Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plants are my life coaches.

My cat is my life coach. He encourages me to sleep more and stretch.

And you are your cat's life couch.

I think there are many people who try this but very few succeed. It strikes me like the MLM craze. You don't need anything in particular to call yourself one so anyone can hang out their shingle. I know someone who does this, offering both career and personal advice. They exaggerate their career accomplishments to make it sound like they have had more experience than they really do. They've self-published a book they say is a bestseller, etc. Their videos may have 1 or 2 or 30 views. There is nothing inparted that can't be found someplace else. It seems like an ego trip.

At the same time my work had a speaker who really did coach people in a niche field in organizations and had a long career doing so. She was insightful and worth listening to.

There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there among some with talent and something to say.

Anonymous wrote:Okay. I'll bite. I'm a credential life coach through the International Coaching Federation (ICF). However, I don't do private coaching. I work in a medical school and use my coaching skills to coach medical students, residents, and faculty. I'm not a hustler and can't imagine building my own business around this, but the coaching skills I've gained through certification have helped me be more effective in the support I offer in my professional role.

One of former colleagues became certified as a life coach, too, and his prep involved hundreds of hours of supervised coaching, taking classes, etc. Good on you for taking it seriously; I know it took him a year, if not more, to be fully certified. I don't think it's as simple as riffing off advice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's old.

It's what people do when they burn out on corporate jobs.

I know of 3 coaches in my LinkedIn network.

The newest trend is saying you're a "fractional" something. Like a "Fractional CMO". As in, do 1/30th of the work, get 1/30th of the pay.

lol I'm a Fractional CTO (freelance coding).

Were you a Ninja Rockstar at a startup 15 years ago?