the next Doper, but this whole thread (minus the OP) is really out of line for GQ, dontcha think?
Reggie, the job description of a life coach varies a lot, because it’s not a licensed profession. But basically a life coach is there to help you to make and meet your goals in one of any number of areas: career, health, love, whatever. They are not schooled and licensed like therapists, and the biggest difference you’re going to see is that a life coach makes a lot of decisions and demands.
Want to start your own business and have no idea where to begin? A life coach will help you develop a business plan, make contacts and basically get your ass in gear. Sometimes they’ll recommend a book for you to read, sometimes they’ll call you up and demand that you make 10 client contacts today, sometimes they’ll connect you with brochure designers.
Want to get into the dating scene? A life coach might make you appointments at a salon, help you pick out an outfit to wear, and find some singles events for you. OR she might be the person you’re accountable to while you do those things on your own.
The answer to the OP is yes, a little of each of those. A bit of a counselor, a bit of a Mom, a bit of a boss, a bit of a concierge. It all depends on what you hire them to do.
Can you PAY somebody to live life FOR you?
“If the rich could pay the poor to do their dying for them, then the poor could make a wonderful living!”-old jewish saying
So, basically they’re paying someone to be their friend?
No. This forum is for factual answers to questions, and the factual answer to “what is a life coach” is “it is a scam artist.”
How is a life coach possibly qualified in any way to assist in developing a business plan? A viable business plan requires considerable industry experience and expertise, not to mention intricate knowledge of an access to venture capital and loan sources. A business requires people with actual professional degrees, like lawyers and accountants, not herbal customer service remedies and feng shui office decorators.
With a business plan developed by a “life coach” you wouldn’t have any clients because your ass will be broke. “Brochure designers?” Are life coaches for people who don’t know how to use the Yellow Pages? Should such people be running a business in the first place?
Or you could behave like a grown-up and pick out your own clothing, and find your own events to attend. Anybody who would pay money for this service is a victim of scumbag salesmanship at best, and a moron at worst.
Accountable? I don’t even have the verbal capacity to express my astonishment at the notion that a competent adult should pay money to someone so they can be “accountable.”
Last time I checked, my boss pays me.
How is that factual? Has there been legal action taken against them? I know peoplw who do use life coaches and they do help them.
– IG
Which raises another question, which is just what sort of circles you have to travel in to know more than one person who has used a “life coach.”
One suspects the ailments cured by life coaches are ones suffered only by the rich.
I work in a theatre. Actors and performers. Rich is not a word to describe them or myself.
– IG
My ex-wife got one or was going to but she didn’t pay her. Maybe it was more like a mentor but in her case it was an older woman who is in a similar field as the ex and could coach her in ways to improve her life. In several years the ex would be expected to pay it forward and help another young lady. Or something like that.
I don’t know if she ever followed through on the offer or if, she met with the life coach, followed through on the advice.
The entire family told my SIL to assemble her new house in small chunks so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Yet she paid someone to tell her “I want you to unpack just one box per day.” There’s a sucker born every minute and Life Coaches are sitting there waiting for them to stumble by.
Come on now, friedo, to be properly called fraudulent, the Life Coach would have to be promising to deliver a good or service and then not delivering/performing it. Just because you or the majority of people have no use for such a service doesn’t mean the service is a fraud.
And if I had a dollar for every time I told a friend or family member to put some ice on a sore muscle and take some ibuprofen, only to have them ignore me and be told the same exact thing by some guy in a white coat who they actually DO listen to… Or how many times I’ve told my SIL her kid needs to hear the word “no”, but suddenly when it comes from her daycare provider, it’s valid parenting advice. Or how I can explain long division to my kid but he’s sure I’m wrong until his teacher tells him the exact same thing. :rolleyes:
Sometimes it has to come from an outside source. It’s just the way our minds work. Life coaches, for those who are interested in hiring them, have a cachet of experience and authority - whether we think it’s deserved or not is a thread for Great Debates, not GQ.
Ain’t that the truth. I don’t know why that is; Life Coaches aren’t degreed.