Life Coach Career: Salary & Helping People Change

What does a life coach really do? Diane Martinez joins us to explain how life coaching helps people move forward, why so many successful people still feel stuck, and how coaching differs from therapy. We also talk about building a coaching business, what life coaches charge, creating recurring income with Patreon, and the daily habits that can help people change their lives. If you've ever wondered whether life coaching is the right career—or the right investment—this episode is for you.

Connect with Diane:

Website: https://www.consciouscreatinglifecoaching.com/book-presale

Patreon Program: https://www.patreon.com/c/dianemartinez

Diane's book: Open Up and Get Unstuck →

Interested in starting your own business? Explore more interviews in our Business & Entrepreneurship category →

"How Much Can I Make?" Is nominated for 2026 Women in Podcasting Award!

Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation

Visit howmuchcanimake.info

About the host: Mirav Ozeri has always been drawn to storytelling and journalism, especially the stories of everyday people.

In the 90’s She founded her own video production company, producing, directing, and editing documentaries and videos for political organizations which led to a 17-year career at CBS News, where she served as a producer/editor, helped launch CBS MarketWatch, and later worked as a senior editor and segment producer until the program was acquired by Dow Jones.

During her years at CBS, Mirav developed and produced a television pilot built around a simple idea: giving people an honest look at what different careers are really like. Although the pilot was never picked up, the concept stayed with her. Years later, she brought it back as How Much Can I Make?, a podcast that explores real jobs, real stories, and the many paths people take to build a career.

Transcript

The Magic Wand Question

SPEAKER_01 0:02

If I could give you a magic wand, what would you do? If you could use it in your life to create something that would be pleasing to you, what would you do? Just pretend for a moment with me. What would you do if you had a magic wand?

What Life Coaches Actually Do

Mirav Ozeri - Host 0:16

Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make, the podcast about jobs and careers. I'm your host, Miravo Zeret. What if changing your life starts with changing your thoughts? Life coach Diane Martinez, who is my guest today, shares how people break free from feeling stuck, reinvent themselves, and build the life they wanna they want for themselves. We're also gonna find out what life coaches actually do and how much they can earn. So here is my conversation with Diane Martinez. First of all, thanks a lot for coming on the show. My pleasure. I appreciate the invitation and I'm grateful for Alina connecting us. Yes, I'm very curious about Life Coach. What is it that you do as a life coach?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Life coaching, I think it helps to put it in a relationship with therapy. I think most people understand therapy, what that is, if they have the experience of working with a therapist, that is very reflective, right? You're looking back at what brought you to where you are. You're looking for trauma that needs to be healed, you're looking for patterns in your behavior, in your choices that have brought you to where you are. It's very sort of backward looking and trying to bring an understanding and a context to where you are. Life coaching, on the other hand, is very much where are you now and where do you want to go? Very much forward looking. We when I work with clients, we're not talking about oh, the things that happened with your parents or they were jilted by a fiance or something like that. We're talking about gnawing emptiness within you that you're not okay with

From Teacher To Life Coach

SPEAKER_01 1:58

you.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 1:58

How did you become a life coach?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I backed into it. And after being a stay-at-home mom for a number of years, I that was no longer fun when my kids weren't home anymore and they were in school. I went back to college, got a teaching certificate. I taught third and fourth grade for 10 years. But then I just got the hum of dissatisfaction or just like something needs to shift. I want to do something else. So I quit my teaching career and became a certified health coach.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 2:24

Health coach?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yes. I love health. I grew up in a very medically oriented family, and that felt like the next best thing. It was still education, which I loved, but with adults, and got to help people make better choices so they could enjoy a more robust health. So I worked in corporate health for about four years. But it didn't take long to realize that for the people I met with most frequently, which were the people who were at the highest risk of developing heart disease in the next 10 years by the metrics of the company I worked for, it was hard to move the needle for them because if you say to somebody, let's say who's battling being overweight, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, who have a habit of having five or six beers Friday, Saturday nights, they're having burgers and fries for lunch every day. If you suddenly say, all those things you've been doing, yeah, don't do that anymore. That's not helpful. And it's really a disservice, I think, to them. Insulting in a way. It doesn't recognize the agency that they have, their story, all of the things that make you make the choices that you do. And so I began understanding that there is a level of coaching that is more helpful than just the health coaching to say, please move a little bit more, please stop eating Reese's like it's your job. That that is only gonna have so much traction. So I backed into life coaching. I was hired by a YouTube personality to be the sole coach in her women's group for it was a closed group, so a 12-month period of coaching the women in her group. The things that we talked about in that group were not about cholesterol or intermittent fasting or anything like that. It was all about I just can't stop feeling anxious about my job or I don't know what to do about my aging parent or my preteen is driving me nuts and I don't know how to manage that or whatever. And so I thought, you know what, I need to get training. If this is the kind of coaching that I'm doing now, I need to be adequately trained. So I spent a number of months researching programs. I settled on Alan Cohen's program because it was a robust program. It was not a two-week thing. How long was it? Six months with the mandatory in-person retreat in Hawaii. Oh no. That was so much fun with him. And I completed that certification and then at that point shifted from I still do some health coaching now, but life coaching is always an intrinsic and integral piece of that because it's about the mindset that you bring to the choices

