Life Coaches: Pyramid Scheme or Legitimate Investment? I Hired One to Find Out

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The idea that there’s someone out there who can “help you fulfill your dreams” and “reach your highest potential” is an enticing promise—but do they really know how the “secret” to living your best life? Are life coaches a legitimate investment or a quasi-pyramid scheme?

Well, I hired one to find out—and she’ll be joining me today along with Jane Marie of the popular podcast, The Dream.

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Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is President of Morning Brew content and additional fact checking comes from Scott Wilson.

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Mentioned in the Episode

• The Money with Katie Show episode: “Save the #BossBabes on “get rich quick” schemes, MLMs, and prosperity gospel”

• Dr. Becky

• Common MLMs (Arbonne, Herbalife, etc.)

• Ana Gildersleeve’s TikTok on Spanish vs. American parent culture

• Hey, Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson

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Henah:

Are your wounds healed, like your childhood wounds healed?

Katie:

I don’t really have any childhood wounds.

Henah:

Okay. Not true.

Katie:

Listen, my parents listened to this show, so…

Henah:

Sorry, Mary and Chris.

Katie:

I had a perfect childhood. It was fantastic. Shout out Mary and Chris.

Welcome back, Rich Girls and Boys to the Rich Girl Roundup weekly discussion of The Money with Katie Show. As always, I’m your host, Katie Gatti Tassin, and every Monday morning my executive producer Henah and I use this segment to talk through listener questions, money stories, and more casual financial topics. Here’s a quick message from our sponsors before we get into it.

This week’s upcoming main episode is about life coaches. Are they a legitimate investment or low-key pyramid scheme? I’m stoked because not only did I hire my own life coach to find out, but we also have Jane Marie of The Dream joining us on the show to talk. The Dream has been a top podcast for me in the last couple years, and it is just editorially best in class. So I was really thrilled to have Jane join me on the show.

Okay, onto the roundup. Henah, what is our topic today?

Henah:

This week’s question came from Heidi L. She asked, “Pleaseee, with three Es, talk about the ‘buy my e-book to get rich’ mom culture,” which in my opinion, tees up Wednesday’s episode beautifully.

So Katie, I am not often frequenting the space where I see this, and I don’t really see cultural critiques of it as much in my feed as I think you might. So I was curious if you could give us the lay of the land as to what Heidi’s referring to.

Katie:

Yeah, well my initial reaction was like, oh, we’re talking about pyramid schemes. Say less, Heidi. I would love to.

Yeah, I think when I picture the online world of this type of stuff, you kind of have different overlapping Venn diagrams, and I think because I’m in the money space and follow a lot of money creators, there is a segment of the money space that is overlapping with the Venn diagram of business. And then somewhere else down here is e-book culture or digital product culture. And then in the intersection is the get rich quick schemes. And I think that’s where this falls along with things like crypto rug pulls and the like. But the question didn’t go into a ton of detail about what “buy my e-book mom culture” is. So my imagination is honestly filling in a lot of the gaps here.

But I think what she’s referencing reminds me immediately of the trad wife e-book thing that I pointed out a few issues of the newsletter ago, which is basically you have this person who is an influencer who has crafted this entire brand around being a stay at home domestic goddess who is covertly selling an e-book that supposedly teaches other stay at home moms how to make money on Instagram selling e-books to stay at home moms.

So I’m like, well, who’s the end customer here?

Henah:

It’s an ouroboros, just a snake eating its own tail.

Katie:

Yeah, it’s giving Ponzi. But there’s something inherently deceptive about that particular brand in the sense that the brand is built on the ethos of being dependent and financially submissive on somebody else, and yet pregnant pause, she’s creating income and monetizing that message for herself. So it’s like transparently thrifty to the point of just being satirical. But yeah, I mean it reminds me of the conversation we had with Jane about business coaches who coach business coaches about how to coach business coaches. I’m like, what is happening?

Henah:

A lot of this stuff is usually directed towards stay at home parents and traditionally moms. And so we’ve talked on the show before about how MLMs tend to target moms and the reasons for that are many. So they’re lonely, they’re usually looking for connection. They’re often wanting to bring money into the household In the trad wife scenario, they’re acting like they don’t want to bring money into the household as the subservient partner, but they are. I think a lot of people get a sense of purpose out of this. And a lot of times you’re preying on just other moms who are in the same position as you are and then asking them to shop to make you rich with the idea that they’ll get rich and that just can’t go on forever.

