Speaker 1: 0:13

Welcome to the deep dive. We're jumping into a huge topic you've brought us research on. The uh the coaching industry. It's absolutely booming.

Speaker: 0:21

It really is.

Speaker 1: 0:21

And we want to look at both sides. The you know, the hard strategy behind building a successful business in this space, but also that really deep personal need we all have for guidance through life's big stuff.

Speaker: 0:33

Yeah. The scale is just massive. We're talking projections hitting, what, $7.3 billion by 2025? That kind of growth, it tells you something.

Speaker 1: 0:41

It's not just hype.

Speaker: 0:42

No, it reflects a huge uh collective search for clarity for transformation, often very specific transformation.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Aaron Powell So that's our mission today. Unpack the business side why specializing is pretty much mandatory now, and then contrast that with the kind of, let's call it emotional coaching we need for things like grief, big changes, relationships, things money can't always fix. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker: 1:04

Right. And that's the core tension, isn't it? How do we take the clarity needed for, say, a business plan and somehow apply that to the, well, the messiness of our inner lives?

Speaker 1: 1:13

Aaron Powell That's the question. Okay, let's start with the business side. The competition is intense. Your research mentioned a 54% increase in coaches worldwide just between 2019 and 2022.

Speaker: 1:26

54%. Yeah, it's crowded.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Aaron Powell So that old idea of just being a general life coach that doesn't really cut it anymore, does it? Why the absolute need to specialize?

Speaker: 1:37

Aaron Powell Because clients are smarter now. They're not looking for a generalist. They want someone who understands their exact problem, someone who's maybe solved it before.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Aaron Powell And that translates financially too, right?

Speaker: 1:47

Aaron Powell Oh, definitely. Specialized coaches, they often charge 30, maybe even 50% more than generalists. It makes sense. If you try to market to everyone, well, you end up reaching no one effectively. And you certainly don't command those premium rates.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Aaron Powell So let's give the learner some specifics. Where are the really lucrative niches? Executive coaching seems to be consistently at the top.

Speaker: 2:07

Aaron Powell Always, yeah. If you're experienced working with C-suite level folks, you could be looking at $500 to $1,000 an hour easily. And that's pretty standard for the high end. Then you have outliers like Marshall Goldsmith, though as an example.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Right. The $250,000 fee.

Speaker: 2:23

Aaron Powell Yeah. But the catch is, and this is key, he only gets paid after the client sees measurable improvement. It's a results-based model. High risk, high reward, built entirely on guaranteed value.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Okay, so that's the peak. But it's not just corporate execs, right? There's potential elsewhere.

Speaker: 2:38

Absolutely. Some areas might surprise you. Relationship and dating coaching, for instance. The average yearly earnings reported are around $138,000.

Speaker 1: 2:48

That's significant.

Speaker: 2:49

It is. And business coaching too. For smaller businesses or entrepreneurs, top earners there might aim for, say, 10K to $30K a month, often using these high-ticket packages, maybe $2,000 to $10,000 per package.

Speaker 1: 3:01

And you mentioned finding a niche within a niche. That seems really smart.

Speaker: 3:05

That's where the real opportunity can lie, especially in growing markets like menopause coaching.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Sounds incredibly specific.

Speaker: 3:12

It is. But think about it. That market addressing menopause symptoms, wellness, transitions is projected to hit $600 billion by 2025. A coach focused just on that. They're meeting a huge, specific, and underserved need, instant relevance.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Okay, so specialization is clearly the financial and strategic key. For someone starting out, what's the biggest mistake they make operationally?

Speaker: 3:35

It loops right back. Trying to help everyone, seriously. Your niche, that specific group you serve, that has to be your like your north star.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Why is that so critical right at the start?

Speaker: 3:47

Because that clarity lets you show up confidently in your marketing, in your calls, everywhere. You know exactly who you're talking to and what problem you solve. The market just rewards that focus. Trying to be vague is, well, it's a recipe for struggle.

Speaker 1: 4:02

I see so many people get caught in that perfectionist trap, though.

Speaker: 4:05

Right.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Waiting for the fancy website, the perfect course outline.

Speaker: 4:07

Oh, definitely. Big trap. They wait and wait, thinking they need everything figured out before they start.

Speaker 1: 4:12

And that's counterproductive.

