For a while, I wanted to be a coach.
Not because I wanted to sell motivation. Not because I wanted to post quotes on LinkedIn. Because I had actually built something, lost money, fucked things up, rebuilt, and figured things out the hard way.
I thought, “If I can help someone avoid some of this pain, that matters.”
Then I hired a coach.
And that experience completely changed my mind.
The coaching experience that turned me off completely
I didn’t hire a coach to feel good.
I hired a coach because I wanted pressure. I wanted someone to challenge my thinking. I wanted someone who had been in the shit and could tell me when I was lying to myself.
What I got instead was an expensive conversation.
Frameworks I could’ve Googled. Questions designed to sound deep. A lot of “how does that make you feel?”
I didn’t need to explore my feelings. I needed to make decisions.
And after every call, I wasn’t sharper. I was slower.
That’s when it clicked.
Most coaching exists to make people feel productive, not actually move
Here’s the uncomfortable truth.
A lot of coaching isn’t designed to force action. It’s designed to reduce anxiety.
It gives people:
- reassurance
- permission
- validation
Which feels great. And does almost nothing.
Many business owners don’t actually want to be pushed. They want someone to tell them they’re “on the right path” while they avoid the hard calls.
That’s not growth. That’s emotional maintenance.
AI didn’t kill coaching — it exposed it
Then AI showed up.
And suddenly, everything became obvious.
Anything that looks like:
- mindset reframes
- surface-level strategy
- generic business advice
- “Have you thought about it this way?”
AI does it instantly. For free. Without pretending it’s wisdom.
If a prompt can replace your coaching value, you weren’t coaching. You were narrating obvious shit confidently.
Once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it.
Why I walked away from coaching entirely
I made a decision right there.
I will never charge people for something I wouldn’t pay for myself.
If someone wants ideas, frameworks, or perspectives, AI can help them. If someone wants pressure, execution, and real consequences, that doesn’t come from weekly calls.
That comes from:
- systems
- environments
- deadlines
- real stakes
And most “coaching” avoids all of that.
So I dropped it completely.
Losing clients didn’t scare me anymore after that
Around the same time, we started losing clients.
Not in a dramatic way. Not all at once.
Some leftover price. Some left after trying cheaper options. Some just weren’t aligned with what we actually do.
Old me would’ve panicked. Chased. Discounted. Said yes to shit I knew wasn’t right.
This version of me didn’t.
Because once you stop pretending you’re something you’re not, loss stops feeling personal.
It feels corrective.
Alignment matters more than retention.
Here’s something most business owners don’t want to hear.
Keeping the wrong clients costs more than losing them.
When you:
- dilute your core
- sayy yes out of fear
- offer services you don’t believe in
Everyone feels it.
We did static posts even though we’re a video company. I hated it. The clients hated it.
But no one said it out loud until the relationship was already strained.
That’s not a delivery problem. That’s a leadership problem. Mine.
Coaching, clients, and the same core issue
This is the throughline.
Bad coaching and bad client relationships fail for the same reason.
They avoid the truth.
They prioritize comfort over clarity. Conversation over commitment. Hope over structure.
And that always collapses eventually.
What I actually believe now
I don’t believe most business owners need a coach.
They need:
- fewer opinions
- less noise
- better systems
- environments that force execution
They don’t need someone asking how they feel. They need to solve the fucking problem in front of them.
Talking about the work is not the work.
Why this changed how I build everything
This realization is why:
- I stopped selling guidance
- I doubled down on infrastructure
- I built a studio instead of a coaching program
Because environments create behaviour. Conversations don’t.
That shift made the business cleaner. My decisions are faster. And my tolerance for bullshit is much lower.
If this pisses you off, that’s fine.
Usually, that means one of two things:
- You’ve been oversold on coaching
- Or you’ve been hiding in conversation instead of action
Neither makes you weak. But both become expensive if you don’t confront them.
Final thought
I didn’t lose belief in growth.
I lost patience with industries that sell comfort as progress.
Coaching isn’t dead. But a lot of what’s sold as coaching should be.
If your progress depends on talking about the work instead of doing it, no coach is going to save you. That realization did more for my business than any coaching call ever did.
