Life Chapters - Latest Comments

Re: Your Attitude Determines Your Survival

Tracy Rose — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:49:57 -0000

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Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Hilary — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 09:27:03 -0000

To clarify, it was not choosing to do coaching that was a bad decision, I love doing that and have no regrets.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Hilary — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 08:12:14 -0000

As this seems to be the only unbiased review of TCA that interested parties can find I am going to add a further comment.
In the two years since I went on the free weekend and signed up as a protégé with The Coaching Academy I have discovered that many organisations in this area offer a satisfaction or your money back guarantee. In contrast The Coaching Academy has a no money back under any circumstances policy. There is no cooling off period so at best you lose your deposit, and at worst you lose a substantial financial investment. Take your own message from that.
Personally I am now able to admit to myself and others that it was certainly the worst financial decision I have ever made in my life (it cost me £12,000) and possibly one of the worst decisions of my life. I have accepted this and moved on although I am still pursuing the misrepresentation and other issues with Trading Standards. I hope that others are able to learn from my mistake.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Bilton115 — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:18:28 -0000

I have been watching the new comments here with interest. When I joined TCA this blog was the only non-TCA comment available and TCA were pointing people to it. If some of these comments had been here then I may not now be in the position of refering TCA to Trading Standards.
Interesting too that TCA no longer refer people here, and that Northern Student does not deny the truth in what has been said.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Honest Coach — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:54:45 -0000

Very amusing Northern Student.
No, I was not rejected by TCA I have trained with them but unlike you have not been taken in by all their hype and wish others to have a clear picture of how things work before they sign over their hard earned cash. I don't believe telling the truth insults anyone; sorry to hear you believe otherwise.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Northern Student — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:42:02 -0000

Honest Coach, was it you that got rejected from TCA? You seem quite bitter to me. I think that you are a little envious of the success Kris has achieved and you're not doing anything for the good name of coaching in your conduct or the way that you are attacking this company. We are all capable of doing our due diligence before parting with our hard earned cash, please don't insult us by getting into an unnecessary bun fight on our behalf. The free weekend is fantastic, you can leave it there. If you want to take your studies further you can go to alternative providers if that is what you want to do, we all have options and choices to make - you should know that being an Honest Coach. I don't understand why you feel it is necessary to continue making these comments, you have already made your opinion very clear.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Honest Coach — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:02:59 -0000

Below Kris Robertson, Director of The Coaching Academy, after providing misleading figures, states "We value all forms of feedback and if we did not accept the criticism as well as the praise, we would not be where we are today." So let us take a typical example.

A student attends one of the accelerator days relating to what Kris describes as the cornerstones of good coaching. These are "GR" and "OW" and both are run by Kris Robertson. Many students have said off the record that they have found these two days to be confusing and demoralising. The students get the opportunity to complete a feedback form at the end of the day and they are aware their name is part of the information they have to include on this form. At this stage most of the students are yet to do their assessment and may be reluctant to critiscise someone who may turn out to be their assessor (Kris Robertson). A frustrated student may decide to have a chat with their mentor but the mentor is the same Kris Robertson. S/he could take this further, perhaps to The Coaching Academy Director, but that is Kris Robertson too. Another option may be to contact the MD - Bev James, however she will pass the matter on to the Director, Kris Robertson. Another option may be to discuss this on the Coaching Academy online forum, if you can get your message past the moderator, who is, suprise suprise, Kris Robertson.
I don't feel I need to say more.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Honest Coach — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:43:30 -0000

So actually 58% of qualified students did not reply and therefore did not say they would recommend the Coaching Academy in addition to the 3% who did reply and would not recommend the Coaching Academy. Thank you for providing a typical example of just how The Coaching Academy twist things to make themselves look a lot better than they are.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Kris — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:52:35 -0000

We had a 42% response rate

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Honest Coach — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:42:38 -0000

How many of the qualified students asked to complete a survey did so? 97% is meaningless if only 1% returned the survey. Any research is only as good as the number of responses.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Marty BoneIdol — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:44:59 -0000

Thanks for taking the time to comment here Kris and exercising a right to reply. I didn't go on to inquiring about purchasing a course myself simply because it was well outside my budget to do so. As I said, I did enjoy the taster weekend. If you are still continuing to offer this, then it proves a degree of success in your venture. I know you'll take the feedback presented here on my page seriously, despite the fact you did not get it directly. Marty

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Kris — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:29:10 -0000

I’m always delighted to read positive comments from people who have attended the initial 2 days of training we offer (thank you Life Chapters for your original post) and those who are happy customers having enrolled as a student of The Coaching Academy.

