Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are really
glad you're here with us today. Good to be here.
So I want to start this one a little differently
than usual. I want to run a quick experiment.
Oh? Yeah, just with you. Yes, you listening right
now. Just clear your mind for a second. Take
a breath. This sounds ominous. No, no, nothing
scary, I promise. It's just a little word association.
I want you to visualize something. When I say
the word coach, What's the immediate high definition
image that just pops into your head? Don't overthink
it. Think I could guess what it is for like 90
percent of people. Oh, absolutely. It's a whistle.
It's a baseball cap. A guy in a windbreaker probably
screaming at a referee from the sideline. Exactly.
It's sports. The high school football coach or
maybe, you know, Bill Belichick in a hoodie.
Right. Or maybe if you run in corporate circles,
the image is a little different. Maybe you're
picturing a sharply dressed consultant in a glass
walled meeting room drawing on a whiteboard.
Corporate fixer. Yeah. Right. So we think sports
or we think business. But I want to take us back
much, much further. I want to take us on a bit
of a linguistic journey. Okay. Because we aren't
starting this deep dive on a football field.
We aren't starting in a boardroom. We're going
to start on a muddy, unpaved road in Hungary
in the 16th century. I love this origin story.
It's one of those etymological rabbit holes that
just... completely changes how you view a whole
profession. It reframes the entire concept. So
paint the scene for us. We're in the 1500s, Central
Europe. Right. So picture a small village in
Hungary called Koks that's built K -O -C -S.
Koks. The Koks wasn't a metropolis. It wasn't,
you know, a center of government or anything.
But it was a crucial waypoint between Vienna
and Budapest. Oh, OK. And because the roads in
the 16th century were, frankly, a disaster. Mud,
ruts, rocks. Just a travel nightmare. A total
nightmare. I mean, if you were traveling long
distances, it was physically punishing. Yeah.
But the wheelwrights and the craftsmen in this
little village of Cox, they started to innovate.
What did they do? They didn't just build wagons.
They built a very specific type of carriage that
was lighter, faster, and crucially, more comfortable.
They figured out a suspension system. using steel
springs or leather straps that made the ride
way smoother than anything else on the road at
the time. So they basically invented the luxury
sedan of the 1500s. Essentially, yes. And these
carriages became famous. They were known as a
kutschi. Kutschi. Meaning of cocks or from cocks.
And that word, because the technology was so
superior, it just spreads across Europe. It moves
into German as coochie, into French as cooch.
And, you know, eventually it lands in English
as coach. So fundamentally, when we use the word
coach, we're using a noun. We're talking about
a thing, a vehicle. We're talking about a literal
vehicle. And this is the core metaphor that we
really need to anchor this entire conversation
on. Originally. A coach wasn't a person. It was
a high quality piece of technology designed to
transport a person from where they were point
A to where they wanted to be point B. And to
do it without, you know, jarring their bones
to dust along the way. Exactly. To make the journey
possible. And maybe even bearable. I love that.
It really redefines the whole agency of the thing,
doesn't it? If you think about the modern context,
the coach isn't the one running the race. Right.
The coach isn't playing the game. The coach is
the vessel. Precisely. And if you look at the
modern definition of coaching, I mean, whether
we're talking about life coaching, executive
coaching, or even e -sports coaching, which we'll
get to, the fundamental mechanism is exactly
the same. It's a vehicle. It's a vehicle. It's
a process designed to transport a person from
their current state to their desired state. So
it's not about fixing a broken person. It's about
movement. It's about transportation. That's the
key distinction. It shifts the focus from what's
wrong with you to where are you going. And that
is what we're unpacking today. We've got a massive
stack of research here. I mean, everything from
the academic history of the term to the specific
mechanics of how it works in the brain to the
ethical wild west of the modern industry. Because
let's be honest, it feels like everyone and their
dog is a coach these days. It's definitely a
boom industry. And that, of course, brings its
own set of complications. It really is a meta
profession, isn't it? That's a great term for
it. A meta profession. Because once you start
looking, you realize. Coaching is everywhere.
It's in our schools, our hospitals, our offices,
even our video games. So before we get lost in
the weeds of all the specific applications, we
need to establish a baseline. Agree. What exactly
is coaching? Because I feel like... People use
the word interchangeably with mentor or consultant
or even therapist. That is the single most common
point of confusion. And it's not just semantics.
It's about what you're actually paying for. Right.
So the source material defines coaching specifically
as a form of development where an experienced
person, the coach, supports a learner or a client
in achieving a specific personal or professional
goal. Okay, but. Isn't that what a mentor does?
