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| Tony Robbins in Shallow Hal, 2001 (Image: LivingInCinema.com) |
When I first heard about Life Coaching, I was aware of it but knew little about it. One of the first times I heard the term ‘Life Coaching’ it was a film reference from the romantic comedy Shallow Hal. The character Hal, played by Jack Black, encountered Tony Robbins in a lift they shared which got stuck. Robbins played himself, an eminent Life Coach. He helped Hal rid of his shallowness towards women and see them from the beauty within using some sort of magical power. The exercise Robbins used in the film that magically evaporated Hal’s shallowness was fictional but even then I knew that Life Coaching has a powerful ability to helping an individual or group improve their self-image and go about their lives achieving things they never thought possible. In the sense of this particular film reference, Hal recognised the need of change if he ever wanted to have a meaningful relationship and having this ‘magic power’ changed his view on how he perceived women.
The Shallow Hal film was an important film to watch in my view as a teenager because it enabled me to think about how I approach future relationships, not just with other people but with myself as well. For a cameo role, Tony Robbins was influential to Hal’s life and this positive influence inspired me to think that I could help people in a similar way, make themselves feel better.
However, it was not until about 10-12 years after watching Shallow Hal for the first time until I decided that I’d become a Life Coach myself. I knew I wanted to be in the media because I loved reading newspapers, watching various television shows and enjoyed listening to the radio. From a young age, I considered myself being a ‘media junkie’. So when I chose to do a journalism degree and later embarked on a career in public relations, I still hadn’t felt my life was fulfilled at that point. I still had that urge to help people find their aspirational image they want in their present and future. In public relations, there is plenty of that through reputation management, image building - but that’s done on a professional basis.
It has always been my ambition to help those people who wanted it. I could have chosen to become a councillor or therapist, however, I feared that I may have an emotional connection with that person. If that patient had a rough past and felt upset, then I may have lost professionalism and let my emotion get ahead of me. Additionally, I knew that to be a therapist, you’d be able to give advice and the patient would therefore be inclined to agree and take action by what you’re saying and the last thing I want to do for people is to add to the NOISE created by other people influencing their lives.
I want people to have the power to make their own choices, confidently make decisions that are right for them because it is theirs alone. That is what so unique about Life Coaching and this is the reason behind me wanting to do this in the long term.
While public relations remains in my heart and I will continue working as one for the long term, to add Life Coaching to the equation would be of massive benefit not only to myself but to the future of public relations. Having spoken to some people in this profession, I know that some have moved from public relations to Life Coaching during the latter parts of their career but I’m making this transition early. I feel that being an accredited Life Coach at my age of 24 would benefit the younger generation who require seeing one as I can relate to that person, understanding their emotions – knowing how to achieve your goals while your parents live separately for example, consider how to relive your ambitions during times of stress during school exams or feel that life is limiting due to being branded something you’re not or have a severe illness. Having lived through some of these, I can take advantage of my previous experiences and guide them to their brighter future.
During my time as a student Life Coach, my six volunteer coachees ages ranged from 23 to 41 years. This really benefitted me and I was allowed to use my logical resources to benefit those. These past few months gave me an opportunity to understand various people’s desires and needs, but more importantly, I had the opportunity to analyse how I communicate with people and through time, I have noticed my transformation in how I express myself and how my feelings don’t get in the way of others.
It is clear that the focus is on the coachee. However in public relations, the focus isn’t on the client as much as it had been in previous years. In 2012, I started studying my Advanced Certificate course, accredited by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). In the opening sessions, I was taught the simple definition of what is public relations – reputation. Whether you are working in-house or representing more than one company through an agency, it is your duty to preserve the client’s status and help them gain the reputation they desire. It is a similar notion to Life Coaching in the sense of where professional priorities lie.
However, now we are in 2015, the tide has turned. Turn back to 2011, a year before my CIPR studies began, the media industry went into disrepute when the phone hacking scandal resulted in the popular tabloid News of the World to cease its services. The paper’s closure resulted in the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics which gave certain household names, politicians, ordinary members of the public, newspaper editors and investigative reporters, and so on, a platform to defend or attack the industry. It was made apparent that the media industry needed to change and I sensed from this point, and completing my journalism degree at that time helped my stance on the situation, that it was the press that needed to start the change.
