GET A LIFE COACH!

What the hell is a Life Coach? Doesn't a guy who advertises himself as a life coach sound like he's finding something to do with himself because he has no skills at all? When did being a loser know-it-all become a job description? And who hires these people? Don't we all know somebody who always tells everybody else what to do for free? Why spend a penny of your hard earned to ignore some other fool? What the hell has gotten into people? Can't we just figure stuff out on our own anymore?

Were you aware there are more than 8 million results for Life Coach on internet search engines? There are corporate life coaches, Christian life coaches, Women's life coaches (guys probably looking to get laid), strength life coaches and for those who want to really look important there's Life and Wellness coaches, Life and Spirituality coaches (they must be a real yawn), Life and Nutrition coaches, and even life coaches for other life coaches, the ultimate scam. How bizarre is this turn of events? And isn't it sort of a slap in the face to Mom, our original life coach? Does anybody think there's something she forgot to cover? That's not very likely. Maybe they think they need a refresher course on whether or not to run with scissors and when to put on a sweater. People do forget things.

When I hear about scams like this, my first reaction is to laugh. My second reaction is to wonder how I can get in on some of this easy money. I figure if there are people dumb enough to hire a life coach and are going to waste their dough anyway, well, why not hand over over some of their currency to me? As far as I can tell, there's really no specific set of job skills for life coaching, right up my alley. And I can tell an idiot what to do with the best of them. Who knows, maybe I could even do some good for some of these assholes, perhaps coach them into being somewhat less of a jerk. I figure they won't be any worse off for having wasted their dough on life coach services.

Or maybe they will, but that's not the point, is it? One of America's greatest life coaches ever, W.C. Fields, often said it is a sin to let a sucker keep any of his money. So maybe I'll call my service "Get a Life Coaching Company." I'd have to resist the temptation to offer the advice that readily comes to my mind when speaking to somebody seeking to hire a life coach, which would be: "Wake the fuck up and snap out of it, you sniveling wimp!" That would be sort of counterproductive, no? I'd have to develop some more subtle variations of that theme in order to keep them paying me until they realize it's a scam.

And once they realize it's a scam, what are they going to do, sue me? Hah! They'll be so embarrassed at having done something as stupid as hiring a life coach they'll probably pay me extra to go away and not tell anybody they were my client. It's a win-win situation for a life coach. Besides, how could anybody prove that a life coach didn't do a proper job? They're still alive, right? So if you still have a life, such as it is, you have no complaint. No rational being can expect somebody else to change them and make decisions for them and expect everything is going to be alright. As long as the life coach doesn't kill his client, he's done his job, the guy still has a life.

Get a Life Coach Company won't offer any extravagant claims or anything so specific as to be actionable. I'll probably teach people a better way to tie their shoes or hang up their clothes, maybe instruct them to reorganize their filing system or something. Again, I'll have to resist the temptation to tell them to start drinking and smoking cigarettes or to take up crazy hobbies like bunji-jumping and sky-diving. The con-artists' code frowns on ruining a perfectly good sucker who can be bilked of some more of his hard earned down line when some other new-age fad becomes all the rage.

Now that I think about it, this Life Coach scam is even better than the therapy scam. You don't need to be a doctor or a psychologist to cash in and there's no pesky regulatory agency or industry guidelines to interfere with your cash flow. I think the therapy scam is showing signs of petering out, and about time too. Those jokers are the worst sort of scammers, they think they're doing something useful while they overcharge their unsuspecting marks. Hey, I've been to plenty of therapy, what with my being completely nuts and all, and I can tell you from experience that a bigger bunch of clueless losers never walked the earth. The only reason I ever went to therapy was to shut up some people in my life, loved ones and judges and the like. I did my time, listened to their blatherings and went on my merry way the exact same person I've always been.

Luckily I had received invaluable training as a youngster in Catholic school telling religious fanatics what they wanted to hear to avoid get slapped around or whacked with a yardstick. Nuns tend to be especially delusional human beings convinced that everything they think is absolutely correct and it is their mission in life to justify their warped world view by imposing it on hapless children. Lucky for me they're also a bunch of suckers easily mollified by the right mouthful of bullshit. And unlike therapists, they could actually beat you senseless if you didn't learn to play their particular little mind games. Well, after some some severe beatings I wised up and aced that exam, so therapists were just another annoying bunch of small minded killjoys to be placated. They are not in the Dominican Sisters' league at all so I was immune to their feeble tactics.