For the record, since 1999, The Coaching Academy have only ever ejected one student in line with our Code of Conduct. This individual was in clear breach of our Intellectual Property Rights. No student has ever been ‘expelled’ for expressing dissatisfaction. We would of course much prefer that any student who is not 100% happy speak to the support team direct.

We are very proud of the fact that in recent surveys 97% of qualified students would recommend The Coaching Academy. We value all forms of feedback and if we did not accept the criticism as well as the praise, we would not be where we are today.

We are also very proud of our 2 day training course we hold completely free of charge and the selection procedures we operate to ensure that the right people go on to enrol. Yes, there is an application process. Yes, there is substantial funding available for self-funding students who apply. And yes, there are deadlines which are in place as part of this. We don’t accept just anyone as a student, we select on suitability first whilst ensuring that any investment is affordable and we never enrol a student who has not first attended our initial 2 day event and made an informed decision to apply for a place. It’s a shame that for some people this is perceived as a hard sell.

We are well aware that coaching is not for everyone and we host our free 2 day coaching course with good intentions knowing that there are those who could really benefit from the coaching skills we teach.

Kris Robertson - Director of The Coaching Academy

Re: How to Help Effectively

Marty — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:39:50 -0000

Hi Ann,
I agree that respite care is something that you need. Is it something that you are getting? If not, seek it out with tenacity. You are entitled! Take care.

Re: How to Help Effectively

Ann — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:45:40 -0000

Helping others is hard work. I am my sister's primary caregiver and I sometimes wish someone was taking care of me. Sometimes we don't have a choice as to why. Thanks for making me feel less alone.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Joanna — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:10:50 -0000

Thank you for your honesty. This was also my experience. The hard sell happens when you sign up for the telephone interview because you don't want to miss out on the bursary. You have paid up by the end of the week and, only later, do you realise what a sham the interview and talk of a 'panel' assessing your application actually was.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Coaching Student — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:20:10 -0000

Further to an earlier comment, I would say that The Coaching Academy Code of Ethics is full of good stuff to protect clients, but agree it is also aimed at ensuring no coach says anything against TCA so you don't find out the truth about what happens after you have paid until it is too late and you hear it from disillusioned trainee coaches or find out for yourself. ( See end of message for the relevant extract from the Code of Ethics)

As people have said, there is no hard sell at the Certificate weekend. However, once you have expressed an interest at the end of that, the hard sell starts, with someone phoning you up the next day and pressuring you to pay right away or lose the 'special' deal they have offered you. Once you pay there is no cooling off period in which to change your mind and no refund available for any reason whatsoever. Don't let the free weekend fool you, the Coaching Academy is all about selling and it soon becomes clear that their main interest is money.

Once TCA have your money they completely lose interest in dealing with you, other than for bookings and assessments. Don't expect to hear from your mentor or get replies to your queries. If you book an appointment with your mentor don't expect mentoring as all you will get is replies to questions that you could answer by reading the web site.

Coaching Academy materials are really poor quality too. Certainly not worth the thousands of pounds that they charge. You get a posh folder and expensive paper but the content is thin and badly written. For real content you are expected to buy further books on coaching that are better written. You could just buy these in the first place and save yourself a whole lot of money.

My recommendation is go to the free weekend and enjoy it. The trainers are mostly really good. Don't bother signing up for a course though unless you really need a piece of paper to say you are a coach. There is much better training available all over the web and much of it is free. The accelerator days are good but work out at around £800 per day (if you are paying the full cost) with travel and accommodation costs on top of that.