Why People Feel Stuck

SPEAKER_01 4:58

you make.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 4:58

So give me an example of the people that come to you that need life coaching.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So if you see the book Over My Shoulder open up and get unstuck, yes, I wrote that three years ago. Because most, most of the people who come to me in our initial conversations complain about feeling stuck. Sometimes they know what they're stuck about. They need to quit being codependent with a partner or an older parent, or they know that their job is not good for them, but they haven't been able to pull the plug and make a transition. Sometimes they have no idea what needs to be shifted. They just feel like it's this quiet, like a my mom used to call it a burr in your saddle, or thinking of the princess and the pee under the mattress, just that bit of discomfort that nothing is horrible. I'm good, life's good. I've got a house, I've got food, I've got clothes, I love people, they love me. But something's not right. They sense that it could be better. There is more to life than they are currently experiencing, and that's what they are asking for help to discover.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 6:06

Do you ever say to somebody who comes to you, you really need therapy and not a life coach?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

In our initial conversations, I will frequently ask if they have seen a therapist or are they currently working with the therapist. Most often, the answer is yes.

A Job Exit That Changes Everything

Mirav Ozeri - Host 6:31

Give me a case scenario.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

I will refer to a young woman who was 27 years old when she reached out to me. She was single, no kids, was living alone in Florida when she was desperately unhappy in her job. She had a very good job, a very well-paying job that her parents, who lived in another state, very much wanted her to stay in just because they wanted their only child to be independent and strong in her own finances and ability to take care of herself. But the problem was when she closed her computer at the end of the day, she curled up in a ball for two hours because she hated it so much. In college, she had studied in Mexico City and really fell in love with sort of the Latin American world and the idea of living abroad and learning other languages and other cultures. And that's what she wanted to do. She wanted to go there, but she faced so much scrutiny from her family and not just her parents. Her uncles and aunts were like, I hope you're not nuts enough to leave your job. And please tell me you're not going to do something crazy like move to another country or whatever. And so she felt that very real conflict of what the people who loved her were telling her and the people she loved and what her heart was calling her to do. So in my work with her, we did a lot of work with examining her beliefs about life, about what was possible, about the purpose of life. Is do you believe that life is a struggle? Is it a battle to be won? Is it an exam to be passed? Or is it an adventure to be lived? What is your vision for yourself? A lot of my work with her was to try to peel back the layers of expectation to get at what her, what she wanted. And when we did that, it was glaringly obvious to her that she wanted to quit that job and move.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 8:21

And so do you encourage her to do it? What do you do that a best friend doesn't do?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

What I do is I don't have an agenda for her. A lot of times our friends and families have their own agendas, and sometimes even for a best friend. So they're not always gonna say what is honestly in your best interest as a life coach. It is not my job to tell people what to do. That to me, that is so heavy-handed. Oh, get out of that relationship or move or take the job or quit the job. What I help my clients do is to tap into their inner guidance because I believe we each carry our answers within us, but we're not taught to value those.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 9:01

So what happened with that woman? She quit the job and moved to Mexico?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

About six weeks after we quit working together, she did my three-month program and she emailed me to say that she had moved to Mexico. She is rooming with a friend that she met when she was down there before. And I was so proud of her for getting out from under the expectations of other people, out from under their

Homework, Journaling, And Support

SPEAKER_01 9:24

fears.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 9:24

You said that you saw her for three months. How often did you see her? Once, twice a week?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

No, it was actually every other week we would have a one-hour session. On the alternate weeks when we did not meet, we would have an email session because I like to give homework. I used to teach fourth grade, so I still like homework. Give them writing prompts to, and I would share some of my favorite teachers and my favorite audio lectures or instructions or whatever. There's just so much good content out there. So I share the things that I think would be helpful to them where they are and answer any questions that they have, any ahas, any understandings. I'm a big proponent of journaling. That that is such a cathartic exercise and can reveal a lot of ahas, can help us connect the dots that we don't get to connect if we're just thinking all the time.

