6 ms·

Signs that (business/life coaches) just want your money

59 points by chime 16y ago

rfrey 16y ago
If what you say cannot be proven or disproven, I'm not interested, even if all of it might be true Although a good starting point, that's a disappointing place to end up. The scientific method was a monumental leap forward in epistemology, but it is not the alpha and omega of knowledge.
- chime 16y ago
  In the context of how I wrote it, I meant if you're providing me an explanation/solution to a problem, you better be able to prove that is indeed the case. Telling me that "concentrate on your chakras to reduce your stress" won't cut it. Mentioning the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda or translations of it, isn't good enough either. As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. So any claims made on the basis of chakras are invalid as far as I'm concerned. I would be open to interpreting chakras as aspects of our personality if someone can provide a reasonable basis for them.
  - psyklic 16y ago
    Ah ha - but there are so many things that cannot be "proven" to be true, yet are still helpful. Stress relief techniques are a case in point - most of us probably try lots of techniques and ultimately end up using what works best for us. There are also complications - e.g. meditation might work best for most people, but I personally may not have the time (or the patience) to do it properly. Hence, I am fine with being given a non-scientific list of stress relief techniques - as long as they are not harmful or time-consuming, then I would be willing to try them.
    - chime 16y ago
      > Stress relief techniques are a case in point - most of us probably try lots of techniques and ultimately end up using what works best for us. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could input variables like your personality, lifestyle, and preferences and get a reliable list of stress-relief techniques along with the probability that they'll work for you? Maybe it's impossible with our current standard of knowledge but surely you can imagine an advanced civilization that can do it by simulating "you" inside a virtual machine or just solving trillions of linear equations for every variable that defines you. What isn't provable today may be provable (within bounds) tomorrow. Unfortunately, the problem today is that the moment someone shows that X works for Y in condition Z, everyone starts trying to sell X to everyone else for every problem.
      - psyklic 16y ago
        First, no physical science has "provable" results - they are merely correlational. Second, such a study would have a gargantuan cost, merely for results that would have limited practical use. An expert in stress relief can probably come up with a very accurate list of techniques for someone that would help them out. Using your approach only gives a small optimization on this. However, scientists should investigate why stress relief techniques work, and that investigation may overlap a bit.
  - brudgers 16y ago
    >" As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. So any claims made on the basis of chakras are invalid as far as I'm concerned." Were someone to dissect you, they would not find your concern, or any other mental state (or your personality either). However, it would be absurd to argue that therefore you have no concern on that basis. "Concentrate on your breathing to reduce your stress" suffers from the same problem. Upon dissection, there would be no breathing. Furthermore, "concentrate" is no less problematic than "chakra" within a logical-positivist framework. None of which is to deny that many life coaches may be FOS -- I found Ehrenreich's description of them in Bait and Switch consistent with my observations.
  - pella 16y ago
    > As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. interesting: Prospective Tests on Biological Models of Acupuncture eCAM 2009 6(1):31-39; doi:10.1093/ecam/nem122 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/1/31 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/1/31 see "Figure 3": http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/6/1/31/F3 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/6/1/31/F3 "Figure 3. Just as the distribution of pheochromocytoma correlates with the distribution of sympathetic ganglions, the distribution of germ cell tumors correlates with undifferentiated cells in human body which are likely to be involved in the regulation of growth control and physiology as part of the ‘inner meridian system’. This distribution also correlates well with the chakra system used in yoga and acupuncture, suggesting a unified structural basis for chakra system and meridian system"
  - rfrey 16y ago
    I have no trouble with the scientific method, in fact I'm a science fanboy. I do maintain some discomfort with your <edit: my interpretation of your> stance though. I hope my first point doesn't come across as nitpicking - it's not meant to. I bring it up because it seems to be the primary way that people who think they understand science, but don't, perceive science. It is that you seem to value things that can be proven true. Nothing in science can be proven true - that's why it's so uncomfortable to so many people, and in fact is why the scientific method was such an epistemological break from the past. All we can do is disprove things. My problem with holistic medicine or chakras or chi isn't that dissection hasn't found evidence. It's that the theory/model/worldview isn't formulated in a way that can be falsified and therefore the the views have no meaning in a scientific context. Note that I didn't say they were false from a scientist's view. They simply aren't meaningful - they're content free. A scientist wouldn't actually say they're true or false: a scientist would say that science has nothing to say about them. The second issue I have with your position is related to the first point but slightly different: I think it's incorrect to label as false models that have no evidence. For example, say a holistic medicine practitioner relents and formulates one of his practices in a falsifiable way. Tests are done and no beneficial effect is shown. I think the appropriate response is that the model is unlikely to be true, not that the model is false. We simply haven't disproved the null hypothesis yet - that's not to say it won't or can't be done. The scientific method just adds 9s to the certainty. It is never certain. In short, a scientist is profoundly and radically humble.
