December 13, 2023 • 44 mins
The Dream listeners called in to share their own experiences with life coaches: the good, the bad and the absurd.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, dream listeners, if you like this podcast, you're gonna
love the book.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I wrote a book. It's called Selling the Dream, and
it's coming out March twelfth, twenty twenty four, on Atria.
It's about all of your favorite characters from MLMs and
some that you've never even heard of. I hope check
it out. Welcome to the Dream. You're about to hear
(00:49):
one of my favorite kinds of episodes that we like
to do every season on this show. It's the episode
you made. And I'm not just saying that because it
gives me a week off, because it doesn't actually, but
it is fun to hear your stories. So we put
on a call a few months ago for your life
coaching stories, and boy did you deliver. Here's a selection
(01:09):
of the voicemails you left us and a little interview
at the end.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I actually stopped being really close friends with a long
friend because she became a life coach. It happened over
the pandemic. We had already both graduated from college. We
went together and she started following this TikTok life coach
(01:39):
who is mostly selling a lifestyle rather than actual coaching materials.
But she kept talking to me about how she paid
three thousand dollars to this woman who was then going
to teach her how to become a mindset spiritual business coach.
(02:03):
And my friend kept saying that she thought this was
better than.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Going to college because.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's only three thousand dollars and she's going to learn
how to create a business online. And when I was
asking her, like what this woman's credentials were or what
the tangible guaranteed outcome was, she would get really really
defensive and say that I was not supporting her in
(02:32):
her new career. I was like, well, what credentials do
you have to be a life coach? Like who are
you to be charging people for advice? Especially since the
structural setup of this woman's coaching business that she was
advertising was very much like an MLM. I went to
her website. This woman's not licensed. She just advertises being
(02:57):
sexy and traveling the world, which of course everyone would
like to be doing or be. I felt like she
was advertising a lot of really unhealthy lifestyle choices of yeah,
you know, drop everything you're doing and spend all of
your money on coaching, and if you give me money
to be a coach, then you can also start being
(03:17):
a coach and that will give you fulfillment and happiness
and everything like that. So basically we stopped being friends,
especially when I was dealing with some of my own
things and mentions to her and housing that I was
having a rough time, and her advice to me, you know,
as a coach now, was well, maybe you should go
climb a tree.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
Hello.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
My name is Liam, and I'm calling to share an
instance of where life coaching kind of snuffed into my
health clinic. So I'm a trans man and I had
a really hard time after I graduated from college because
my family cut me off financially, emotionally, all that stuff.
(04:03):
And I went to a job training program that they
put on, and essentially a person there just did like
a life coach thing and said, oh, you guys just
got to be happy and gotta wake up in the
morning and put a smile on your face and believe
in yourselves. And it was so useless. I just stopped going,
(04:27):
especially considering most of us there were trans and most
of us were people of color, including myself. So I'm
not too fond of life coaching because I often feel
that it overlooks the circumstances that people are going through.
We live in an unequal society.
Speaker 8 (04:49):
I love the show.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
Also chronically ill migrat you're here so I can relate
to a lot of your experiences. Thank you so much.
Speaker 9 (04:59):
By Hi.
Speaker 10 (05:02):
My name is Sarah. I have a PhD in sociology,
and when I was in my first year the tenure track,
I hired an academic coach. I absolutely loved my coach
training with Moira. I think she's still in the coaching industry.
She helped me create a five year.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Plan to go out for tenure.
Speaker 10 (05:21):
She helped me see that I wasn't working hard enough,
which now I look back on and think, hm hmm,
someone about that. But she gave me some great tools
to help me plant my time and tried to help
me figure out work life balance, so I was spending
time with my two kids as well. I ended up
getting tenure. I think I hired her for a couple
of years, so that's my experience. I have loved your
(05:44):
show all three seasons, and I was really really.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Happy to see the new season. So keep making them
and fakes.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
A few years back, my employer flagged me as a
high potential colleague and.
Speaker 11 (05:59):
That meant that I got perks. The main perk was
one on one career coaching with a professional who had
actually worked in my field, and to be honest, it
was one of the best things that my job has
ever given me.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It was basically like a work therapist. We laid out
my situation, which frankly was pretty challenging at the time,
and we just talked through situations.
Speaker 11 (06:26):
That I faced and what I could be doing and
what my ultimate goals were. And it was awesome.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
I felt like I took a step back, I thought
about the really.
Speaker 12 (06:35):
Important stuff and I had someone in.
Speaker 11 (06:38):
My corner who understood the situation.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
So they helped me through a really tricky professional time period.
Speaker 11 (06:46):
And hey, I've promoted like a bunch of times since then,
so it was awesome.
Speaker 13 (06:52):
I just want to say I'm absolutely loving the podcast
so far and really resonating with where Jane is in
her life and feeling a lot of compassion and love
for her because I have been in a smiler position
for the past several years, just not being able to
(07:14):
find happiness, and I have actually had a very positive
relationship with a life coach over the last two years.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
She kind of recruited me.
Speaker 13 (07:26):
I met her through a workshop I did at work,
and she helped me to identify just like, really, what
is next for me? What is the next move I
should make? And most importantly, she helped me get out
of a very toxic relationship with a narcissist who was emotionally.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
Abusing me for years.
Speaker 13 (07:50):
And while most of my work with her is really
focused on my professional life, when I finally opened up
to her about my personal life, she just really helped
me see so much that I was choosing not to see.
So I have great things to say about my life coach,
and I recommend it to anyone who needs support. I
(08:12):
think life coaching is so much more beneficial than talk therapy.
Speaker 14 (08:18):
It is very action oriented.
Speaker 13 (08:21):
And I've been in talk therapy for years and haven't
really gotten much out of it.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
But just in the short.
Speaker 13 (08:26):
Time that I've been working with this coach, like, I've
just really made some positive changes in my life and
reflected on my patterns and thoughts and behaviors.
Speaker 14 (08:37):
And so yeah, thank you.
Speaker 13 (08:40):
So much for the work that you all do. This
is a really wonderful podcast. Okay, Mary, my name is Sarah.
I live here in those plaits and I've done coaching.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Two ways, one forced through work.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Do not recommend that at all. Miserable, but also I
chose to do life coaching last year, coming out of
the pandemic, depressed, with little to know. Then it was
something that I probably would have made fun of for
a long time doing life coaching, and then I realized
(09:18):
I felt sad, lonely, I'm single, getting older, getting badder,
and felt like life was terrible. I saw somebody on
Twitter who said they were a life coach and thought
they were saying it as a joke, and then I
realized they weren't joking, and I made fun of it
per second until I thought, well, maybe it'll work. I
(09:41):
did twelve sessions to start feeling better about myself. They
talked with me for an hour, you know, each time,
gave me homework to do at home, and I passed
to say it worked. It was just little exercises to
get me out of my brain and my way of thinking. Anyway,
(10:02):
after about twelve sessions, I did start feeling better, and
I got out of the house and started volunteering, and
now I am in actual therapy working on the same thing,
probably in a more informed way than the life coach has.
But you know it's now.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Fear too later.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I'm still forty six fifty pounds, heaviier than I want
to be, and single, but I'm feeling in a much
better place about it and getting much better help. Anyway,
I'm loving the new series.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 15 (10:34):
Hi.