If I have a mentor at work, aren't they helping
me achieve a goal? Not exactly. And the distinction
is crucial if you want to understand the value
proposition here. Mentoring tends to be more
informal and it's almost always hierarchical.
It involves someone who is further along on the
same path. The sage on the stage model. Exactly.
Yeah. A mentor says, I've walked this path. I've
encountered these dragons. Here is how I slew
them. You should try holding the sword the way
I held it. I see. It's wisdom transfer. It's
advice giving based on personal experience. Do
what I did and you'll get what I got. Ideally,
yes. Coaching, on the other hand, is completely
different. A coach does not need to be an expert
in your specific job. A coach doesn't need to
have walked your path. Wait, really? If I'm a
CEO, don't I want a coach who has been a CEO?
Not necessarily. In fact, sometimes that actually
gets in the way because the coach isn't there
to give you the answers. The coach is there to
use a specific set of tools to help you unlock
the capacity to find your own answers. It's less
about be like me and more about how do we get
you where you want to go using your strengths.
So if we go back to our transportation metaphor.
The mentor gives you the map they used 20 years
ago. The coach sits in the passenger seat and
teaches you how to drive the car yourself. Regardless
of the terrain. That is a very apt way to put
it. The mentor provides the content. The coach
provides the process. Exactly. And this matters
to us, to you, the learner listening right now,
because we live in an era of self -optimization.
Everyone wants to be better, faster, smarter.
Coaching has become a primary tool for that.
But as we're going to see later. It's also a
completely unregulated industry. It's a bit of
a Wild West. Which is why we need to understand
the mechanics. If you're going to hire a driver
for this carriage, or if you're going to learn
to drive it yourself, you better make sure you
understand how the engine works. Correct. Okay,
let's rewind the clock again. We talked about
the Hungarian carriage, but here's the nugget
that really surprised me in the research. Yeah.
When the word coach first started being applied
to a human being, an instructor, not a wagon,
It wasn't in sports? No, it wasn't. It was in
academics. That's right. We're looking in Oxford
University slang around 1830. 1830. So, I mean,
decades before organized sports leagues are really
a thing. The term was used to describe a tutor
who carried a student through an exam. Again,
you see, it goes right back to that transport
metaphor. A student is the passenger. The exam
is the muddy, treacherous road. And the tutor
is the coach. dragging them through the muck
to the destination that paints a vivid picture
it almost feels a little derogatory doesn't it
like the student couldn't walk on their own It
was a bit tongue in cheek. Yeah. It kind of implied
that the student was wealthy enough to pay to
be carried rather than doing the hard walking
themselves. But then it evolves. It gets more
intense. The sources mentioned Cambridge University
and these mathematical wranglers between 1780
and 1909. Yes. Now, mathematical wrangler sounds
like a character from a fantasy novel. What on
earth is a mathematical wrangler? This is a fascinating
slice of educational history that's largely forgotten.
The mathematical tripos at Cambridge was this
incredibly grueling multi -day contest. Multi
-day? Oh, yeah. It wasn't just a math test. It
was a marathon of well -scripted problem solving.
A marathon? Literally. It went on for days. And
it was super competitive. The students were ranked
publicly. The top student was the senior wrangler.
It was a spectator sport. There was betting.
There was betting involved. Betting on calculus.
Betting on who would crack under the pressure.
Because the stakes were incredibly high for their
careers. Wow. And because the pressure was so
intense, students started hiring these specialized
tutors, these coaches, to prepare them. And what's
interesting is that even back then in the 19th
century, the core concept wasn't just teaching
math. It was performance under pressure. So they
weren't just teaching formulas. They were teaching
mental endurance. Exactly. How to manage time.
How to not panic when you see a problem you don't
recognize. How to optimize your output when you're
exhausted. That's the thread, isn't it? Whether
it's a math test in 1850 or the Super Bowl in
2026, the coach is there to optimize performance
when the heat is on. Precisely. It wasn't until
1861 that the term was first recorded in relation
to sports. So the academic performance coach.
actually predates the athletic coach by quite
a margin. That is a brilliant trivia fact. We
usually assume business and academics stole the
term from sports, but sports actually stole it
from the nerds at Cambridge. In a manner of speaking,
yes. So, OK, we have this evolution, carriages
to math tutors to sports. But when we look at
the modern coaching industry, the stuff we see
on LinkedIn, the life coaches, that seems to
have a different flavor. It's less about passing
a test and more about self -actualization. That
brings us to the 20th century. Modern coaching
is really a convergence of several different
rivers. You have adult education theories. You
have leadership studies. But the big one. The
one that really gave coaching its current flavor
is the human potential movement of the 1960s.