If you don't believe what you read here just go and sit in the bar of one of the hotels that TCA use for accelerator days and listen to what the students are saying. You will hear a lot of comments like 'money grabbing', 'not interested', 'only want your money', 'poor quality' and 'wish I hadn't bothered'.

Again, the reason that you are not seeing this in print anywhere is because of the following sections of The Coaching Academy Codes of Ethics.

Codes of Ethics

All staff, trainers, students, graduates, associates and members of The Coaching Academy must agree to follow the Code of Professional Conduct (The Code). Alleged breaches of The Code will be fully investigated by The Coaching Academy and, if proven, may lead to the expulsion of the Coach and the withdrawal, without compensation, of all and any rights previously bestowed by virtue of that individual's connection with The Coaching Academy.

The Code

All staff, trainers, students, graduates, associates and members of The
Coaching Academy agree to:

(relevant extracts)

Respect the commercial confidentiality of The Coaching Academy by not divulging
business information to any third parties.

Maintain the good reputation of the coaching profession in general and The Coaching Academy in particular.

So, anyone telling the truth about TCA can be expelled without compensation which means no coach is going to put the truth out with their name attached to it and risk losing the thousands of pounds that they have had to pay for their course. Judge for yourself.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

Honest Coach — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:09:05 -0000

The free weekend is well worth signing up for though look very carefully before paying for courses. If you wonder why you never see any poor reviews for The Coaching Academy take a look at their code of ethics. Anyone who has paid then says anything bad gets thrown out. Their trainers are great but their materials are crap. All they are interested in is getting your money and they don't want to know once you have paid. If you want to go ahead just sign up for one course and find out for real what you get. They will beg you to sign up for more so don't worry about losing out.

Re: Your Attitude Determines Your Survival

Tatiyana — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:51:32 -0000

Very inspiring, the wisdom is simplicity however the human mind at times unintentionally defers such simplicity! This is directed towards all your post's, keep it up :)

Re: How to accept Change positively

cephas — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:03:26 -0000

That article is a master piece of inspiration,you know i have been going through some challenges for some time now and i was gradually getting frustrated and even thinking of giving up but after reading dis i think there is hope for the future and time with faith in God will bring me fulfillment.Thank you.

Re: Create the Distance and Explode the Belief

Bryan — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:10:19 -0000

good stuff! this rings true for me.

Re: What Are Slingshot Outcomes

Ellie Di Julio — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:16:29 -0000

I just this week did a presentation on the difference between "towards" and "away from" messages and how it impacts your brain. Synchronicity! Understanding the way we're motivated helps make huge strides in goal-setting, as well as in listening to our inner voices.

Re: What Are Slingshot Outcomes

Morgan Barnhart — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:22:13 -0000

Awesome topic! For me, I set goals based on what is most important at the time. If I need to drum up some more business, then I set a goal for, say, 5 leads within the month then I go for it in whatever way I can. Like you, I do wane from time to time, but not because of lack of motivation or passion, but because I can get distracted pretty easy. Goals really set me straight. It's about being consistent with your goal making and achieving that will really solidify and keep you on track.

Re: What Are Slingshot Outcomes

Marty BoneIdol — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:23:19 -0000

Hi Emma and thank you for commenting. Despite your condition, I see that you make a difference in your life by taking action. It is encouraging go see that you don't let the bipolar gt in the way of living a fulfilling life.

Re: What Are Slingshot Outcomes

Emma White — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:04:15 -0000

I have Bipolar - I have weekly sessions with my shrink. Goal setting is something I do daily - by setting myself goals no matter how easy they are - (just getting through a day at times is a great achievement) there is a sense of achievement to be able to tick it off. I am a great fan of goal setting and have implemented the same technique into blogging.

Re: The Coaching Academy – An Evaluation

David Smith — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:20:05 -0000

After enjoying the "weekend" course, I am thinking about undetaking a paid course with the Coaching Academy. Does anyone have feedback on the actual paid courses?