Life Coach. God, that title. Cheesy. Offensive. Trite.
Hi. My name is Michael C. Bryan and I’m a Life Coach, er, COACH.
Please don’t call me a Life Coach. If you do I’ll feel like I have to sell you a set of green Tupperware or a pair of white walls for your car. And I don’t even know what white walls are.
What? You expected an article about coaching not to have at least ONE aerial shot? #Iamthatgay
I had no desire to work as Coach. When I told my sister, a celebrated psychologist for mentally challenged children in New England that I was thinking of hanging my virtual shingle as someone qualified to charge people a lot of money for what was essentially deep, psychological advice without having gone to grad school she replied, “Well, mom was a fucking train wreck and you do have a big mouth, so it does make a certain kind of sense, doesn’t it?”
Today I have a successful coaching company called MCBHappier. Get it? My initials are MCB and the “B” is as in ‘be happier’. It was the brainchild of this amazing gay dude I met a few years back who built a wildly successful linguists business in my home town of New York City.
“Sometimes I don’t get to bed until 11PM I’m so busy writing another fucking blog post. It’s exhausting,” he told me. “But when that order comes into your inbox you feel so good because you earned that money, not some dude who feels they have a right to tell you what to do all day long in an office. Which, I guess, they do since they’re paying you but it’s a hell of a way to live.”
What time did you stop working?
I’ve coached hundreds of people and I’ve learned we all want the same things: freedom, joy and a lot of money. Like, a lot. Oh, and love and sex and not necessarily in that order.
I’ve also learned we also don’t believe in ourselves, and that pesky unconscious beliefs are the culprit much of our unnecessary suffering, and that when we suffer from early trauma (as I did) our brains gets wired a certain way and it’s really, really, really hard to rewire it in a way that will result in us being able to enjoy life.
Okay, I take that back. It’s really, really hard. I used to think it was really, really, really hard but it’s not and that truth is why I coach. I don’t want people suffer as long as I did and oh baby, I suffered for far, far too long.
I don’t agree anymore with that notorious part of Buddhism obsessed with suffering. Life is not suffering. I’ve had enough suffering. I want blue skies now, thanks so much. It’s what we all deserve.
I was raised by a mentally ill mother. She called me shit head and creepy kid and moron and dumb fuck, and yet she was funny as hell. Smarter than my father who was a shrink. She was molested as a girl. I was molested at 11. She was kicked out of Kellogg, Idaho when she got pregnant at 14, and I was kicked out of my childhood home by her when I came out as gay at 15. To survive as a homeless teen I turned tricks. It ain’t like Pretty Woman I’ll tell you that much.
She had demons which never left her side. Depression and anxiety and manic-depression. I tried to commit suicide twice as a teen and was riddled with depression and endless panic attacks up until age 44.
All of these things happened because A) I thought I was my mother and B) I was trying to win her love. She’d hate to know these things. She loved me with her entire heart and soul. But not herself.
She killed herself 11 years ago. She’s happier now, I like to think. She has to be. Must be.
I didn’t feel I had a right to coach because I wasn’t a licensed clinician. My father was a therapist. My sister was. My ex-lover is a practicing shrink in Manhattan. I grew up reading Freud, Jung and Maslow. For fun. I lived for Desmond Morris. I watched my ex and my sister nearly kill themselves getting a Ph.D. so I knew the work people put into being qualified to advise people.
My sister got her Ph.D. in her early-30’s. My neurotic over-achieving ex got his at barely 30. I started getting my shit together in my mid-40’s so I now look at all of those years as my grad school.
I coach now because the connection I make with those who are suffering is so life-changing it shocks me. I see things in them they don’t see in themselves and, in turn, I see things in myself I thought lost. Not surprising, I know. But to feel a sense of belonging and purpose and that I’m ‘arriving’ has always been my greatest desire. I feel I’ve arrived when I step away from my laptop and know I’ve changed a life for the better. I know that sounds super cornball but I’m being totally real.
I was asked recently by a big client “What are you? An actor? Write? Host on TV? Coach? What?” I felt bad when they said that, as though I was GETTING OFF BRAND but then I chilled out. I am a writer, an actor, an entertainer and I’m successful at all of them because I coach.
My entire life has prepared me for this work. Having a mom who kicked the shit out of me - and felt bad as she did - made me resilient. Having bullies beat me up for liking boys made me determined to have a big, fat, successful life. Being homeless made me humble and connect with the underdogs in life. Living year after year after year smoking cigarettes and weed and staring out of windows wondering why my life wasn’t going anywhere created this burning need in me to figure my shit out.
And while I’m still figuring it out, I’m not lost anymore and I do feel there is something here covering my ass and I’m leveraging that for all it’s fucking worth.
Bring it on!
That’s why I coach. To show people a fucked up early start is the IDEAL platform to have all we want. Johnny Cash, Howard Schultz, Oliver Sacks, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Viola Davis, Alan Cummings - all great successes and all came from truly horrible beginnings.
Proof that a rough start is the fertile ground for a sea of brilliance and happiness. It has to be. Otherwise, what’s the point?
In a few weeks my company is giving away a month of free coaching with me to one person. Sign up for our newsletter at the link in my bio to enter the contest. I didn’t write this to tell you to sign up for the giveaway. That’s too transparent. Disrespectful of the process of genuine transformation. But it’s dumb of me to not at least tell you.
I’d lie if I said I wasn’t coaching for myself. I do it because it feels so good to see others change before my very eyes. I won’t lie - I want to sit with Oprah and talk about this work. I want to talk to Ellen and discuss transformation at the deepest level. I want to help gay teens and kids feel their worth. I want to eradicate shame around mental illness and trauma and abuse.
I want to do it on a huge platform and if this world, this thing called a Universe will allow it, I’ll take it.
Because if there is one big, big thing I’ve learned in this work it’s that we are here to help others, true, but if we don’t live as big and as large and as massive as we want for ourselves, we can’t do shit for anyone else and now we’re at the end of this piece.
Thanks for reading. Go do something fun.