Is Coaching Worth the Money?

We hear a lot these days about the benefits of coaching, but is it genuinely worthwhile? The stars of the industry include Joe Vitale who appeared in Rhonda Byrne’s breakthrough film, “The Secret”. Joe charges $10,000 for a dinner meeting. Coaching “hunk” Christian Micklesen expects you to pay $250,000 for a year’s work together and there is a guy in Arizona who charges a whopping $1,000,000. These sound like incredible sums of money; the whole issue poses the question is it worth it?

The answer must be “yes”, otherwise people would not pay! Those who sign up for these programs know at gut level it is really up to them, but they need help in achieving the goals they desire. You, really can’t do it on your own, an objective mentor is somebody you are accountable to, who challenges your ideas and motivates you to get the best out of yourself. So when you sign-up with a life, business, relationship, money, sex or whatever you like coach you expect a bang for your buck! Most, if not all, coaches have coaches themselves and if results were not forthcoming the word would surely get out! On a personal note, I signed up with a coach last September for a year’s business and mojo enhancement at $500.00 per month. I never believed I could keep up the payments but have found that has not been an issue, in fact I have increased my earnings fivefold and have learned a huge amount along the way. When our contract ends in August, I will then seek out somebody else to continue the journey.

Why is this so successful? Coaching is not therapy, although you might expect to undergo some therapy whilst coaching. In a therapeutic situation, you go and see the therapist on a session by session basis. Thus, when you feel you are mended you quit the therapy. For instance I would only go to see my massage therapist when I had a problem. As an example; you have a frozen shoulder, you go to see your “body worker” who works on the shoulder; the pain vanishes and ease begins to return, so you think you’re done and you quit the sessions! But have you truly got to the root cause of what put the shoulder out of kilter in the first place? Probably not, the cause could be a misaligned vertebra which has not even been considered at that short term juncture. Result the shoulder is likely to seize up again at some time in the future.

A “Health Coach” working on the frozen shoulder example, does not contract to work with the client from session to session but instead on a time basis. The client has a goal of repairing the shoulder and the coach designs a road map that takes the client to the desired destination. This is likely to be a long-term relationship in which the shoulder is fixed and remains symptom free for an appreciable period. This treatment might involve a lot more than simply manipulating the locked limb.

The agreement could span one, three, six or even twelve months. The parties contract to meet-up two or three times per month. Payment is made on a monthly basis or is often a discounted lump sum for the whole training at the outset. The coach and the client commit to the process whereby the latter not only shows up for the sessions but usually has exercises and tasks to complete in between. A committed relationship to change like this, usually gives a more spectacular result than the “fix-it and see" approach generated by the single session model.

Many coaches offer cost free strategy sessions as a first off in the process. The intention is to discern whether the coach can actually help the client with his/her problem and to see if they can comfortably work together over the long term. Some of these sessions are face-to-face, but more frequently they are via telephone or Skype. If you would like to try one, see what's on offer here. 

Alister Bredee

Koh Samui Thailand

June 21^st 2015