…every man who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client
– The Flowers of Wit by Henry Kett, 1814

Over the past month I’ve been practicing what I preach – namely, getting help. While I have been called upon to coach and counsel many people and organizations both professionally and personally, when it comes to my own personal development it is not always so easy to find your way through things. For smaller things, like “meditate every day, sure, it’s no big deal to set a reminder on the phone and make sure your butt is on the floor every morning.

But what about bigger things? Things like “re-wire your brain so that you have a better relationship with money? Or “figure out why you keep self-sabotaging your writing”? For those kinds of things you might need an outside voice. Call it a study buddy, a lifecoach, a mentor, or a MasterMind Group, it’s a cross between accountability and support that has helped many people get further in their goals.

The Life Makeover Coaching Funnel

After listening to one of the James Altucher podcasts where he interviewed T. Harv Eker, I found myself curious enough to dip my toe into the “free” content he was offering – specifically a “webinar” about designing your life.

Now, before you roll your eyes, please know I was rolling mine as well. I understand the “freemium” model of marketing, as well as the concept of “sales-funnel”. It’s a scientific process with things like honey-trap pages and artificial urgency (“Order in the next hour or you may miss out!”) and over-valuation (“Coaching sessions like these normally cost $253 each, but we’ll give it to you for $97 if you order NOW!”). I’m a bad capitalist myself; I can’t quite bring myself to use those methods.

On the other hand, they do work, even when you’re realizing they’re being used on you. Even as I marveled at the circular logic of “If you don’t think you can afford this, you should ask yourself: when will I make the change that will make it affordable?” I was rationalizing that even if the coaching didn’t work on me, it would be a valuable lesson in how my own style of coaching works in comparison, and reaching for my wallet.

Creating a Path

I’ve had a month of the sessions so far, and they are remarkably simple. T. Harv Eker has a particular method he uses to identify areas where you want to improve, create strategies to improve them, and then track how it happens. It’s a rote form so flexible that it doesn’t matter if you come into the session brand new or you’ve been doing the program for years – you all follow the same model.

That kind of simplicity definitely makes someone like me say: I could just do this myself. And I’m right – I could. The thing is, I didn’t. Much like the sales techniques, even when you understand the motivational techniques for behavior change they are using on you they still work. In the past month I’ve made great strides in several projects that were stalled as well as insights into problems that seemed insurmountable.

It’s not to say things are fixed. When your goals are things like “changing neural pathways” they don’t happen all at once. But at the same time, having a framework to set your intentions on makes a huge difference in how stressful a problem seems. It’s the difference between being lost in a jungle completely surrounded by tangled vines and branches, with no idea which direction leads out – and being in that same jungle but seeing a path leading…somewhere. Even if you don’t know where the path leads, just having a path makes all the difference.

Especially when you are on that path with others. I’ve been very grateful in past weeks as several people who enjoy this blog have shared their micro-changes and their own personal journeys that these words help fuel. Please share!

It is great to hear validation about certain practices I have as well as exploring new ideas on how I can improve my own journey. – Traeonna