Speaker 12 (10:35):
My name is Emily and I am a licensed mental
health counselor in the state of Washington in the United States.
I don't have a lot of experience with coaching. However,
as a mental health counselor, I can tell you that
coaching it definitely has got this weird overlap that makes
me very concerned. Mostly, I'm concerned about people who go
(10:56):
straight into coaching programs and then they advertise as if
they are qualified to do the kind of work that
I end up doing on a daily basis that I
have a lot of training to do. And one of
the things that is especially of setting to me lately
are health coaches, because they essentially just repackaged diet culture
(11:17):
in a way that seems sort of like it's healthy
and therapeutic. And I actually ended up out of curiosity
doing some sessions with an acquaintance of mine that I
know in the community who was getting hours for a
coaching certificate, and I can tell you that basically every
session was just trying to check in to see if
I had exercised, and there was no skill or ability
(11:40):
that she had or at least maybe wasn't allowed to
to address the fact that, like exercise to me was trauma.
I didn't necessarily need to work through my trauma with her,
but it makes me very nervous. So the type of
clients that I see, if they're going to go to
like a health coach for example, or a life coach
that's going to coach them on any element of their
like health, it's just not sufficient. So anyway, those are
(12:05):
my thoughts. And if you can use some great.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Kid, my name is Laurie.
Speaker 14 (12:10):
And to answer question, I have taken coaching classes myself.
I have called myself a pragmatic.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
And resiliency coach.
Speaker 14 (12:18):
I have been coached at certain points in my life.
It's been really helpful. Some of it has been bullshit.
Some of that I really question. And these days I
don't really call myself anything. I do have clients that
I see and if anything, I sit and I listen
really deeply to people and do my best to just
(12:39):
I'm a yoga and meditation teacher at heart.
Speaker 16 (12:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 14 (12:45):
Being human is really difficult and challenging. And at the
end of the day, if there's some certain tools that
help you feel a little bit more peaceful and content
beside yourself, then choose wisely. Life is complex.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's all I need to say.
Speaker 14 (13:01):
Thank you so much for your show. Have a great day.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Hey, So I'm calling because I'm in a hate life
coach And the main thing that I think really bothers
me about the life coaching industry is that there's absolutely
no entrance costs. There's none whatsoever. And I've known multiple
people who go into life coaching. When I talk to them,
(13:28):
I'm like, I don't really think that you have life
figured out. The last person who I knew who went
into life coaching, she went to a synagogue that I
attended for a while. She had a daughter who was
born severely disabled, and she just like sent her away,
(13:53):
like set her to an institution because she was so
horrified by the idea of taking care of her. Her
other children were adopted because she didn't want to run
the risk. She wanted to pick basic what babies she
had in the future. I didn't even know of the
(14:15):
existence of her first daughter for years because she didn't
even live in the same state. And then next thing
I know, this woman is becoming a life coach, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Just like, girl, you do not.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You can feel figured out at all. Maybe you need
a life coach. All the life coaches who I know
seem to follow that pattern of just having the audacity
it feels like to think that they can tell other
people how to live.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Hey, they're been a fan of the podcast for a
few years now and really appreciate the like that you're
shining on, you know, these different kind of mlums and
coaches and things like that. I have been a mentor
to a lot of young entrepreneurs, so I would say
a mentor like coach adjacent, right, But it's really challenging
(15:13):
for me because there's a lot of coaching in this space.
There's a lot of mentors. There are people who I
look up to in some ways, and yet feel this
simmering rage because a little over a decade ago, my mother,
who is you know, in her seventies, was groomed by
(15:34):
Bob Proctor before he passed and spent.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Close to two.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Hundred thousand dollars on product that she was convinced by
these coaches she could sell. So she got caught up
purchasing all this inventory that she couldn't sell, squandering her retirement.
Speaker 15 (15:57):
You know.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
Now I send her money to help her, just straight by.
And then I look at people who I want to
look up to, who have successful businesses, talk about mindset,
pop activity and cutting out negative words and you know,
always reframing problems is challenges or opportunities, and they're promoting
(16:19):
and sharing videos from your Bob practice of the world
life coaches. Can they be valuable?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (16:25):
Can they really take advantage of people? And are there
you know, nasty ones out there who will groom people
and you know, basically spendle the amount of money Yes,
And as with most things, you know a lot of
it can be what you make out of it and
you just have to be really careful. So excited to
see where the rest of the pod goes and take
(16:46):
care of us.
Speaker 7 (16:48):
Hi.
Speaker 15 (16:48):
My name is Nikki, and I'll be upfront. I'm a
licensed mental health counselor, and so when it comes to
life coaching, I am inherently biased, but I think episode
five really solidified why I am so biased against life
coaching is that there is an innate vulnerability that comes
(17:09):
with sharing yourself and your struggles with another person and
without the boundaries that therapy or counseling has, or at
the very least the lack of boundaries that life coaching has.
Is that people are really set up to get hurt you.
I hope your experience with your life coach went well,
(17:30):
but when I hear her say we're going to be
friends at the end of this, my red flag goes
up inside of how can you say that and how
can you build authenticity into a real friendship when you
are shaking money off of somebody's pain and vulnerability. Yes,
you pay a therapist, but a therapist isn't your friend,
(17:52):
and we're very upfront about that. I just have such
an ick when it comes to life coaching. Honestly, when
someone tells me that they want to do it, I
really instead try to find out why and refer them
to do health coaching instead if it's appropriate, because health
coaching at least has boards you have to set forward,
they have guidance of what to do when something's out
of scope, and referring on and so yeah, I think
(18:15):
there's so many other avenues that are so much safer
for people in their emotions and their journeys. But I
love your show, and I really hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Bye.
Speaker 17 (18:31):
When I was younger, I'm you're like in my team.
My mother bought she and I.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
A three day like a thing for this guy.
Speaker 17 (18:38):
Named Marshall Silver who is a vague as hypnotist who
had like a spot on Letterman and it's, you know,
like he's around, and I remember the three days was, you.
Speaker 9 (18:47):
Know, Big Heights sales were all in a room with.
Speaker 17 (18:50):
The Orlando Airport big room, and they're coming up and
telling us that we're going to.
Speaker 9 (18:53):
Change our futures and.
Speaker 17 (18:54):
All the stuff that I've been hearing on the show.
Speaker 9 (18:56):
And then on day two of it, I remember it
was just.
Speaker 17 (18:59):
People coming up and selling their little product, like here's
a way to win on the stock market or things
like that.
Speaker 9 (19:05):
And I was supposed to have.
Speaker 17 (19:07):
Individualized coaching, but every time I get it, we feel uncomfortable.
This wasn't like a cohesive program. It was just some bullshit.
But even to this day, a bunch of stuff that
they said still worked for me, Like he would say
that you know, value is what you create or like
instead of saying, but say and so.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
Even though I was only there for three days as.
Speaker 17 (19:24):
A teen eager, it's really pervasive and.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
It's still stuck with me.
Speaker 17 (19:28):
It's just these people are very good at these salespeople,
and so much of what I experienced that weekend is
what you guys have been talking about for the last
three seasons.