The Real Need: Self-Worth

Mirav Ozeri - Host 10:16

What kind of needs do you see people that come to life coaches? What is the main needs that people come for?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I think the main thing that is missing is a lack of confidence in their worth and their abilities. The women in particular are taught that you have to earn your good. You have to prove to yourself and to all of us that you're smart enough, that you're strong enough, that you've got what it takes. So many times people bend over backwards, getting multiple degrees, ever higher levels of achievement and success, rising to great things. And not that there's anything wrong with that, not at all. But when it comes from the mentality of I am not good enough as I am, and to in an attempt to be good enough, I will knock myself out achieving all of these things. Then hopefully somebody will pat me on the back and say, There, girl, you finally made it. Earlier, I talked about the layers of expectations that my client had. We carry layers of these illusory beliefs, like we're not enough, prove yourself, compete with other people. You only win when somebody else loses. All of that nonsense. So, what I help people do is not to reach out into the world to grab something, but to go within and recognize that what they need is already there.

Coaching Niches And The COVID Shift

Mirav Ozeri - Host 11:34

Is there like a kind of a niche in life coaching? People helping all the people before they die to organize their life. I hear a lot about isolation and loneliness of a certain generation because of the internet and the social media and all of that. Do you see a rise in the need for life coaching because of that?

SPEAKER_01 11:55

I definitely see an increasing need of life coaching, and I honestly think COVID had a lot to do with that. We were isolated. Now, some people were isolated with a bunch of people in their family. That produced its own challenges. But many people were isolated on their own. The incidence of smoking went way up during COVID. The woman who used to do my hair gained a bunch of weight, and she said they do call it COVID-19 because she gained about 20 pounds. So I think it just created this atmosphere where these problems came to light that might have been skating along under the surface. And I do think more people are aware that there is something else that needs to be addressed in their life. There are, to answer your question, there are many different kinds of coaching. There's career coaching, which is also, I think, a very rapidly growing industry, trying to help people find where their gifts and talents and their likes and dislikes can be put to best use, most lucratively. There's coaching for kids. I have a friend who is works with young girls and also women in prison to help them through their trauma. And then there are coaches for just men. I have had male clients before and they've been absolutely delightful, and I've enjoyed that. My primary focus is working with women, just because I think women just walking around believing that they're not good enough because they have chubby thighs or they didn't achieve whatever or So you give them some sort of reinforcement like a family member would, or that's the other part of the aspect of the holistic coaching that I do is to recognize that we're body, mind, and spirit. We're focused on this body because this is what looks back at us when we look in the bathroom mirror. It's like, this is me, that's where you're living right now, but that's not who you are.

Conscious Creating And Your Beliefs

Mirav Ozeri - Host 13:40

You use the phrase conscious creating. What exactly does it mean?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

That's a very good question. And as an entrepreneur, any entrepreneur puts a lot of thought into what the name of their business is. I did as well when I began my life coaching practice, and I settled on conscious creating because that's at the heart of what I do. I have come to understand that we are each creating our own experience of reality. Now, we don't create reality with a capital R that was already in place long before we showed up. But we do create our experience of life through the beliefs that we hold, the thoughts that we think, the words that we say. And we frequently, many people stumble through life not recognizing the power that they have. So when they say things like nothing ever works out for me, or it's Murphy's Law, if something can go wrong at will, or I'm not one of the lucky ones, or life's a bitch and then you die, they think this is all just benign, offhand comments that have no effect in reality. But those beliefs create your reality. So if you're not aware of that, you do just stumble through life, usually in a very reactive way, putting out fires, waiting to see what happens to you today and handling problems as they're thrown at you. But if you can elevate your understanding to realize that the beliefs that you hold and the thoughts that you think and the words that you say have tremendous creative power, and you choose to use that consciously, to consciously contemplate what do I believe about life? What do I believe is possible for me? What do I say on a regular basis? And is it supporting my success and my joy, or is it something that's pulling me down? Most of your clients' referral. Some word of mouth. I have a former colleague from my health coaching days who has invited me into various corporations to speak at Lunch and Learns or wellness days that they have or some special out-of-the-norm sort of day for them. And that has been a growing part of my business is to do corporate presentations, which I dearly love. I did one last week for a medtech firm on processing your emotions healthfully. I've done a lot on stress management. I have one coming up on building emotional resilience. So do you mix a little bit your health experience? For one client, yes. There is a municipality that has invited me to come every month for one day to do one-on-one coaching for whoever would like to sign up. And we can talk about health things or life coaching things, whatever is on their mind, that's fine with me. Keeps me on my toes. And we have 30-minute sessions there. I would say the corporate presentations I've done are leaning more toward mental health.

