I come across a lot of coaches these days aspire to having big practices, bringing in a ton of people, selling online courses, making a ton of money. . .cruising through some of the largest Facebook forums for life coaching and consultants with tens of thousands of members - I'm literally amazed at how many posts on here start with - "do you want to know how to make a ton of money as a coach?"

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Bigger coaching practices and more money is widely considered better. . . who would disagree with that???. However - extremely little thought and consideration ever goes into the hidden costs of what sort of life you'd have having a practice like this - working with a ton of people, striving to be rich and famous, trying to save the planet, make the difference - and having to be with and feel a ton of people's energy (especially negative energy that comes up when working out things). . .

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To work with a ton of people, you'd almost certainly have to keep them at arm's length because to really "be with" a lot of people's energy, feeling all their emotional stuff that comes up for them - if you're working closely with them, would be absolutely brutal and even have the potential of wrecking your life and your health. . .something that next to no one considers and highly "unexamined".

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Thomas Leonard, who founded Coachville, is considered to be one of the fathers of the life coaching industry and movement. You would think he'd have a perfect life, . . .after all, he worked with a ton of people, had group coaching programs, put people through his coaching schools with the hope of turning them out as prosperous coaches (although very very few made any money coming out of his schools).

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Yet, he died of a heart attack at 47 years old. How could that be? He was coaching people on how to have all areas of life working out and you'd think that he had it all in life - but his health fell apart. . .there's something not quite right about this at all and things don't add up.

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What's interesting is that it is widely agreed upon by many allopathic and naturopathic doctors is that genetics only accounts for less 7% or less of people's health outcomes / results - https://www.statnews.com/2018/11/06/life-span-genes-ancestry-database/ - so although his heart attack could have been due to weak genetics, it's far more plausible to say that it was due to other factors like diet, exercise, sleep, and stress that play a much more important role . . .especially stress-related factors.

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The question one might ask is "what was not working in his life that had his health collapse". Well, consider that he had the same aspirations - to go big, save the planet, make "the difference" and make lots of money. He did lots of group sessions - wanting really scale things out. But, this design doesn't really allow a very high degree of close relatedness to clients. . .you just don't have the time or bandwidth to do this. Anyone who has worked really closely with their clients knows that you take on the energy of your clients. But if you really took on the "energetic" burden of too many people, actually "feeling" what's coming up for them - this might actually be a really bad idea and cause an enormous amount of stress and have a very adverse impact in life.

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I don't know if this happened to Thomas Leonard but wonder about this. . .it's kind of like the dark side of success that doesn't get talked about much at all.

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What's interesting is that so many still follow this sort of model of coaching . . .with the quiet aspiration of wanting to be rich and famous (and certainly nothing wrong with that). . .I'm not sure if this same model as Thomas Leonard developed is taught at ICF accredited schools these days (with different marketing techniques of course) but my sense is that this might be what's still going on to a certain degree.

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So what's the alternative. . .I don't have all the answers - however, I got introduced to something years ago that made a lot more sense than so many of the models for what's considered to be a successful and fulfilling life . . .and it's something I've been ascribing to and following for the last 5-10 years - which is an Epicurean lifestyle. . . https://www.verywellmind.com/epicurean-philosophy-and-happiness-4177914 To summarize - the Epicurean lifestyle is about going for pleasure in moderation, having a simple life (i.e. questioning if that really really expensive house, car, or whatever, or having a huge business - actually gives you more pleasure than having something simple - and if you have the really expensive thing - what would be the real cost to you consuming much more time and energy to be able to afford it); aspiring to have much deeper meaningful relationships with people versus surficial / superficial ones because you're spread so thin all the time, spending more time in nature, living an examined more self-aware life, focusing on relationships, community and love versus material things and always chasing money. I'm not saying this is better, but there's a different quality of "being" and "being present" that can be had with this way of living for sure. . .

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I wanted to point out something else - perhaps the biggest thing that people are looking for is for someone who takes the time to really listen and "hear" where they're at and love them unconditionally . . . perhaps this makes the biggest difference of all for people of anything or coaching or telling them something. But trying to do this sort of deeper listening work with others with a big scaled out practice doesn't really work for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

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Perhaps the biggest concern of the coach is that they won't survive financially if they don't do a big scaled out practice. . .yet, it's just not the case and it turns out that you get "enough" when you really take care of people and take the time to really listen and love someone unconditionally. . .it's something that just happens that you get taken care of and something profoundly amazing to learn this lifetime. . .

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Sure, you might have to let go of the attachment to being rich and famous - but having that goal might turn out to be not good for you at the end of the day anyways. There's an expression - you can't really get enough of what you don't really want. . .

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Anyhow. . .just had to say this . . .and all good whatever people are doing here in this Reddit group as well as other Facebook Forums for coaching, in life coaching schools and so on. . .and I don't know if anyone wants to even hear this message at all. . .it may even be really confronting to consider this, but even if one person in this group had a flash of insight and awareness come in around their lives, that might be interesting:)