Speaker 16 (19:39):
Hi, I am not entirely sure how to condense my
experience into one voicemail. I do have a story regarding
coaching and how it affected my partner former partner at
this point, the stress that it created in our relationship,
(20:02):
and the very, in my opinion, sleepy world of coaches
who coach coaches for big dollars. This story involves a
particular coach named and how her teachings and influence affected
(20:23):
my partner in her coaching business, and fifty thousand dollars
of credit card debt. My phone number is I'm a
huge fan of the show. I really appreciate the information
that's being brought to light, and I would really love
to have a conversation with you all one on one
(20:45):
and tell you a little bit more.
Speaker 14 (20:46):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We called Alex to give her the chance to tell
the uncondensed version of her life coach story that effectively
broke up her relationship.
Speaker 18 (21:09):
My name is Alex and I am a former nurse.
I spent twelve years working as a registered nurse in
critical care, trauma emergency medicine. And I spent eleven years
in the military, and I currently pivoted to small business
owner and I live on the East Coast.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
You called and left us a voicemail about a life
coach who you kind of believe maybe ruined your relationship.
Will you tell me what happened?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 18 (21:48):
I met my partner when she was a marriage and
family therapist and she had talked about wanting to get
out of marriage and family therapy and just leave therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
All, you know, altogether.
Speaker 18 (22:04):
And she was very interested in becoming a coach, and
I was fully supportive of that, and I really wanted
to encourage her in that quest because I understood what
it was like to be in a place, be in
a profession that you felt exhausted by, So I, you know,
(22:27):
I fully supported her and she attended a training. It
was at the very early onset of her transition to
the coaching world. By a big name coach, and that
kind of set the ball in motion, and you know,
she eventually resigned her license and transitioned fully to coaching.
(22:50):
She then was looking for a coach to work with
to kind of help her in this transition, and this
particular coach that she ended up working with was billing
herself as a business coach. Okay, I really I really
(23:10):
was concerned about like the tone that this coach was providing,
and I raised a lot of questions. It created quite
a bit of tension between my partner and I because
she really believed in what this particular coach was saying,
like the overall tone of.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Just charge what you're worth.
Speaker 18 (23:34):
And I remember hearing that all the time, and you know,
I kept thinking, well, what is you know, how do
you you put a value on this quote unquote worth
and then decide that other people? You know, you need
to sell this to other people. And this coach was
very very much pushy on the sales side and just
you know, teaching this really aggressive sales tactic and like,
(23:58):
you know, it doesn't matter if somebody says they don't
have a thousand dollars to work with you for two weeks,
like you can get them to do it.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It was that kind of thought.
Speaker 18 (24:10):
Yeah, And I really didn't feel like I could support
something like that, and so I really wanted, you know,
to have these conversations with my partner to kind of
get her to see things from my perspective and why
as just the regular lay person it felt really gross.
(24:31):
I had seen her as a therapist, and I had
seen her in the coaching realm, and she's very good.
She had a way to communicate with people that really
made them feel comfortable and confident, and she was great,
absolutely fantastic at asking really pointed questions that were not
(24:53):
like poking at people but actually helping them rethink their
concerns or their hang ups about whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
They might be working on.
Speaker 18 (25:02):
Eventually, my partner did end the working relationship with that coach,
and she had started to ask some of her own questions,
and the coach actually ended up calling her out almost
publicly online. And it wasn't it was not a very
(25:25):
tactful way of dealing with the situation. Did not use
her name, but definitely alluded in details to who this
person was. Wow, my partners started talking about this really
awesome coach. She like had these great results from you know,
(25:45):
all listed on her website, like clients that were making
millions of dollars, and you know, I didn't think too
much about it. I was like, okay, you know, I'd
seen her get excited about other things. And then she
mentioned the price tag for working with this particular coach
and the price tag was twenty five thousand dollars for
(26:06):
six months. Oh my god, And I thought, okay, wow,
this is a lot for me to wrap my head around.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And it's not like that for six months. That sounds
like maybe like a very intensive university style education and coaching.
Is that what it was?
Speaker 18 (26:26):
So it was actually a group call a week, and
then you could request peer coaching, which comes from inside
the group from the other peers, the other coaches in
that group, or you can sign up for a session
with one of the paid coaches that this business coach
(26:50):
that you know runs this twenty five thousand dollars for
six months program was paying to be on her staff. Okay,
how this how this whole thing kicks off as they
have a get together at some destination. One of the
locations was Baja, and they'd go to this destination whichever
(27:16):
you know was chosen and then they have like a
three day event in this just like almost like eight
hours of NonStop what's billed as coaching, but it's really
like sales and marketing teaching, which if you listen to
the podcast that you know, this particular coach put out
or you watch the videos, it's it has a very
(27:39):
multi level marketing theme to it, but there's no real
way that you can actually put your finger on it
and say, yep, this is multi level marketing because there's
only really one person at the top. But the thing
that feels like a pyramid about it all is that
(28:02):
you get to the end of one of these you know,
six month sessions. There's no certification, there's nothing that you
walk away with, and people repeatedly sign up over and
over and over again. And I know my partner told
me of people who had signed up, you know, four
six times in a row.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow in each time.
Speaker 18 (28:26):
Yes, and technically it's not mandatory, but it's kind of
like you get into this group and you don't want
to get out because you know, the vibe is so energized,
and you know it's it's a high energy quote unquote,
high impact environment that Ultimate led me to coming back
(28:47):
to my partner and saying, you know, I really don't understand, like,
if you're paying twenty five thousand dollars to go to
this program and it's so great, why are you having
to do it over again?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know what? What else? It didn't make sense to me.
It was I don't like this word.
Speaker 18 (29:10):
It was almost cult like because everything was like all
about the leader of this you know, coaching business, and
how she had provided great coaching, and how she had
said an amazing thing, you know during the group meeting,
(29:32):
and just more and more of the structure that I
kept hearing about just kept feeling more and more like
a multi level marketing thing. But there was nothing that
I could put my finger on. I pleaded with her.
I was like, please, you know, don't don't do this again,
like that twenty five thousand.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Dollars is a lot of money, and.
Speaker 18 (29:52):
I don't understand, you know, why you would have to
go back into a thing that you've paid so much money,
Like it's it begs the question are you getting your
money's worth out of it? Because twenty five thousand dollars
is basically a year's worth of college education. So I
(30:13):
begged and pleaded with her. It really started to create
a lot of tension. She basically had no friends outside
of this group, so everybody was inside of this group,
like all of her community was in there. All of
the advice she was getting was coming from inside the group,
All of the coaching that she was getting was coming
(30:34):
from inside the group. And one thing that really started,
one of the things that really started to bother me
was how I was seeing how some of these coaches
were selling coaching for one thing or another to each other,
and like, my partner actually got coaching participated in this
(30:56):
group coaching program for relationships from this other coach that
was in the coaching program that she was in, and
it just really felt like an echo chamber, honestly, and
that there was none.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Okay, let's not move past the relationship coaching thing. You're
in a relationship with this person at the time. Was
it a coaching program to teach them how to be
relationship coaches or was it too No.