The 60s. This is where things get a little more
introspective. Right. You have things like large
group awareness training or LGA. The most famous
example mentioned in the source is Erhard Seminars
Training, or EST, founded in 1971. EST, that's
the stuff that was often parodied as people sitting
in hotel ballrooms for hours, not allowed to
go to the bathroom, being told they're responsible
for their own reality, right? It was certainly
controversial, and we can debate the ethics of
those specific seminars, but it shifted the cultural
conversation. It moved the focus from teaching
skills, like the math coach, to... transforming
the self. Transforming the self. Yes. It introduced
this radical idea that you are not just a victim
of your circumstances. You could actively design
your life and your mindset. That is the DNA of
modern life coaching. The idea that you have
agency and you can change your way of being.
But then just to complicate things, the academics
come back in because transforming your being
sounds a little woo -woo to a Fortune 500 company.
Exactly. And that's why the year 2000 is a major
milestone in our timeline. In January 2000, the
University of Sydney offered the world's first
unit of study in coaching psychology. That feels
like the moment the field put on a suit and tie.
It was a bid for legitimacy. It was an attempt
to ground these practices in psychological theory
and evidence -based approaches. It signaled that
coaching was becoming a serious discipline, distinct
from therapy and distinct from consulting. It
said, this isn't just motivational speaking.
There's science here. So let's look at that science.
We've established the history. We've gone from
carriages to Cambridge to the University of Sydney.
Now, I want to open up the hood. What is the
engine here? Let's do it. If a coach isn't just
giving advice, if they aren't just saying, hey,
buy this stock or dump that boyfriend, what are
they actually doing? What's the technique? It
really comes down to a specific communication
toolkit. If you listen to a skilled coach, you'll
notice they're doing very specific things. They
use targeted restatements. They practice active
listening. They use questioning and clarifying
techniques. Targeted restatements. Can we unpack
that? That sounds like they're just repeating
what I say. If I say I'm sad and they say I hear
you're sad, I'm going to feel like I'm talking
to a parrot. It's more subtle than that. It's
about reflecting your own thoughts back to you,
but stripped of all the noise. It's holding up
a mirror so you can hear what you actually believe
versus what you think you should say. Okay, give
me an example. Let's role play this for a second.
Let's say I'm a client. Okay, what's your problem?
OK. I'm just so overwhelmed at work. My boss
is micromanaging everything. The deadlines are
impossible. And I just feel like I'm drowning
and I want to quit. OK. Now, a friend might say,
oh, man, your boss is a jerk. Let's go get a
beer. That's sympathy. Right. A mentor might
say, here's how I handle a micromanager in my
last job. That's advice. Yeah, and the coach.
A coach might say something like, it sounds like
you feel a complete lack of agency in your current
environment. Oh. See? I didn't agree that your
boss is a jerk. I didn't tell you to quit. I
isolated the core feeling. Oh. Lack of agency.
Yeah, that lands differently. It makes me stop
and think, is it the work or is it the lack of
control? Exactly. Now you're analyzing the problem
rather than just venting. The goal isn't to give
you the answer. The goal is to help you shift
your perspective so you can discover a different
approach. That's the key, right? The agency stays
with the learner. Exactly. And because the core
mechanism is perspective shifting and goal attainment,
it applies to almost anything. That's why we
call it a meta -profession. You can apply this
framework to health, to politics, to spirituality,
to social skills. Well, let's look at some of
those applications because the list in our sources
is... Honestly, staggering. The biggest one,
obviously, is business. Business and executive
coaching is a massive industry. It's a staple
of human resource development now. And what are
they actually focusing on in the boardroom? Is
it just make more money? It's usually more nuanced.
It's about personal effectiveness, behavioral
changes, strategic thinking. They use tools like
360 degree feedback. where everyone around you
reviews your performance and psychometrics? I
found it interesting that the sources mentioned
this isn't just about hiring an expensive guru
from the outside. No, and that's a big trend.
Managers are now expected to act as coaches for
their own teams. The idea is that a leader shouldn't
just be a boss giving orders. They should be
a coach developing their people. That seems really
hard to pull off. I'm your boss, I decide your
bonus, but also tell me your... deepest fears.
