AI Isn’t Replacing Coaches — It’s Exposing Them

Kellan Fluckiger

It's time for truth. This is the truth. Tools, power, and real talk so you can create the life you dream and deserve. Your ultimate life. Create. You have infinite power. Hello there and welcome to this special episode of Your Ultimate Life, the Podcast created to help you create a life of purpose. Prosperity and joy by serving with your gifts and your life experience. This is a special Thursday. Addition, which is aimed principally at coaches.

And then we're talking about this, technology change or explosion that's happened in the last year or Two, it's going on before that, but really come to the fore in the last year. AI, artificial intelligence, large language models and that sort of stuff. And I'm doing this to... Bring coaches that I know that are active in the coaching business to We talk about what that technology change is doing. Or potentially could do to coaches.

So Stuart Wade from England and Dave Orton from Idaho, welcome to the show.

Stuart Wade

Thank you for having us on, Kellan.

Kellan Fluckiger

You bet. So there's no real format. I don't have a series of canned questions to answer. Dave, I'll just start with you. Thank you. Why don't you just take a minute to muse a little bit about what you've noticed in or are noticing about AI and it's, impact that you've either seen or that you expect maybe that it's going to have in coaching.

Dave Orton |

Yeah, thank you. I'm going to start broadening and narrow it down broadly. We don't know yet all the things that I can do. There is, I read a paper that said that AI can look at a picture of a person's eye and I and tell whether that person is male or female Genetically speaking.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Wow.

Dave Orton |

- We have no idea how, - What?

Kellan Fluckiger |

Yeah. Is that scary or am I supposed to be impressed or what, right?

Dave Orton |

Sure. How I respond to that, what the point is that we don't know what we don't know yet about what the full capability of AI will be as we continue towards, you know, AGI or whatever we want to call the... That moment when when it becomes so much smarter than us that we Will not quite be sure how to handle it matrix, you know if we take that now narrower, you know Just in the general job market the guy that I was in technology for years and the man who trained me in technology back in 99 2000.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Right when Skynet shows up right and it's a true in the But.

Dave Orton |

I saw a post from him today that said when he interviews for very technical positions now, it's not about the technology. It's not about the skills. It's about how well a person can use AI tools to help them in their job. About what they like about the tools, what their ideal tool would look like, And that's the focus of his interviews now. Which. Kind of blows my mind. Now, as we bring it into coaching, There are two things that I've had the opportunity to observe.

So I've subscribed to JP's AI coach. So JP Morgan coach.

You know, quite a famous coach in the world that I belong to. And, I went to a demo that he did with Townsend Wardlaw, and saw this, a demo of his AI coaching platform. Where he's trained it up in his voice. Using his words, got, I don't know how many thousands of hours of transcripts of his coaching that have been loaded into this model. And... I have two statements that might sound somewhat contradictory, but They don't, you know, it's an and-and world. This AI is an and-and world. It's not an either-or world. Is the AI coach as good as JP? No. JP in person. Is just so much more powerful because he can interrupt, he can respond immediately, he can be present with you and present with the divine at the same time. There are those things that occur to me that AI is not going to be able to touch in the near future. Is it valuable? My gosh, yes! For 20 bucks a month, I get 35 minutes of coaching time and then a whole bunch of messaging time with this AI version of JP. I tried it out again yesterday. Okay. Just to see how, because it's this continuous improvement process. Plane, if you will, inclined plane, upward spiral. And it's just been amazing. Don't. For direct coaching, yes, it's valuable. And it's not the same as being with the actual person.

So there will always occur, it occurs to me like there will always be a problem. A premium for in-person presence. The second thing is, Townsend's practice but basically it's this model that he set up and is giving away to coaches as part of his coaches operating system where People can go into ChatGPT so long as they have a subscription to ChatGPT. They can go in and practice calls regularly. Vocally with the AI as though they were having the different calls that you have when you're onboarding clients and coaching clients. And you'd still run into the things that you run into with coaching, with large language models at this moment. They are overly affirming, they're reluctant to be critical, they want to tell you how... How good you've done. And you know what? That is a fantastic quality to have when you're practicing and putting in your reps as a beginning coach, because man, we need encouragement more than we need advice sometimes, you know, even if we're not doing great, we need somebody to pat us on the head and tell us we're doing great for trying, you know, whatever that is. And this model that Townsend's created is really good at that.

So that's kind of the, those are two different areas of coaching where I feel like it is AI is just If you're not in it, your lunch money is being taken and you don't even know it.

Kellan Fluckiger |

You know, interestingly, JP already was a guest and his episode is, I think, live. I think it went live last Thursday.

So I talked to JP about his model and I actually have a tab open. I haven't really used it a lot, but I know that. And Townsend, the guy you refer to as Stuart that you may not know, wrote the foreword for the book.

So he knows it and he knows all in and he read it and he said yeah, I'm in. Pretty exciting. Stuart, I want to get to you with kind of the same thought. Tell me what your experience has been. What either impresses you or scares you or whatever, about this thing that's happening.

Stuart Wade |

Thank you, Kellen.