So the interesting thing that I have seen about this, I was on YouTube looking at a couple of videos, these e-books are kind of sold on this idea that you can write the e-book in under 24 hours and make a thousand dollars a month. That sounds so easy and lucrative that if you meet this above criteria of being lonely, wanting connection, wanting purpose, wanting to bring in some money, why wouldn’t you want to try it? And so I’m curious for you if you feel like there’s a best intent kind of question here, is there a world in which this “buy my e-book to get rich culture” is valid?

Katie:

And I mean we should be clear. The segment of this market that we are talking about is the stay at home mom specific targeted grift, but “buy my e-book culture” exists for boys. The difference is that it’s like buy my stock trading…

Henah:

Day trading. Yeah.

Katie:

“Buy my course; I make millions of dollars a year and I’ll teach you how at this stock trading course,” but the only money they’re making is coming from the stock trading course where they’re supposedly telling you how they’re making millions.

So I’ve been on a Dr. Becky kick lately, don’t have kids, but love Dr. Becky. She’s a parenting psychologist, child psychologist, and so she is like a parenting expert.

Henah:

Are your wounds healed, your childhood wounds healed, when you listen to her?

Katie:

I don’t really have any childhood wounds.

Henah:

Okay. Not true.

Katie:

Listen, my parents listen to this show, so…

Henah:

Sorry, Mary and Chris.

Katie:

I had a perfect childhood. It was fantastic. Shout out Mary and Chris, but no, so I’ve been on this Dr. Becky kick and she talks about something called the “most generous interpretation” and I think that that makes sense here and kind of gets at your question about positive intent is these women are in a really difficult situation. They are doing the unsung, unglamorous, domestic labor of running a household. To your point about purpose, probably feel like they want to do something other than parent in their free time and that they want something that can maybe earn them some money too and keep them engaged with something other than their kids. It’s another thing that can lend purpose and psychological or mental engagement to your day.

And so if it feels like there’s something that you could do that kind of gives you the feeling of being, I’m going to say the feeling of being a business owner, but that there’s something that you can create that is generative, that will make you money and you can do it all from home. It’s the same reason that MLMs are so successful with that same demographic: They’re economically vulnerable. They’re generally an unsupported cohort in society. They often lack community. There are a lot of reasons why that makes sense. So I think that would be my most generous interpretation. However, that is the generous interpretation of the people on the receiving end of it. I do think that if you are selling something to people that you know is bogus, I guess inclined to be less sympathetic to that cause. But I don’t know. I’ve never been in that situation. I guess.

Henah:

Even people that I went to college with who, they’re highly educated, they’re successful in their jobs, then I see them selling Arbonne or Herbalife products and I feel like so many of them just pop up. One Herbalife was exposed and something else popped up and then when that was exposed, something else popped up. What are the action steps that people can take to recognize if this is something that’s being presented to them, or what should they look for to be like, I don’t want to fall into this trap?

Katie:

Well, I mean in the case of an Arbonne or an Herbalife, you could Google it. There’s plenty there.

But I think what you’re talking about is things that are not as straightforwardly grift. You know what? It sounds cliche, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There aren’t shortcuts. And if there are shortcuts, they’re very short-lived. I say that thinking about people who initially got really rich off of the GameStop thing. That’s not a sustainable means of making money, and also it didn’t produce any value, right? You’re talking about something that is, it’s not introducing productive capacity or value to the economy or to your community or even really to your life.

You’re kind of just, you’re looking for a greater fool. And if success requires finding a greater fool, then you’re probably in a Ponzi scheme, some of this just gut should feel wrong. I think that when you see stuff like this, you’re like, there’s something about this that’s not quite right.

And I don’t know, it makes me think too, I was listening to a podcast the other day about someone was joking, all liberals chalk everything up to policy failure and all conservatives chalk everything up to individual choice. You can always follow down those two paths of any conversation that you and I are going to have is always going to end with well, and that’s why we need policy reform. And it’s like, well, I think that in this case it’s probably a little of both, but I am going to do that classic thing where I’m like, yeah, this is a policy failure in the literal sense, but also how we’ve structured society.

So I think the bigger question here with why is this happening in the first place? Why do we see this online and why is it so prevalent amongst this group of people? What’s going on there?

And I think that there are a couple things that you can look at that explain it better than just simply like, oh, well people love get rich quick schemes. I mean, that’s true. I think that there will always be a market for get rich quick schemes, but nuclear familyhood in a suburban neighborhood is a pretty isolating experience and that’s kind of like the goal of the American dream is to get into that situation.

But there are a lot of people that you’ll talk to who are like, yeah, I’m really lonely. I feel extremely lonely in that lifestyle. I think you have to work pretty hard to build a vibrant community in that scenario because the path of least resistance here is isolation. I mean, I don’t have kids. I know that a lot of people who are parents make friends with the parents of their kids’ friends and that children can actually be an inroad to community.

