We Are All In Our “Coaching Era,” And It’s Ruining Content
No, I really don't think we all have expert opinions on everything.
This is a piece I wrote for my new finance blog, RaggedRiches.com. You can subscribe via WordPress or Beehiiv to get stories for free. In a bit (when I’m not dying of sleep deprivation) you can also check it out on its own Substack publication coming soon.
As a writer and content creator, I have the blessing of being able to be around people who are truly geniuses helped guide me in my content creation journey. Among these are Dr Mehmet Yildiz (Main),
, Joe Duncan, and .These are people who gained their wisdom by doing — and also surrounding themselves with others who are great. They know what they’re doing because they’ve actually accomplished things, hit speedbumps, and more.
These are people who I can personally vouch for and who I know can act like amazing mentors. I’ve learned a lot from them, even just by casually observing them. A good coach and mentor is priceless.
This is true about almost any type of mentor, even those who are not mainstream. Rave promoters mentored me and taught me how to party. Dominatrixes have mentored me. Fashion models and agents have even mentored me.
I’m a fan of mentorship.
But I’ll also be the first one to say that I’m really sick of seeing almost everyone and their grandma talk about how great their coaching services or mentorship services are.
I’ve noticed a rapid rise in “coaches” that don’t have qualifications touting their services.
And you know what? I know at least one of my readers noticed it, too. These “coaches” tend to have the same type of marketing for their services:
They don’t have much experience in their field, nor do they pool knowledge from others. You are told they have “experience,” but their resume says otherwise. They have nothing to back it up.
Many of them don’t use science, personal accomplishments, or statistics to back up their claims. If anything, they tend to have a more religious, spiritual, or pseudoscientific bent. Some might also politicize or propagandize their services, like Andrew Tate.
They don’t really explain how their coaching sessions work or what you get from them. They don’t tell you if it’s a course or if it’s just a one-on-one. They tend to just keep promises vague.
They don’t have any sort of certification in their field. For example, I’ve seen one guy who was a “health coach” who was not a doctor. He was selling colloidal silver as a dietary supplement, which means he will likely have some clients feeling a little blue.
Their marketing is often slapdash, even when they say they’re marketing coaches. Yes, you can always have a person who’s a genius at their work who doesn’t market themselves well. However, their marketing is often entirely word of mouth. These “coaches” don’t even have that.
If they team up with anyone, it will be a person who is equally dubious to them. For example, I remember when Christian influencer-turned-sex-coach Bethany Beal invited over “sexperts” who openly admitted to using a newborn baby to illustrate sexual parts.
Most of the time, I’ve seen coaches that fit this bill on social media, swearing that they’ve got the secret sauce to take your life to the next level. It’s clear they have little to nothing to offer. So, what gives?
The generic coaching industry is one of the few potentially lucrative industries to lack regulation.
I want to point out that being an athletic coach generally does require regulation, especially if you’re an official personal trainer. That’s not the type of coaching role I’m talking about.
I’m talking about roles like “health coach,” “life coach,” “career coach,” “spiritual coaching,” or the ever-popular dating coach roles — such as the services Fresh & Fit claimed to peddle.
Coaching is a deeply mixed bag because there are no rules or regulations binding people to a sense of duty or best practices. Some coaches are great. Others pretend to be great, knowing that someone will be fooled into buying their services.
Bad coaching is easy to do. It’s a grift that’s been seen with such people like Andrew Tate. Some give bad advice that makes your life worse. Others will go so far as to never really call you back after you sign up for their coaching.
A typical person won’t be able to do a deep dive to figure out what’s going on with their potential coaches — especially if they’re not a big name in their field. So, it’s easy for grifters to “dip in, dip out” and rebrand themselves.
The grift of bad coaches is affecting content (and people) in a seriously negative way.
Most people who decide to become coaches will use content marketing to get clients. This alone is not that bad a thing. The problem comes when the content marketing starts to involve:
Political, spiritual, or hateful propaganda. A lot of men have been harmed by dating coaches and PUA coaches who turned men’s frustrations into hate for a paycheck.
Medically dangerous misinformation. The wrong medical advice can have lethal, horrifically disfiguring outcomes for the fools who take it.
