Monthly Archives: June 2017

Why Life Coaching?

A friend of mine recently posted a few questions about fb about life coaching. I felt that I had more to say than could be conveniently be expressed in a fb comment, so you’re getting it here.

The questions they asked were (mild editing for clarity):

0) ‘I wonder if now’s an opportune time for me to try it’
1) ‘General opinions, and beliefs about its effectiveness in various contexts’
2) ‘What can it do (for you, or more generally), and how does it do that?’
3) ‘How do I find someone really good and really compatible with me and my goals?’

0) ‘I wonder if now’s an opportune time for me to try it’

I’m a firm believer in the idea that the best time to do something is ‘now’. There’s a great story about a famous barbershop coach (Greg Lyne, I think). He was talking with the leadership of a chorus about him giving them some coaching, and they said something like “We’re looking for a five year plan to get better.” His response was “Why wait? Be good now!” Similar to Agile software development practices, you want to test your ideas and theories as soon as possible in as-close-to-real-world-situations, so that you can iterate on them. If you have an idea that might help you improve everything about you and your life, why would you wait to try it out, especially if it might take some time to ramp up?

1) ‘General opinions, and beliefs about its effectiveness in various contexts’

I feel like in our culture (and probably many others), it is considered a sign of weakness to ask for help. And yet, we do this every day. Every time that we exchange money for a good or a service, we are asking for help. You could learn to make your own shoes, or you could perform some task where you have more of a competitive advantage, receive money for that, and then exchange that money for shoes. By specializing[1] like that, we make our modern civilization possible. A Life Coach is a specialist in helping you achieve your potential, whatever that might be.

So, what is Life Coaching? I see it as:

– Helping you achieve clarity on your goals
– Helping you figure out how you are ‘getting in your own way'[2] of achieving those goals
– Helping you work through yourself to make progress and eventually achieve your goals

I’ve personally found it useful for ‘getting unstuck’ in job and career, for helping me unlock my love of writing, and for helping me set boundaries in various parts of my life. But I think the clarity it can bring is the key, and the foundation upon which all other things are built. If you know exactly what you want, and why, you can be so much more focused and effective.

2) ‘What can it do (for you, or more generally), and how does it do that?’

I think I’ve answered much of this under question 1), but I’ll go a little more into the ‘how’.

First, you want to figure out what your goals actually are. From my experience, this often includes some individuation and separation of your ‘social self’ (what others want from you) and your ‘essential self’ (what you actually want on the inside).

Next, you want to figure out how you are preventing yourself from doing these things. You may be plagued by self-doubts brought on by years of exposure to certain types of people, you may be a perfectionist who never starts anything because it will never be good enough, you may be spending all of your time trying to please others, and never taking any time for yourself. This seems to me like a very personal and individual process, involving a number of exercises designed to help you to better understand yourself and your interactions/experiences.

Then, now that you know your goals and how you’re preventing yourself from achieving them, you make plans and start to work towards these goals.

It’s an iterative and very personal process, but it can be tremendously helpful. As I mentioned above, I’ve personally found it useful for ‘getting unstuck’ in job and career, for helping me unlock my love of writing, and for helping me set boundaries in various parts of my life.

3) ‘How do I find someone really good and really compatible with me and my goals?’

Like finding a job or a life partner, good fit with a life coach is very important. I don’t have any easy rules to follow here. Ultimately, you’re at the mercy of your ability to judge people (and more importantly, how you feel around those people).

I would treat it as an interview, the type where you are interviewing them in the same way that they are interviewing you. See if the types of questions they’re asking might help you achieve clarity. See if they are expressing realistic expectations about what a life coach can and cannot do (you yourself need to be engaged, and it can take months). But perhaps most of all, see if you trust the person you’re talking to[3]. Do you feel comfortable talking with them[4]?

With all of the questions above, you can always just simply ask them of a prospective life coach, and see how they answer. You can glean a lot of how and whether they share your values, and how they will approach things. Read their website. Read any testimonials they may have.

If you trust your gut[5], and make sure it feels right, you should be okay.

I’m currently seeing Gorett Reis for life coaching, and she’s fantastic.

[1]And mass production, and whole host of other things. I understand this example is somewhat flip, but appropriate for the circumstances of this post.

[2]My Life Coach, my old singing instructor, and my Inner Game-reading performance coach used this same analogy. I think it’s a good one.

[3]I was lucky enough to have known my Life Coach for a number of years beforehand.

[4]Or, if you are not comfortable talking with people, do you at least feel more comfortable talking with them than other people you’ve just met?

[5]My first post in this blog talked about this concept, and I believe that learning to better trust and understand yourself is probably the best thing you can ever do.

The Basic Income Robot

It all started gradually. A few people discovered a MetaTrader Expert Advisor that worked well enough that it could be left alone to make money indefinitely. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to keep them in ramen.

So, they told a few of their friends about it. Then those friends told a few friends. Then some spammers got a hold of it, and started advertising it, with tag lines like “The financial robot makes money for you while you sleep” and “Give $1 to your financial robot and it will return with $100”. But oddly enough, people signed up with them, and it kept working. Soon thousands, and then millions of people were ‘roboting’.

Then something happened. People seemed happier. Even though the money the robot was bringing them was only just barely enough to live on, it gave them that extra bit of confidence and freedom. People would still go to work, but there would be a little more spring in their step, the feeling that they were working for themselves now.

Susan, a reporter for ‘The Beeker Online’ had been investigating the origins of these ‘robots’ for months, when she finally got her big break. One of the original programmers was willing to talk to her, but only in an undisclosed location, far away from prying eyes.

“Were you followed?”
“I don’t think so. I stopped and changed cars twice, like you asked, then took the subway using cash only.”
“So, what have you figured out so far?”
“Well, it seems that the ‘financial robot’ watches for a certain type of central bank action, ‘printing money’, if you will, then it skims just a little off the top for each person running the program.”
“Go on.”
“The really strange thing is that as more and more people start to use it, the central bank actions just get larger, as if to compensate, almost like they want this to happen.”
“So, what do you want to know?”
“How does this end? More and more people are taking advantage of this. Is there a tipping point we will reach? What happens when everyone is using this ‘robot’?”
The programmer laughed. “You’re really close. You don’t even need me to figure this out.”
“But what will happen? Why, how did you do this? Why has it not stopped yet?”
“I can’t tell you that. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”
“But there has to be some number of people where it breaks down, where it has to stop!”
“Does it? Think about what money actually is.”
And with that, the programmer was gone.