AI As A Coach And Its Limits

Mirav Ozeri - Host 16:32

Okay, I have to ask you this. A lot of people, we hear a lot about people befriending and using Chat GPT or AI as their coach, tells them what to do. Couldn't that be a solution for somebody?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

It depends on what they're coming from. I think if they have a very painful youth that they are trying to overcome, ChatGPT is not gonna get it done. But that's a therapist's job. That's the job for a therapist. But in terms of this is going on at work, I'm not sure how I w should respond, or does this seem like grounds for looking for another job and walking away from this? It can be good, but if they have deep-seated beliefs about their lack of worth or what's possible for them that they need to work with a person, but it certainly can help. In fact, you could even ask it, which would be better for me to see, a therapist or a life coach. It's not, I will put it this way, it's not a bad place to

Pricing, Programs, And Patreon

SPEAKER_01 17:31

start.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 17:31

So I want to ask you about the Patreon because that looks like a good business model. But before, tell me, what is the average charge of a life coach? Does it work by the session or is it by the process? Or how does it work and what's the average?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

The average for the corporate one-on-one coaching that I do. My fee is $150 an hour. Okay. Which that sounds like a lot, but I haven't raised it in years and more for presentations. If they want me to present to a group, and especially if they're going to record it to save the three-month program, again, I haven't changed the price in three or four years, is fifteen hundred dollars. I understand that is out of reach for many people, and I understand and respect that. But for one-on-one coaching, that's a steal. But the Patreon group is a great in-between because how does it work?

Mirav Ozeri - Host 18:23

Tell the audience how does it work, the Patreon group?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

So, for those who are not familiar with Patreon, it is a membership platform for creators. Whether you do woodworking, so my my husband is a woodworker and he follows some people on there, so that's what comes to mind. It is really helpful for the creator and it's very user-friendly for all of the subscribers because there's no contract, you're not obligated to six months or a year, two years, or anything like that. And each creator can choose how many different tiers of membership that they offer. How much is a subscription? It's per creator. My entry level, there you can always join as a free member too and just see what's what. The entry level for me is seven dollars a month.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 19:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

In my group, that gets you a lot of content, and this is where I do try to be accessible for as many people as possible because that includes we have a theme every month. The theme this month, because it's summer we're taking it a little lighthearted. Living creatively. Every Monday we have a check-in of some sort. I ask a different question every Monday to just get people to chime in and see how they're doing. Then there is a PDF that can be a worksheet or some journaling prompts or just some content for them with an accompanying video. That's at the beginning level, and then other levels include a monthly live where we all get together on Zoom and chat. The highest level includes a one-on-one coaching session with me each month. And those are and the participant, they see each other, they know who is in the group. That's my only complaint about Patreon is if you do a live on Patreon, only the creator is has the video.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 20:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

People can jump on and ask questions and interact via their keyboard, but you don't see each other. That's why I do all of our lives on Zoom so members can see each other and get to know each other because that's the synergy, that's the good stuff, is when they get to know each other and it feels more like a group instead of just this is my

Why Community Connection Works

SPEAKER_01 20:24

membership.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 20:24

What did you learn from building an online community like this?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

What I learned is that connection just matters so much. It is not just me sharing content, but them seeing each other on Zoom, these people who would not meet any other way, finding out that, oh my gosh, I've got a daughter that same age too, and she's worried about going into middle school. Or you you find your commonalities, and there's so much more that brings us together than separates us.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 20:54

Do you think that group sessions like this and being part of a group like this is better than one-on-one to actually achieve the results you want? No.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I do have a couple women in the group who did the one-on-one coaching with me, and this is just a way to stay connected with that and still be reminded of the work that we do and also get the other perks. It does not take the place of one-on-one coaching. But if one-on-one coaching is out of your reach financially, this

Change Starts From The Inside

SPEAKER_01 21:22

isn't bad.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 21:22

It's a good alternative. If somebody comes to you and say, I feel totally stuck, I don't know where I'm going, what's the first thing you tell them to do? If I could give you a magic wand, what would you do?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

If you could use it in your life to create something that would be pleasing to you, what would you do? To take away the rules and regulations, or that doesn't make sense, or I don't have the education, or that's not possible. To just imagine, just pretend for a moment with me. What would you do if you had a magic wand?

