TO BE OR NOT TO BE ... A LIFE COACH

Suresh Menon is a writer based in India. In his youth he set out to change the world but later decided to leave it as it is

Friends are strange people. Probably not all of them, but certainly this one that I know. In so many respects so unremarkable, he has one quirk: he employs a life coach. You could have written that sentence a couple of years ago (or maybe last month – I have no idea what circles you move in), and caused confusion. Life coach? What’s that? Is it like a basketball coach? Or a bus with an oxygen tank in it?

When in doubt, google. So I did, and was told in no uncertain terms (or in certain terms, for those who like it less negative) that a life coach is not someone who is a consultant, mentor, adviser, therapist or counsellor. They don’t even want to see you. One “30-to 90-minute phone call” per week is what one life coach offers.

Another says, “We help you connect your head and your heart in a way that transforms your passion for your dreams into action for your life.” So it is a bridge of sorts, a connector of the head and all that it holds and the heart with all that it stands for.

This is looking better and better. So the life coach helps you make choices. Should you marry this one or that? Should you put all your money in the bank or under your mattress? Should you ask stupid questions or carry on as if you know the answers? Life coaching, I was told, is for people in transition and I assumed, naturally, that the transition is the life coach going from penniless to millionaire on your money. Apparently that is not the case. It is the one being coached who is in transition and needs all the advice, mentoring and counselling necessary – although life coaches hate those three words.

You can achieve your life’s dream online, I learnt, as many life coaches life-coach online.

I have given this some thought, and I realise I want to get into the life-coaching business – not as one asking the questions (there’s no money

LIFE COACHING, I was told, is for people in TRANSITION and I assumed, naturally, that the transition is the LIFE COACH going from PENNILESS to MILLIONAIRE on your money

in that), but as one providing the answers (that’s where the moolah is). Making choices is a tough thing – should you have black coffee, with or without sugar, with or without cream, with seeds from Brazil or Ethiopia? See, tough. The life coach ticks your life (or coffee) choices.

If you have to see a therapist, then you really need a therapist. It is the same with life coaches. Do life coaches feel the need for a life coach? Perhaps they do, after a while.

Should I end this column here, or write a few more words? Wait, let me check with a life coach.