Converting from coaching contempt to commendation

My name is Tom, and I’m a recovering dunkaholic. That is, dunking on so-called “coaches,” especially in the business space.

Wearing out shoe leather and tyre rubber getting to bright and early networking meetings to spruik my wares, I’ve met no shortage of business coaches. Life coaches. Insert your noun here coaches. My visceral, intestinally central reaction is to trust none of them.

As someone who studied and still studies human communication, I’ve heard every slight-of-tongue and verbal trick one can use to help deals over the line. What can this guy or gal teach me that my six-figures worth of HECS didn’t? “What if you could be making more money, that sounds great doesn’t it?” I don’t know, does it? Ugh, spare me.

It dawned on me while self-publishing my (first) book, Balding Overweight Sex Machine: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Dating for Men Over Thirty. I was positioning myself as a coach, of sorts. I’m no Ph.D. in psychology, human relationships, or sexuality. Sure, I had over a decade of going on some terrible (and eventually, great) dates, sharing what worked and what didn’t with my men’s mental health support group. By publishing the book, I’m asking complete strangers to place their faith in my own experience that this document of my own failures and triumphs will improve their lives.

I looked at my (Balding, overweight) face (still sexy, natch) in the mirror and realised I was a hypocrite. Just like when I landed my first paid journalism gig and wasn’t subscribed to a newspaper or magazine. How can I call business coaches charlatans when I am trying to do the same thing, albeit for dating and relationships? Not only that but thinking I’m as good or better than the dozens of coaches who tout something identical?

Like what I preach in our book, I wanted to test my theory against real-world data. So, I set off to a networking meeting on Melbourne’s coldest morning of the year, frost blanketing my front windshield. A half-hour of frustrating ice-to-melt later, I met a lot of great people, all running awesome and thriving businesses.

Then a bright young man strode up and extended his hand toward me. “Hi, I’m Ben,” Ben said. That’s Ben Lai, sales coach and strategist at Sales Ethos. What did he do? Sales coach. Groan. That said, he didn’t pin me down with some hard coaching sell. He talked about how he used to be a nurse, how he taught himself sales, and helped lots of people double their revenue over twelve months. My gut instinct told me to wave him away, but then I remembered that long gaze into the mirror. Let’s see what this guy has to say, I thought. He offered to draft up an action plan for me and if I didn’t like what I heard, I could politely decline. No hard feelings.

A week or two later, we shared a Zoom meeting. We got on famously. By the end I was convinced that I needed someone to teach me to be a better salesperson. I was doing okay, but I always talked about grand plans to expand that never seemed to materialise. It forced me to think about my freelance solo career as a scalable business. The scales had dropped from my eyes. My thinker thought “coaches” were all full of it, and the part of me that wanted to prove it saw evidence to back it up everywhere I looked. Confirmation bias goes hand in hand with the Dunning-Kruger effect as they buried my head in the sand to torture a metaphor.

Just because I’m independent doesn’t mean I don’t need help from time to time. There’s no shame in admitting that: and we might just end up better off after getting some. Radical concept, right?

To all coaches past, present, failing, and trying again: I offer you my unreserved apology. Your trade is not only valid but valued. I appreciate you for paving the way for me and others on the road we can now walk. We all need someone to teach us something and hold us accountable, right?