So I actually agree with Everything Dave just said. I think it's... It's going to... Make coaching a lot more accessible, for people who maybe couldn't afford to hire a decent coach beforehand but it's not going to replace coaching because we need that human connection. If the pandemic taught us anything, We need each other and we need that human interaction as well. And so I can really see it enhancing things. For more people to actually get involved and have a coach for whatever purpose they see fit. It's interesting with... How different people feel about it. I was having a conversation Couple of years ago now with an app developer who was talking about Wanting to develop a coaching app? But his words were, I don't want to destroy the industry. And, you know, Part of me is thinking, well, you're one person. That's a big thing to take on, to destroy an industry by yourself. But... I don't see it as a, pessimistic thing like that i see it as dave said it's an and it's an additional thing that we can have in addition to in-person human coaching we've then got These AI. Coaches who can help people At different times of day, we you know, we're not bound with an AI machine model by time. Realistically, we could get coaching in the middle of the night if we wanted to. With it. Whereas with a real coach, you know, they might be working nine to five.

So. I think there's a lot of upside with it. I do have... A lot of optimism with it. But again, to reiterate what Dave said as well, we don't know. What capabilities are going to come with AI and how soon. It's advancing all the time, isn't it? But...

Yeah, how soon is it going to become fully sentient? How soon? Is it going to advance to where it's almost like you're talking to a real person. We just don't know yet.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Thanks, both of you. I'm going to throw something controversial out there so you can argue with me, both of you.

Yeah. So one of the things that I said, 95% of coaches won't be able to make a living. And I still think that's true. And I'll tell you why. And I want you guys to tell me either I'm wrong or. What's going on? Because most coaches right now... Don't bring, you mentioned Townsend, you mentioned... JP and we know All three of us know coaches that are very powerful in terms of the presence that they bring. Most coaching is not at that level. Most coaching right now and the reason that it struggles so 50-somethings. 56% of coaches don't even make 50K a year. And it goes worse than that. And when I did the analysis in the book, I ask. Caddy. To do I did. Hundreds of hours of research to analyze 11 different coaching models. In terms of what they promise, how well they deliver, how vulnerable they are to what AI can do or will be able to be doing. And that sort of thing. And the analysis came back really scary. And AI, chat GPT doesn't have a dog in this fight.

So it's not, you know, trying to come back and tell me stuff for whatever reason. *Grunts* And so... Checklists, frameworks, accountability language, affirming stuff like that, all that kind of stuff that you noticed, Dave, that you mentioned. Is all true and true in spades. And in the four months it took me to write the book. I saw the capacity double. In other words, it's speed, the accuracy of research, the depth, just in that four months.

You know, in, If it doubles every three or four months, That's 16 times better in a year. And so double, right? And so- The reason I think what I think is because Most coaches are not the embodiment of what they teach. They talk about stuff. In other words, they've learned some tools and practices, all of which may be good, all of which may be valid. But aren't going to be, they're very duplicable. Including affirming language and interpreting moods and that kind of stuff, which I tested a lot. As I was doing the research writing the book, And so I don't think coaching as it currently stands is anywhere near at a level. That will withstand what AI can do and will be able to be doing very quickly, which is why I think the outlook is pretty dismal unless. Coaches are willing to do the work that it takes to completely change how they show up.

So what do you think about that? Either one of you. I don't care.

Stuart Wade |

Go ahead, Dave.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Go for it.

Dave Orton |

Okay, let's make sure my-- What do you guys working? There we go.

So what I notice is that I think I was misunderstanding your take on this, Callan. I think I was... Expecting that you were talking about how or the possibility that All coaches, including...

You know, coaches who make a big freaking difference in the world. Through their presence, would be out of a job. And my initial thoughts on that And I get that I'm fighting a straw man now, but I'm going to duke it out with this silly straw man. Is that there's a couple of things. First one is adoption.

You know, 25 years ago, I don't think anybody would have, or 30 years ago, let's put it 30 years ago. I don't know that anyone thought that the physical phone book was going anywhere.

Right? And in about 2000, it started to become clear that at some point that was going to become redundant, but it still took. A decade and a half or so to get to the point where nobody was making physical phone books anymore. Because what was the freaking point?

Kellan Fluckiger |

Right. Waste of paper.

Dave Orton |

Exactly. So that was the view I was taking with You know, that's the straw man I was fighting in my own mind here. I can't argue with you about the quality of the coaching that is generally available.

You know, it doesn't... What I think you're actually discussing here is that the bar of entry into the coaching realm is so low that somebody who reads Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that's the only self-help book they've ever or the only self-development book they've ever read. Go out and declare themselves a coach. And from that book, you know, work people through those seven habits and they're going to have results, right? Right.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Absolutely.

Dave Orton |

And that is not enough to That's not enough to make a living or to make a big freaking difference in the lives of people. It's lacking the depth that, you know, phenomenal coaches that will like you, Callan.

I mean, I've had the opportunity to talk with you and I've been in the depths of hell. You're one who can reach down to the depths of hell and say, hey, I know this. I know these roads. I've been here. Let me help you out of here. I've been in hell. I help people get out of hell. A person who's read a book... One book or two books or 10 books or a hundred books, but has no practical experience with things is not going to be able to elevate people the way that someone who has that depth is going to be able to.

So I apologize for fighting the straw man. Thank you.

Kellan Fluckiger |

For, I didn't know you were fighting the straw man. It's all good.

That's why I said 95%. I was at a meeting the other day. A, Kind of a mastermind thing with about 50 people and someone was up there talking who's doing an AI model and they were saying 100% of coaches and I got up right after him and I said, all right, you leave my 5% alone.