Speaker 18 (31:25):
It was like a coaching program to help my partner
have a better relationship with me.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Oh wow.
Speaker 18 (31:36):
And so that's it was just like this big circle
the coaches all got coaching from each other for their
business related to this coaching program, and then sometimes they
would get coaching from each other.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
For life stuff outside of.
Speaker 18 (31:54):
The reason they were in this group. And that's why,
to me it felt more like an echo chamber, like
there was no outside I don't know thought process honestly
struggled with, you know, why why can she not see
(32:15):
the strangeness of this whole thing? And on top of that,
I was frustrated that a group would have so much
influence on her and that I didn't have a way
to like match that influence as her partner, and I
(32:42):
just I didn't know how to reach her and I
didn't know what to say. And it really like I
did notice a huge difference by the end of the
relationship between the person that I met, you know, five
years prior and the end result because by the end,
(33:05):
like there wasn't a single podcast that she listened to
other than the podcasts from the people in that group,
from the leader of that group, from her friends in
that group. There wasn't any outside influence that she absorbed.
It was all coming from the inside m.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And was she achieving some level of success by doing this?
Speaker 18 (33:31):
No. This was the second round that she participated in
and she had not signed a client in over a year.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
WHOA, yeah.
Speaker 18 (33:43):
She goes away to the I don't know the group.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Rendezvous meeting.
Speaker 18 (33:52):
And then signs up for another six months with this coach,
the business coach, because she was being offered a special deal.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
And it was during this second.
Speaker 18 (34:09):
Leading up to the second sign up, that my partner
was coached by the coach running the group into using
her credit card to pay for the next round. In
her thought, she was like, I'm stuck because I want
(34:29):
to join this next round, but I don't have the
finances for it. And essentially what came out in the
conversation with the group leader was, wait a minute, you
have a credit card with how much of a credit
limit on it, and you're saying that's not accessible to
your business, Like you should be using your credit card
to finance this. So my partner signs up, she goes
(34:53):
through this whole other round, Like my disdain for the
whole thing becomes a lot more evident. I have very
little positive to say about it all. I tell her
I don't want to listen to the podcasts. I really
have no interest in being around her friends. So this
actually happened within the last month, Oh my god, my
(35:16):
partner and I.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Both got sick.
Speaker 18 (35:19):
I was woken up one night in the middle of
the night, probably like four point thirty in the morning.
My partner shakes me awake, and she says, I'm not
feeling good. I'm not feeling good. Something's wrong, Something's really wrong.
She's panicking. And I get up. I'm groggy, and I say, well,
(35:40):
what happened. She's like, well, I took some over the
counter medication and now I don't feel good.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And I sat her.
Speaker 18 (35:48):
Down on the couch, and you know, I was like, hey,
I need you to take a deep breath, like try
to calm down.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
And she was really panicking.
Speaker 18 (35:54):
She started vomiting, and next thing I know, she just
has this thousand yard stare and is just looking off insane.
I'm going to pass out. I'm going to pass out.
And she goes unresponsive, she stops breathing. She turns like
(36:16):
this color of gray that I have only ever seen
and witnessed in somebody who has died or is about
to die, and then starts having a seizure. And I
could not do anything except hold her and prevent her
head from snapping around and causing injury. And eventually the
(36:38):
seizure stopped and I called nine one one. EMS shows
up to the house and they check her blood pressure.
It is ridiculously low. Like I know as a nurse,
that she needs you know, emergent medical care, but she
refuses and she refuses to be taken to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Huh.
Speaker 18 (37:00):
And I had started to get suspicious that something was
going on because she had been telling me she didn't
have money for different things, and so I was taking
on more financial responsibility. And I knew that she had
signed up for two of these rounds with this coach
(37:24):
at twenty five thousand dollars each. And I also knew
that she had not signed a client in a you know,
a year or more. And I started to kind of
see the dominoes falling, and that's what led me to
asking her after the paramedics had left, I asked her,
you know, how much debt are you in? She finally
(37:49):
told me that she was fifty thousand dollars in credit
card debt and that it was related to that program.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Oh my god, how did she explain her refusal to
go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
She just said it wasn't necessary.
Speaker 18 (38:09):
She didn't think that she warranted going there, and I again,
as a critical care nurse, an emergency nurse, having witnessed
what I had just seen in her, knowing that she
had nearly died right there in our living room, I
couldn't think of a single reason why you wouldn't go,
but I couldn't make her go. So I knew it
(38:33):
had to have something to do with a financial issue.
And it felt like a gut punch.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I just I again.
Speaker 18 (38:44):
It was just another moment of shock that here was
this person I had trusted to be open and honest
with me, and they hadn't been open and honest about
the debt, and now I'm finding out about it in
an emergent situation, and I felt like I had been
(39:06):
put in this place of do I gamble with my
partner's life and try to mitigate the damage that she
has done with her finances, or do I go ahead
and push for her to go to the hospital. And
it still makes me feel ill like I right now,
I feel like I could throw up just talking about
(39:26):
it and thinking about it.
Speaker 10 (39:29):
But I.
Speaker 18 (39:33):
Just sat there and was quiet. I did not know
what to do or say, and it was just another
moment of shock and disbelief that you know, something like
that was happening. It took me a few days to
kind of gather myself, and that's when the anger and
(39:54):
frustration really started, like to be something that I could
feel I had moved beyond the moment of shock and
terror and had like progressed to the point of being
so so just angry, not necessarily at my partner, but
angry that somebody would have taken advantage of her and
(40:16):
her desire to have you know, financial stability and do
something you know, greater with her life. And you know,
part of that responsibility does lie on my former partner,
but in the same hand, it also lies with the
(40:39):
coach that encouraged her to use credit cards. And you know,
I told my partner that she had to take some
pretty significant steps to start addressing the debt, such as
she needed to move her office back into our home,
(41:01):
and that she needed to cut off all ties with
that group, and that if she didn't do that, you know,
our relationship was going to be on the line and
potentially be over.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
That very day.
Speaker 18 (41:17):
She assured me that she was willing to make those changes,
but within a few days she came back to me
and told me.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
That she was leaving.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh my god, so this is really recent. How are
you doing.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I thought for sure that she would pick us. I
thought for sure that she would.
Speaker 18 (41:48):
Finally see my reasoning for concern of participation in this group.
And you know, I felt like, out of a sense
of desperation, I had given those ultimatums and that she
would understand where those ultimatums were coming from, a deep
(42:11):
sense of carrying a deep sense of love and.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Wanting her to stay.
Speaker 18 (42:18):
And it just feit backfired, and I, you know, I
had to accept that she left.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
I begged and.
Speaker 18 (42:31):
Pleaded for her to understand that my desire to support
her was outside of my willingness to support that group
and her involvement in that group. I very clearly told
her that I supported her, that I believed in her
(42:52):
abilities as a coach and as a professional, that I
wanted her to succeed, that I wanted to be there
to see her succeed. And I could not get her
to separate herself this identity of not only being a coach,
(43:13):
but a coach in that particular group.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The Dream is written, hosted, and executive produced by me
Jane Marie Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from
Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sandford. Our editor is Peter Clowney.