The press industry is still on that long road to recovery and trust from the public is still hard to come by. However, you can sense the changes are being made – certainly, the tabloids remain the platform for glossy gossip and tend to campaign somewhat dramatically on widespread debate about important issues like immigration and foreign government policy. But there has been no public evidence of unfair practice since the News of the World closed yet disputes and pay-outs to celebrity victims of voice message interceptions continue while journalists and former editors are still attending ongoing court cases. The journalism industry is shaken up and with its future on the balance, public relations professionals, who need to keep the relationship with the journalist alive for their client’s sake, are kept on the edge too.
However of course, it isn’t just the phone hacking scandal shaking up the media industry but the rise of the online world has meant there is an increasing number of avenues to generate news stories. There is an increasing reliance on people’s tweets on Twitter and bloggers who publish never-seen-before features that the print journalists are obliged to publish. Journalists do not rely on traditional PR as much anymore. When I first started out in public relations, the press used to read media releases, take phone calls and talk to professionals such as I. It is not easy as that now. One local online news outlet in Lincoln informed Octopus PR that they receive 500-600 releases a day and as they only publish about 15 stories in one day, that is approximately one in 40 releases that are used in some way. This statistic does not consider the influence of social media so it can be argued that since then, press releases are even less used today.
Despite this, there are still many [particularly smaller] businesses that rely on public relations and having represented dozens myself, I know how enthusiastic they are in getting their voices heard – how they started their company on nothing, yet now making millions in a short space of time, how they had an unusual past and now setting out a new path to enterprise glory. These are stories that the press used to thrive on. Yet, with the current political focus on start-ups, and they shapeup many of the 5.2 million businesses in the UK, a lot of these are eager to share their stories.
The competition is fierce and the public relations industry is growing. In the US alone, PRs outnumbered journalists in April 2014, at a ratio of 4.6 to 1, according to reports from The Guardian and I have no doubt that this ratio is similar in the UK – the PR Census last published in 2013 shows there are 62,000 full time public relations professionals registered in the country while another source suggests there are 37,000 full time journalists in the country, although many more working part time and working in online news pages like Buzzfeed.
Regardless, it is difficult to imagine what it would be like on a daily basis when 62,000 eager public relations professionals call 37,000 full time journalists desperate to deliver results for enthusiastic clients. Reporters get frustrated as they tend to spend more times informing their PR counterparts that they cannot run anything on their clients than they do on the quality of their writing, meeting tight deadlines and keep to strict editorial demands. Then overtime because of this current trend, the relationship between public relations and journalism stagnates into unfamiliar and somewhat unfortunate territory.
There are only a few of us public relations professionals that want to recognise this as the current reality. I can comfortably say that many of us think there is a need for a change in the industry but not many seek solutions. It is almost as if the entire industry needs a Life Coach to set out this big goal.
As a Life Coach, I can apply the GROW Model and see where the public relations industry is and how this can build a foundation for a positive future. Starting with the ‘G’, which stands for ‘Goal’, the industry has to collectively think of a series of targets that would benefit them, those they are representing, journalists and ultimately, the public. The ‘Reality’ is important because if the industry as a whole believes the situation at the moment is satisfactory, then they may need to review this in greater detail by talking to journalists, for example. This would lead them on to considering their ‘Options’ and later realise how ‘Willing’ they are to achieve these targets.
While my voice alone isn’t going to change anything, my view is that returning back to the roots is important for public relations. The industry lacks the focus on the public – we certainly know what is in the public’s interest but with journalists not giving PRs the platform that they gave a small number of years ago, public relations needs to be more than media relations in order to operate. I feel there is a required focus on image, how we are perceived to the public, how businesses we represent are viewed and how foundations can be built so that reputations are managed in a desired way.
How can Life Coaching change public relations? It can start by following its basic principles. ‘Ask, not Tell’ is a good way of public relations professionals to communicate. As the industry becomes increasingly competitive, even the most powerful stunts are not receiving the recognition they deserve and yet the reaction from these employees is frustration, desperation and sometimes aggression – and journalists can sense this fear and react accordingly, as too do clients who spend money to get in the papers without relying on advertising, another very competitive branch of media.
Public relations also needs to value the number of options for their represented clients in order to get the recognition they desire – there is more to public relations than delivering printed results in order to portray an image of that represented company. Most importantly, they need to value their resources and with an industry low on confidence, recognising that public relations still has the influence is capable for future success. Having the Life Coaching practice ethic can really help that.
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