You know, and we were talking about because it's the ante, like the bar is as low as it is. And what I'm saying is that entire part's going to go away and it's going to go away so fast, we're not even going to know what happened. And so I'm writing the book and making this conversation. And claiming what I'm claiming, and I said before I'm starting a university in January, the point is... We've got to either elevate or die. And that's just the way it is. Just like when digital streaming came in, Blockbuster and VCRs and the hardware and all that crap just evaporated in a heartbeat. And I remember in the 80s at work, everybody arguing about which was the best VCR and the models and JVC and this and that. And now the whole thing is gone and they're all doorstops. And so that's what's happening now. Here and I was just, I am raising the flag and you don't need to. Whatever.

So... Keep going. Or steward, whatever.

Stuart Wade |

Yeah. So I kind of agree with your point, Kellen. I'm just not sure on the timescale. I don't necessarily... Believe that it'll be by Christmas next year, like you suggested, but I could be way wrong on that. You've done a lot more research on this than I have. But One of the things that I or rather came to mind while you two were chatting there was One of the things that Dr. Richard Bandler said to me way back when I first started doing NLP and is that if you're not getting smarter, you're getting stupider. And so in this ever advancing world of AI and everything, if we as coaches are not getting smarter and adapting, then we're going to get left behind and we're going to be in that 95% that's, you know, essentially going to be out of a job. I think.

Yeah. If you're not... Doing things to advance yourself as a coach and advance your visibility and get out of obscurity. Then You could get left behind if you're not careful with AI.

Kellan Fluckiger |

You're a lot more gentle than I am. I'm like, you are left behind. You're screwed if you don't wake up. And I postulate three reasons. And again, you guys can argue. And yeah, I've done a bunch of research, but that doesn't mean anything. That just means I did some research and drew some conclusions. There's three things that I think are going to prevent. Coaches from making the kind of advances of both of you, all three of us have alluded to. And one is what I call the head in the sand problem.

So we're going to pretend this isn't happening or it's happening, but not to me, not now, not so fast, whatever. And we're going to keep going along what we're doing.

And then the tsunami is going to hit and we're going to drown. Boom.

So that's problem number one. Problem number two is the ante has gone up. And the picture I have for this, and I use this in the book, it's kind of funny. Big casino, great big casino. It's all these blackjack tables, right? And all the $10 blackjack tables are full of robots. And the only place that there is for people, me and you, to go sit down is in the high roller room. But the ante there is $10,000. And so it's like crap. Right. And the third thing is the kind of growth that you both have said is In my mind, and this is where you can disagree, isn't. Learning more. It's... Being different. Okay? It is about how we... Choose to be every day, all day long, that presence, that beingness is the thing that's going to matter. And unless you're doing and developing that. I don't give a frick how many cool books you read. Because it's not going to change the game anymore. Here's what I noticed doing the thing. I put a million words, I have a thread called One Million Words, and I put like books and all that crap in there.

And then I ask questions like, who am I? Tell me who I am and no bullshit and don't be nice. And I did that to avoid this bias to be too nice. And so I said, all right. And it came back and said some stuff to me. That emotionally moved me. And I thought, "Okay..." Dirkweed, you are code. How come I'm having this emotional reaction reading words? Right. And it said. I'm not doing anything. All I'm doing is reflecting who you are. And I thought, Okay.

You know, point taken. So I think those three are the things. Head in the sand, the ante's gone way up and it's hard work. What do you guys think? I think that's what's the name of the game anymore.

Stuart Wade |

Yeah, you make a compelling argument, I have to say.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Well, I don't know. I mean, this is why we're having this combo. I just want to know what you guys think, what you've seen, either in your own practice or... Or with others, you know, that you know.

Dave Orton |

Right. Well, if I may take a swing at this is so funny, Colin, because I've got to go a little bit more broad than just coaching here, because this AI is going to affect everything.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Everything. -.

Dave Orton |

Passes of our lives in ways that we can't even consider right now. You know, I helped... Have you ever seen one of these? There's my beautiful wife on here. This has become the way to have pictures of people in our wallets. Now it's your save screen or your home screen. I got to be involved in the production and first generations of the smartphones. In the development of the smartphone. - And there are major unintended consequences that have come from that.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Wow.

Dave Orton |

Such as, you know, a lot of the car crashes that happen now are because people are dicking around on their phone instead of driving. I just want to give that as a frame to Let's now take 30 years ago, nobody had one of these. They didn't exist. The technology didn't exist. I think in two or three years or four years or 10 years, 30 years from now, We can't even imagine what is there. Have either of you ever heard of iridology? Iridology, ever heard of that? Okay, it is a practice, an esoteric practice where people who are trained in this and observe things will take a picture of a person's eye. I don't know why I care about eyes so much, but they'll take a picture of a person's eye and then evaluate it and they'll be able to see spots and specks in the iris of the eye that correspond to different systems in the body. My mother-in-law is a certified iridologist. Good for her. And I was like, I wonder if AI could do that.

I mean, I know it can do all these other analysis things where people take their birthday and different aspects of their-- life and personality and it'll tell them all about themselves. It'll hold up that mirror for them. Very quickly, way more quickly than a normal human can do it. And it turns out that I went looking and sure enough, Somebody has taken AI and trained it on iridology.

