To think that women 'life coaches' should just bore off with their thinly veiled MLM bullsh*t

[Hearmeout]

First of all, a disclaimer.

I'm an employed coach, for a large financial institution working in a charitable capacity - coaching IS valuable and can change lives.

Monetising it in such a way as 'YOU TOO CAN BE A LIFE COACH AND I'LL SHOW YOU HOW WITH MY FREE INTRODUCTORY EBOOK INCLUDING WITH EVERY ONE DAY COURSE (ONLY £495.00 + VAT for the first 10 to respond)

It's some exploitative pyramid selling bullshit isn't it. Sick of seeing them all over social media,

AIBU??

It's a PARENTING forum not a woman's forum.

No, that's not it.

It's about women being exploited by other women, as I think I have stated several times over.

That's fair.

It is also predominantly used by women.

I know two ' life coaches '.....havent seen them in years as used to babble on about life changing stuff....yawn....and ironically....they are the most chaotic and disorganised people i ever met...always late, car clamped, insurance expired, gas almost cut off as not paid etc etc....

I don’t think this is what OP means. The particular ‘life coaches” she is referring to are not actually life coaches at all, they are part of a MLM scam and market themselves as life coaches but the actual advice that they give boils down to “go for it bbz, believe in yourself and be a BOSS BABE”. They recruit the women they have targeted into their ‘exclusive groups’ and badger them to do a course to become a life coach like them. These women do a ‘course’ (which is not really a proper course at all), start their own group and recruit more women with the same tactics. It isn’t life coaching at all and is just as disingenuous as the awful MLM cosmetics scams that also target and exploit women.

Yes. One of the people I know who specifically does 'mummy entrepreneur' style life coaching is living an extremely chaotic life.

Now, I'm a chaotic person too, in many ways, but I'm not trying to sell myself and my (pretend) lifestyle as a product to emulate, I am a coach and my job is to help people reach their own potential, not to form them into my image and then get them earning me sales and commission.

They are also encouraged to use similar tactics to the cosmetics MLM consultants - the “so blessed, payday again” type posts, lots of vague memes about manifesting stuff, pictures of stuff they’ve bought that they say is bought with money they’ve earned from GETTING ON THE ZONE or whatever, ‘me time’ posts with a photo of a cup of coffee and an insinuation that they are so busy and successful that they treasure this opportunity to sit and relax. It’s all utter nonsense and designed to exploit other women.

the voice of reason right here 👆

The funniest ones are the wee lassies in their twenties "life coaching". Bloody hilarious 😂 😂😂😂😂

I'm surprised you're allowed to guide people in life after just a few months training tbh.

Therapists study for a decade or more.

(By therapists above I obviously mean psychotherapists)

As with those who want power, anyone who sees themselves as suitable to tell other people what to do with their lives is by definition not fit to do so 😉

The OP is making a distinction between business or life coaches and coaches who are specifically network marketing “coaches”. The focus on women is because over 90% of participants in MLM schemes in the UK are women and around 99.6% of those participants lose money through their involvement.

MLM coaches are usually the ones who have tried to make money in MLM and have realised it’s impossible via product sales and unstable via recruitment (for even the most successful financially it’s usually temporary). The next step is to realise that there are lots of people who haven’t realised MLM is a scam and then create a coaching business selling those victims a package for success or face to face coaching which is generally about appealing to the sunk cost fallacy and keeping those poor victims plugging away. The other scam is coaching coaches to be coaches - again just a recruitment device with money being passed up the pyramid.

I feel sorry for legitimate coaches who have organisational or corporate experience to call upon and are trying to do an ethical job in an unregulated world. I’m a psychotherapist in the NHS and private practice and see a lot of network marketing/MLM coaches straying into therapising people too, believing they have the skills to “coach” people with clinical problems; no your manifesting techniques will not help Janet’s PTSD and nor will your suggestion to make friends and improve her MH by joining Forever Living.

If you want to really depress yourself @Hearmeout take a look at Belief Coding, a coaching/therapy offering from a former The Apprentice runner up. Or if that’s not enough torture, have a look at Entrepreneursity, a “university” for serial victims of MLM entrepreneurs. It’s the creation of two ex-Forever Living Huns who are at best economical with the truth of their success in MLM but are now “coaching” people. It’s actually really unpleasant to watch some very vulnerable people who are clearly worried right now about money being totally fleeced and lied to.

Some of the “big names in MLM coaching” are not all they seem. One male MLM coach sells his “six figure income success” and coaches people to achieve the same. What he doesn’t tell people is that he made no money in MLM, his money comes from the deeply shady pyramid scheme his father ran before it was closed down. They are all liars who lie basically.

I would like to see the Competition and Markets Authority make it much clearer that a business can be a pyramid scheme even if it has a product or offers a service if most of the money is made through recruitment and if most of the sales are made to people already signed up to the scheme, not real customers. Then I’d like to see some proper regulation not just some body made up of MLM employees doing a bit of self-regulating (the current Direct Selling Association). I’d like Forever Living et al to provide the information about how much product is sold outside the scheme to people who aren’t also recruits. They are ALL thinly disguised pyramid schemes and in fact they are more dangerous because they are disguised as nice cozy flexible selling businesses. If MLMs were stopped it would stamp out all the parasitic coaches too. Do you want to know why MLMs are never brought to book? Why no one sorts them out? I’ll tell you why - because the victims of it are overwhelmingly women.

Genuine coaching is essential in all industries. Life coaching is utter bollocks.
Mindfulness - better known as daydreaming or zoning out.
Manifesting - squeezing your eyes tight shut and wishing very hard. You could go for deluxe version and click the heals of your glitter covered red shoes.
I coach staff to do the job they are trained to do. If they are struggling with a procedure we work out what’s going wrong and plan how to improve. If I told them to manifest the problem they would probably think I’d lost the plot.

The Men who do this generally set up as Business Coaches rather than life coaches.
They pay £££ to do a course and then set up as equivalent to my 18 years of direct hands on Business experience, pisses me right off
I just got promoted at work and they have brought one of these in to replace me. I have my former mentees phoning me up asking what this new bloke is on about as instead of proper practical analysis or advice he wants them to just do visualisation extercises.

The worst manager I ever had was a 'trained' life coach.

She used her not inconsiderable skills to undermine me so she could she could force me out.

She spoke a lot about mental health, self care etc and how much she valued herself but ultimately was ginormous arsehole.

Put me off all kinds of coaches (except holiday ones).

This is exactly what happened to me - the dark art of self promotion.

Therapists and coaches are very different occupations.

Also, I'm not life coach, I didn't specify which area I work in.

The penny dropped and I'm here for it!! 😄

Excellent post, thank you and also a learning experience for me as I've not come across Belief Coding before - the names they come up with!!

Holiday coaches we can agree on 😄

Interesting as I have a friend on SM who has done all the MLMs you can name and is now a life coach

This is often how it evolves.

My sister in law is a life coach but an extremely experienced one that gets called in by courts to negotiate for children caught in divorce etc. you are bugging yourself up yet belittling some very skilled and highly qualified people!

With respect, the post is clearly not aimed at people like your sister, unless she tries to upsell coaching courses to vulnerable people on social media.