Speaker: 4:13

Totally. Because coaching, building a practice, it's a process. It's not a one-time launch event. You need momentum. Like the analogy, right? You can steer a moving car, a parked car, not so much. You need to be moving to get feedback and adjust.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So stripping it right back, what's the absolute minimum needed to get that car moving?

Speaker: 4:32

Honestly. Very little. You need a basic landing page, just somewhere people can find you online. You need a simple way to schedule calls or appointments, and you need a way to take payments.

Speaker 1: 4:43

That's it.

Speaker: 4:44

That's really it to start all the other stuff, the complex funnels, the multiple programs, the super polished branding that can come later. Initially, it's often just a distraction from actually coaching and, you know, making money.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Okay, so you're moving you have the basics. Now getting clients. The source is mentioned, a simple framework, the three-bucket model.

Speaker: 5:05

Yeah, it's really helpful for visualizing the client journey. Bucket one is the biggest, basically, everyone who knows you exists. Maybe they saw a social media post, an ad, whatever. Broad awareness. Just eyeballs. Exactly. Bucket two is smaller. These are people who know you, they like you, they trust you, they've maybe opted into your email list, downloaded a free guide, they're engaged with your insights, they see your value. Aaron Powell Okay.

Speaker 1: 5:26

And bucket three.

Speaker: 5:27

That's the smallest, but the most important one financially. Those are your paying clients, the people actually, you know, paying the bills.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Aaron Powell So the strategy isn't just filling bucket one.

Speaker: 5:37

Right. It's about intentionally nurturing people, moving them from bucket one awareness into bucket two trust, and then for the right people into bucket three, becoming clients. It's a flow.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Aaron Powell And that intentional action ties back to avoiding perfectionism. You mentioned making an educated guess.

Speaker: 5:53

Aaron Powell Yes. It's not about being reckless. It's about doing enough research, enough thinking to form a reasonable starting point. Your best guess for your niche, your offer, your message. Then you act on it intentionally. You put it out there, and crucially, you watch what happens. You observe the results, you listen to the feedback or lack of it, and you learn. Then you make the next educated guess. It's iterative. Learn, adjust, act again.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Okay, that's a really clear framework for the business side. Now let's pivot. Let's take that same idea: intentional action, observing, learning, adjusting, and apply it to, well, the much messier world of our inner lives. We're shifting from professional success to personal self-knowledge. So what the source has called emotional thresholds.

Speaker: 6:38

Right. So if a business coach guides you through a career threshold, life itself guides us through these emotional ones, these big turning points. They can be incredibly vivid, sometimes painful, sometimes full of awe, but they always change us somehow.

Speaker 1: 6:53

And reshape our identity.

Speaker: 6:54

Fundamentally. And they're unavoidable, right? So being intentional in how we navigate them matters just as much as it does in business strategy, maybe more.

Speaker 1: 7:03

The source has painted such a broad picture of these thresholds. On one end, there was that feeling of awe.

Speaker: 7:08

Yeah, that beautiful example. Standing in the desert at night, listening to frogs, and just feeling unbound. A moment where the usual sense of self just dissolves into something bigger, pure wholeness.

Speaker 1: 7:20

And then at the completely other end of the spectrum, the threshold of grief, profound loss.

Speaker: 7:25

Oh, profoundly. The example given was just shattering the mother who lost her entire immediate family in just 12 months.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Unimaginable.

Speaker: 7:33

Truly. That kind of loss, it doesn't just hurt. It forces a complete rebuild of who you are, what your life means. The old framework is just gone. You have to create a new one.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Aaron Powell And then there's a different kind of threshold, maybe less dramatic, but just as powerful. Resilience, the quiet daily kind.

Speaker: 7:50

Aaron Powell Yes. The image of the man in Ermita rolling on that wooding board. It was so striking. Aaron Powell It really was. It's not a big bang transformation. It's endurance. It's showing how these thresholds can literally be, you know, carved into the body. And the profound act is just continuing day after day.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Aaron Powell Thinking about that whole range, awe, shattering loss, quiet endurance, it really changes the meaning of balance, doesn't it? It's not about just staying calm and neutral.

Speaker: 8:19

Aaron Powell Not at all. The sources suggest true balance isn't avoiding the extremes. It's the ability to stay grounded while life is stretching you thin. It's finding stillness when everything around you is loud. It's uh feeling everything, the joy and the pain, without shutting down or putting up walls.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Aaron Powell And when we do shut down or carry too much, the body often steps in, like our own internal coach.