Lies. If you are lying about what you can deliver, that’s messed up. If you are lying about your past or accomplishments, that’s also messed up because it’s making it harder for people to parse out what’s really true online.
Gludge. Gludge is what I call rehashed, blithe, and trite advice that anyone could give you without any content improvement, expansion, or additional benefits to the reader. SEO will naturally have some gludge to it, but it’s getting to the point where both blogs and social media are choked with it.
Heavy-handed sales funneling. It’s one thing to have a call to action at the bottom of your article. It’s another to inundate readers with literally nothing but “BUY MY COACHING!”
The internet was once the information superhighway. It still has a plethora of great sites and social media platforms where you can get everything from scientific studies to moving essays.
Sadly, a lot of those sites are starting to get overrun by bad actors who are still pushing their coaching services — actual science, morals, and ethics be damned. And it’s messing us up.
When it comes to content, you are what you consume.
As it turns out, “you are what you eat” isn’t just about dieting. It’s about everything. This includes the content we consume — even if it’s content we don’t particularly agree with.
The rise of propaganda is abundantly clear to everyone by now. We’ve seen a generation of men poisoned by Andrew Tate, an orange Mussolini elected thanks to Russian troll accounts, and more.
It’s not been good for us.
The wave of propaganda, medical misinformation, and hearsay we’ve been experiencing has been breaking our society and wrecking our media literacy. Even our common sense has gone by the wayside because of it.
However, if it makes these “coaches” a quick buck, those coaches won’t care. They will laugh their way to the bank — even while their clients end up broke, in worse shape, and ultimately harmed by their advice.
Laws are addressing the limitations of what these businesses can do, but it’s not enough.
Unethical, unregulated, and uncoaching businesses can have dire consequences on their clients. Shocker: consumer laws exist for this reason. This is especially true in the health, dating, and personal finance fields.
It’s health and personal finance that have come under particular fire recently. Not too long ago in Turkey, a woman died while giving birth with the aid of an unlicensed “birth coach” who didn’t call a hospital when the baby was born breeched.
Women in America face similar risks when they choose an unlicensed, untrained birth coach instead of a doula or hospital. But, it doesn’t stop there, either. TikTok has become a hotspot of “coaches” and influencers touting products that either don’t work or are dangerous to use.
What many of these coaches don’t realize is that certain fields have legal restrictions on what they can and cannot do. For example, a Florida court ruled that an unlicensed health coach cannot offer dieting or medical advice.
That health coach? Oh, she appealed her case claiming that the state was tamping down on her “free speech.” Free speech does not extend to medical misinformation — and social media platforms are doing what they can to curb the flow of misinfo as it happens.
So, what happens now?
Social media platforms have two options: they can either help work against bad actors or they can watch content get worse by the year. We saw how well Option #2 worked with Twitter.
Lawyers and regulators also are going to eventually have to step in. The misinformation, bad faith product touting, and scamming are going to lead to a rise in lawsuits. With lawsuits come new laws.
So, the golden era of sly coaching will shake itself out eventually. Until it does, be careful who you get coaching with.
Let the buyer beware. Always.
I'm really glad you wrote this! It's a serious problem. In the past, I have worked with coaches and although some used some powerful tools to lead people to insights, some were straight up grifters. The moment I realized how they are in it for the grift was when I had a revelation that I was a codependent (which I got from meditation....not that I was a codependent but it had to do with my value and worth issues). I shared that with the coach. And she dropped me. I realized then that she WAS taking advantage of me because she already saw that....and now that I saw that, well, the grift was done. Her response should have been - see a therapist! I'm here to support you.
I also saw this recently in a coaching support group I was in.....part of the reason why I left was that I noticed how some in the group needed heavy therapy (they were constantly getting coached and when I heard their issues....yes, a form of abuse was present at some point in their lives). They need a therapist - not group discussion! I wanted to talk about my work....but even then, some in there wanted to coach me out of my job, as if they were an expert in coaching....which they weren't. It was BIZARRE! We need to regulate coaches or push them off the internet. I know I like to create content and share insights, but with 25+ years of experience, I even get pushed out or marginalized by colleagues. Everyone claims that they are an expert...in everything...it's INSANE!