- celoyd 16y ago
  I think he addresses this a little at the bottom with “I do have a problem with people who claim to have done SCIENCE and then when you dig in, turn out to have done no such thing.” Calling something science is pretty much the way of giving it prestige these days. This is bad for the reputation of science, but it’s also bad for the reputation of useful non-scientific kinds of knowledge. Lots of good advice isn’t clearly falsifiable or rigorously research-based.
  - chime 16y ago
    > Lots of good advice isn’t clearly falsifiable or rigorously research-based. And I have absolutely no problem with that. When my dad told me "son, you don't have to step into every puddle to know you'll get wet," I didn't need a rigorous proof of the statement. When my wife says "wash the canned beans & chick peas before you cook them" I do it without asking (as I have been trained to).
    - frossie 16y ago
      Well I certainly don't feel like that. Cooking only became interesting to me when I realized there are real answers to the "why do it like that" question. Why rinse the chick peas? To wash away preservatives? Because the slime is off-putting? Because the extra starch will otherwise over-thicken the dish? Dude, how can you NOT want to know?
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Calling something 'science' actually fell out of vogue just a few short years ago. I believe 'organic' is the new way. I just heard what I was told was 'organic music' yesterday. (I started to wonder what this meant. Obviously sound waves are not composed of organic OR non-organic molecules besides perhaps air, so perhaps we should fall back to the commercial definition. Did they grow the wood for their violins without pesticides, and use sustainability grown trees for their sheet music? Or do they include DRM that prevents them from being played on stereos powered with anything other than solar?)
  - rfrey 16y ago
    Agreed that many people claiming "SCIANCE!" don't really know what science is. Most scientists don't, either. That's not meant as a slam against all those other scientists who just aren't as smart as brilliant ol' me. Interest in epistemology is different than a passion for protein folding, and one can effectively apply the methods without diving deep into the philosophy. In the New Organon , (wherein Francis Bacon basically invented the scientific method IMHO), Bacon outright says there will be millions of ground soldiers applying science to the world without understanding deeply the epistemology of their actions. He saw that as natural and unavoidable considering how foreign, unnatural, and downright unpleasant the scientific worldview is to a normal human being. Experience seems to bear out his prediction - in fact, all we have is gradations in the ability to apply scientific thinking. Nobody does it all the time.
- zeraholladay 16y ago
  I think the author's point is that an unfound and irrefutable truth is not interesting. If a person holds a belief and is unwilling to accept evidence to the contrary, then that person is not interested in truth. If a person holds a belief and has made no attempt to verify it with evidence, then that person is human ... but I, for one, am suspicious of their motives proportionally to their conviction.
zavulon 16y ago
My rule of thumb is usually, I don't want to listen to somebody who got rich/successful by teaching other people how to get rich/successful. They have become rich before, and then teach others just because they enjoy doing it. When I read self-help advice by Mark Cuban, or Benjamin Franklin, I tend to trust that a lot more than advice from Tony Robbins or Richard Kyosaki. That is not to say I'd never listen to their message.. but I take everything they say with a big grain of salt.
- 3dFlatLander 16y ago
  > I don't want to listen to somebody who got rich/successful by teaching other people how to get rich/successful I heard someone describe this as 'incestuous'. Web hosting review sites that make money from links to the hosts come to mind. But yes, I also get a red flag whenever seeing someone making money by telling others how to do so.
  - mikecarlucci 16y ago
    Like say, The Four Hour Work Week? It got so much buzz I'm glad I was able to borrow a copy and see what it was all about. Just as glad I didn't buy it too. His best example is to write a book that may provide insight into shortcuts.
zackattack 16y ago
It's easy to find a good business or life coach. Ask them to provide references of at lest 3 past clients. Ask the references what their lives were like before and what their lives are like now. If there is a significant difference, then go for it.
- mahmud 16y ago
  Problem with references is that they're not accurate. People who seek out a life-coach are already working to improve themselves. Along with seeing the life-coach they will make other changes to their life that might improve things, and they will blindly attribute the positive changes to that paid experience. You can see this in people who were criminals then become deeply religious. Their lives "improve" after becoming devout in their faith because they stop abusing substance, smoking, gambling and associating with other criminals. What the dogma gave them is just some codified rules, no one else needs to join the religion to reap the benefits of discipline, but to the practitioners, their faith is the end all be all and they have evidence to prove "it works".
  - zackattack 16y ago
    yeah but life doesn't work like that dude. ceteris paribus never exists in the real world.
    - mahmud 16y ago
      I really hoped to see a better argument than "trust me" .. People are terrible at identifying what is responsible for improving their lives, and are all too readily willing to credit something else, just as they are to blame; instead of identifying and acknowledging their own efforts, or the lack of them. I picked religion as an example because it's something people credit for their well-being almost everywhere. And I am certain "placebo" is a well studied phenomenon, and proven to exist.
      - zackattack 16y ago
        if that's what it takes, give me a fuckin' placebo.
SabrinaDent 16y ago
Theory: The key sign that business/life coaches just want your money is that they call themselves business or life coaches.
iantimothy 16y ago