Any changing I ever did was my own decision, not because some pompous neurotic offered me their ridiculous opinion of what I'm supposed to be like. I figure I'm supposed to be who I am as long as I'm not brandishing firearms or making a nuisance of myself. But my time in therapy was not wasted. It opened my eyes to what a scam the whole deal really is, and what a waste of breath it is to try to talk someone out of being who they really are. Humanity has long recognized this simple truth and for extremes cases they invented prisons, places where nobody gives a rat's ass about your personal growth so long as you remain locked up and not "personally growing" murderous and psychotic at the expense of the rest of society. The smart therapists realize this and so they prescribe powerful drugs to control people who haven't done anything that might get them locked up. This way they can call their pathetic efforts at therapy a success, as long as the mark keep taking the happy pills, naturally. The dispensing of these so-called medicines is nothing but the bald admission that talk therapy is just that; all talk and no action.

They have managed, however, to put the lie to the old axion that talk is cheap, something that scam artists have always know without the benefit of an advanced degree. Ever see a therapist's bill? It's not cheap at all. Somebody's got to pay for their expensive educations in the Art of Making No Difference Whatsoever, and if you're in therapy, it's you. So that's where the Life Coach scam is a thing of beauty, playing on a population of suckers already softened up to the idea that somebody else has all the answers to life's dilemmas, and with a little pompous posturing and judicious mentions of meaningless phrases like "mentoring potential" and "success horizon" you can jump on the gravy train of taking gullible and insecure people's money away from them. Better still, it's their idea to hand you fistfuls of dollars! They'd be more upset if you turned them down, actually refused to steal from them!How great is that?

The fact that nobody knows what the hell you're talking about is actually an asset, they'll think you're smart and know things they don't. In reality, the only thing you need to know that they don't is that you need to get paid for acting like a pompous fool, and paid very well indeed or you're acting like a jerk for nothing. You don't have to "help" anybody, just let them think they're being helped. That's more valuable than anything you might tell them, good or bad. They'll feel good about themselves and you'll have some money you didn't have when you woke up that morning. Eventually they'll wake up and decide they don't need your advice anymore but if you play your cards right, you can make it sound like another success story and they'll recommend your services to another hapless mark.

That's just so much better than pyramid schemes and check-kiting since people who get blatantly robbed for big dough are very unlikely to offer a recommendation to anybody but the police and the District Attorney. Being a life coach, much like a therapist, you're out in the open and people are even actively seeking you out to surrender their money for basically no services rendered outside of wasting small chunks of their lives talking to them about stuff they don't understand and recommending improvements in their minds that will never happen anyway. And nobody goes to jail for their troubles. What's not to love?

So starting right here and right now I'm announcing the grand opening of the Bob Crespo Get A life Coaching Company. For a mere $150 per hour I'll come to your house and tell you that you've been doing everything all wrong and you need to listen to me. Don't worry, I'll reassure you that you are indeed a very good and smart person who just needs a little direction. The First direction I'll give you is how to properly make out a check for my services. After that initial success, you'll be ready for the bold moves I recommend in order for you to keep having a life. Maybe I'll tell you to buy a new couch or something, buy some stock in Microsoft or some other easy to swallow piece of advice that might not help the situation, but will do no harm. Who doesn't feel better sitting on a comfy new couch?

In some extreme cases I might be forced to suggest that you divorce that haranguing bitch that has the temerity to question your decision to hire a life coach. If her shrieking nags haven't produced the ideal spouse they were designed to create, well, isn't that another indication of one more bad decision on your part? The peace of mind to be gained by removing a shrill noise from one's home can work wonders. At least for my continued employment as a life coach, that is. I'll take it on a case-by-case basis, identifying each clients' individual vulnerabilities and exploiting them to the fullest for my own enrichment, just like any self-respecting therapist. Perhaps I will also run expensive weekend seminars so I can get a bunch of suckers, clients,I mean clients into one room and gang-charge them all for several sessions apiece so that I can earn several week's pay in a single weekend.

Nobody's problems will be solved but they will all come away feeling that they have embarked on a serious Quest for Truth and Success, which is what I'll call these expensive weekend sales spiels. This will in turn lead to many individual appointments to boss these people around in their own homes. Surely some of the weekend seminar attendees may be disgruntled, but their will be no refunds since I promised them nothing but Life Coaching, a job harder to pin down that a ball of liquid mercury. Could it be that my ship ha finally come in? Bob crepo, Life Coach! Has a nice ring to it, no? Cha-ching!