How not believing in my own capabilities taught me the truth about “coaching culture”.

I spend a lot of time on social media. My pattern recognition skills thrive picking up on the trends, and my ‘for you’ page is expertly curated considering how much I’ve taught the algorithm about my preferences.

 

The algorithm learns what to send you based off how you use the app. The things you like, comment on, or save are all registered as content you interact with, so the algorithm will continue to send you more. If you see someone saying they hate an app because all they get is x, y, and z, it’s because all they’re interacting with is x, y, and z.

 

I like to credit the algorithm for presenting me with content about abusive patterns, narcissistic relationships, and other unhealthy attachments. Posts of the ‘self-help’ and ‘emotional wellness’ nature were some of the first forms of validation I experienced when I was deep in my toxic relationship. When you’re in a high-controlled environment, you’re often kept from people, places and events that share discourse that is different from your current situation. So those posts, memes, and accounts that gently pointed out and validated my experience were incredibly valuable to me.

 

The more I interacted with those types of accounts, the more they showed up. Until I found accounts that I felt were speaking directly to my situation, almost on a personal level. I was ready to take the next step with my life, business, and offerings. This account and person was offering me exactly that. They were personally DM’ing me, and wanting to communicate with me on a daily basis. I had a lot to offer them, just as they had a lot to offer me. When I thought they were safe, I really dove in. I started to just drink up everything their account shared, and before I knew it- I was $5,000 deep in a toxic and manipulative relationship again, but this time, with an ‘emotional wellness coach’ claiming to be working from a place of ‘Love’.

 

Let me elaborate on the pattern of these ‘coaches’. The patterns are very similar to a narcissist but they’re costumed and presented as ‘help’. Here is how the person targeted me:

 

Their account was a highlight reel of someone living their absolute best life. Posts were *beautifully* curated. Lots of professional images and big smiling faces. Their story was one of redemption and self-discovery, transformation. Sounds nice, right? Of course it does, they need to build trust and a relationship with you before they ask you for a large sum of money.

 

Their website was Gorgeous, and extensive. A labyrinth of information, incredibly long posts, promises of hope, and encouragement that *you can have this too* when you’re ready. They formatted it in a way that makes it feel like you’re in control, when you’re definitely not. You're being targeted. They collect tons of cookies from you, (more than your every day site does) something I didn't realize until I built my own website. Their social posts start saying how ‘close’ they are to a big goal- roughly the cost of the program you consider purchasing. They start to repost and respond to things that you have liked or shared. What you don't notice right away is that they’re mimicking you. So you will feel that their page is organically ‘aligned’ with your needs, when in truth, it's literally being built and catered to you- until you buy their product.

 

When you are “ready”, you choose your investment. All of the options are expensive- but you deserve the best, so you choose the best. They all have the same offerings: ‘unlimited’ communication, 1:1 business development calls, and hours upon hours of content to watch/listen or read.

 

So you click to buy- thinking you’re going to get a digital file, or access to the content they've promised, only to find that *this* is exactly where the value stops and the fluff begins.

 

Immediately, they want you to ‘get on their calendar’ because once they get through your 1:1 phone calls, they don’t owe you anything anymore, so they've done their 'work'. Now you just have access to their library of videos, while they continue to collect your payments. Speaking of videos- the hours of content isn’t what you’d expect; It’s just every single live stream they’ve ever done, in one place. It’s not edited, it’s not organized. It’s not a course, or a lecture of value. It’s just them drinking coffee every morning talking about how great their life is, how they're 'waiting for a few more people to join' and how for X amount of dollars, your life would be great like theirs, too.

 

The ‘Unlimited’ communication they promised? It's a third party app you need to download, and they only respond to you once every few days, never active listening, holding space, or offering guidance like they advertised- but instead recommending their ‘friends’ programs you should buy as solution to your concerns. “Check out so and so’s astrology course, I’d be interested to see what we share! Use my link!” Um. That’s affiliate marketing, and they likely get a commission for your purchase. Also, the app they choose to communicate with doesn’t allow you to proof-listen or pause, edit, or delete anything you send. So if you find yourself second guessing like 'is this an overshare?' or ‘maybe I should keep this to myself’... too late, you can’t. FURTHER: when they do choose to ‘hold space’ for you, they ask incredibly invasive questions that allow them to garner more information from you so they can further target you. This coach wanted the name and social handles of my abuser so they could ‘check if they knew them’ and then became upset when I said 'absolutely not'.