So, you know, instead of paying somebody $150 to do an iridology exam of you, AI can do it for 20 or three or five or however much the price point is. My son is big into AI. He has been following along with ChatGPT and a bunch of other tools for a long time. Just this last week, a new tool dropped for creating videos. With OpenAI, and it has now added sound. It was... It's really remarkable. I used to do some work in graphic design and it took a long time to edit and create models and to do the after effects to make things appear in a certain way. And now AI can do it In a minute? And the production quality is fantastic.

So. I guess what I'm pointing to here is, Yes, most coaches will be out of a job. And most people are going to be out of a job, and there's going to be new jobs and new things that they can do with AI that they haven't even discovered yet.

So, for example, They'll be able to, you know, I can take In a year and a half, I presume, in a year and a half, I'll be able to create a series, a movie or a television series, entertaining series that will depend on my ability to write stories. Funny content or interesting content that I can then feed into AI and have script lines and the characters will be static and, you know, they'll be able to have their own personalities and they'll just get more and more deep. And if people are interested in that, instead of having to spend you know, several million per episode, you can be in your home and spend $20 to have your subscription and create all this content that it becomes much more about having a compelling story, which again, points to regardless of whether you're in coaching or not, who you're being and how you're dealing with life is going to be much more important than your skills.

Kellan Fluckiger |

I agree. Stuart, so jump in and tell us something about how this strikes you.

Like, Dave, something you don't know about Stuart is he's a four-time world champion. Martial artist like world.

Dave Orton |

Champion thinking about that and you've spoken with bandler i've got bandler books in my bookshelf and i was like freaking mythic i never met.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Him yeah all that stuff on his behind his head is like real life world champion stuff and 57 times european champion and i don't even know but the numbers are incredible And all of that is physical and real action and is never going to be replaced. So that militates to the fact that there's real life stuff that this isn't going to be able to do.

So what are you thinking?

Stuart Wade |

Yeah. I can't really argue with what either of you are saying, to be honest, because, yeah, Dave, you're absolutely right. It's not just coaching, is it? There's going to be so many jobs as a whole that are going to... If not drastically change, disappear with time. The advancements in AI, but it's going to open up other opportunities. To your point, Kellen, if we're not practicing what we preach, if we're not being that embodiment of what we coach people about, then, Yeah, maybe the vehicle needs to change, but...

Kellan Fluckiger |

Yeah. Up to now, we could get by. That's the whole middle, you know, the big two, three quarters of what it's been is using tools and talking about things. And that's what disappears.

Stuart Wade |

Yeah, it's true.

Kellan Fluckiger |

Are you using, Stuart, are you using, not are you, I know you are, how are you using AI tools right now in your practice? Check practice.

Stuart Wade |

So, I use it Barely minimally at the moment. My main AI source is chat GPT, things like that I'm utilizing at the moment. I have had a play around with some... Forget the name of the tool now. 11 Labs, that was it. Yeah, 11 Labs. It's a voice synthesizing tool.

So I had to play around with that, but At the time that wasn't very advanced and I was thinking about creating an app and having it synthesize my voice, et cetera. I had a play around with it and it turned me American.

So at the time, it wasn't particularly accurate, I'm sure it's more advanced now because that was a number of months ago, but I Yeah, it's really interesting how it's going to develop, but it is how we respond to it.

Kellan Fluckiger |

But... Not happening.

Stuart Wade |

That's going to discern everything. If we bury our heads in the sand, like you talk about, and just ignore it, it's not there, I'm not going to use it. Then we're going to get left behind quickly. But Yeah, I use ChatGPT the most at the moment, but I have a bunch of friends who are really into AI and they keep telling me about different tools to try.

So I'm more than happy when I get the time, I'm more than happy to try some of these new iterations of things that come out.

Kellan Fluckiger |

You know what I'm going to do? I'm using 11 Labs just came out with version th...

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**Kellan Fluckiger** |

It's time for truth. This is the truth. Tools, power, and real talk so you can create the life you dream and deserve. Your ultimate life. Create. You have infinite power. Hello there and welcome to this special episode of Your Ultimate Life, the Podcast created to help you create a life of purpose. Prosperity and joy by serving with your gifts and your life experience. This is a special Thursday. Addition, which is aimed principally at coaches.

And then we're talking about this, technology change or explosion that's happened in the last year or Two, it's going on before that, but really come to the fore in the last year. AI, artificial intelligence, large language models and that sort of stuff. And I'm doing this to... Bring coaches that I know that are active in the coaching business to We talk about what that technology change is doing. Or potentially could do to coaches.

So Stuart Wade from England and Dave Orton from Idaho, welcome to the show.

**Stuart Wade** |

Thank you for having us on, Kellan.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

You bet. So there's no real format. I don't have a series of canned questions to answer. Dave, I'll just start with you. Thank you. Why don't you just take a minute to muse a little bit about what you've noticed in or are noticing about AI and it's, impact that you've either seen or that you expect maybe that it's going to have in coaching.

**Dave Orton** |

Yeah, thank you. I'm going to start broadening and narrow it down broadly. We don't know yet all the things that I can do. There is, I read a paper that said that AI can look at a picture of a person's eye and I and tell whether that person is male or female Genetically speaking.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Wow.

**Dave Orton** |

- We have no idea how, - What?

