GeniesLoki

Also my felt reaction to labelling you as a coach is "But that's different, there's a specific skill you're teaching". I again don't think this is a belief I officially endorse, certainly the reality is more complicated than that, but that's how it feels.

I am a coach separately of being an Alexander Technique teacher. I can and do coaching that has nothing to do with AT, although I do combine them as well. Coaching *is* a specific set of skills that can be learned.

It's unfortunate (perhaps?) that the word coach is not a protected term and so anyone can call themselves a coach with zero training or experience. Perhaps the snake oil vibe comes from that. There are good training programs though. I did 104 hours of training and will do more.

Similarly it's a good idea to get professional affiliation. I'm about five paid coaching hours from being able to become an Associate Certified Coach via the International Coaching Federation (requires training and 100 hours of coaching experience).

The coaches you see advertising in your feed *are* all charlatans. There are phenomanelly good coaches out there, their problem is they're better at coaching than self promoting.

Oh I mostly don't see people advertising in my feed because I use adblock on web and just repeatedly block anyone who promotes a tweet into my timeline on mobile.

I do coaching, & also have a huge aversion to that "snake oil" vibe. Had a lot of initial resistance to calling myself a coach, still get heebie-jeebies from "life coach". Has made it a lot harder to do the business side of coaching / put myself out there / connect with clients.

Same. I know a lot of coaches who have really struggled with the idea of calling themselves life coaches. But it also seems like going through the process of getting comfortable with it is also valuable.