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