The Coaching Industry is a Scam
empty promises for $5,555
The first online container I signed up for took place in 2019. It was $1,100 for 30 days and then “lifetime access” to monthly calls and the content that was shared over the 30 days.
The content was based in spirituality and self development.
I really do believe that this was a good program for me and the teacher I had at the time was someone that I went on to work with in various capacities over the next year and a half. When I stopped working with her it was because she stopped teaching. Her methods and support were powerful and helpful for me in various aspects of life. I got the most out of it all and I am grateful. The experience I had with that first container had me going back for more and exploring working with others too.
I’ve joined various masterminds, groups, and programs in the online coaching space since then. Some of them were good. Others left a lot to be desired. Regardless, I kept wanting more. It was never enough. It was never the thing that moved the needle for me. I kept searching. Going back again and again and being pulled in by the marketing of these people promising me something I deeply desired. Their words and sales pages were powerful enough to keep me coming back for more, but fleeting enough that I had to keep coming back for more because lasting changes were not made.
Each time I’d click the buy now button and think this is the one!! in regards to “getting my life together” and building a business just like those people. That’s what so many of us want, right? We want what these coaches are selling. Financial abundance, working for ourselves, freedom, happiness, beauty, health, and lots of people who love us and validate us by giving us attention and paying us large amounts of money for our offerings.
At least that’s what we think we want and we’re lead to believe that’s what these people have.
Last year I threw a Hail Mary and signed up for a year long group container that cost $5,555.
It’s no secret that I had a challenging time from 2020-2022. I was going through IT. Floundering around with a wrecked nervous system and no sense of direction or idea of wtf I was doing in life. I needed help, or at least I thought I did, and I felt a strong pull to join a specific offering with a specific coach. I did some small scale stuff with her before, masterclasses and the like, so I knew her style and resonated with it. Sign me up!
I paid $5,555 and put it on an interest free credit card. I paid it off in 8 months. I am someone with a focus to get debt out of my life asap if it’s something I am comfortable taking on. I know many who rack up dollar after dollar of programs with the belief that they’ll be able to pay it off with one big gush of money from a future offering. The belief is that they’ll share a program or container that fills up in seconds at a hefty price tag, making it big like the coaches manipulating them into doing it in the first place.
At first the container was amazing. I had access to all of the past content and enjoyed going through it. I was active in the community and working to make connections with other women. But, the longer I was in there the more I began to see things differently.
I noticed the different relationship dynamics the coach had with the women who invested in her other (often four to five figure) offerings compared to those who didn’t. There were definitely tiers of women based on this fact. It wasn’t clearly stated, but it was made obvious and was confirmed by two other women who were also in the group with me and saw what was happening. The one woman shared something personal with the coach in a private message and the coach tried to sell her a different offering to “work through” what she shared with her. The other woman and I talked often about the way things were going in the group that just didn’t feel right. I saw the surface level spiritual bypassing and positive vibes only way that we were expected to interact. I felt the fakeness of it all. And I slowly began to see the online coaching industry for what it really is… a big waste of money.
I think that some base level of work like this is helpful in growth and connection which is what I experienced in the first container I joined. But there is a clear cycle that many people get sucked into. Signing up for program after program, container after container, mastermind after mastermind and not doing much of anything but the work required to work through the thing they just signed up for. It’s insanity and it’s something I fell into.
I was investing dollar after dollar into other people’s methods without realizing that I can create our own methods. Working through content or courses created by others and not recognizing that I could throw it all away and pave my own path.
As Marie Forleo says, “Everything is figureoutable.”
And it is. Usually without spending thousands of dollars for someone else’s “secret methods,” too.
This made me realize that I do not want what most of these coaches are selling. I do not want to be what they’re selling either. I am here to do things differently. I do not want to rinse and repeat, selling things that I do not feel good about consuming. Thanks, but no thanks.
I’ve been in this $5,555 container for almost a year now. The content and offering simply isn’t worth the money spent on it… at all. I was talking with one of the friends that I made through the container and she feels the same way. We joke that we’re the most expensive friend each other has ever had.
Now I see the marketing (*cough cough* manipulation) tactics that take place to get people to invest in these types of things. I’ve talked to multiple women in the group who have went into debt for this coaching, along with more coaching too, usually.
Oftentimes whenever you’re looking for coaching you’re unhappy with some aspect of life and are struggling. The marketing/manipulation tactics are used to prey on that and provide false promises, keeping you stuck in that wheel of investment.
Another thing that goes along with that is how selfish it all is. Sure, I’m all for getting yourself some help and embarking on a self development journey. That is important. It really is!! BUT, there is a line that gets crossed so often in this corner of the internet and it turns good ol’ fashion self development into selfish development.
Selfish development - when you are so focused on you that it’s to your own detriment. That, I very much believe, is where we are at these days.
Focused on me, me, me.
Cancelling plans 10 minutes before, not showing up at all, thinking that we don’t owe anyone anything and quite frankly, treating others like they’re not real human beings. The disconnect is real and it all begins with our phones, social media, and the mega consumption of content that feeds directly into selfish development.
With my year in this container coming to an end I received an email yesterday about renewing for another year. I clicked the link just to see what’s behind there and came to find that for the second year it costs about $7,000 to join!!!! I estimated because there is a payment plan or a one time fee cost. I didn’t sign up (duh) and two week later the coach messaged me privately on the group chat platform and also on Instagram letting me know that I could have lifetime access if I signed up for another year. I am 0% interested at this point but even if I was, I’ve been in many containers before that preach lifetime access as a selling point. Almost every one of them has switched up their business or dissolved the business altogether which means there is no more lifetime access. Most of them didn’t even give a heads up or option to save anything that you’d want to keep before deleting the portals. You know why they did that? Because they didn’t actually care. Once they got the money and fulfilled their end of the deal it’s simply onto the next thing.
If I were to renew my access to this current container I would have over $12,000 invested in it. Do you want to know what $12,000 would give me lifetime access to?
a group chat
access to past and current masterclasses
other workshop and call offerings
That all can be yours for thousands of dollars. It’s quite crazy.
CRAZY!!!
Now that I’m seeing it, I can’t unsee it. I see Instagram stories of coaches who are seemingly inspiring and #goals and now I see manipulation and fear tactics. It is all so fake and so often they are selling to the point of wealth, abundance, or financial freedom instead of an actual offering such as Elemental Herbalism. It’s boring. It’s all the same. Give me some creative and useful options that I can learn from and enhance my life. But no. That won’t happen because the coaches all rinsing and repeating the same old templates that they all learn from each other and it is working on a lot of vulnerable people.
It’s so convincing too. They make you feel like you want it. You really believe that you do want it and that’s why you keep investing. It makes you feel productive and confident that you are taking action when 98% of the time no action that will actually move the needle is being taken at all.
It’s comforting that past coaches and YouTubers are sharing more openly about all of this and helping bring awareness to the subject.
At the end of the day signing up for the $5,555 program was the best thing I ever did because it helped me to realize that I will never sign up for another one. The world does not need more follow the leader vibes, we need more individuality. We need more people sitting with themselves, figuring out who they are and what they like, and sharing all of that with the world. We need more originality, not fake “authenticity.”
There is a time and place to seek specific guidance on certain things professionally and personally but generally speaking, when we can be with ourselves and allow our curiosity to lead the way we will find so much more. We have an infinite well of creativity inside of us that is waiting to be intuitively guided. The more we consume of others, the less we can strengthen that connection within ourselves.
THIS WEEKS OFFERINGS
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