Becoming a Life Coach by Tom Chiarella

Author:Tom Chiarella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

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NOT A FRIEND

Gregory Diehl, 30

The Philippines, currently

Some people see life coaching as the warm and fuzzy frontier of the affirmation business. The coaches we’ve encountered so far could be considered friendly and caring; they navigate the space around personal relationships without great risk because their attentions are gentle and unforced. Yes, they are working to tip over reinforcement patterns in order to trigger change in their clients, but they are attentive, caring, and funny in doing so. They seek to connect.

Most of us have encountered athletic coaches—football, tennis, hockey—who didn’t care about connection. They were not interested in making their athletes feel good about what they brought with them to the job. They yelled, they belittled, they demanded that the athletes dig deeper and produce more. And they pretended not to care if the athletes didn’t respond. Except for yelling. That just made them yell louder. But what about life coaches? Can they work with paying clients while provoking, antagonizing, and upsetting them? How do they implement a combative philosophy without pushing a client to the exits?

Enter Gregory Diehl, an up-and-coming life coach who’s written three books and consulted with internet start-ups. He hosts a popular travel podcast. He’s marketed as a travel consultant, having lived in fifty countries in the last twelve years. He has taught in locations like rural China, Iraq, Ecuador, and Armenia. He’s written a book on the matter called Travel as Transformation, which he self-published. His books produce a reliable income stream.

Diehl claims his primary technique in life coaching is a strategy he coined: strategic aggravation, he calls it. He works to upset the ebb and flow of coach-client communication, with persistent questions and skepticism. He is dismissive, argumentative, and at times downright rude.

At thirty, he is already a kind of guru life coach, with a loyal following of readers of his books and listeners to his podcasts. He comes recommended by an actor friend who considers Diehl the toughest life coach in the world. “He doesn’t care what you think coming in,” the actor says. “I don’t even think he cares what you end up thinking. He wants to see your thinking and rethinking as it happens. He’s impatient and demanding. But it works somehow. He makes you stronger.”

As with many life coaches, Diehl’s connection to this client occurred through word of mouth. The actor likes Diehl’s writing, is a loyal listener to Diehl’s podcasts, and reads his books. He learned of Diehl from a personal trainer who, while traveling in Malaysia, heard him mentioned in a podcast on travel. “He’ll scare you,” the trainer said. “He wants you to be in pain. He’s kind of a grumpy guy,” he said. “He scolds. And doesn’t encourage you, really. He’s like an old-time football coach. He’s just sort of over you from the get-go. Kind of an asshole, I guess. He’s just tough.”

“I’m not tough,” Diehl later says via Skype, shaking his head. “I simply believe you can only make discoveries through difficult experiences, and most people avoid difficult experiences as much as they can.

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