Thursday, November 06, 2003
Why I Want to be a Life Coach
Apparently, there are people in the world… they work at Microsoft most of them… who make six figures and yet feel dissatisfaction. Who knew? Maybe they can’t get their teeth that extra shade of white, or worse, they didn’t even know that their teeth aren’t white enough. A Life Coach tells them that they need their teeth whitened. A Life Coach takes them shopping for clothes and cars and encourages them to Carpe Diem and take that trip to Aruba. A Life Coach listens to people with too much money, tells them to do the things that they already want to do, then holds their hands while they do it. A Life Coach tells people how to be happier.
Whether or not rich people are satisfied with their bourgeois lives doesn’t interest me. What does interest me is getting paid hundreds of dollars an hour for this “work.” That, my friends, interests me.
“But Kat,” you say, “I’ve read your online journal and I know for a fact that you are a screwed up, neurotic person who hasn’t the slightest idea how to make herself happy, let alone someone else…”
Let the Reverend Kat ease your fears. One thing my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology (Graduated with Honors) taught me is that people with psychology degrees, from the lowly BA to the PhD, are all fucked up in the head… that’s why they study psychology in the first place. But a Helping Professional doesn’t talk about themselves, ever. Instead, they secretly use their clients as paper dolls, dressing the clients in the clothes of their own neurosis and then pushing the client into taking actions that the psychologist is too afraid to take themselves. Life Coaching is the same, only with fewer years of postgraduate work and more shopping.
But how does one break into this morally corrupt, yet lucrative field? I have some ideas. First, I need a business license, because when the inevitable lawsuits start rolling in, I want to have everything look legal. Then I need to put out an ad in the newspapers… or some magazine that rich people read… maybe hand out fliers at the Jean Juarez Salon. Once I get a client, I have to draw up a waiver that absolves me of any and all responsibility for: moneys spent, credit debt, crushed dreams, paternity suits, addiction problems or illegal activities incurred by the client… “This contract is for YOUR protection, Mr. Client…”
I’m gonna do this. Just see if I don’t.
