Why Most Coaches Won’t Survive the AI Revolution

Welcome to the show. Tired of the hype about living the dream? It's time for truth.This is the place for tools, power and real talk so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life. Subscribe, share, create. You have infinite power. Hey there.And welcome to this episode of your ultimate life, the podcast broadcast, been running for five and a half years, almost six in April, about how to create a life of purpose, prosperity and joy.And this is the special Thursday edition that I started a little while ago talking about what AI is going to do or could do in the coaching industry and what it's going to take to stay in that business. And I've got a couple of coaches with me here today. Ryan and Luisa, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having us.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Cool. So we're going to be unstructured and just kind of talk a little. I'll start it off with a question.Ryan, you happen to be in my upper left hand corner and I read left to right, so you're first. The initial sort of kickoff question is, are you using any kind of AI stuff in your coaching practice? And if you are, are you doing with it?And if you're not, why not?

Yeah, it's a good question. So a lot of what I do is very deep subconscious belief work, kind of like brain surgery for limiting beliefs.And AI is at a point where, not at a point yet where you can do hypnosis with it. So I don't use it directly with my clients. I do use it a lot for research. I found it very, very good for that.And the other piece that I really use it a lot for is messaging. I have autism. I tend to over explain massively. And trying to translate this crazy thing to normal people speak has been a problem for me.So being able to take my messaging and I want to say drop it in AI and get a more simplified version that's easier for people to lock onto and, you know, at a pace and structure that they can use has been extremely useful for me. That actually lets me get my message across in a way that is a lot more accessible.

So it's exciting for you in terms of what it can do for you in a, in a holistic sense, not specifically in client work.

Correct, correct.And I can see later on down the road as I'm sort of expanding some of my programs to be longer programs, I could definitely see we're having some tools to where you could have the interactive like Q and A to get some additional support. I can See where that would be very useful down the road.But the way they're structured right now, with large language models essentially being a screen grab of the Internet and very typical models and very typical responses, it doesn't really line up with the models and principles that I use. So the challenge there is trying to engineer a custom AI that actually reflects your principles and can leverage that in an effective way.That's a pretty big engineering challenge.

Cool. Luis, so what about you? What are you doing with it?

I love using AI. I started using it in the fall of 2020.I did work for about a year with a startup operating in stealth mold, building AI technology and leveraging AI technologies to build an app for teen mental health. And so at the time, it was all this talk about it, like, how am I going to use it in coaching?I'm doing this work with the startup, and so I just dove in. I didn't know what I was doing, but I wanted to start using it.And turns out that was a really helpful and useful way to use it because I tried to use it for everything that I could, from summarizing transcripts of calls with clients, to polishing my writing, to admittedly outsourcing my writing, and very quickly learned that is not the way that I want to go and not the way that I want to show up, at least to be original and a true thought leader. These days, I use it still to support me with polishing, writing, giving me feedback, brainstorming up to and including.And Ryan, you touched on this. The beginnings of, like, deep transformational work. Like, help me think about this deeply.Like, I'm having a conversation with Steve Jobs and Einstein on this topic. Let's riff. And it's kind of fun.

So if you think about, I mean, we call it artificial intelligence, but it is not intelligent yet. It is a massive collation and organization and research thing. But it hasn't reached AGI yet.Artificial general intelligence, which is, you know, the supposedly scary point. Ryan, if you think about, I hear the word in these interviews, creative partner.That word comes up a lot that people say when I say, how are you using it? If I. If I think about that, or you think about creative partner, and also a little bit of what Louisa said. I'm having a convo with Einstein and Jobs.What occurs to you about the possibilities for AI, specifically with respect to coaching, transformation, belief change, the kind of stuff that you're working on?

Well, I'll tell you the biggest challenge I see in AI. There's two big challenges I see in AI. In terms of those things, not three, actually.Number one, AI has no idea what anything is because everything's thrown in a blender and it's all taken in one bucket. The same words and same concepts mean very different things in different buckets.If you're talking about transformation from psychological standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, from belief work, that has very different implications. Right. So getting the context right and playing in the right bucket is something you have to work at.The other thing I would say is the reasoning piece of it is very rationally structured, so it doesn't have that same emotional frame in order to be able to establish that right context off the. Off the rip. Right. And so you really have to do a lot of work to set up the questions in such a way that AI can give you good answers.You often will have to say, okay, this is what I mean by these terms.One guy I know has basically an 80 page document of treat this term this way, treat this concept this way, that he has to load into AI in order to be able to do any real work with it. Now, I love what Luis was saying about, hey, give me a couple historical figures where there's a good corpus of data on how they think.I want to have a conversation with these people so I can work through some problems. Love that. Haven't been using AI in that way. Really excited to start doing that.And so using it as a tool to do research, ideation and refining your concepts and modalities and techniques, I think is phenomenal. But we have to be really careful about how you set those problems up on the front end.