This is a subject that resonates with me for deeply personal reasons. One of the arguments that supporters of such coaches, and the coaches themselves use is that knowledge is valuable only if recipients of that knowledge value it. The extension of this argument is that a recipient of knowledge will not value it unless he or she has parted money to obtain it. One phrase I hear tossed around a lot in Singapore is, "You must sow before you reap." What really irks me is how these gurus/coaches really know how to position themselves as individuals who are returning to the community. So, I've been thinking whether there is a way to flip this model around. If someone is truly seeking to help the community and truly believes that the seeker of knowledge needs to pay a price before they can extract full value of imparted knowledge, then this model, that I'm hoping I eventually can personally implement, should not be too hard to digest. The model: The guru/coach creates a program with very clear milestones and deliverables. The student pays a lump sum which is held in escrow by a third party (e.g. charity, educational institution...). When the student meets all the milestones and deliverables, at the end of the program, the money is returned to the student. If the student fails to achieve any milestone, the money is donated to a charity. If the student partially achieves the goals set in the beginning, then teacher and student need to sit down and determine what went wrong and reach a consensus on the amount returned to the student and amount given to charity. I've shared this model with some friends and I do believe there are points that still need to be worked out, but I sincerely hope there will be a day when people who seek to better themselves are not impoverished for the personal aggrandizement of others.
sliverstorm 16y ago
You had me at "I'm skeptical of people...". We really need more people to be more skeptical IMO.
ChristianMarks 16y ago
The worst is being compelled by an employer to endure such presentations. If you ever find yourself in this position, you have strong evidence that you have failed in your career.
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
I use to consider as truth what other people says for a limited time frame, and test it in real life. I don't care about the person making money or not, just about if what the person does improve my life or not, or gives me an insight. When I was a kid I used to be the "know it all" rational child witch only believes what it could understand, but as the Buddhist say "if you make the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers", we know it today as "garbage in, garbage out", no matter how powerful is your processing unit or the processing time if you supply it with bad data, you get bad conclusions. I continue trying to understand "everything", but the time frame of "suspended belief" lets me to experiment without judging. If you rationalize too much you could become the ancient Greek that despised experience. The current ideas(beliefs) in your mind fight against possible new ones. e.g. Some people(most of them) suffer from being wrong, your "ego" responds with pain, you could feel hurt if someone publicly prove you are wrong, so the obvious solution for your brain to protect you is to put down external ideas. Everybody wants to change the world, nobody(few) wants to change herself.
epo 16y ago
Peddling something that amounts to psychotherapy. without a grounding in science is clearly suspect. Not necessarily bogus as some belief systems like religion, which have no scientific basis, can have ends which justify the means. These people are promising some kind of transformative process which feeds on an individuals desire for change. They are literally parasites feeding on the desperate, but it is important to remember parasites aren't necessarily* bad, just unpleasant to those of us who don't need their services. * generally (IMHO) bad, just not necessarily
ahoyhere 16y ago
Most coaches are full of crap. So are most parents, teachers, therapists, doctors, lawyers, tax accountants, designers, programmers, consultants and freelancers of every variety, and anyone who ever talks about, writes about, or even thinks the word "entrepreneur." But oh, no, HN hates business coaches especially because of the sneaking feeling that they're tricked by approaches that HN readers cannot understand. Those tricksy life coaches, they'll never get one over on us! All advice should be free! All you have to do is read once to understand! They can't fix your life if you make no effort therefore they are bogus! If they cannot quantify and prove the vaguaries of the human heart, more so than the best scientists in the world, they are a lying thieving scumbag! Please. The original essay is fine-ish, except that it states that the mere presence of good speaking skills means you should suspect a person. The mere presence of a statement like that in a blog post means you should suspect a person. When a person makes a statement like that, you should be on your guard about everything else the person has to say (write), because that indicates a sweeping generalization and no small amount of personal/professional jealousy. Oh yes, witty mnemonics, they're a sign that evil is afoot! But so is showing that you belong to a community and attempting to gain its respect as "one of us" by loudly attacking a presumed common enemy. See, bloggers just want your money and attention too.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Yes, downvote me. That just shows that you prefer to be tricked by people who are putting on a show as being "one of you." Where, I ask you, is the science that proves that there is a correlation between speaking skills and valuelessness? Or witty mnemonics and an intent to trick or defraud? This essay, and the comments, are more of the same deception that the OP accuses a whole industry of. It's just that the call is coming from inside the house.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Most coaches are full of crap. So are most parents, teachers, therapists, doctors, lawyers... I believe the point being made is that "life coaches" are exceptionally good at disguising that they are full of crap. If you force yourself to do the hard work of understanding a dry technical text, filling in the missing details yourself, BS will stand out. If you smile and nod to a charismatic speaker, it wont.

