I've learned how to eat differently and was hoping to make a career out of diet coaching. Many years ago, before anyone knew what it was (including me) I took a course to be a coach. I led a diet support group for a while, but then I couldn't get another one going.
So, one of the neighbors who had complimented me the other day also looked like she had lost weight, so I told her. She said that she had joined a diet guru's group. I was shocked, because I had thought that group had disbanded. Everyone, including the guru, gains weight when it's over. It's a very extreme diet, one you can't live on and totally opposite to my method. I mentioned that to the neighbor.
"So, what's your method?"We continued talking pleasantly, but was I wrong to give her that answer?
"Sorry, but I'm not giving you my method for free when you're paying someone else."
I'm tired of giving people my methods and eating philosophy and advice for free. That's why nobody pays. I have to take myself more seriously, more professionally. And I ought to go back to writing my book about losing weight.
What do you think?
4 comments:
Shalom!
I'll relate advice that I read in a article describing the need to have religious women advising other religious women about careers. The question posed was a dilemma that a religious reflexologist (sp.?) was having. Her friends and neighbors kept asking her for treatments as favors and it was hard for her to refuse the "chesed". The non-religious counselor couldn't relate to the dilemma. The religious counselor advised her to do chesed in areas unrelated to her profession so that her income would not be affected.
Does that mean that any sort of help/chesed career/business goes against my helpful nature?
Shalom!
The point of the anecdote that I related was that it is necessary to not let acts of chesed undermine one's sustenance. If the reflexologist had been capable of giving her free treatments at a rate that didn't threaten her income, that would have been an acceptable situation. Being as she couldn't, the advice given was to perform chesed in other ways. On the same point, if you can give advice in such a way that does not undermine your income, then I would say that a chesed career business is in line with your helpful nature. Plenty of doctors, dentists, lawyers, psychologists, counselors, tutors etc. give discount rates to deserving clients who are unable to pay full price, and still make a living.
What I really must do is use those converstations to say that, it's more than I can explain here on the street (wherever.) Maybe you'd like to join my diet support group.
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