Episode 83: Is Coaching Really an Unregulated Industry?

Rachel Monroe’s thought-provoking article, “I’m a life coach, you’re a life coach: the rise of an unregulated industry” has sparked conversation and even debate within and outside of the coaching community. In this episode, I’m sharing my opinion on the article and its critiques as well as what it says about the intersection between coaching and mental health.

83: Is Coaching Really an Unregulated Industry?

The coaching industry is entirely unregulated. That's what one writer claimed in a recent article in The Guardian. If you're been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll know that I take issue with that characterization.

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Show Notes

The coaching industry is entirely unregulated.

That’s what one writer claimed in a recent article in The Guardian. If you’re been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ll know that I take issue with that characterization.

This week I’m deviating from my scheduled content to talk about Rachel Monroe’s article “I’m a life coach, you’re a life coach: the rise of an unregulated industry.”

Over the past couple of days, I’ve seen this article everywhere. While I don’t agree with it all, the article is thought-provoking, and the critiques outlined in this article bring up several issues which all of us as coaches should be thinking about in our practices.

In this episode, I’m sharing my opinion on the article and the issues it raises, which are very much at the heart of the work that I do.

Topics covered

  • The article that sparked the conversation in this episode
  • Putting this article in context
  • Why I take issue with the claim that the coaching industry is entirely unregulated
  • The problem with framing one business as a representative sample of an entire industry
  • What every coach can learn from the critiques of The Life Coach School
  • The downside of The Model as a coaching strategy
  • My experience in Self Coaching Scholars and with the Life Coach School Podcast
  • Getting clear on the lines between therapy and coaching

Resources mentioned

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Well, hello, my friend. Welcome to the Coach with Clarity Podcast. I'm your host, Lee Chaix McDonough, and I am so honored that you're joining me for today's episode. Now I'm going to be honest with you, I am going away from my pre-planned calendar of episode topics because I really want to address something that has come up within the last week. So I am recording this episode on Monday, October 11th. And I believe it's going to be dropping in your podcast feed on Monday, October 18th. And I want to talk about an article that was published last week in The Guardian. And the title of the article is, “I'm a Life Coach, You're a Life Coach: the Rise of an Unregulated Industry”, and it's by a writer named Rachel Monroe. I cannot tell you how many people have reached out to me over the last week about this article, and I have seen this article everywhere. I have seen it in countless Facebook groups and posted by friends and colleagues. I've seen it on LinkedIn. I've seen it on Twitter. And I've definitely seen it in my inbox and in my DMs, because my own students, members, and colleagues want my opinion on it, because it's very much at the heart of the work that I do. So I thought I would press pause on my content calendar for the podcast and take this opportunity to walk through my thoughts about this article. Because I will say I think this is a very thought provoking article, which I hope is it’s intention. I hope that it is meant to spark conversation, and even debate, within the coaching community and also outside it, because it also looks at the intersection of coaching and mental health. And this article is part of a larger series The Guardian is doing about the evolution of mental health care in the 21st Century. So if the intention is to spur conversation, then I am for it. And that's exactly what I want today's podcast episode to do as well. 

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