TV Program Confuses Viewers about True Life Coaching

By: Bill Dueease and Christy Donner

The daytime television program called Starting Over has been on the air for about three years. It is a scripted, Hollywood-style, reality TV-show, featuring women with many different life problems, who have been sequestered in a house under controlled conditions. The show is an entertaining drama as the women are followed around 24/7 with cameras recording their struggles to overcome their problems.

The show provides at least two people they call "Life Coaches" and at least one consulting psychologist to help the women on the show overcome their problems. The show also provides other resources including makeup artists, hair stylists, and even Jenny Craig to help the women improve their appearance and lose weight as part of their path to overcome their problems.

To get a better understanding of the coaching clients who appear on the show and the problems they bring with them, here are brief biographies of the participants:

* A woman over 40 who lives at home and is still being supported by her parents.
* A woman facing cancer and struggling to survive and get on with her life.
* A woman whose mother was killed in one of the 9-11 airplane crashes and struggles to deal with the grief and life thereafter.
* An Olympic hopeful gymnast who missed her chance to make the team and is struggling with the guilt and depression of letting her family down.
* A young woman who suffered a sudden onset of blindness and struggling to cope and adjust.
* A young pregnant woman who is single, does not know the father of her child, and struggling to cope with motherhood alone.
* A woman who suffered physical and sexual abuse from her family and struggling to have a normal life.
* A woman who had a severe weight loss due to gastric bypass surgery and struggling to adjust to her new size and shape.

The show broadcasts edited video of taped interactions between two "Life Ccaches" who appear to do whatever they can to change the women as a means of overcoming their problems. The Life Coaches apparently have considerable power over these women to toss them from the show, if the women participants do not do what they are told to do. The women are mainly confined to the house and are subjected to cameras taping almost their every move, especially their interactions with the Life Coaches, therapists, makeup artists and weight loss guru's.

We are happy that Starting Over alerts the general public about the life coaching process by showing how their two "Life Coaches" interact with these women with problems. Unfortunately, the producers and writers of the show are portraying the life coaching process and how life coaches help people in a very inaccurate and even sometimes negative way. Viewers are led to believe that true life coaches do what the supposed "Life Coaches" on Starting Over do to these women when they are experiencing typical life situations.

We believe it is important to point out how true life coaching differs from the Hollywood version shown on Starting Over. The reason we feel compelled to do this is because we receive more and more calls from Starting Over viewers everyday who want The Coach Connection (TCC) and TCC Member Coaches to do what the Starting Over "Life Coaches" do. But Starting Over "Life Coaches" are not providing life coaching or anything like it.

Here are the differences between the "Life Coaches" portrayed on Starting Over and true life coaches.

• Starting Over women (clients) come to the program with problems, most often dramatic ones.
  Coaching clients come with a desire to improve their lives by achieving "Coachable Goals," which are future places they want to be that require them to grow and improve as a person to achieve them. They are not escaping or fixing problems.
  
• Starting Over women are housed in controlled environments where the "Life Coaches" judge the women to decide who stays, who is told to leave, and who graduates from the show. The women know it and respond to the authoritarian position of the "Life Coaches." Coaching clients are free to come and go as they please. True coaches do not judge or evaluate clients, and have no control over what their clients do.
  
• Starting Over "Life Coaches" act as their "clients" all-knowing superiors and come across as arrogant. True life coaches are equal partners and not the superiors of their clients.
• Starting Over "Life Coaches" constantly tell the women what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. True life coaches do not tell clients what to do or give advice.
• Starting Over "Life Coaches" seem to demand the spotlight and take as much credit as possible for any changes. They are the stars of the show. They are paid to be the center of attention. True life coaches focus all of their energies on their clients, who become the true center of their attention. Life coaches concentrate on assisting their clients to achieve their goals, receive their rewards, and celebrate as they see fit, without the involvement of their life coaches, who remain behind the scene.
  
• Starting Over coaching is performed in the open public and the "Life Coaches" do not care about the privacy or confidentiality of their relationships with the women on the show.
  True life coaches are bound by strict confidentiality ethics and protect the privacy and secrecy of what transpires between them and their clients at all costs.
  

As you can see the differences are many and very substantial between the "Life Coaches" on Starting Over and true life coaching. These differences are so glaring that it can create very confusing and frustrating situations when Starting Over viewers seek their own "Life Coaches" to be in the same mold as portrayed by the "Life Coaches" on Starting Over. At TCC we have had some interesting conversations trying to explain that true life coaches will not perform the same activities as the "Life Coaches" on Starting Over.

We are not saying that the "Life Coaches" on Starting Over are good, bad, better, or worse, than true life coaching. That is not our place to judge. We are only saying that the writers and producers are mislabeling their star characters as "Life Coaches." Based upon our contact with the show and our understanding how and why it was formed, we believe that they purposefully mislabeled their stars as "Life Coaches" at the beginning to take advantage of the credibility and legitimacy of the true life coaching process. It worked for them. Yet, the power of their Hollywood show has created a very false and inaccurate picture of life coaching.

Unfortunately, the Starting Over TV-show has a much larger viewing public and far greater penetration into the hearts and minds of millions of viewers (and sponsors) than TCC and the entire coaching profession. We can only attempt to broadcast the truth from our little blog and through any other means we can find.

We hope that more viewers of the Starting Over show and other TV shows that feature supposed "Life Coaches" will be inspired to consider using life coaches to improve their lives. We also hope that these viewers will be able to learn the differences between what true life coaches can do for them and what they see on Starting Over. Once they learn about what true life coaches do, they will undoubtedly give life coaching much greater respect and consideration as a means to creating the future they really want.

About the Authors:

Bill Dueease is the President and Co-Founder of The Coach Connection (TCC), a service rated as the best in business for bringing coaches and clients together. TCC has matched over 700 clients with their ideal coaches in the last 3.5 years. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama, a former Chapter Host for the International Coach Federation, and currently lives with his wife and two of their four children in Fort Myers, Florida.

Christy Donner is the Vice-President of The Coach Connection and specializes in helping clients with career transitions. She has an MBA, and is a CoachU and Career Coach Institute graduate. She is an active member of the International Coach Federation and currently lives in Cape Coral, Florida with her husband and one of their two children.

The Coach Connection (http://www.findyourcoach.com) can be contacted at (800) 887-7214 or (239) 415-1777. A paper comparing TCC to other "referral" services can be found at: http://www.peer.ca/coachingnews.html#topfive

This article first appeared in COACHING NEWS, ISSN 1708-9026, April 19, 2006 Back issues of The Coaching News are available online at http://www.peer.ca/thecoachingnews.html. To subscribe or unsubscribe send an email to info@peer.ca.