But if you’re just a couple or a single person living in a home in the suburbs and maybe you’re working from home or you moved somewhere where you don’t really know anybody, it’s actually you have to put a lot of effort in to making friends and building a community. And so in a lot of other countries and in US cities, I think third spaces help that a lot places where it’s like a gathering ground for people in a community to get to know one another. Libraries are a famous example of this.

Henah:

I would say that’s been the biggest challenge. We’ve moved four times, five times now in nine years, and for us, the biggest challenge was finding a community of people in every single city. And the ones that we found were because of third spaces. So my husband’s improv class or me joining a silent book club or stuff like that. And so I 100% agree.

Katie:

A silent book club?

Henah:

Yeah, you go and everybody brings their own book and you just read quietly, but you’re in the presence of other people. And then later at the end of the event, people can talk about the book or meet other people who are also readers or there’s books there that you can pick up if you don’t have one with you,

Katie:

That’s like an introvert’s dream. That’s so funny to me.

Henah:

That’s why I do them.

Katie:

Well, and so I think, do these things cost money? The improv classes in the book club?

Henah:

The improv does, the silent book club does not.

Katie:

Okay. Well actually I just want to play this TikTok for you. It’s about parenting in the US, but through the eyes of a Spanish woman who moved here from Spain, which is not in South America, as I learned in seventh grade, way too late.

[Spanish mother on TikTok]:

Why I think being a parent in the US is way more boring and isolating than in Spain. Someone told me I thought I was depressed, but I was just on the wrong country. And that’s when I was like, I need to talk about this.

First of all, most Americans don’t do anything fun during the week after work, especially if you are a parent. Let me explain. Monday through Friday, most Americans do not socialize with other people. They go straight home after work. Or if you’re a parent after your kids’ activities. In general, Americans save social events for the weekends. They spend a lot of time in the house. Whether in Spain, we are out all the time, Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday, when the kids are done with the school, you go to the closest playground to the school and socialize with other parents.

Also, there are many playgrounds that have attached like a little bar or coffee shop, and it’s super normal to have a glass of wine or a beer with other parents while the kids play in the playground. That’s unthinkable in the US second, I feel like in the US, it takes forever to meet up with your friends. You have to schedule play dates with weeks and sometimes months in advance, whether back home you’re like, Hey, are you home? Yes, when I meet up in 20 minutes at the park with the kids, yes. Okay, meet you there.

Also, I think motherhood is way more isolating here because I feel like most Americans don’t have a village at all. Moving around the country is just pretty normal here. But in Spain, most people live close to their families. Like my siblings live within 20 minutes away from each other walking. So is my mom, my grandma, my aunt, my cousins.

Another thing is that here in America, parents stop doing what they are doing even though they are having fun because they need to put their kids to bed at 7:00 PM If you see a kid that’s still awake past 8:00 PM it’s like you are a bad mom, but in Spain it doesn’t matter where you are, you just bring the stroller and the kid will fall asleep and they include the kids everywhere. In the US we separate children’s activities with adult activities. Parents organize their lives around the children in schedule. But in Spain, children adapt to the adult schedule.

Finally, in Spain, even though you are a mom, you keep hanging out with your girlfriends and you still go to bars and clubs from time to time. But I feel like in the US when women become moms, they stop having fun. Yes, your priorities have changed. One thing doesn’t take the other and go to a bar or a club and get a couple drinks with your best friends and still be a good mom.

Katie:

Everything that she’s talking about, these are all things that you can absolutely redesign your life to accommodate. And parents in urban spaces are probably not all that stuff’s normal, but it’s really not the norm in the majority of the United States. And it’s probably unreasonable to go, oh, you’re living in a Kansas suburb and you feel isolated with your two kids and you’re staying at home with them and your spouse is at work all day. No, you’re not actually depressed. You just need to move to Williamsburg.

I think in the US especially this type of lifestyle is associated with a pretty high level of income. And I’m joking about Williamsburg, but Brooklyn is telling in that way, you have to be pretty low key rich to live comfortably in America’s urban centers. And I think most of our third spaces are places of commerce. So you’re really not welcome there unless you’re spending money.

And most places in America, outside of those urban centers are not designed to be walkable. So you need to have a car, you need to find parking, pay for parking. These are not insurmountable barriers, but if at every single step friction is being added and you’re also either working long hours or parenting multiple children, the seamlessness and the ease with which you can engage in some of this stuff is almost certainly going to determine how often you do it.