Mirav Ozeri - Host 21:52

You hear a lot, you cannot change people, people will not change, people will not. So how do you break that mold? How do Do you change people? Because it's a lot of it is about change, no?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I agree. I don't think we can change people. I absolutely believe people can change because real change comes from the inside. The person who wakes up one day and says, I am tired of always being last on my list. I'm tired of putting everybody in front of me. I want to live my life. The work as a life coach is not about changing other people, but to help them change their mind about themselves and life and what's possible. So many people are like, I'm too old to find a mate. I'm too old to learn how to dance, to play piano or whatever. That's the change that you want is to shake loose those old beliefs that have kept them where they are. That's the change that I'm seeking is not to change them, but to change their mind about what's possible for themselves and just about life in general. That's why life coaching is typically much shorter in duration than therapy.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 23:02

I always believe the therapists don't want to get you better because they will lose a client.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Exactly. Life coaching, on the other hand, is to is once I help people what I call find their sea legs. Do you know that expression? No. Okay, so when you're out on a boat and the ocean is pitching, when you're first out there, you're seasick all the time and feeling very dizzy. And but once you become accustomed to that, you have your sea legs, you're not bothered by the pitching and the yellowing of the ship. You're stable and you're good. So once I help people find their sea legs in life, let's say I help them with a job problem. Well, all the things that they learned through that work can be applied to a relationship problem, some other crisis or financial trouble or whatever. My job is to work myself out of

The Daily Writing Habit

SPEAKER_01 23:46

a job.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 23:46

Interesting. What would you say is the one habit that people should develop? Absolutely and unequivocally, it is writing daily.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Really? Absolutely, because thinking is overvalued in our society. And I know that might sound weird. Some people might be thinking, like, lady, what's the matter with you? It's not that thinking is bad, but I liken it to a hammer in the toolbox of a handyman. But it's not the tool for every job. Thinking is not the tool for every job. There are some things that we ask our mind that your heart needs to answer. And writing is a way to tap into that. If you begin to make a regular practice of writing, now I'm not saying on day one you're gonna get a life-changing aha, but if you make a practice of writing, it's like an off-ramp for those thoughts. When you write, you can access that deeper understanding. You can connect the dots of, oh, these are my triggers. You're able to develop a keener understanding of yourself, what's important to you, what hurts you, what inspires you, what motivates you when you write. You just can't get there with a hammer of thinking.

More Wins And Final Takeaways

Mirav Ozeri - Host 24:56

So before we go, because I would love to leave on an up note, can you tell me of a success story besides the one that went to Mexico?

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Oh, easily. I was one of the first women in my three-month program, going back a number of years now. She was married, had two kids. She was a family lawyer. She practiced family law. And she was feeling like she just wanted more excitement in her life, like it wasn't enough as it was. And as we began this work, she just started, she said, I just started having this feeling of contentment where I just I lost that desperate sort of feeling like I've got to make something happen. I've got to make something happen. And she just she said, honestly, I just felt content. And she got a notification from her employer that they were creating a new position for her to do even more of the kind of work that she loved and less of the clerical administrative part that was currently part of her job. Another big benefit was the older of her two sons, who I think was nine years old at the time, was dealing with anxiety to a fair amount. And she took the things that we did together, just the calming things and the practices, and she practiced them with her son. And she said she saw big improvement in him to where it's not, oh, he was cured, but she was able to use that to help her son deal with his anxiety and just come to a more peaceful state. So I definitely count that as a win.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 26:26

Fantastic. That sounds like a win. I agree with you. Diane, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

I enjoy the conversation. Hope it's helpful to your listeners.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 26:38

Yes, I wish you lots of luck. It seems like the business will be growing with all the problems we're having in the world. Your business probably will grow.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

I don't hope for problems in the world, but if people are looking for some form of comfort or their best next steps, I welcome the opportunity to be a part of that. Excellent.

Where To Hear More Careers

Mirav Ozeri - Host 26:59

That's it for today. For more interviews with people with different careers in different jobs in many different industries, go to how much can I make that info. You'll find lots of information there. And I will see you next week.