I figured a life coach must be a cross between a fortune-teller and a personal trainer: someone who tells you what your future holds while whipping your ass into shape so you’ll look good when you get there. But last Tuesday afternoon Dr. Joe Siegler, founder of the Full Life(R) coaching method, which “offers the chance of empowerment while celebrating progress as goals are achieved,” showed me that it’s so much more than that: life coaching is therapy without the crying.
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At 10:30 PM only four women had shown up. UPN casting associate Dominick, a frail-looking man with thinning red hair and warm eyes, ordered us to form a line. A dozen men stood at the bar checking us out.
ANTM is another in a long line of reality shows designed to make women compete over dumb shit like the length of their necks or how statuelike they can remain while birds crap on their heads. I keep watching, though, because I love the moment at the end when they reveal the results of each week’s photo shoot, and these gawky Eliza Doolittles are transformed into amazingly hot, unattainable creatures. But I don’t envy them. Just standing there trying to impress a dude I normally wouldn’t give the time of day to was nerve-racking enough. As the night wore on, however, even I found myself eyeing my so-called competition–about a dozen women in all–and drawing unflattering conclusions. Most of the girls, like me, weren’t model material–then again neither are any of the contestants on the show, so maybe we all had a chance.
D: How old are you?
He took a couple photos. I stood up straight and stuck my chest out. I tilted my chin but didn’t look down. And that was it. I walked away and shrugged at the dudes at the bar, who were looking at me expectantly, like, Did you get in?
He walked over to his group, and after some discussion sent over a guy in a straw cowboy hat and giant plastic mirrored sunglasses. We shook hands, and he sat down on the stool to my right. He asked all the questions you’re supposed to ask upon first meeting someone–what I thought of the place we were at, what I do for fun, what I do for work–and caught himself when he thought he might’ve been going on about himself too long. I could see him searching his mind for all the lessons he’d learned from Ben.
I must’ve looked shocked. “It’s nonracist,” he said. “My best friend was a black skinhead.”