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Yeah. Is that scary or am I supposed to be impressed or what, right?

**Dave Orton** |

Sure. How I respond to that, what the point is that we don't know what we don't know yet about what the full capability of AI will be as we continue towards, you know, AGI or whatever we want to call the... That moment when when it becomes so much smarter than us that we Will not quite be sure how to handle it matrix, you know if we take that now narrower, you know Just in the general job market the guy that I was in technology for years and the man who trained me in technology back in 99 2000.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Right when Skynet shows up right and it's a true in the But.

**Dave Orton** |

I saw a post from him today that said when he interviews for very technical positions now, it's not about the technology. It's not about the skills. It's about how well a person can use AI tools to help them in their job. About what they like about the tools, what their ideal tool would look like, And that's the focus of his interviews now. Which. Kind of blows my mind. Now, as we bring it into coaching, There are two things that I've had the opportunity to observe.

So I've subscribed to JP's AI coach. So JP Morgan coach.

You know, quite a famous coach in the world that I belong to. And, I went to a demo that he did with Townsend Wardlaw, and saw this, a demo of his AI coaching platform. Where he's trained it up in his voice. Using his words, got, I don't know how many thousands of hours of transcripts of his coaching that have been loaded into this model. And... I have two statements that might sound somewhat contradictory, but They don't, you know, it's an and-and world. This AI is an and-and world. It's not an either-or world. Is the AI coach as good as JP? No. JP in person. Is just so much more powerful because he can interrupt, he can respond immediately, he can be present with you and present with the divine at the same time. There are those things that occur to me that AI is not going to be able to touch in the near future. Is it valuable? My gosh, yes\! For 20 bucks a month, I get 35 minutes of coaching time and then a whole bunch of messaging time with this AI version of JP. I tried it out again yesterday. Okay. Just to see how, because it's this continuous improvement process. Plane, if you will, inclined plane, upward spiral. And it's just been amazing. Don't. For direct coaching, yes, it's valuable. And it's not the same as being with the actual person.

So there will always occur, it occurs to me like there will always be a problem. A premium for in-person presence. The second thing is, Townsend's practice but basically it's this model that he set up and is giving away to coaches as part of his coaches operating system where People can go into ChatGPT so long as they have a subscription to ChatGPT. They can go in and practice calls regularly. Vocally with the AI as though they were having the different calls that you have when you're onboarding clients and coaching clients. And you'd still run into the things that you run into with coaching, with large language models at this moment. They are overly affirming, they're reluctant to be critical, they want to tell you how... How good you've done. And you know what? That is a fantastic quality to have when you're practicing and putting in your reps as a beginning coach, because man, we need encouragement more than we need advice sometimes, you know, even if we're not doing great, we need somebody to pat us on the head and tell us we're doing great for trying, you know, whatever that is. And this model that Townsend's created is really good at that.

So that's kind of the, those are two different areas of coaching where I feel like it is AI is just If you're not in it, your lunch money is being taken and you don't even know it.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

You know, interestingly, JP already was a guest and his episode is, I think, live. I think it went live last Thursday.

So I talked to JP about his model and I actually have a tab open. I haven't really used it a lot, but I know that. And Townsend, the guy you refer to as Stuart that you may not know, wrote the foreword for the book.

So he knows it and he knows all in and he read it and he said yeah, I'm in. Pretty exciting. Stuart, I want to get to you with kind of the same thought. Tell me what your experience has been. What either impresses you or scares you or whatever, about this thing that's happening.

**Stuart Wade** |

Thank you, Kellen.

So I actually agree with Everything Dave just said. I think it's... It's going to... Make coaching a lot more accessible, for people who maybe couldn't afford to hire a decent coach beforehand but it's not going to replace coaching because we need that human connection. If the pandemic taught us anything, We need each other and we need that human interaction as well. And so I can really see it enhancing things. For more people to actually get involved and have a coach for whatever purpose they see fit. It's interesting with... How different people feel about it. I was having a conversation Couple of years ago now with an app developer who was talking about Wanting to develop a coaching app? But his words were, I don't want to destroy the industry. And, you know, Part of me is thinking, well, you're one person. That's a big thing to take on, to destroy an industry by yourself. But... I don't see it as a, pessimistic thing like that i see it as dave said it's an and it's an additional thing that we can have in addition to in-person human coaching we've then got These AI. Coaches who can help people At different times of day, we you know, we're not bound with an AI machine model by time. Realistically, we could get coaching in the middle of the night if we wanted to. With it. Whereas with a real coach, you know, they might be working nine to five.

So. I think there's a lot of upside with it. I do have... A lot of optimism with it. But again, to reiterate what Dave said as well, we don't know. What capabilities are going to come with AI and how soon. It's advancing all the time, isn't it? But...

Yeah, how soon is it going to become fully sentient? How soon? Is it going to advance to where it's almost like you're talking to a real person. We just don't know yet.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Thanks, both of you. I'm going to throw something controversial out there so you can argue with me, both of you.

