This person has no business doing life coaching. He is in his mid-twenties, has no credentials, and charges wild amounts of money when he has no clue how to help people. Almost cost me my relationship.
I am thanking God right now that there is a site where you can report disreputable small business owners such as Shannon Graham. I have never felt compelled to report anyone for misleading or fraudulent services until a few months ago after I stopped going to coaching with him. But I feel it is my responsibility as a consumer to share my story of the scam of a life coach so this experience does not happen to anyone else.
To start, I became interested in life coaching to help in my relationship with my partner of several years. I did not choose to pursue the avenue of traditional therapy out of stupidity mostly and a resistance to doing all that dredging up of past issues. I was taking a "short cut" and believed because the work seemed to be about getting results sooner rather than later that it would be ideal for my partner and I. We didn't have much time, and my partner had been resistant to this process in the first place. We needed a little jump start on our communication and finding more time together. That was all.
Shannon has a very nice manner and easily comes across as likeable. When I had my first consultation he seemed very certain of his abilities as a coach and his ability to help my partner and I get more out of the relationship. Our first sessions were okay and he polished off some catch phrases and told me how to make small adjustments that seemed to work.
My partner and I never saw Shannon together and after 4 sessions, it became clear he ran out of road and competency. My partner and I were very "complex" people in the mind of this so called life coach. There is great love between my partner and I. She is my dearest friend and we have the usual bickering of most couples who have been together for years. But there is nothing fatal in our union. We're opposites in many ways, but we bring out great qualities in one another.
When Shannon couldn't understand our dynamic he revealed his youth and after only 4 sessions suggested that I could find someone who made me happier. (Not so I assure you) That I should either change all my beliefs I had spent the last 40 years creating and only then would we progress in our work with him. He went on to say if we were unable or unready at the current moment to agree to change, then we should end it now and spare both of us heartache. ALARM BELLS SOUNDED.
I would like to mention he did this all so subtly and slick I had no clue any of this was going on. Man, do I feel like a chump. Shannon proceeded to pick apart our relationship, by never seeing us together, encouraging us to come up with outrageous expectations and demand them from our partner or walk... His solutions were not solutions at all but a means for destroying in 4 weeks what it had taken many, many years to build.
We wanted a boost not to be taken for a lot of money by someone who really had no training upon exploration, no degree, and no understanding of human emotions or basic Psychology. My own knowledge of Psychology alerted me to the fact that this man was manipulating our emotions so we would need to continue to see him independently, and if his strategy worked we would break up in little over a month and pay double to see him as individual clients. He told us we would be fine after breaking up-what was this guy on? And that with his help (and a couple more thousand dollars I'm certain) we would each live happy and fulfilled lives. He caused a major fight between my partner and myself where we felt our only choice was to break up. It seemed totally unnatual and out of the blue as we had been doing better than ever in the weeks leading up to this horrid incident.
And let me not forget to mention HE NEVER SAW US AS A COUPLE. The most inexperienced of counselors can tell you that this is against any model of progress. Without seeing a couple with one another you cannot see all the love, charm, and dynamics at play. It is all to easy to get us to complain individually if we are lead to trust someone.
He does what so many con artists of his kind have done before. He isolates, earns peoples trust, and cleverly pits people against one another leading them to believe it was their own decision. His solutions did not work for us and we walked away from this boy at once.
This was a horrible experience. I had to see a Psychologist afterwards to get my bearings as I felt so emotionally and physically drained from almost losing the best friend I've ever known. Please be advised that life coaches I'm sure there are good ones, this one is clueless and destructive and looking to make some money off of vulnerable or trusting people. Almost ruined both our lives and the not so funny thing was we paid to go through this experience.
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