Cool. Luisa, what are you thinking about that?

Well, I'll start with where you ended, Ryan, and you mentioned this earlier, Kellen. I believe as we move forward as coaches, our lived experience, what we've done, the results with clients, what we have.Back to what you've both alluded to embodied, we get the information, whether that's AI, a book, a podcast, a conversation, a speaker, a keynote, whatever.And then there's how we can only as humans, take that integrated, process it, and then distill it to our clients that meets them where they are and helps them move toward where they want to be. And that is the differentiator. So in that sense, there's an acceleration, at least to me, of information in a very strategic way that I can receive.But then ultimately the buck stops here, or maybe starts here in terms of what I do with it. And that's the edge that we can leverage AI for to differentiate ourselves in the Market, do you guys?

Oh, go ahead.

If I could. If I could dub to you a little bit off that.I think the thing that a coach can do that AI almost never will be able to do, is challenge a client, see the gap in their logic and reasoning and their mindset and their framing. That is the problem they're facing. Because if you're going to a saying, hey, I've got this problem, I'm seeing it this way, what's the solution?It doesn't necessarily know the questions to ask to break that framework is.It doesn't necessarily know the questions it needs to explore to figure out where the gaps are in the understanding that led you to this problem in the first place. And that's where that lived experience as a coach is 100% critical.That is the edge that I don't think you can duplicate with AI anytime soon, if ever.Even if you get to AGI, I'm not entirely sure, because it's that emotional experiences, that lived, embodied experience of engaging with the world that gives you that. And AI cannot engage with the world, cannot get that feedback right.And I think that right there is where the coach sits that can't be duplicated by AI.But all the refining your process and increasing your skill set and messaging and everything else, using AI to support you as a coach, I think that's phenomenal.

Helen, go ahead. I'd love to add one more thing to Ryan. This is so juicy where it's going.So one thing that I have done and have found really valuable, that again, to your point, I cannot replicate the space that a human can hold for another.And going back to my original point about information and the strategic use of AI to distill information, I have taken a snippet, a segment of a conversation with a client, and I said, I have the sense I missed something here. Read this. What did I miss? And it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Here.

You nailed this. You did this. And I look at it and it's all information. And then I'll have a nugget. I'm like, that's it. Dang it. I went right past that thing.And then I can take that information, integrate it, and then use it in service of my clients the next time around. And it is juicy to riff and collaborate that way with AI.

I love that.

One of the things that when I did an analysis of where coaches are right now, actually right now is in April when I started this project, so six months ago or so, I asked for an income breakdown, and it wasn't pretty coaches today or six months ago, including today, most of them aren't making a living, you know, a living per se, in terms of what I defined and in the conversation and I did it like you guys have described, back and forth and exploring different ideas. It used the word performative. Performative coaching. And it defined that, to your point, Ryan, as.As going through a series of actions, prescribed actions, checklists, processes, modalities, systems that they learned somewhere. And you said something, both of you, about this embodiment.And the conclusion we got to is the reason 95% of coaches won't may be able to make a living is because that entire section, the guts of coaching today, isn't at the level of human connection.It is at the level of performative, where coaches seem to be relying on some set of principles, processes and tools that they learned, which may be really valuable.I'm not, you know, dissing any of those things, but unless we have personally walked over that broken glass, all we're doing is talking about that thing over there. We're talking about something that we know and not something that we have experienced.And so what it seems like to me is that as AI improves and in the process of writing this book, six, seven months doing the research, right, in the book, I saw the capability of ChatGPT double and then double again in terms of its ability to research, collate, write, explain, connect quickly and not have to have 57 iterations back and forth, that sort of thing. And if it does that every, you know, three months and by Christmas, five iterations more, that's going to be 32 times better than it is now.And so if you think about that kind of growth, it seems to me the only thing that's left, the 5%, is going to be the truth of your lived experience.And if you don't have, if that's not where you coach from, you'll be replaced immediately because you'll be able to buy that for 79amonth in some bot that is really good.And I have experiences in doing this where I'm like, looking at some of the answers and scared and then talking to it about why am I emotional about this, why am I reacting this way and then going down that rabbit hole and having that conversation. So what do you think has to happen? Either one of you? I don't care what has to happen.What is the pivot that coaches have to make in order to stay in the game?

Lisa, how about you go first? If you've got the thoughts or like, got a couple Ideas off the top.

