Just spent 1.5 hours speaking to someone trying to convince him why he should NOT hire me as his life coach. This has become a once a month pattern now.
You see I’ve coached a lot of doctors and psychiatrists myself and I remember their advice, “Milind, DO NOT – whatever happens, DO NOT coach a person who has suicidal tendencies. Such people need psychiatric treatment and therapy, not coaching.”
When people are dealing with depression, disorders and serious hormonal imbalances that can cause them to inflict harm to themselves (or others), they need healing. If you know people like these in your life you should suggest to them that they see a doctor.
The treatment varies from medication to meditation, yoga, therapy etc. This treatment is gentle. It is designed to slowly bring a person back to normal. With time, it works.
Life Coaching.. at least MY life coaching is anything but gentle. I do straight talk with my clients.
I show my clients what they cannot see. I show my clients what they do not want to see. I show my clients the ugly truths about their life they are running away from.
Some hate me for that. Some love me for that. Either way they experience phenomenal power. This is very different from therapy.
Therapy is like helping someone with a broken leg to walk again. Coaching is helping them run the marathon in record time.
Most people do not understand the difference between psychiatric interventions/ therapy and life coaching, simply because the awareness about all this is still so low in India.
In my own way, and drawing from my 9 years and 5000+ hours of coaching experience I have tried to make that distinction clear in this post. Hopefully you can do your bit now in helping people around you get the right support structure.
“I’m so disappointed you do not want to coach me”, this prospect finally told me.
“Bro, I love you. I care for you. Life is precious. I want you to do justice to the 9 months your mother kept you in her womb. I WANT to coach you. But not NOW. First you need psychiatric treatment. Get yourself healed. THEN come to me. THEN I will coach you and help you become powerful beyond your wildest imagination.”