59 points by chime 16y ago

rfrey 16y ago

If what you say cannot be proven or disproven, I'm not interested, even if all of it might be true Although a good starting point, that's a disappointing place to end up. The scientific method was a monumental leap forward in epistemology, but it is not the alpha and omega of knowledge.

chime 16y ago
In the context of how I wrote it, I meant if you're providing me an explanation/solution to a problem, you better be able to prove that is indeed the case. Telling me that "concentrate on your chakras to reduce your stress" won't cut it. Mentioning the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda or translations of it, isn't good enough either. As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. So any claims made on the basis of chakras are invalid as far as I'm concerned. I would be open to interpreting chakras as aspects of our personality if someone can provide a reasonable basis for them.
- psyklic 16y ago
  Ah ha - but there are so many things that cannot be "proven" to be true, yet are still helpful. Stress relief techniques are a case in point - most of us probably try lots of techniques and ultimately end up using what works best for us. There are also complications - e.g. meditation might work best for most people, but I personally may not have the time (or the patience) to do it properly. Hence, I am fine with being given a non-scientific list of stress relief techniques - as long as they are not harmful or time-consuming, then I would be willing to try them.
  - chime 16y ago
    > Stress relief techniques are a case in point - most of us probably try lots of techniques and ultimately end up using what works best for us. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could input variables like your personality, lifestyle, and preferences and get a reliable list of stress-relief techniques along with the probability that they'll work for you? Maybe it's impossible with our current standard of knowledge but surely you can imagine an advanced civilization that can do it by simulating "you" inside a virtual machine or just solving trillions of linear equations for every variable that defines you. What isn't provable today may be provable (within bounds) tomorrow. Unfortunately, the problem today is that the moment someone shows that X works for Y in condition Z, everyone starts trying to sell X to everyone else for every problem.
    - psyklic 16y ago
      First, no physical science has "provable" results - they are merely correlational. Second, such a study would have a gargantuan cost, merely for results that would have limited practical use. An expert in stress relief can probably come up with a very accurate list of techniques for someone that would help them out. Using your approach only gives a small optimization on this. However, scientists should investigate why stress relief techniques work, and that investigation may overlap a bit.
- brudgers 16y ago
  >" As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. So any claims made on the basis of chakras are invalid as far as I'm concerned." Were someone to dissect you, they would not find your concern, or any other mental state (or your personality either). However, it would be absurd to argue that therefore you have no concern on that basis. "Concentrate on your breathing to reduce your stress" suffers from the same problem. Upon dissection, there would be no breathing. Furthermore, "concentrate" is no less problematic than "chakra" within a logical-positivist framework. None of which is to deny that many life coaches may be FOS -- I found Ehrenreich's description of them in Bait and Switch consistent with my observations.
- pella 16y ago
  > As far as I know no chakras have been found during any dissection nor have we found any evidence of them indirectly. interesting: Prospective Tests on Biological Models of Acupuncture eCAM 2009 6(1):31-39; doi:10.1093/ecam/nem122 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/1/31 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/1/31 see "Figure 3": http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/6/1/31/F3 http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full/6/1/31/F3 "Figure 3. Just as the distribution of pheochromocytoma correlates with the distribution of sympathetic ganglions, the distribution of germ cell tumors correlates with undifferentiated cells in human body which are likely to be involved in the regulation of growth control and physiology as part of the ‘inner meridian system’. This distribution also correlates well with the chakra system used in yoga and acupuncture, suggesting a unified structural basis for chakra system and meridian system"
- rfrey 16y ago