Of my head, yeah. The first thing that came up is spend more time in your body.I know it sounds like, okay, well, if I want to be embodied, then that means more time in my body. But, like, fully, like, feel your body, dance, move, whatever that looks like.If it's golf, if it's soccer, if it's cold, plunging, like connecting with, knowing your body. Because what that then will do.To use your analogy of your, your, Your analogy of walking on glass, you can know because you've read or you've heard or you have a bot. You can go to a bot and go, okay, I want to walk on glass. What do I do?Okay, well, you do this and you do that and the theory and the information, and it's all very transactional and maybe helpful, but certainly not transformative. Or you can have walked to your point through glass and go, listen, here's what no one's going to tell you about walking on glass.You can avoid walking on glass. Go here, do that, and then you don't have to walk it. Or if that's what you're supposed to do, then you're going to walk on the glass.But when you're halfway through, you're going to feel, when it cuts your heel, there's this pain that's going to shoot all the way up your leg and you're going to feel it in your tailbone. And in that moment, you're going to feel like you are dying.And what you need to do is stop, but you actually can keep going because here's actually what's happening in your brain and here's what's happening in your body. And the person gets to the other side and it's like, holy crap, I thought I was going to die, but I didn't.And an embodied human, that's how they can unpack the human experience through one example, like walking on glass. And so being in our body is. Is the only way to meet the.Maybe not the only, but the truest, most potent way to embody our life, which is what we're both talking about.

I think for me, there's a couple of different experiences that kind of come up, come to mind. First, I joined a gym here in Austin about six months ago, and they say, oh, here's a free session with the personal trainer.And I'm like, okay, whatever. It's going to be the usual.Sat down, talked with the guy, and like, one of the things that's really hard for me working out is like, I just really can't get in my body, it's hard for me to be embodied, like, actually be present. So I was talking about, it's like, okay, cool, let's go ahead and try a couple different exercises.And the way you set the exercises up, I could not do anything but be 100% present in my body fully. I'm like, whoa. Blew my mind, right? And as soon as he did that, it's like, okay, here's my money to die me a program. Let's roll.Cause he just absolutely fricking nailed what I needed because he understood what my needs were. The second thing I'll say is it's really easy to solve a problem once you know what the problem is.The hard part is figuring out what the heck is a problem. Right? And so if I'm there, if I'm your. Your average Joe and I'm looking for a coach, I'm like, okay, I've got a weight loss problem.So I go to a weight loss coach and he's got this meal plan. I do the meal plan, I don't lose it. Great.The problem solving from that point and the diagnostic process you have to go through from that point when things are not working, you got to be good at what you're doing. Right. So is the performative coaching going to go away? I think there's a high chance that it will. Right. But even with that, I would say two things.Number one, there's still going to be, you know, I just want to say, like, kind of average dough people that are gonna still want that human interaction, even with a more performative thing where you're kind of going through a checklist. They want the guy that's just going to run him through the 12 machines in the gym, because that's what they want.They want to be able to talk to a therapist who's actually human. Right. The other piece is that AI can't do emotions.They can't really understand emotions and what they mean and how they land and how to navigate somebody through those emotional experiences. So there's always going to be that space. Until they figure out how to get emotions in AI, I have no idea how the heck they're going to do that.Where that human touches 100% necessary.And even if it's in a more performative way, it's still a heck of a lot better than what AGI can deliver or what AI can deliver, at least for the foreseeable future. So is it going to be harder to make a living? Maybe. I think the other piece is that People don't understand the value of coaching writ large.We don't really make the case for it the way we probably should in the industry. So making that case of this is how to accelerate. This is how to save yourself years of pain and frustration and whatever you're doing.I think we need to be making the case more for why coaching is necessary, just kind of at large.

Yeah, so.So let's go down that road a minute, because I think everybody that hangs a shingle and says they're a coach, and I'm still seeing Facebook ads that say, you know, make a living as a life coach who's got a picture of some person on a beach in a chair, work from anywhere, make money, blah, blah, blah.And you already know that they're going to teach a set of principles and ideas, each of which may be valuable and have good information, but without that true connection. And the true connection, at least in my mind, can only come when two things happen.When the person who is coaching has been through the experience, the embodiment piece, because otherwise you're just talking about stuff and you might as well get it from a robot. And the second thing is the person delivering who is the coach cannot be poisoning the conversation with, what do they think about me?How good am I doing? Are they going to sign up? Are they going to re up? Am I impressive? All of that dialogue, which is part of the.The 95% of people when they're having conversations that ought to be bordering onto or going into transformational, they're. They're contaminated with that other stuff, and that poisons the conversation and reduces it to the level of performative stuff.That's the thesis that I have about that and why $79 a month is going to give you what you need except for those pieces of truth. What do you think about that?

Well, I'll say that that piece right there of like, here's the freedom on the beach, and I'm selling you, that is why you have so much performative coaching. Right? The why that you're driving into it. The why that you're going into it with. Absolutely.You know, you can do the right thing for the right reason. You can do the right thing for the wrong reason. If you're doing the right thing for the wrong reason, you're going to do it the wrong way.And if you're getting into coaching to have the freedom on the beach, you're doing it for the wrong freaking reason. If you're doing transformational.