Henah:

Well, it also gets me thinking that maybe gentrification is also a piece of this puzzle in that a lot of these communities when you say you have to be low-key, pretty rich, Brooklyn was not a place that you were rich. That’s where the poor people went when they couldn’t afford Manhattan. And now it’s really rich and those people are moved out. And so when you displace other people, then their communities become more disparate and you probably don’t know the people that are in that community that you’re displacing, which makes you even more isolated. And so not to say that all of this comes down to gentrification, but I think that there’s a piece of this that definitely is related.

Katie:

Yeah. Wait, say more about that. That gentrification is related to the…

Henah:

Lack of community.

Katie:

I see.

Henah:

Or I think that the isolation increases with more gentrification because either the people moving into these cities don’t know the people that they’ve displaced in the community that’s now there.

Katie:

I see.

Henah:

Or they’ve displaced people and now those people who are displaced have now a further reaching community disconnected from their own community.

Katie:

I see what you’re saying. Yeah. And I do think a lot of this comes down to community or having, there is some social psychologist that talks about this weak ties versus strong ties, but how important it is to have a lot of weak ties in your social sphere.

And it’s just like to know your neighbors, to have some involvement in your community to have a vested interest. And I think historically in the US we tie that to home ownership and that becomes a common banding point of why it’s good to have owners in the community versus renters because they’re more invested in the community than someone who may be more transient.

But I think that ultimately what we’re getting at here is I think when you watch some of these documentaries or you listen to the podcasts about people that were targeted in MLMs, and I’m speaking about MLMs as an offshoot of this e-book culture, they were typically in a fairly isolated position, or they will talk about how at that phase in their life they felt lonely and how this thing gave them a sense of community that they lacked.

And so I think about when you’re like, how can someone know if they’re falling victim to something like this? It’s like, well, one of the easiest ways I think is running it by your friends who are like, Hey, does this sound too good to be true to you? If you have a rich community of people, friends, family would have you, then you can be like, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. And if everyone around you is like, ah, nope. But you’re probably not going to be as susceptible to that in the first place if you’re not operating from that place of isolation and loneliness. I think that a lot of these social problems and the weird drifty online manifestations of them are way more connected than they appear maybe on the surface are in an obvious way.

Henah:

Yeah, agreed. It’s kind of like when you work backwards to untie the knot, there’s no other outcome, I think, than the idea that it’s because if they weren’t isolated, they wouldn’t be doing this if they weren’t living by themselves and needing money. To me, it just makes sense.

Katie:

Yeah, I want to recommend a book too. I think if anyone is interested in kind of more of the storytelling or personal memoir side of this conversation, there’s a book called Hey Hun, by the author Emily [Lynn] Paulson, who was very, very high up in I think Rodan + Fields, which is a network marketing company. And although I really only knew them because they sold me a lot of proactive on infomercials in the mid-2000s, I put a lot of faith in that three step system. Let me tell you, Accutane had to step in at the last minute and be like, girl, the toners not working for you, let me tell you.

But anyway, she writes about this experience and how she was a stay-at-home mom. She didn’t really have that many friends, and the person that got her involved in the MLM was someone who had originally asked her if she wanted to go out for a cocktail. And she describes being so excited to have a friend date to have another adult to talk to and hang out with that when she got hard sold in the meeting or in what she thought was just hanging out with a friend, she basically knew in that moment that this is a scam, but I want friends, so I’m going to do this. And it’s kind of heartbreaking. And then she girl-bossed her way to the top. So it truly is an amazing story.

Henah:

Okay. Well, I have actually heartwarming money story to speak.

Katie:

Great. Let’s hear it.

Henah:

Somebody named Aimee wrote in and they said, “I first listened to you in January of 2023. I had $120,000 of consumer debt, and now it’s down to 35,000.” And I was like, that’s amazing. That is good money to you. That made my heart swell six sizes like the Grinch.

Katie:

Oh my gosh. So she’s paid off like $80 or $90K in debt.

Henah:

In a year. Yeah, $85k basically.

Katie:

In a year.

Henah:

A year in a couple months.

Katie:

That is amazing. Well, congratulations. If you’re listening, that is pretty astounding.

Henah:

I know. And I just thought there are so many people that feel like they’re in such a deep hole that they can’t get out of, and I thought, what an inspiring story that you can. And she’s doing it.

Katie:

Yeah. Truly. Okay, well, I’m glad that we’re ending on that note and not on and in conclusion universal childcare. But that is all for this Rich Girl Roundup, and we will see you on Wednesday to talk about the life coach industry and where I have landed today.