  I have no trouble with the scientific method, in fact I'm a science fanboy. I do maintain some discomfort with your <edit: my interpretation of your> stance though. I hope my first point doesn't come across as nitpicking - it's not meant to. I bring it up because it seems to be the primary way that people who think they understand science, but don't, perceive science. It is that you seem to value things that can be proven true. Nothing in science can be proven true - that's why it's so uncomfortable to so many people, and in fact is why the scientific method was such an epistemological break from the past. All we can do is disprove things. My problem with holistic medicine or chakras or chi isn't that dissection hasn't found evidence. It's that the theory/model/worldview isn't formulated in a way that can be falsified and therefore the the views have no meaning in a scientific context. Note that I didn't say they were false from a scientist's view. They simply aren't meaningful - they're content free. A scientist wouldn't actually say they're true or false: a scientist would say that science has nothing to say about them. The second issue I have with your position is related to the first point but slightly different: I think it's incorrect to label as false models that have no evidence. For example, say a holistic medicine practitioner relents and formulates one of his practices in a falsifiable way. Tests are done and no beneficial effect is shown. I think the appropriate response is that the model is unlikely to be true, not that the model is false. We simply haven't disproved the null hypothesis yet - that's not to say it won't or can't be done. The scientific method just adds 9s to the certainty. It is never certain. In short, a scientist is profoundly and radically humble.
celoyd 16y ago
I think he addresses this a little at the bottom with “I do have a problem with people who claim to have done SCIENCE and then when you dig in, turn out to have done no such thing.” Calling something science is pretty much the way of giving it prestige these days. This is bad for the reputation of science, but it’s also bad for the reputation of useful non-scientific kinds of knowledge. Lots of good advice isn’t clearly falsifiable or rigorously research-based.
- chime 16y ago
  > Lots of good advice isn’t clearly falsifiable or rigorously research-based. And I have absolutely no problem with that. When my dad told me "son, you don't have to step into every puddle to know you'll get wet," I didn't need a rigorous proof of the statement. When my wife says "wash the canned beans & chick peas before you cook them" I do it without asking (as I have been trained to).
  - frossie 16y ago
    Well I certainly don't feel like that. Cooking only became interesting to me when I realized there are real answers to the "why do it like that" question. Why rinse the chick peas? To wash away preservatives? Because the slime is off-putting? Because the extra starch will otherwise over-thicken the dish? Dude, how can you NOT want to know?
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Calling something 'science' actually fell out of vogue just a few short years ago. I believe 'organic' is the new way. I just heard what I was told was 'organic music' yesterday. (I started to wonder what this meant. Obviously sound waves are not composed of organic OR non-organic molecules besides perhaps air, so perhaps we should fall back to the commercial definition. Did they grow the wood for their violins without pesticides, and use sustainability grown trees for their sheet music? Or do they include DRM that prevents them from being played on stereos powered with anything other than solar?)
- rfrey 16y ago
  Agreed that many people claiming "SCIANCE!" don't really know what science is. Most scientists don't, either. That's not meant as a slam against all those other scientists who just aren't as smart as brilliant ol' me. Interest in epistemology is different than a passion for protein folding, and one can effectively apply the methods without diving deep into the philosophy. In the New Organon , (wherein Francis Bacon basically invented the scientific method IMHO), Bacon outright says there will be millions of ground soldiers applying science to the world without understanding deeply the epistemology of their actions. He saw that as natural and unavoidable considering how foreign, unnatural, and downright unpleasant the scientific worldview is to a normal human being. Experience seems to bear out his prediction - in fact, all we have is gradations in the ability to apply scientific thinking. Nobody does it all the time.
zeraholladay 16y ago
I think the author's point is that an unfound and irrefutable truth is not interesting. If a person holds a belief and is unwilling to accept evidence to the contrary, then that person is not interested in truth. If a person holds a belief and has made no attempt to verify it with evidence, then that person is human ... but I, for one, am suspicious of their motives proportionally to their conviction.