Speaker: 8:40

It really does. It starts sending signals, like the example of frozen shoulder.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Right. What's the connection there, spiritually or emotionally?

Speaker: 8:46

Aaron Powell Well, the idea in some traditions is that the shoulders carry burdens, especially burdens that aren't ours to carry. So suppressed grief, taking on too much responsibility for others, um, having weak energetic boundaries.

Speaker 1: 9:01

So the shoulder freezing up is like the body saying, Enough.

Speaker: 9:04

I literally cannot carry this anymore. I refuse. It's a physical manifestation of an emotional boundary being crossed or non-existent.

Speaker 1: 9:13

And that pattern, carrying too much, it shows up in relationships too. Like the pain of a one-sided friendship.

Speaker: 9:19

Oh, that's a tough one. The inner work there is often realizing, wow, I keep projecting qualities onto this person that they just don't have, wanting them to be something they're not.

Speaker 1: 9:28

That realization itself is a form of self-coaching, isn't it? Right. Recognizing the pattern.

Speaker: 9:33

Absolutely. And the lesson often becomes about self-respect, realizing that staying in that dynamic, it's like a quiet betrayal of your own needs. And sometimes the most powerful step, the way you finally hear yourself, is actually leaving, making space.

Speaker 1: 9:47

It's about honoring your own reality.

Speaker: 9:49

Exactly. Now, what's also fascinating is that sometimes this kind of healing, this self-coaching, it doesn't require intense effort. It doesn't have to be a grind.

Speaker 1: 9:58

You mean like the traditional work on yourself approach?

Speaker: 10:00

Yeah. Sometimes healing kind of bypasses that. The sources shared a really lovely story about music acting as medicine.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Ah, the song Wildflower by RM.

Speaker: 10:11

That was it. The person shared how listening to that song in under five minutes just cracked open this emotional numbness. It achieved something that weeks of journaling and meditating hadn't.

Speaker 1: 10:21

How? Just through sound and surrender.

Speaker: 10:23

Seems like it. Just letting the music in, letting it resonate, it highlights that sometimes healing isn't something you have to earn or hustle for. It can come through softening, through receptivity, letting something else carry you for a moment.

Speaker 1: 10:36

That's a powerful idea. So how can we, the listeners, apply this kind of focused self-coaching right now? Maybe with some microinterventions.

Speaker: 10:44

Yeah, using those journaling prompts from the sources is a great way. Instead of just thinking, I'm stressed, ask. Where in my body am I holding what feels too heavy to say aloud? Get specific. Feel into it.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Or for relationships, instead of just feeling resentful, maybe ask. What does love look like without self-sacrifice?

Speaker: 11:04

Exactly. It's about applying that same intentional focused inquiry we talked about in business, but to these really core emotional pieces. What truly matters?

Speaker 1: 11:14

So it really does connect. The clarity needed for a business niche and the clarity needed to understand your own emotional landscape.

Speaker: 11:21

It's the same core skill, in a way, identifying what's truly going on, whether it's finding that profitable niche or naming the emotional burden you're carrying, clarity is the thing that enables change. It's the commodity.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Okay, so we've journeyed through the strategic, specialized world of building a coaching business, needing that intentional action, and we've explored the vulnerable, resilient path of personal growth, needing that same intentional self-awareness. Both require forward movement.

Speaker: 11:46

And specific guidance helps immensely in both. Knowing exactly who your ideal client is, knowing exactly what emotional weight feels too heavy right now, specificity is power.

Speaker 1: 11:57

So our final thought for you, the learner, connects these two worlds. In business, we talked about making an educated guess, taking intentional action, observing, learning, adjusting, moving forward, even without perfect certainty.

Speaker: 12:11

Right, that iterative process.

Speaker 1: 12:13

So the question is, how could you apply that same principle this week to an emotional challenge or maybe a boundary you know you need to set? Take one small intentional action, observe what happens inside you and externally, and learn from it.

Speaker: 12:27

Don't wait until you feel perfectly ready or know the exact outcome. Just initiate, get the car moving, even slightly.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Observe, learn, and take the next step.

Speaker: 12:35

Thank you for sharing these really thought provoking sources and for joining us on this deep dive.

Speaker 1: 12:39

We'll catch you next time for the next deep dive.