Yeah. So one of the things that I said, 95% of coaches won't be able to make a living. And I still think that's true. And I'll tell you why. And I want you guys to tell me either I'm wrong or. What's going on? Because most coaches right now... Don't bring, you mentioned Townsend, you mentioned... JP and we know All three of us know coaches that are very powerful in terms of the presence that they bring. Most coaching is not at that level. Most coaching right now and the reason that it struggles so 50-somethings. 56% of coaches don't even make 50K a year. And it goes worse than that. And when I did the analysis in the book, I ask. Caddy. To do I did. Hundreds of hours of research to analyze 11 different coaching models. In terms of what they promise, how well they deliver, how vulnerable they are to what AI can do or will be able to be doing. And that sort of thing. And the analysis came back really scary. And AI, chat GPT doesn't have a dog in this fight.

So it's not, you know, trying to come back and tell me stuff for whatever reason. *Grunts* And so... Checklists, frameworks, accountability language, affirming stuff like that, all that kind of stuff that you noticed, Dave, that you mentioned. Is all true and true in spades. And in the four months it took me to write the book. I saw the capacity double. In other words, it's speed, the accuracy of research, the depth, just in that four months.

You know, in, If it doubles every three or four months, That's 16 times better in a year. And so double, right? And so- The reason I think what I think is because Most coaches are not the embodiment of what they teach. They talk about stuff. In other words, they've learned some tools and practices, all of which may be good, all of which may be valid. But aren't going to be, they're very duplicable. Including affirming language and interpreting moods and that kind of stuff, which I tested a lot. As I was doing the research writing the book, And so I don't think coaching as it currently stands is anywhere near at a level. That will withstand what AI can do and will be able to be doing very quickly, which is why I think the outlook is pretty dismal unless. Coaches are willing to do the work that it takes to completely change how they show up.

So what do you think about that? Either one of you. I don't care.

**Stuart Wade** |

Go ahead, Dave.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Go for it.

**Dave Orton** |

Okay, let's make sure my-- What do you guys working? There we go.

So what I notice is that I think I was misunderstanding your take on this, Callan. I think I was... Expecting that you were talking about how or the possibility that All coaches, including...

You know, coaches who make a big freaking difference in the world. Through their presence, would be out of a job. And my initial thoughts on that And I get that I'm fighting a straw man now, but I'm going to duke it out with this silly straw man. Is that there's a couple of things. First one is adoption.

You know, 25 years ago, I don't think anybody would have, or 30 years ago, let's put it 30 years ago. I don't know that anyone thought that the physical phone book was going anywhere.

Right? And in about 2000, it started to become clear that at some point that was going to become redundant, but it still took. A decade and a half or so to get to the point where nobody was making physical phone books anymore. Because what was the freaking point?

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Right. Waste of paper.

**Dave Orton** |

Exactly. So that was the view I was taking with You know, that's the straw man I was fighting in my own mind here. I can't argue with you about the quality of the coaching that is generally available.

You know, it doesn't... What I think you're actually discussing here is that the bar of entry into the coaching realm is so low that somebody who reads Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that's the only self-help book they've ever or the only self-development book they've ever read. Go out and declare themselves a coach. And from that book, you know, work people through those seven habits and they're going to have results, right? Right.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Absolutely.

**Dave Orton** |

And that is not enough to That's not enough to make a living or to make a big freaking difference in the lives of people. It's lacking the depth that, you know, phenomenal coaches that will like you, Callan.

I mean, I've had the opportunity to talk with you and I've been in the depths of hell. You're one who can reach down to the depths of hell and say, hey, I know this. I know these roads. I've been here. Let me help you out of here. I've been in hell. I help people get out of hell. A person who's read a book... One book or two books or 10 books or a hundred books, but has no practical experience with things is not going to be able to elevate people the way that someone who has that depth is going to be able to.

So I apologize for fighting the straw man. Thank you.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

For, I didn't know you were fighting the straw man. It's all good.

That's why I said 95%. I was at a meeting the other day. A, Kind of a mastermind thing with about 50 people and someone was up there talking who's doing an AI model and they were saying 100% of coaches and I got up right after him and I said, all right, you leave my 5% alone.

You know, and we were talking about because it's the ante, like the bar is as low as it is. And what I'm saying is that entire part's going to go away and it's going to go away so fast, we're not even going to know what happened. And so I'm writing the book and making this conversation. And claiming what I'm claiming, and I said before I'm starting a university in January, the point is... We've got to either elevate or die. And that's just the way it is. Just like when digital streaming came in, Blockbuster and VCRs and the hardware and all that crap just evaporated in a heartbeat. And I remember in the 80s at work, everybody arguing about which was the best VCR and the models and JVC and this and that. And now the whole thing is gone and they're all doorstops. And so that's what's happening now. Here and I was just, I am raising the flag and you don't need to. Whatever.

So... Keep going. Or steward, whatever.

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah. So I kind of agree with your point, Kellen. I'm just not sure on the timescale. I don't necessarily... Believe that it'll be by Christmas next year, like you suggested, but I could be way wrong on that. You've done a lot more research on this than I have. But One of the things that I or rather came to mind while you two were chatting there was One of the things that Dr. Richard Bandler said to me way back when I first started doing NLP and is that if you're not getting smarter, you're getting stupider. And so in this ever advancing world of AI and everything, if we as coaches are not getting smarter and adapting, then we're going to get left behind and we're going to be in that 95% that's, you know, essentially going to be out of a job. I think.