The Dream is a co production of Little Everywhere in
pushkin industries
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, dream listeners, if you like this podcast, you're gonna
love the book.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I wrote a book. It's called Selling the Dream, and
it's coming out March twelfth, twenty twenty four, on Atria.
It's about all of your favorite characters from MLMs and
some that you've never even heard of. I hope check
it out. Welcome to the Dream. You're about to hear
(00:49):
one of my favorite kinds of episodes that we like
to do every season on this show. It's the episode
you made. And I'm not just saying that because it
gives me a week off, because it doesn't actually, but
it is fun to hear your stories. So we put
on a call a few months ago for your life
coaching stories, and boy did you deliver. Here's a selection
(01:09):
of the voicemails you left us and a little interview
at the end.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
I actually stopped being really close friends with a long
friend because she became a life coach. It happened over
the pandemic. We had already both graduated from college. We
went together and she started following this TikTok life coach
(01:39):
who is mostly selling a lifestyle rather than actual coaching materials.
But she kept talking to me about how she paid
three thousand dollars to this woman who was then going
to teach her how to become a mindset spiritual business coach.
(02:03):
And my friend kept saying that she thought this was
better than.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Going to college because.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's only three thousand dollars and she's going to learn
how to create a business online. And when I was
asking her, like what this woman's credentials were or what
the tangible guaranteed outcome was, she would get really really
defensive and say that I was not supporting her in
(02:32):
her new career. I was like, well, what credentials do
you have to be a life coach? Like who are
you to be charging people for advice? Especially since the
structural setup of this woman's coaching business that she was
advertising was very much like an MLM. I went to
her website. This woman's not licensed. She just advertises being
(02:57):
sexy and traveling the world, which of course everyone would
like to be doing or be. I felt like she
was advertising a lot of really unhealthy lifestyle choices of yeah,
you know, drop everything you're doing and spend all of
your money on coaching, and if you give me money
to be a coach, then you can also start being
(03:17):
a coach and that will give you fulfillment and happiness
and everything like that. So basically we stopped being friends,
especially when I was dealing with some of my own
things and mentions to her and housing that I was
having a rough time, and her advice to me, you know,
as a coach now, was well, maybe you should go
climb a tree.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
Hello.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
My name is Liam, and I'm calling to share an
instance of where life coaching kind of snuffed into my
health clinic. So I'm a trans man and I had
a really hard time after I graduated from college because
my family cut me off financially, emotionally, all that stuff.
(04:03):
And I went to a job training program that they
put on, and essentially a person there just did like
a life coach thing and said, oh, you guys just
got to be happy and gotta wake up in the
morning and put a smile on your face and believe
in yourselves. And it was so useless. I just stopped going,
(04:27):
especially considering most of us there were trans and most
of us were people of color, including myself. So I'm
not too fond of life coaching because I often feel
that it overlooks the circumstances that people are going through.
We live in an unequal society.
Speaker 8 (04:49):
I love the show.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
Also chronically ill migrat you're here so I can relate
to a lot of your experiences. Thank you so much.
Speaker 9 (04:59):
By Hi.
Speaker 10 (05:02):
My name is Sarah. I have a PhD in sociology,
and when I was in my first year the tenure track,
I hired an academic coach. I absolutely loved my coach
training with Moira. I think she's still in the coaching industry.
She helped me create a five year.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Plan to go out for tenure.
Speaker 10 (05:21):
She helped me see that I wasn't working hard enough,
which now I look back on and think, hm hmm,
someone about that. But she gave me some great tools
to help me plant my time and tried to help
me figure out work life balance, so I was spending
time with my two kids as well. I ended up
getting tenure. I think I hired her for a couple
of years, so that's my experience. I have loved your
(05:44):
show all three seasons, and I was really really.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Happy to see the new season. So keep making them
and fakes.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
A few years back, my employer flagged me as a
high potential colleague and.
Speaker 11 (05:59):
That meant that I got perks. The main perk was
one on one career coaching with a professional who had
actually worked in my field, and to be honest, it
was one of the best things that my job has
ever given me.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It was basically like a work therapist. We laid out
my situation, which frankly was pretty challenging at the time,
and we just talked through situations.
Speaker 11 (06:26):
That I faced and what I could be doing and
what my ultimate goals were. And it was awesome.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
I felt like I took a step back, I thought
about the really.
Speaker 12 (06:35):
Important stuff and I had someone in.
Speaker 11 (06:38):
My corner who understood the situation.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
So they helped me through a really tricky professional time period.
Speaker 11 (06:46):
And hey, I've promoted like a bunch of times since then,
so it was awesome.
Speaker 13 (06:52):
I just want to say I'm absolutely loving the podcast
so far and really resonating with where Jane is in
her life and feeling a lot of compassion and love
for her because I have been in a smiler position
for the past several years, just not being able to
(07:14):
find happiness, and I have actually had a very positive
relationship with a life coach over the last two years.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
She kind of recruited me.
Speaker 13 (07:26):
I met her through a workshop I did at work,
and she helped me to identify just like, really, what
is next for me? What is the next move I
should make? And most importantly, she helped me get out
of a very toxic relationship with a narcissist who was emotionally.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
Abusing me for years.
Speaker 13 (07:50):
And while most of my work with her is really
focused on my professional life, when I finally opened up
to her about my personal life, she just really helped
me see so much that I was choosing not to see.
So I have great things to say about my life coach,
and I recommend it to anyone who needs support. I
(08:12):
think life coaching is so much more beneficial than talk therapy.
Speaker 14 (08:18):
It is very action oriented.
Speaker 13 (08:21):
And I've been in talk therapy for years and haven't
really gotten much out of it.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
But just in the short.
Speaker 13 (08:26):
Time that I've been working with this coach, like, I've
just really made some positive changes in my life and
reflected on my patterns and thoughts and behaviors.
Speaker 14 (08:37):
And so yeah, thank you.
Speaker 13 (08:40):
So much for the work that you all do. This
is a really wonderful podcast. Okay, Mary, my name is Sarah.
I live here in those plaits and I've done coaching.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Two ways, one forced through work.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Do not recommend that at all. Miserable, but also I
chose to do life coaching last year, coming out of
the pandemic, depressed, with little to know. Then it was
something that I probably would have made fun of for
a long time doing life coaching, and then I realized
(09:18):
I felt sad, lonely, I'm single, getting older, getting badder,
and felt like life was terrible. I saw somebody on
Twitter who said they were a life coach and thought
they were saying it as a joke, and then I
realized they weren't joking, and I made fun of it
per second until I thought, well, maybe it'll work. I
(09:41):
did twelve sessions to start feeling better about myself. They
talked with me for an hour, you know, each time,
gave me homework to do at home, and I passed
to say it worked. It was just little exercises to
get me out of my brain and my way of thinking. Anyway,
(10:02):
after about twelve sessions, I did start feeling better, and
I got out of the house and started volunteering, and
now I am in actual therapy working on the same thing,
probably in a more informed way than the life coach has.
But you know it's now.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Fear too later.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I'm still forty six fifty pounds, heaviier than I want
to be, and single, but I'm feeling in a much
better place about it and getting much better help. Anyway,
I'm loving the new series.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 15 (10:34):
Hi.