It is a difficult balance, but the systematic
reviews cited in the research are actually quite
positive. They show that coaching can reduce
workplace stress and, importantly, increase employee
voice. Employee voice? What's that? That's the
confidence employees feel to express their ideas.
If you have a boss who listens and asks questions
rather than just barking orders, you're going
to feel safer speaking up. And in a knowledge
economy, You need people to speak up. You need
that innovation. That makes sense. If you're
just a pair of hands executing orders, you aren't
adding value. If you're a thinking partner, you
are. Precisely. Now let's pivot to an application
that I found incredibly compelling. ADHD coaching.
This is a vital area. This concept was introduced
in 1994 by psychiatrists Hallowell and Rady in
their book Driven to Distraction. Now, we know
ADHD involves deficits in executive function.
But before we get to the coaching, can we just
clarify executive function? We hear that term
a lot. Okay, so think of the brain as an orchestra.
You've got the violin section. That's your creativity.
You've got the drums. That's your energy. The
horns, that's your memory. Executive function
is the conductor. The guy with the baton. Right.
It's the part of the brain, mostly the frontal
lobe, that says, okay, drums, quiet down, violins
start now, horns, wait your turn. It handles
prioritizing, time management, and emotional
regulation. And in ADHD, the conductor is, what,
on a coffee break? The conductor is inconsistent.
Sometimes they're brilliant, sometimes they're
asleep. So an ADHD coach acts as an external
conductor. Okay. Or, as the source material beautifully
puts it, an external mirror. An external mirror.
I like that. Yes. People with ADHD often struggle
to self -monitor. They might not realize how
much time has passed. They might be working on
a project for three hours and think it's been
20 minutes. The coach provides that external
reflection. They help the client develop workarounds.
I love that term, workarounds. It admits that
the brain works differently, and we aren't trying
to fix it. We're trying to work with it. Exactly.
It's not about curing the ADHD. It's about acknowledging
the specific brain wiring and asking, OK, knowing
this is how your brain works, knowing the conductor
is inconsistent, what strategy can we build to
get this project done? It's very pragmatic. It's
engineering for the mind. It seems like in the
health and wellness space generally, definitions
really matter. I was reading through the notes
on the National Society of Health Coaches, and
they draw a pretty hard line between a health
coach and a wellness coach. They do, and it's
a distinction that really protects the consumer.
According to their definitions, a health coach
guides those with acute or chronic conditions,
people who have high health risks. So if you
have diabetes, heart disease, obesity, real clinical
issues. Right. You need a health coach who understands
the pathology, whereas a wellness coach is for
the otherwise healthy individual who... just
wants to maintain their status or get a little
fitter. That's a really important distinction.
You don't want a general wellness coach who maybe
took a weekend seminar trying to manage a complex
diabetic nutrition plan. Absolutely not. That's
dangerous. And then we have financial coaching.
And again, we have to separate the coach from
the advisor. This is similar to the mentoring
distinction. A financial advisor usually sells
products, stocks, insurance, portfolios. They
manage the assets. Buy low, sell high. Right.
A financial coach focuses on behavior. They focus
on the person holding the wallet. So the coach
is the one asking, why do you stress buy shoes
every Friday? Exactly. They focus on spending
habits, debt reduction, and fiscal discipline.
It's about your relationship with money, not
just where you park it. I want to jump to the
modern niche stuff because this is where you
see just how adaptable this meta profession is.
Esports coaching. This is a rapidly growing field.
I mean, 20 years ago, if you told someone you
were a video game coach, they would have laughed
you out of the room. But now look at something
like League of Legends. The complexity of these
games rivals traditional sports. The coaches
here are doing exactly what sports coaches do.
They plan strategies. They're on voice chat during
the pick -and -ban phase. Explain that for the
non -gamers. Pick -and -ban. So before the match
starts, each team takes turns picking their characters
and banning the characters they don't want the
other team to play. There are over 160 characters.
The combinations are in the millions. It's high
-speed chess. And the coach is there to manage
that strategy. Yes. They're analyzing the opponent's
data. suggesting counterpicks, and crucially,
managing the team's emotional state. It's high
performance cognitive coaching. It's just wild
to think about the evolution from the Hungarian
carriage driver in the mud to the guy on a headset
advising a team on which digital champion to
ban in a global tournament. But the function
is the same. Here's where we are. Here's the
victory condition. Here's how we get there. And
then, of course, we have baiting coaches. Yes.
Applying coaching principles to personal and
business relationships. Again, focusing on skills,
perspective, and specific goals. And one more
distinction I want to hit before we move on.