zavulon 16y ago

My rule of thumb is usually, I don't want to listen to somebody who got rich/successful by teaching other people how to get rich/successful. They have become rich before, and then teach others just because they enjoy doing it. When I read self-help advice by Mark Cuban, or Benjamin Franklin, I tend to trust that a lot more than advice from Tony Robbins or Richard Kyosaki. That is not to say I'd never listen to their message.. but I take everything they say with a big grain of salt.

3dFlatLander 16y ago
> I don't want to listen to somebody who got rich/successful by teaching other people how to get rich/successful I heard someone describe this as 'incestuous'. Web hosting review sites that make money from links to the hosts come to mind. But yes, I also get a red flag whenever seeing someone making money by telling others how to do so.
- mikecarlucci 16y ago
  Like say, The Four Hour Work Week? It got so much buzz I'm glad I was able to borrow a copy and see what it was all about. Just as glad I didn't buy it too. His best example is to write a book that may provide insight into shortcuts.

zackattack 16y ago

It's easy to find a good business or life coach. Ask them to provide references of at lest 3 past clients. Ask the references what their lives were like before and what their lives are like now. If there is a significant difference, then go for it.

mahmud 16y ago
Problem with references is that they're not accurate. People who seek out a life-coach are already working to improve themselves. Along with seeing the life-coach they will make other changes to their life that might improve things, and they will blindly attribute the positive changes to that paid experience. You can see this in people who were criminals then become deeply religious. Their lives "improve" after becoming devout in their faith because they stop abusing substance, smoking, gambling and associating with other criminals. What the dogma gave them is just some codified rules, no one else needs to join the religion to reap the benefits of discipline, but to the practitioners, their faith is the end all be all and they have evidence to prove "it works".
- zackattack 16y ago
  yeah but life doesn't work like that dude. ceteris paribus never exists in the real world.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    I really hoped to see a better argument than "trust me" .. People are terrible at identifying what is responsible for improving their lives, and are all too readily willing to credit something else, just as they are to blame; instead of identifying and acknowledging their own efforts, or the lack of them. I picked religion as an example because it's something people credit for their well-being almost everywhere. And I am certain "placebo" is a well studied phenomenon, and proven to exist.
    - zackattack 16y ago
      if that's what it takes, give me a fuckin' placebo.

SabrinaDent 16y ago

Theory: The key sign that business/life coaches just want your money is that they call themselves business or life coaches.

