The After Life Coach

Chapter 2

How does a 32-year-old Manhattanite get to spend her days telling (usually older, richer) people what they need to do with their lives? Well, I've been a licensed life coach for a couple years now, but I kind of just fell into it.

I was just like the woman I met at the blowout place, really. A junior editor at a magazine making less than living wage, sharing an apartment with a bunch of other girls. I was so desperate to get my own space that I actually started teaching spin class in the evenings in order to squirrel away a little more cash.

Yelling at a group of women who hung on my every word, not having a clue that I was going home to eat ramen from a package for the eighth night in a row? Now that was a serious rush. It was a bit of a power trip, telling these women who normally wouldn't return my phone calls if I was trying to reach them for an assignment that they needed to pedal harder or faster. But also, I loved the teaching itself: Putting together a perfect playlist, shrieking over the music, getting sweaty while getting paid, and seeing the final outcome of a class, with women sweatily getting off their bikes with huge grins, hugging and high-fiving. I was damn motivational, honestly.

So when one of those women, a perfectly coiffed stranger in the back who I swear must have had every sweat gland in her body Botoxed shut, came up to me after class and asked if I had ever considered doing one-on-one lifestyle coaching, I was intrigued. (Okay, at first I thought she was hitting on me, but once I realized she was actually a life coach who coaches other coaches, then I was intrigued.)

Now, life coaching sounds like it's all easy to do, just read a few self-help and productivity books and watch the money come in. But to actually get clients and become well-known, you either need to a) have a massive Instagram following, which I didn't, or b) do a course with someone who's already established. You're looking for someone like Shannon, the woman I met at the gym—a life coach who coaches life coaches. It sounds ridiculous, and trust me, explaining that to a guy in a bar at one in the morning doesn't go very well, but that's how it works.

So before I knew it, I was signed on with Shannon, forked over pretty much every cent that I made from the spin classes, forgoing that deposit on a place of my own thinking that this was going to be my big break.

Of course, that's when it all fell apart. I spent six months chasing Shannon trying to get her to set up a time for us to start training together, and every time I emailed, she'd fob me off with some 'homework,' i.e. reading a ton of the same self-development books that I'd already read. When she finally got back to me to set a date to start training together, I found myself serving as an unpaid assistant—or worse, since I was paying her for the privilege. Still, I didn't ask for my money back. Shannon was so charismatic that even when she asked me to go get her a coffee, I was thrilled at the chance to help out this dynamic woman.

Of course, getting the coffee did get old, especially when it became pretty clear that she wasn't great about paying me back when it was on my credit card, and we rarely sat down to go over any kind of 'how to be a life coach' conversations, but I was learning a ton.

I learned that you always get a retainer up-front, and worksheets immediately make people feel like they're getting a lot of value. It's even more true if you actually package something into a workbook, or provide a binder.

But I also learned how I didn't want to act: Her tough-love attitude and occasional yelling matches with clients weren't my style. I vowed to be a compassionate, loving life coach who actually helped people work through their hardest moments in life, the points where they just didn't know which direction to go, and didn't have anyone else to turn to. I could make a difference.

I have to admit though, the yelling often brought about results. I guess some people really respond to being yelled at, but frankly, that wasn't the clientele that I wanted. I loved the women who were in the middle of a career transition—maybe because they reminded me of me—and they didn't need screaming, they needed support. Of course, Shannon could ooze sympathy when she needed to, and she was good at it. She'd be a shoulder to cry on, while rolling her eyes at me, and she could make people feel like a million bucks.