Homework coaching versus tutoring. This ties
back to the ADHD point. It does. A tutor teaches
you what to learn. Chemistry, history, French.
A homework coach teaches you how to learn. The
process. The process. Study skills, organization,
time management. It's a process focus versus
a content focus. Okay, so we've painted a pretty
rosy picture so far. Coaching helps you organize
your brain, advance your career, win video games,
get fit. It sounds like a miracle drug, but we
have to talk about the elephant in the room.
We do, and it's a big elephant. This industry
is seemingly everywhere, but it is also, as we
mentioned, a wild west. That is the major critique.
And it's a valid one. In many jurisdictions,
including the U .S. and the U .K., anyone can
wake up tomorrow morning, print a business card
that says life coach and start charging clients.
There's no bar exam. There's no medical board.
None. And this leads to several issues. The first
is a philosophical one. The criticism that life
coaching in particular is commercializing friendships.
Commercializing friendships, that hits hard.
The skeptics argue that the support a life coach
offers, listening, encouraging, helping you sort
through your problems, is what a good friend
used to do for free. By monetizing it, are we
eroding our natural social bonds? Are we saying
that we're so lonely we have to pay someone to
care about our goals? That's a heavy thought.
But on the flip side, sometimes you need an unbiased
opinion. A friend wants you to be safe. A coach
wants you to grow. That is the counter argument.
But there's also a safety question. Critics argue
it is akin to psychotherapy, but without the
guardrails. This is the most dangerous area.
To be a counseling psychologist in California,
for example, the sources note you need 3 ,000
hours of supervised professional experience.
3 ,000 hours. And to be a life coach. Zero. Zero.
So you have people potentially dealing with deep
-seated trauma, anxiety, or depression who are
not trained to handle it. A coach is supposed
to be forward -looking. How do we achieve the
goal? But if a client is blocked by past trauma,
an untrained coach might try to push through
it when they really should be referring out to
a therapist. And then there's the business model
itself. I was reading about the pyramid implication.
Yes. This is the critique that the demand for
actual life coaching services is relatively low
in some markets. So how do you make money? You
teach other people how to be coaches. Exactly.
Critics suggest the most profitable part of the
industry isn't coaching clients. It's selling
certificates to would -be coaches. It creates
a feedback loop where everyone is coaching everyone
on how to be a coach. That is concerning. But
it's not all doom and gloom, right? There are
people trying to fix this. Absolutely. The industry
is aware of these reputation risks. There's a
strong push for professionalization. In February
2016, the Association for Coaching and the European
Mentoring and Coaching Council launched a global
code of ethics. So there are standards. There
are, but the catch is it remains self -regulatory.
Membership in these bodies is optional. You don't
have to join them to practice. So effective coaches
are defined by their integrity and their credibility,
but it is entirely up to the consumer to you,
the listener, to verify that. The law won't do
it for you. You have to check their credentials.
You have to see if they're part of these ethical
bodies. You have to ask about their training.
So let's bring this all the way back. We started
in the village of Cokes. We watch this concept
travel through the intense math exams of Cambridge,
explode during the human potential movement of
the 60s, and land in the modern corporate boardroom
and the e -sports arena. It's been quite a journey.
And the takeaway seems to be this. Coaching is
an incredibly powerful tool. It really is that
carriage. It can move you from stagnation to
success, but it relies heavily on the skill and
the integrity of the driver. That's the perfect
summary. A carriage with a bad wheel or a driver
who doesn't know the way isn't going to get you
anywhere. But a well -built vehicle with an expert
guide, that can change your life. So as we wrap
up this deep dive, we want to leave you with
a thought, a question to mull over. We're seeing
coaching expand into every single aspect of life.
How we date, how we study, how we manage our
money, how we play games. It feels like we're
outsourcing our executive function. That's the
question. As we build this massive infrastructure
of coaches for everything, are we losing the
ability to self -regulate? Are we forgetting
how to be our own drivers? Or are we finally
just admitting that humans were never meant to
do it alone and we're finally building the support
structures we've always needed? Are we becoming
dependent or are we becoming supported? That
is the question. Indeed. And if you're looking
to hire a coach, here's our actionable advice.
Look for the transportation value. Are they actually
moving you forward or are they just keeping the
wheels spinning? And please check those credentials.
Because the barrier to entry is low. Your due
diligence needs to be high. Thanks for listening
to The Deep Dive. We'll see you on the next one.
Safe travels.