There are different kinds of coaches in the world
There are life coaches – “I don’t have a real job”
There are executive coaches – “I have a fancy name for my not real job”
There are career coaches – “I don’t have a job, but maybe I can get you one”
There are business coaches – “I want to sell you facebook/linked in lead generation tools”
There are sex/relationship coaches – “I’m single let’s see if I can get you to be single too”
And yet if you’re in any kind of coaching group people call themselves all sorts of things: transformational, ontological, manifestation, intimacy, etc. etc.
It’s not that these words have no meaning, or that they don’t distinguish different types of work. It’s just that they don’t matter to most of your clients or the people who will become your clients.
Despite this coaches spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what kind of coach they are because . . .
THEY DON’T WANT TO BE CALLED A LIFE COACH
Life coach is a strangely dirty word in the world of coaching. It’s a dirty word because people see it as fluffy and meaningless, because… well it is.
There are a ton of people trying to solve this.
Certification agencies try to lend an air of credibility by offering people a piece of paper that doesn’t really mean that much.
Marketing companies encourage you to create a niche so you stand out among the world of other life coaches.
But none of these solutions really work.
The truth is what you call yourself as a coach doesn’t really matter.
Life coaches are awful because they can totally suck at what they do and they can still call themselves coaches.
Business coaches are awful because they only care about numbers and strategy and are more likely to give you advice than actual coaching.
Relationship coaches suck because you keep having the same fights.
Career coaches suck because they just get you another job you hate.
You can call yourself the 4th grand pooba of coachsylvania regardless of if your coaching is good.
The real problem here isn’t the kinds of coaches. The real problem here is your coaching.
It’s part of the reason we don’t talk about types of coaching in the dojo.
What we talk about is mastery. What will make you get better? What will have your clients lives change? How can you be in a state of optimal improvement? How can you get more mastery in less time?
These are the things you need to pay attention to as a coach.
Stop worrying about whether being a life coach has any meaning or not. Instead, learn to become the kind of coach that stands above any category you put yourself in. Develop the confidence to talk about your work with pride.
Be the one kind of coach you are, a you coach, a good coach, a coach that actually changes things.
Once you do that, you can call yourself whatever you want. And you’ll still get clients.