Speaker 12 (10:35):
My name is Emily and I am a licensed mental
health counselor in the state of Washington in the United States.
I don't have a lot of experience with coaching. However,
as a mental health counselor, I can tell you that
coaching it definitely has got this weird overlap that makes
me very concerned. Mostly, I'm concerned about people who go
(10:56):
straight into coaching programs and then they advertise as if
they are qualified to do the kind of work that
I end up doing on a daily basis that I
have a lot of training to do. And one of
the things that is especially of setting to me lately
are health coaches, because they essentially just repackaged diet culture
(11:17):
in a way that seems sort of like it's healthy
and therapeutic. And I actually ended up out of curiosity
doing some sessions with an acquaintance of mine that I
know in the community who was getting hours for a
coaching certificate, and I can tell you that basically every
session was just trying to check in to see if
I had exercised, and there was no skill or ability
(11:40):
that she had or at least maybe wasn't allowed to
to address the fact that, like exercise to me was trauma.
I didn't necessarily need to work through my trauma with her,
but it makes me very nervous. So the type of
clients that I see, if they're going to go to
like a health coach for example, or a life coach
that's going to coach them on any element of their
like health, it's just not sufficient. So anyway, those are
(12:05):
my thoughts. And if you can use some great.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Kid, my name is Laurie.
Speaker 14 (12:10):
And to answer question, I have taken coaching classes myself.
I have called myself a pragmatic.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
And resiliency coach.
Speaker 14 (12:18):
I have been coached at certain points in my life.
It's been really helpful. Some of it has been bullshit.
Some of that I really question. And these days I
don't really call myself anything. I do have clients that
I see and if anything, I sit and I listen
really deeply to people and do my best to just
(12:39):
I'm a yoga and meditation teacher at heart.
Speaker 16 (12:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 14 (12:45):
Being human is really difficult and challenging. And at the
end of the day, if there's some certain tools that
help you feel a little bit more peaceful and content
beside yourself, then choose wisely. Life is complex.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's all I need to say.
Speaker 14 (13:01):
Thank you so much for your show. Have a great day.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Hey, So I'm calling because I'm in a hate life
coach And the main thing that I think really bothers
me about the life coaching industry is that there's absolutely
no entrance costs. There's none whatsoever. And I've known multiple
people who go into life coaching. When I talk to them,
(13:28):
I'm like, I don't really think that you have life
figured out. The last person who I knew who went
into life coaching, she went to a synagogue that I
attended for a while. She had a daughter who was
born severely disabled, and she just like sent her away,
(13:53):
like set her to an institution because she was so
horrified by the idea of taking care of her. Her
other children were adopted because she didn't want to run
the risk. She wanted to pick basic what babies she
had in the future. I didn't even know of the
(14:15):
existence of her first daughter for years because she didn't
even live in the same state. And then next thing
I know, this woman is becoming a life coach, and I'm.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Just like, girl, you do not.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You can feel figured out at all. Maybe you need
a life coach. All the life coaches who I know
seem to follow that pattern of just having the audacity
it feels like to think that they can tell other
people how to live.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Hey, they're been a fan of the podcast for a
few years now and really appreciate the like that you're
shining on, you know, these different kind of mlums and
coaches and things like that. I have been a mentor
to a lot of young entrepreneurs, so I would say
a mentor like coach adjacent, right, But it's really challenging
(15:13):
for me because there's a lot of coaching in this space.
There's a lot of mentors. There are people who I
look up to in some ways, and yet feel this
simmering rage because a little over a decade ago, my mother,
who is you know, in her seventies, was groomed by
(15:34):
Bob Proctor before he passed and spent.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Close to two.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Hundred thousand dollars on product that she was convinced by
these coaches she could sell. So she got caught up
purchasing all this inventory that she couldn't sell, squandering her retirement.
Speaker 15 (15:57):
You know.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
Now I send her money to help her, just straight by.
And then I look at people who I want to
look up to, who have successful businesses, talk about mindset,
pop activity and cutting out negative words and you know,
always reframing problems is challenges or opportunities, and they're promoting
(16:19):
and sharing videos from your Bob practice of the world
life coaches. Can they be valuable?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (16:25):
Can they really take advantage of people? And are there
you know, nasty ones out there who will groom people
and you know, basically spendle the amount of money Yes,
And as with most things, you know a lot of
it can be what you make out of it and
you just have to be really careful. So excited to
see where the rest of the pod goes and take
(16:46):
care of us.
Speaker 7 (16:48):
Hi.
Speaker 15 (16:48):
My name is Nikki, and I'll be upfront. I'm a
licensed mental health counselor, and so when it comes to
life coaching, I am inherently biased, but I think episode
five really solidified why I am so biased against life
coaching is that there is an innate vulnerability that comes
(17:09):
with sharing yourself and your struggles with another person and
without the boundaries that therapy or counseling has, or at
the very least the lack of boundaries that life coaching has.
Is that people are really set up to get hurt you.
I hope your experience with your life coach went well,
(17:30):
but when I hear her say we're going to be
friends at the end of this, my red flag goes
up inside of how can you say that and how
can you build authenticity into a real friendship when you
are shaking money off of somebody's pain and vulnerability. Yes,
you pay a therapist, but a therapist isn't your friend,
(17:52):
and we're very upfront about that. I just have such
an ick when it comes to life coaching. Honestly, when
someone tells me that they want to do it, I
really instead try to find out why and refer them
to do health coaching instead if it's appropriate, because health
coaching at least has boards you have to set forward,
they have guidance of what to do when something's out
of scope, and referring on and so yeah, I think
(18:15):
there's so many other avenues that are so much safer
for people in their emotions and their journeys. But I
love your show, and I really hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Bye.
Speaker 17 (18:31):
When I was younger, I'm you're like in my team.
My mother bought she and I.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
A three day like a thing for this guy.
Speaker 17 (18:38):
Named Marshall Silver who is a vague as hypnotist who
had like a spot on Letterman and it's, you know,
like he's around, and I remember the three days was, you.
Speaker 9 (18:47):
Know, Big Heights sales were all in a room with.
Speaker 17 (18:50):
The Orlando Airport big room, and they're coming up and
telling us that we're going to.
Speaker 9 (18:53):
Change our futures and.
Speaker 17 (18:54):
All the stuff that I've been hearing on the show.
Speaker 9 (18:56):
And then on day two of it, I remember it
was just.
Speaker 17 (18:59):
People coming up and selling their little product, like here's
a way to win on the stock market or things
like that.
Speaker 9 (19:05):
And I was supposed to have.
Speaker 17 (19:07):
Individualized coaching, but every time I get it, we feel uncomfortable.
This wasn't like a cohesive program. It was just some bullshit.
But even to this day, a bunch of stuff that
they said still worked for me, Like he would say
that you know, value is what you create or like
instead of saying, but say and so.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
Even though I was only there for three days as.
Speaker 17 (19:24):
A teen eager, it's really pervasive and.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
It's still stuck with me.
Speaker 17 (19:28):
It's just these people are very good at these salespeople,
and so much of what I experienced that weekend is
what you guys have been talking about for the last
three seasons.