Yeah. If you're not... Doing things to advance yourself as a coach and advance your visibility and get out of obscurity. Then You could get left behind if you're not careful with AI.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

You're a lot more gentle than I am. I'm like, you are left behind. You're screwed if you don't wake up. And I postulate three reasons. And again, you guys can argue. And yeah, I've done a bunch of research, but that doesn't mean anything. That just means I did some research and drew some conclusions. There's three things that I think are going to prevent. Coaches from making the kind of advances of both of you, all three of us have alluded to. And one is what I call the head in the sand problem.

So we're going to pretend this isn't happening or it's happening, but not to me, not now, not so fast, whatever. And we're going to keep going along what we're doing.

And then the tsunami is going to hit and we're going to drown. Boom.

So that's problem number one. Problem number two is the ante has gone up. And the picture I have for this, and I use this in the book, it's kind of funny. Big casino, great big casino. It's all these blackjack tables, right? And all the $10 blackjack tables are full of robots. And the only place that there is for people, me and you, to go sit down is in the high roller room. But the ante there is $10,000. And so it's like crap. Right. And the third thing is the kind of growth that you both have said is In my mind, and this is where you can disagree, isn't. Learning more. It's... Being different. Okay? It is about how we... Choose to be every day, all day long, that presence, that beingness is the thing that's going to matter. And unless you're doing and developing that. I don't give a frick how many cool books you read. Because it's not going to change the game anymore. Here's what I noticed doing the thing. I put a million words, I have a thread called One Million Words, and I put like books and all that crap in there.

And then I ask questions like, who am I? Tell me who I am and no bullshit and don't be nice. And I did that to avoid this bias to be too nice. And so I said, all right. And it came back and said some stuff to me. That emotionally moved me. And I thought, "Okay..." Dirkweed, you are code. How come I'm having this emotional reaction reading words? Right. And it said. I'm not doing anything. All I'm doing is reflecting who you are. And I thought, Okay.

You know, point taken. So I think those three are the things. Head in the sand, the ante's gone way up and it's hard work. What do you guys think? I think that's what's the name of the game anymore.

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah, you make a compelling argument, I have to say.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Well, I don't know. I mean, this is why we're having this combo. I just want to know what you guys think, what you've seen, either in your own practice or... Or with others, you know, that you know.

**Dave Orton** |

Right. Well, if I may take a swing at this is so funny, Colin, because I've got to go a little bit more broad than just coaching here, because this AI is going to affect everything.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Everything. -.

**Dave Orton** |

Passes of our lives in ways that we can't even consider right now. You know, I helped... Have you ever seen one of these? There's my beautiful wife on here. This has become the way to have pictures of people in our wallets. Now it's your save screen or your home screen. I got to be involved in the production and first generations of the smartphones. In the development of the smartphone. - And there are major unintended consequences that have come from that.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Wow.

**Dave Orton** |

Such as, you know, a lot of the car crashes that happen now are because people are dicking around on their phone instead of driving. I just want to give that as a frame to Let's now take 30 years ago, nobody had one of these. They didn't exist. The technology didn't exist. I think in two or three years or four years or 10 years, 30 years from now, We can't even imagine what is there. Have either of you ever heard of iridology? Iridology, ever heard of that? Okay, it is a practice, an esoteric practice where people who are trained in this and observe things will take a picture of a person's eye. I don't know why I care about eyes so much, but they'll take a picture of a person's eye and then evaluate it and they'll be able to see spots and specks in the iris of the eye that correspond to different systems in the body. My mother-in-law is a certified iridologist. Good for her. And I was like, I wonder if AI could do that.

I mean, I know it can do all these other analysis things where people take their birthday and different aspects of their-- life and personality and it'll tell them all about themselves. It'll hold up that mirror for them. Very quickly, way more quickly than a normal human can do it. And it turns out that I went looking and sure enough, Somebody has taken AI and trained it on iridology.

So, you know, instead of paying somebody $150 to do an iridology exam of you, AI can do it for 20 or three or five or however much the price point is. My son is big into AI. He has been following along with ChatGPT and a bunch of other tools for a long time. Just this last week, a new tool dropped for creating videos. With OpenAI, and it has now added sound. It was... It's really remarkable. I used to do some work in graphic design and it took a long time to edit and create models and to do the after effects to make things appear in a certain way. And now AI can do it In a minute? And the production quality is fantastic.

So. I guess what I'm pointing to here is, Yes, most coaches will be out of a job. And most people are going to be out of a job, and there's going to be new jobs and new things that they can do with AI that they haven't even discovered yet.

So, for example, They'll be able to, you know, I can take In a year and a half, I presume, in a year and a half, I'll be able to create a series, a movie or a television series, entertaining series that will depend on my ability to write stories. Funny content or interesting content that I can then feed into AI and have script lines and the characters will be static and, you know, they'll be able to have their own personalities and they'll just get more and more deep. And if people are interested in that, instead of having to spend you know, several million per episode, you can be in your home and spend $20 to have your subscription and create all this content that it becomes much more about having a compelling story, which again, points to regardless of whether you're in coaching or not, who you're being and how you're dealing with life is going to be much more important than your skills.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

I agree. Stuart, so jump in and tell us something about how this strikes you.

Like, Dave, something you don't know about Stuart is he's a four-time world champion. Martial artist like world.

