Is Your Bartender A Life Coach?

Posted on 14 January 2008

Unlike Counseling and Psychology, Life Coaching is not regulated. Anybody can set up as a Life Coach and start dispensing his or her particular brand of wit and wisdom without any formal training or any real idea of what they are meant to do. In my opinion this isn’t a good thing, in fact I’d go as far as to say it’s a really bad thing. Relatively speaking life coaching is a fledgling industry, and as such is trying to build up its credibility. The best way to do that is with professionalism and a dedication to achieving results for our clients in a professional, ethical and moral manner.

 

I have met a number of great Life Coaches whom I would heartily recommend to anybody that is interested in self-development both here and in the UK. I also know there are some poor personal coaches out there too, people that have slipped into the industry because ‘hey, they have lived a bit, have some experience and can teach people about life’. Not only that, but some see it as easy money. After all, as a coach that primarily uses e-mail and the telephone there are often no additional overheads and you get to work in your underwear if you like. What could be better than that!

 

With the launch of my book and the redesign of my website imminent I have been spending a lot of time trawling the Internet to look at self-development resources that I can partner with. To be honest I have been disappointed and somewhat concerned. I have found great sites and intend to start linking to the better ones, but I have also found some poor sites dispensing at best, questionable advice.

 

I frequently encourage people to train to become a coach. I don’t see the client pool as finite with every life coach scrapping for his or her piece of the pie, but as large as the population of the world (less maybe a few souls that have everything just as it should be). Hmm, so I guess that is finite after all, so I was wrong, but you know what I mean. By the way, I am entering part of that last sentence in the worst mixed metaphor of the year competition and I have high hopes that it will pick up a medal so your support would be appreciated.

 

I see part of my job as selling, if selling is the right word, the benefits to life coaching because most people either don’t know about it or don’t think, don’t know much about or don’t know how it relates and can benefit them. The reality (at least the one in my head and that’s all I can be concerned with at the moment) is that pretty much anybody can benefit from hiring a coach if they get the right one.

 

If you want to get more out of life then do hire a Life Coach but at the same time do due diligence to make sure they know what they are talking about. Otherwise you may as well go to a bar and get advice from the bartender because hey, he’s lived a bit, experienced a bit and can tell you about life, so what could possibly go wrong?

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