[Closed] Lifecoachtrackworld (sorry!)

First up, congratulations, sounds like an exciting time for you!

There's a lot of charlatans around in the life/business coach/mentoring game (see the Mike Winnet "Contrepreneur" series on YouTube, it's excellent) so do your due diligence. Look at whether their success stories for clients and themselves tally with Companies House records etc.

Maybe look to a (semi) retired investor / business person who can help advise, based on real life experience?

What sort of money do you need? Just pin money having sold a successful business for ££££ or do you need a decent salary?

You will always find care work available - NHS pays best but private care homes are always looking for staff and you can start with no experience and IME middle aged ( sorry) men who end up in care work are both good at it and get a lot from it. It does not pay well at all tho - private homes often not much above minimum wage. NHS a chunk better

I have a pal who is a life coach. PM me if you want some details.

My DPD driver has just retrained as HGV driver, he's got a job a driving truck load of dead animals down to pet food factory down south, over nighting then driving back with empty truck. Two trips / four days one week then three trips / six days the next.

Brand new truck, like a camper van in the back. £55k per year. If I didn't need to eb around home for the kids I'd be very tempted.

How about policing? They are always recruiting, work in your local community, get to fight with criminals. What's not to love?

I did have the next step planned – retraining as a gas engineer but having spoken to pretty much everyone involved in that in my area (Lochaber) it appears I would be unemployable. Mostly due to lack of demand and my lack of a plumbing apprenticeship to back it up.

Can you train to be a gas engineer without needing to go down the apprentice route? I'd be amazed if there wasn't enough work just servicing / fixing boilers to keep you going - obviously you'd need to build a client base. Perhaps in Lochaber though its not gas but oil? Future will be in air/ground source heat pumps, get ahead of the curve - and perhaps you don't need to do the pipework?

I'd have thought there was enough work in Lochaber just doing gas safety checks, perhaps replacing smoke detectors and doing some PAT testing just in the self-catering market for someone with certificates but not actually needing to have the experience to rip out boilers etc.

What are your skills / interests. Suggesting being a carer is no good if that is miles off your interests.

Your fist port of call was gas engineer so I am going to guess you're practical, like hands on stuff? Would you like to work alone or as part of a team? If you did hospitability sounds like you must be ok with customers so that's good for many ideas.

As above what kind of income do you need? Are you more into a job or a one man band business?

What is your ideal (work) day?

There’s a lot of charlatans around in the life/business coach/mentoring game (see the Mike Winnet “Contrepreneur” series on YouTube, it’s excellent) so do your due diligence.

Sounds like the FIRE industry, full of people who haven't managed it charging people to tell them how to manage it (set up as a FIRE consultant and charge people to explain how to do it), a self perpetuating circle of failure....

https://www.thrivepartners.co.uk/

Whilst I can't speak for all the coaches now using the platform, I know the founder well and could not speak highly enough of her, her integrity and her impact.

Sounds like the FIRE industry, full of people who haven’t managed it charging people to tell them how to manage it (set up as a FIRE consultant and charge people to explain how to do it), a self perpetuating circle of failure….

Not disputing this but, the trick here is to use all of these resources for your own benefit then apply some common sense to your own desire of a lifestyle and risk.

Using FIRE as the example, its essentially a principle of a) save more money and b) invest said saved money to make even more money with little effort, with many ways to skin the cat.

There are loads of good coaches and resources on the internet, in the OP's (congrats OP by the way) I'd spend the first bit of free time doubling down on advice - either free or paid - and distilling this into what it is they want to do with all the guidance they can find.

Installer of domestic interlinked smoke detectors and CO2 alarms.

There's a pile of money to made out of that in the next year or so.

As part of my redundancy I got to speak to a coach, it was useful but not essential. Interestingly she advised me not to take my current job and to keep looking, I'll be leaving at the end of September after having only joined in April, so she had identified that it wasn't the right job to take!

@andyrm - thanks! Yes, exciting but nervous about where to go and what to do next. I can see that 'lifecoaching' is full of eejits so keen to get to someone who can really help me. We will be seeking financial advice too.

@tjagain. We have done well but not enough to retire. Besides. I'm 'only' 50 so have a good working life ahead and want something fulfilling 🙂 Money - I don't need much to get by but would like to earn a decent amount to have some good times as a family. I do enjoy working with/looking after people so will look at that, thanks.

@franksinatra. Thanks for the reply. I see the HGV driver shortage but on my straw poll of a measly 1 mate who's made the switch (already trained) the money he is earning is less thank £20k. Not sure of the wider industry round here tbh.

@thebrick. I really enjoy plumbing but at 50 it's almost impossible to enter the trade. I did a college course over the winter to get some skills and that would have been very useful for the gas engineer role. Sadly not to be. I'm blowing my own trumpet but I'm awesome with people. My customer service is excellent and I thrive on the interaction with guests and exceeding their expectations. Massive history in customer service (travel, pensions servicing, SKY TV for a long time). Also loved my 4 years guiding on the hills (walking). That just doesn't pay though.

@poly. It's an £8500 investment on the course. I would undoubtedly pick up some 'bits and bobs' work but hard to quantify what that would add up to. I was ideally looking to get the qualification and then work for someone for 4-5 years to gain experience. Further down the line it would have been ideal for 3-4 days a week self employment. It is all LPG and oil round here but there are add on's to the main gas course so that would have been the first step. Air source etc.. the future.

Out of time for more replies - off to get the kids. Thanks so far!

TS

Another vote for HGV driver. I work supplying the commercial motor industry. The hourly wages for Class 1 are rising massively. It can be a little bit antisocial hours but there are some nice jobs that fit in with normal family life.

We just lost our specialist handover person (Basically fully qualified driver instructor who hands vehicles over to professional drivers every day). He left to go to work for Aldi for £35 per hour!!! Thats a good wage.