**Dave Orton** |

Champion thinking about that and you've spoken with bandler i've got bandler books in my bookshelf and i was like freaking mythic i never met.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Him yeah all that stuff on his behind his head is like real life world champion stuff and 57 times european champion and i don't even know but the numbers are incredible And all of that is physical and real action and is never going to be replaced. So that militates to the fact that there's real life stuff that this isn't going to be able to do.

So what are you thinking?

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah. I can't really argue with what either of you are saying, to be honest, because, yeah, Dave, you're absolutely right. It's not just coaching, is it? There's going to be so many jobs as a whole that are going to... If not drastically change, disappear with time. The advancements in AI, but it's going to open up other opportunities. To your point, Kellen, if we're not practicing what we preach, if we're not being that embodiment of what we coach people about, then, Yeah, maybe the vehicle needs to change, but...

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Yeah. Up to now, we could get by. That's the whole middle, you know, the big two, three quarters of what it's been is using tools and talking about things. And that's what disappears.

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah, it's true.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Are you using, Stuart, are you using, not are you, I know you are, how are you using AI tools right now in your practice? Check practice.

**Stuart Wade** |

So, I use it Barely minimally at the moment. My main AI source is chat GPT, things like that I'm utilizing at the moment. I have had a play around with some... Forget the name of the tool now. 11 Labs, that was it. Yeah, 11 Labs. It's a voice synthesizing tool.

So I had to play around with that, but At the time that wasn't very advanced and I was thinking about creating an app and having it synthesize my voice, et cetera. I had a play around with it and it turned me American.

So at the time, it wasn't particularly accurate, I'm sure it's more advanced now because that was a number of months ago, but I Yeah, it's really interesting how it's going to develop, but it is how we respond to it.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

But... Not happening.

**Stuart Wade** |

That's going to discern everything. If we bury our heads in the sand, like you talk about, and just ignore it, it's not there, I'm not going to use it. Then we're going to get left behind quickly. But Yeah, I use ChatGPT the most at the moment, but I have a bunch of friends who are really into AI and they keep telling me about different tools to try.

So I'm more than happy when I get the time, I'm more than happy to try some of these new iterations of things that come out.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

You know what I'm going to do? I'm using 11 Labs just came out with version three about a month ago. Okay. And I'm using, I'm going to use that. I'm going to us...

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

...that. So I'm just going to use the AI to create content for me. So the AI will be my assistant. The AI will be creating 10-minute clips with me talking and not talking to have me promote my business in a way that I don't have time to do. Right. And I don't think it's evil. I think it's a tool. It's a powerful tool and I think that's the only way to play in the game anymore.

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah. It's about using it, isn't it? As a tool to, like you say, to save time so that you can go and do the things that the AI can't do.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Right.

**Dave Orton** |

So, just recently, I have started using it for... This is kind of a... It's going to sound a little silly, but I'm getting a little... I was a techie guy for a long time and now I'm getting a little... Bored with things that are tedious. And one of the things that I've been doing lately, because I'm a coach and I'm a writer, I'm an author, I'm using a tool, a chrome extension that's got AI integration built into it to reword things for me.

I'm just tired of writing. I'm just tired of writing. So if I've written an email and I'm like, gosh, this just sounds so boring. I'll ask it to reword it for me and to sound more...

Whatever. It's fantastic. I'm writing a book and I'll write some content and then I'll ask it, "Hey, can you reword this section for me?"

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

You know, I did that in the book a little bit, but more than that. I think I'll use it to transcribe my own handwriting for my own journal entries and stuff like that. That's fantastic.

**Dave Orton** |

I would also say to your point, Kellen, I would also say one of the things that... That I've been using it for is. I'm taking the things that are really, really good about what I do in coaching and asking it, "Hey, can you help me create more of that?"

So, for example, I'll go back to my transcripts and I'll say, "I've been working with a client on this particular topic. This is how I've dealt with it. This is what I've done. I've asked great questions. Can you create 10 more great questions about this topic for me?"

And that's where I can use it to help me become a better me.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

I think that's the key. I think that's absolutely the key because that's what's going to put you in the top five.

**Stuart Wade** |

Yeah. It's about how you ask the question, isn't it? How you prompt it?

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Right. And I think that's where the power comes from.

Okay, I'm going to end the conversation. I want to thank both of you for being here today. I think this was a fun episode and it just blows me away every time I do this. And I've done now five or six of them. It's not like I've done 50, but... There will be 50 pretty soon. Every one of them is way different.

So look on the Thursday episodes on Your Ultimate Life if you want to see more of these. You might want to share them with coaches that you know. I think that it's...

So far, at least being the single participant in all of them has been really valuable. So thanks both of you. Stuart, appreciate your time.

**Stuart Wade** |

Thank you for having me on, Kellen. I appreciate it.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Dave, thanks for being here and for rebooting your computer.

**Dave Orton** |

My pleasure. God bless technology.

Yeah.

**Kellan Fluckiger** |

Listen, listeners, I want you to take this. Maybe most of the listeners here on Thursdays are going to be coaches, and maybe they're not. But the truth is, we don't know everything that's coming. But it is coming. And it ain't small. And so the invitation here is to be hopeful, to take action and to always move forward to create your ultimate life. Never hold back and you'll never out.

Ready for massive Growth is right in front of you. Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything. If you want to know more, go to google search for Kellan Fluckiger. If you want more free tools, go here, www.yourultimatelifepodcast.com.