 

I gave them the benefit of the doubt exactly once. I had one video call with them,  and  noticed something… they were trying to build a business model for me that suited and fit into THEIR needs. I found myself continually saying, no- this is not what I want. And No, this is not my goal. But it was THEIR goal, and they needed me to achieve it so they could project to their audience that I was successful because THEY helped me. Not because I did the work myself.

 

When I realized what was happening, I spoke up loudly and immediately. I said “I see these patterns, I have been misled, I do not trust you, and I do not want to continue this exchange with you’. I knew they were intimidated by me because their immediate response was, “I can’t have anyone talking about my business like this so *I* choose not to work with *you* anymore.” I didn’t get a refund, but I didn’t have any further charges to my card, or access to their content. Not that I wanted it, anyway.

 

After I washed my hands from that experience, I noticed their behavior and how they responded publicly:

 

Their entire feed began to change. It shifted. It was like they had a new source of supply that they were trying to capture. They made a few posts like “if someone thinks I hurt them, well then ‘you’re welcome’ for teaching you a lesson you needed to learn”. Talk about justifying your bad behavior.

 

Before I chose to block them, -and before they could block me- I did a deep dive into their account and their behaviors and patterns.

 

They had a lot of followers. Like, a LOT. A hundred thousand or so. But their engagement was not proportional to the followers they had. Posts had less than 100 likes, reels had less than a thousand views… That math didn’t math to me.

 

I also found, deeeeeeeply hidden on their website that they heavily engaged in hypnotherapy. It was part of their terms and conditions that you were consenting to hypnosis. I didn’t realize that, but it made sense why their posts were so long, and you’d scroll for what felt like miles reading their projection of you and how you needed their products to be a better person. There was also a ‘hidden’ disclaimer (you had to actively search for it) that negated every single claim they made. You couldn’t even see price-points on items until you signed up for email newsletters and shared your phone number.

 

 

I understand marketing is story telling. But preying on people and calling them broken or lost and then offering them a solution for a problem they don’t even have is a SCAM. We don’t do that here. Thankfully, I did the work to identify those patterns before it became a $50 thousand dollar lesson, rather than a $5 thousand dollar one. Because yes, they had a $50K option, too.

 

 

This type of pattern and behavior is all too common, and there’s really nothing you can do other than your research and due diligence to avoid it. There is no regulation on coaches, so sometimes you do get caught up in a bad situation. I was very clear in what I wanted: A website with a blog, some merch, and an opportunity to share my story and find my audience. I needed help navigating the development of the page, and learning how to choose what would best serve me. What I got was a person who used our 1:1 calls to figure out how much income my businesses were generating, and what my emotional activators were so they could use them to manipulate me into meeting their needs while pitching me products and courses they earned a commission on.

 

I learned, eventually, that I could do all of what I wanted by myself, and I was on the right track the whole time. My lack of confidence is what made me a target. I was seeking permission to do what I wanted, whether I realized that or not. The person who manipulated me into believing I needed to spend 5K is the same person who will tell their followers that no one else could have taught me this lesson. It’s an archetypical story that we see in many dysfunctional relationships. Marriages, corporations, religions… they target your insecurity, telling you it’s a problem, and then offer you an unnecessary solution that ultimately benefits them in the end. If you’ve ever watched Cloud Atlas; it’s the same dynamic of the relationship Tom Hank’s character Dr. Henry Goose has with Jim Sturgess’ character, Adam Ewing. Attempting to steal Ewing’s gold band by poisoning him- under the guise that he’s being treated for a parasite. The parasite being the Dr. the whole time.

 

I think my biggest takeaway from this experience was that if targeting people by lying to them, and then not providing advertised value was how to be successful- well, I didn’t want to be successful. I’d rather have my integrity. I share this story because this is not uncommon, and I’m sure there are good coaches out there, but you truly need to do your own research before paying them any amount of money. Letting someone make ‘their own bad decisions’ is not a business model I choose to operate, but it *is* unfortunately, a large part of capitalism.

 

xo,c