Coaching vs. coaching content

I recently had to help some people with what could be called coaching or consulting, albeit now about a professional matter. They have a big personal project and had become so emotionally involved and overwhelmed that they needed a slightly outside perspective to help set up a coherent set of next steps that would ultimately move them along to their desired end goal.

This is what coaching should do. Not necessarily have any answers but give you some tools and perspective to solve your own problems. To be effective though, this sort of intervention needs to be rare.

I also know a few people who are constantly drinking from the firehose of what I’d call the Tech Bro Bullshit Industrial Complex. You know, the types that listen to Tim Ferris, evangelize about microdosing, have “frank discussions about mental health”, and have every productivity app ever built.

Theres’s this weird infantilism among this crowd. All the talk of mental health has sapped any vitality. Sometimes, you just gotta suck it up and deal with the unpleasant aspects of life rather than “oh my therapist says I need to cut out this toxic stuff”.

And once you’ve read more than one or two productivity type books, you stop being productive. You no longer have the gumption to just grab the bull by the horns do things.

Ok, I’m rambling a bit.

TLDR: real coaching and consulting moments can be incredibly valuable, and should be sought out. Rarely. If you’re constantly indulging in productivity content, reading about “mental health”, or self help, you probably need to get real instead. Or just stop it.