Speaker 16 (19:39):
Hi, I am not entirely sure how to condense my
experience into one voicemail. I do have a story regarding
coaching and how it affected my partner former partner at
this point, the stress that it created in our relationship,
(20:02):
and the very, in my opinion, sleepy world of coaches
who coach coaches for big dollars. This story involves a
particular coach named and how her teachings and influence affected
(20:23):
my partner in her coaching business, and fifty thousand dollars
of credit card debt. My phone number is I'm a
huge fan of the show. I really appreciate the information
that's being brought to light, and I would really love
to have a conversation with you all one on one
(20:45):
and tell you a little bit more.
Speaker 14 (20:46):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We called Alex to give her the chance to tell
the uncondensed version of her life coach story that effectively
broke up her relationship.
Speaker 18 (21:09):
My name is Alex and I am a former nurse.
I spent twelve years working as a registered nurse in
critical care, trauma emergency medicine. And I spent eleven years
in the military, and I currently pivoted to small business
owner and I live on the East Coast.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
You called and left us a voicemail about a life
coach who you kind of believe maybe ruined your relationship.
Will you tell me what happened?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 18 (21:48):
I met my partner when she was a marriage and
family therapist and she had talked about wanting to get
out of marriage and family therapy and just leave therapy.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
All, you know, altogether.
Speaker 18 (22:04):
And she was very interested in becoming a coach, and
I was fully supportive of that, and I really wanted
to encourage her in that quest because I understood what
it was like to be in a place, be in
a profession that you felt exhausted by, So I, you know,
(22:27):
I fully supported her and she attended a training. It
was at the very early onset of her transition to
the coaching world. By a big name coach, and that
kind of set the ball in motion, and you know,
she eventually resigned her license and transitioned fully to coaching.
(22:50):
She then was looking for a coach to work with
to kind of help her in this transition, and this
particular coach that she ended up working with was billing
herself as a business coach. Okay, I really I really
(23:10):
was concerned about like the tone that this coach was providing,
and I raised a lot of questions. It created quite
a bit of tension between my partner and I because
she really believed in what this particular coach was saying,
like the overall tone of.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Just charge what you're worth.
Speaker 18 (23:34):
And I remember hearing that all the time, and you know,
I kept thinking, well, what is you know, how do
you you put a value on this quote unquote worth
and then decide that other people? You know, you need
to sell this to other people. And this coach was
very very much pushy on the sales side and just
you know, teaching this really aggressive sales tactic and like,
(23:58):
you know, it doesn't matter if somebody says they don't
have a thousand dollars to work with you for two weeks,
like you can get them to do it.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It was that kind of thought.
Speaker 18 (24:10):
Yeah, And I really didn't feel like I could support
something like that, and so I really wanted, you know,
to have these conversations with my partner to kind of
get her to see things from my perspective and why
as just the regular lay person it felt really gross.
(24:31):
I had seen her as a therapist, and I had
seen her in the coaching realm, and she's very good.
She had a way to communicate with people that really
made them feel comfortable and confident, and she was great,
absolutely fantastic at asking really pointed questions that were not
(24:53):
like poking at people but actually helping them rethink their
concerns or their hang ups about whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
They might be working on.
Speaker 18 (25:02):
Eventually, my partner did end the working relationship with that coach,
and she had started to ask some of her own questions,
and the coach actually ended up calling her out almost
publicly online. And it wasn't it was not a very
(25:25):
tactful way of dealing with the situation. Did not use
her name, but definitely alluded in details to who this
person was. Wow, my partners started talking about this really
awesome coach. She like had these great results from you know,
(25:45):
all listed on her website, like clients that were making
millions of dollars, and you know, I didn't think too
much about it. I was like, okay, you know, I'd
seen her get excited about other things. And then she
mentioned the price tag for working with this particular coach
and the price tag was twenty five thousand dollars for
(26:06):
six months. Oh my god, And I thought, okay, wow,
this is a lot for me to wrap my head around.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And it's not like that for six months. That sounds
like maybe like a very intensive university style education and coaching.
Is that what it was?
Speaker 18 (26:26):
So it was actually a group call a week, and
then you could request peer coaching, which comes from inside
the group from the other peers, the other coaches in
that group, or you can sign up for a session
with one of the paid coaches that this business coach
(26:50):
that you know runs this twenty five thousand dollars for
six months program was paying to be on her staff. Okay,
how this how this whole thing kicks off as they
have a get together at some destination. One of the
locations was Baja, and they'd go to this destination whichever
(27:16):
you know was chosen and then they have like a
three day event in this just like almost like eight
hours of NonStop what's billed as coaching, but it's really
like sales and marketing teaching, which if you listen to
the podcast that you know, this particular coach put out
or you watch the videos, it's it has a very
(27:39):
multi level marketing theme to it, but there's no real
way that you can actually put your finger on it
and say, yep, this is multi level marketing because there's
only really one person at the top. But the thing
that feels like a pyramid about it all is that
(28:02):
you get to the end of one of these you know,
six month sessions. There's no certification, there's nothing that you
walk away with, and people repeatedly sign up over and
over and over again. And I know my partner told
me of people who had signed up, you know, four
six times in a row.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow in each time.
Speaker 18 (28:26):
Yes, and technically it's not mandatory, but it's kind of
like you get into this group and you don't want
to get out because you know, the vibe is so energized,
and you know it's it's a high energy quote unquote,
high impact environment that Ultimate led me to coming back
(28:47):
to my partner and saying, you know, I really don't understand, like,
if you're paying twenty five thousand dollars to go to
this program and it's so great, why are you having
to do it over again?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know what? What else? It didn't make sense to me.
It was I don't like this word.
Speaker 18 (29:10):
It was almost cult like because everything was like all
about the leader of this you know, coaching business, and
how she had provided great coaching, and how she had
said an amazing thing, you know during the group meeting,
(29:32):
and just more and more of the structure that I
kept hearing about just kept feeling more and more like
a multi level marketing thing. But there was nothing that
I could put my finger on. I pleaded with her.
I was like, please, you know, don't don't do this again,
like that twenty five thousand.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Dollars is a lot of money, and.
Speaker 18 (29:52):
I don't understand, you know, why you would have to
go back into a thing that you've paid so much money,
Like it's it begs the question are you getting your
money's worth out of it? Because twenty five thousand dollars
is basically a year's worth of college education. So I
(30:13):
begged and pleaded with her. It really started to create
a lot of tension. She basically had no friends outside
of this group, so everybody was inside of this group,
like all of her community was in there. All of
the advice she was getting was coming from inside the group,
All of the coaching that she was getting was coming
(30:34):
from inside the group. And one thing that really started,
one of the things that really started to bother me
was how I was seeing how some of these coaches
were selling coaching for one thing or another to each other,
and like, my partner actually got coaching participated in this
(30:56):
group coaching program for relationships from this other coach that
was in the coaching program that she was in, and
it just really felt like an echo chamber, honestly, and
that there was none.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Okay, let's not move past the relationship coaching thing. You're
in a relationship with this person at the time. Was
it a coaching program to teach them how to be
relationship coaches or was it too No.