iantimothy 16y ago

This is a subject that resonates with me for deeply personal reasons. One of the arguments that supporters of such coaches, and the coaches themselves use is that knowledge is valuable only if recipients of that knowledge value it. The extension of this argument is that a recipient of knowledge will not value it unless he or she has parted money to obtain it. One phrase I hear tossed around a lot in Singapore is, "You must sow before you reap." What really irks me is how these gurus/coaches really know how to position themselves as individuals who are returning to the community. So, I've been thinking whether there is a way to flip this model around. If someone is truly seeking to help the community and truly believes that the seeker of knowledge needs to pay a price before they can extract full value of imparted knowledge, then this model, that I'm hoping I eventually can personally implement, should not be too hard to digest. The model: The guru/coach creates a program with very clear milestones and deliverables. The student pays a lump sum which is held in escrow by a third party (e.g. charity, educational institution...). When the student meets all the milestones and deliverables, at the end of the program, the money is returned to the student. If the student fails to achieve any milestone, the money is donated to a charity. If the student partially achieves the goals set in the beginning, then teacher and student need to sit down and determine what went wrong and reach a consensus on the amount returned to the student and amount given to charity. I've shared this model with some friends and I do believe there are points that still need to be worked out, but I sincerely hope there will be a day when people who seek to better themselves are not impoverished for the personal aggrandizement of others.

sliverstorm 16y ago

You had me at "I'm skeptical of people...". We really need more people to be more skeptical IMO.

ChristianMarks 16y ago

The worst is being compelled by an employer to endure such presentations. If you ever find yourself in this position, you have strong evidence that you have failed in your career.

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago

I use to consider as truth what other people says for a limited time frame, and test it in real life. I don't care about the person making money or not, just about if what the person does improve my life or not, or gives me an insight. When I was a kid I used to be the "know it all" rational child witch only believes what it could understand, but as the Buddhist say "if you make the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers", we know it today as "garbage in, garbage out", no matter how powerful is your processing unit or the processing time if you supply it with bad data, you get bad conclusions. I continue trying to understand "everything", but the time frame of "suspended belief" lets me to experiment without judging. If you rationalize too much you could become the ancient Greek that despised experience. The current ideas(beliefs) in your mind fight against possible new ones. e.g. Some people(most of them) suffer from being wrong, your "ego" responds with pain, you could feel hurt if someone publicly prove you are wrong, so the obvious solution for your brain to protect you is to put down external ideas. Everybody wants to change the world, nobody(few) wants to change herself.

epo 16y ago

Peddling something that amounts to psychotherapy. without a grounding in science is clearly suspect. Not necessarily bogus as some belief systems like religion, which have no scientific basis, can have ends which justify the means. These people are promising some kind of transformative process which feeds on an individuals desire for change. They are literally parasites feeding on the desperate, but it is important to remember parasites aren't necessarily* bad, just unpleasant to those of us who don't need their services. * generally (IMHO) bad, just not necessarily

ahoyhere 16y ago

Most coaches are full of crap. So are most parents, teachers, therapists, doctors, lawyers, tax accountants, designers, programmers, consultants and freelancers of every variety, and anyone who ever talks about, writes about, or even thinks the word "entrepreneur." But oh, no, HN hates business coaches especially because of the sneaking feeling that they're tricked by approaches that HN readers cannot understand. Those tricksy life coaches, they'll never get one over on us! All advice should be free! All you have to do is read once to understand! They can't fix your life if you make no effort therefore they are bogus! If they cannot quantify and prove the vaguaries of the human heart, more so than the best scientists in the world, they are a lying thieving scumbag! Please. The original essay is fine-ish, except that it states that the mere presence of good speaking skills means you should suspect a person. The mere presence of a statement like that in a blog post means you should suspect a person. When a person makes a statement like that, you should be on your guard about everything else the person has to say (write), because that indicates a sweeping generalization and no small amount of personal/professional jealousy. Oh yes, witty mnemonics, they're a sign that evil is afoot! But so is showing that you belong to a community and attempting to gain its respect as "one of us" by loudly attacking a presumed common enemy. See, bloggers just want your money and attention too.

ahoyhere 16y ago
Yes, downvote me. That just shows that you prefer to be tricked by people who are putting on a show as being "one of you." Where, I ask you, is the science that proves that there is a correlation between speaking skills and valuelessness? Or witty mnemonics and an intent to trick or defraud? This essay, and the comments, are more of the same deception that the OP accuses a whole industry of. It's just that the call is coming from inside the house.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
Most coaches are full of crap. So are most parents, teachers, therapists, doctors, lawyers... I believe the point being made is that "life coaches" are exceptionally good at disguising that they are full of crap. If you force yourself to do the hard work of understanding a dry technical text, filling in the missing details yourself, BS will stand out. If you smile and nod to a charismatic speaker, it wont.