Speaker 18 (31:25):
It was like a coaching program to help my partner
have a better relationship with me.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Oh wow.
Speaker 18 (31:36):
And so that's it was just like this big circle
the coaches all got coaching from each other for their
business related to this coaching program, and then sometimes they
would get coaching from each other.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
For life stuff outside of.
Speaker 18 (31:54):
The reason they were in this group. And that's why,
to me it felt more like an echo chamber, like
there was no outside I don't know thought process honestly
struggled with, you know, why why can she not see
(32:15):
the strangeness of this whole thing? And on top of that,
I was frustrated that a group would have so much
influence on her and that I didn't have a way
to like match that influence as her partner, and I
(32:42):
just I didn't know how to reach her and I
didn't know what to say. And it really like I
did notice a huge difference by the end of the
relationship between the person that I met, you know, five
years prior and the end result because by the end,
(33:05):
like there wasn't a single podcast that she listened to
other than the podcasts from the people in that group,
from the leader of that group, from her friends in
that group. There wasn't any outside influence that she absorbed.
It was all coming from the inside m.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
And was she achieving some level of success by doing this?
Speaker 18 (33:31):
No. This was the second round that she participated in
and she had not signed a client in over a year.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
WHOA, yeah.
Speaker 18 (33:43):
She goes away to the I don't know the group.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Rendezvous meeting.
Speaker 18 (33:52):
And then signs up for another six months with this coach,
the business coach, because she was being offered a special deal.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
And it was during this second.
Speaker 18 (34:09):
Leading up to the second sign up, that my partner
was coached by the coach running the group into using
her credit card to pay for the next round. In
her thought, she was like, I'm stuck because I want
(34:29):
to join this next round, but I don't have the
finances for it. And essentially what came out in the
conversation with the group leader was, wait a minute, you
have a credit card with how much of a credit
limit on it, and you're saying that's not accessible to
your business, Like you should be using your credit card
to finance this. So my partner signs up, she goes
(34:53):
through this whole other round, Like my disdain for the
whole thing becomes a lot more evident. I have very
little positive to say about it all. I tell her
I don't want to listen to the podcasts. I really
have no interest in being around her friends. So this
actually happened within the last month, Oh my god, my
(35:16):
partner and I.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Both got sick.
Speaker 18 (35:19):
I was woken up one night in the middle of
the night, probably like four point thirty in the morning.
My partner shakes me awake, and she says, I'm not
feeling good. I'm not feeling good. Something's wrong, Something's really wrong.
She's panicking. And I get up. I'm groggy, and I say, well,
(35:40):
what happened. She's like, well, I took some over the
counter medication and now I don't feel good.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And I sat her.
Speaker 18 (35:48):
Down on the couch, and you know, I was like, hey,
I need you to take a deep breath, like try
to calm down.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
And she was really panicking.
Speaker 18 (35:54):
She started vomiting, and next thing I know, she just
has this thousand yard stare and is just looking off insane.
I'm going to pass out. I'm going to pass out.
And she goes unresponsive, she stops breathing. She turns like
(36:16):
this color of gray that I have only ever seen
and witnessed in somebody who has died or is about
to die, and then starts having a seizure. And I
could not do anything except hold her and prevent her
head from snapping around and causing injury. And eventually the
(36:38):
seizure stopped and I called nine one one. EMS shows
up to the house and they check her blood pressure.
It is ridiculously low. Like I know as a nurse,
that she needs you know, emergent medical care, but she
refuses and she refuses to be taken to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Huh.
Speaker 18 (37:00):
And I had started to get suspicious that something was
going on because she had been telling me she didn't
have money for different things, and so I was taking
on more financial responsibility. And I knew that she had
signed up for two of these rounds with this coach
(37:24):
at twenty five thousand dollars each. And I also knew
that she had not signed a client in a you know,
a year or more. And I started to kind of
see the dominoes falling, and that's what led me to
asking her after the paramedics had left, I asked her,
you know, how much debt are you in? She finally
(37:49):
told me that she was fifty thousand dollars in credit
card debt and that it was related to that program.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Oh my god, how did she explain her refusal to
go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
She just said it wasn't necessary.
Speaker 18 (38:09):
She didn't think that she warranted going there, and I again,
as a critical care nurse, an emergency nurse, having witnessed
what I had just seen in her, knowing that she
had nearly died right there in our living room, I
couldn't think of a single reason why you wouldn't go,
but I couldn't make her go. So I knew it
(38:33):
had to have something to do with a financial issue.
And it felt like a gut punch.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I just I again.
Speaker 18 (38:44):
It was just another moment of shock that here was
this person I had trusted to be open and honest
with me, and they hadn't been open and honest about
the debt, and now I'm finding out about it in
an emergent situation, and I felt like I had been
(39:06):
put in this place of do I gamble with my
partner's life and try to mitigate the damage that she
has done with her finances, or do I go ahead
and push for her to go to the hospital. And
it still makes me feel ill like I right now,
I feel like I could throw up just talking about
(39:26):
it and thinking about it.
Speaker 10 (39:29):
But I.
Speaker 18 (39:33):
Just sat there and was quiet. I did not know
what to do or say, and it was just another
moment of shock and disbelief that you know, something like
that was happening. It took me a few days to
kind of gather myself, and that's when the anger and
(39:54):
frustration really started, like to be something that I could
feel I had moved beyond the moment of shock and
terror and had like progressed to the point of being
so so just angry, not necessarily at my partner, but
angry that somebody would have taken advantage of her and
(40:16):
her desire to have you know, financial stability and do
something you know, greater with her life. And you know,
part of that responsibility does lie on my former partner,
but in the same hand, it also lies with the
(40:39):
coach that encouraged her to use credit cards. And you know,
I told my partner that she had to take some
pretty significant steps to start addressing the debt, such as
she needed to move her office back into our home,
(41:01):
and that she needed to cut off all ties with
that group, and that if she didn't do that, you know,
our relationship was going to be on the line and
potentially be over.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
That very day.
Speaker 18 (41:17):
She assured me that she was willing to make those changes,
but within a few days she came back to me
and told me.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
That she was leaving.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh my god, so this is really recent. How are
you doing.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I thought for sure that she would pick us. I
thought for sure that she would.
Speaker 18 (41:48):
Finally see my reasoning for concern of participation in this group.
And you know, I felt like, out of a sense
of desperation, I had given those ultimatums and that she
would understand where those ultimatums were coming from, a deep
(42:11):
sense of carrying a deep sense of love and.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Wanting her to stay.
Speaker 18 (42:18):
And it just feit backfired, and I, you know, I
had to accept that she left.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
I begged and.
Speaker 18 (42:31):
Pleaded for her to understand that my desire to support
her was outside of my willingness to support that group
and her involvement in that group. I very clearly told
her that I supported her, that I believed in her
(42:52):
abilities as a coach and as a professional, that I
wanted her to succeed, that I wanted to be there
to see her succeed. And I could not get her
to separate herself this identity of not only being a coach,
(43:13):
but a coach in that particular group.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The Dream is written, hosted, and executive produced by me
Jane Marie Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from
Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sandford. Our editor is Peter Clowney.
The Dream is a co production of Little Everywhere in
pushkin industries
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