so… i’m getting a job? thoughts on the fall of the coaching industry and why i'm pursuing a 9 to 5 instead
If you’ve been keeping up with some of my little updates here and there on the ~gram~ then you will know that I’ve been toiling away at this massive life update here for several weeks now. It’s actually been almost two months since I got started with it.
Instead of just writing about the superficial level of updates, I basically decided to share all of my critical analysis, existential crises, and philosophical revelations that led me to where I am now.
… yeah, so I hit 1600+ words and 4 pages of single spaced text and I’m still not finished. So I’ll be sharing a few updates instead, essentially detailing a lot of new thoughts I’ve had lately and new learnings, instead of a massive single update. I’ll also be exploring some thoughts related to social justice, gender, polyamory, and more since I’ll have the space to do so.
For my friends who want the tea immediately, though, here’s the Sparknotes version for ya:
I have evolved into my second stage annapokemon. I am mega queer, mega femme, and polyamorous. I use she/they pronouns now and being called a lady or a girl makes me want to scream in pain :)
I have divested real hard core from the social justice space and am instead choosing joy and liberating myself by embracing the fact that I am a problematic, hypocritical hoe. Just like you.
I am also mega enlightened *heavy sarcasm* and did the opposite of what everyone usually does; I left my business and started a 9 to 5.
photos by Michael Vo
All right. Let’s back up to about a year and a half ago.
It’s November 2019 and I’m finishing up a coaching program I joined focused on landing paid brand collaborations and building out and selling your own coaching program.
At the same exact time, I’m scrambling to write a (shitty) honors thesis, helping out part time at a local gym where I also am making an effort to work out three times a week, attending classes and working on all the papers, exams, and group projects that entails, and continuing to create content for brands. I think the Universe had the majority of my close college friends graduate the semester before this because it knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain those friendships irl at this point.
I had SO much on my plate.
And yet, I managed to have an incredibly successful $18K launch of my first ever coaching program. The start date of said program? Literally the week I graduated college in December 2019.
Flash forward to a few months later and a worldwide pandemic is raging in full force and quarantine starts in the states. Shit feels apocalyptic as fuck (because it was and still is) and I basically buckle down and start running my business full time, thinking that if I’ve had so much success from the get go, not to mention how little it sense it makes to look for a job in the middle of a pandemic, I may as well. *shrugs*
So it should come as no surprise to you that at just 23 years old, running a business full time in the middle of a pandemic having just graduated college as a perpetual overachiever, I hit MASSIVE burn out multiple times along the way.
Cue Ego death and massive transformation.
Okay. Let’s chat a bit more about this whole panoramic for a second, though, and how it impacted how I viewed the coaching industry and therefore my own business and life.
taken by david cano in joshua tree
Update one: THE PANORAMIC (PANDEMIC) AND THE COACHING INDUSTRY.
I entered the coaching industry for a few reasons:
How empowering I believed coaching could be
Uncapped earning potential
The ability to work for yourself from anywhere in the world
But I’m wildly disillusioned with it now.
A lot of my clients would actually consistently bring up concerns over being associated with coaching, even if they called themselves healers, guides, etc. I would relate that there’s no need to claim this title as “coach” or otherwise, that we can build our own businesses and eschew these kinds of labels and the industry norms so many of us disagree with.
Honestly, though? It’s not that simple.
At the core of everything I do is empowerment, because when we feel empowered, we can and will pursue liberation, freedom, and liberate ourselves on a daily basis, even as we exist within oppressive structures. I fell in love with the idea of coaching because to me, that’s what a good coach does: EMPOWER you to liberate yourself.
But as time has passed and I’ve worked with more clients and hired coaches myself, I can’t help but notice just how LIMITED our roles are as coaches.
Clients would come to me for coaching and as time progressed, I would realize that what they actually needed went so much deeper than the space I could hold for them. To be fair, it was egotistical of me to think I could help my clients and empower them in that way alone. But I don’t think people realize just how limiting coaching can be when you’re working with people of various marginalized backgrounds who need things like rest, money, and to not exist at the intersection of various oppressive structures. Or better yet, to live in an alternate universe outside of cishet normative, capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist structures that want you to fail.
Not to mention, as a business coach specifically, I found that while they still “worked,” the business strategies I provided became harder and harder for my clients to implement as people got more and more tired of being advertised to online and off.
Let me explain.
In the past, advertising WORKED. We would see shit and then buy it, feeding the constant feeding frenzy that is constant consumerism in capitalism. But when the pandemic hit, things shifted.
So many of us were laid off, left to fend for ourselves with all of $800 from our fuck ass government. Deep depression and burnout hit so many of us, and yet we were still expected to produce under capitalism and being fed ads that simply reminded us of this post apocalyptic ass shit.
I mean, how many of us saw ads and just felt like we were living in a literal apocalypse? I would watch a show on Hulu only to be greeted by a car ad talking about how Honda understands that we’re going through a tough time, and that’s why their cars are built to last in tough times and - BITCH WHERE AM I GONNA TAKE THAT CAR RIGHT NOW? EVERYTHING’S CLOSED!
Amazon or Walmart would run ads of smiling employees talking about how happy they are to be underpaid, mistreated, and abused at work for $8.25 an hour. All I could think is how much they paid those employees to smile and say shit. Or maybe those were paid actors.
The light was a paid actor in this shoot. // photo by Michelle Sanchez of Moonlight Photography
My point? More and more consumers are seeing through this shit. Marketing and selling right now is SO hard for entrepreneurs because we’re trying to get through to people who are EXHAUSTED while we ourselves are exhausted.
And being sold something that focuses on self development and growth? It just feels so… out of touch, out of reach, out of place. So many of us are simply too exhausted to be “improving” ourselves; we’re just trying to survive.
I found that as the pandemic continued, I was instead drawn to healers, gifted tarot/astrology/etc readers who could simply hold space for me and let me be where I was, rather than seeking to help me move toward some kind of empty achievement.
It felt more and more disingenuous to sell business coaching myself as a result. With many (most) of my clients, I fell into the role of a healer more than anything, holding space for them to navigate their lives and complex emotions around starting a business during these times, rather than really coaching them on business strategy and closing clients.
(Sidenote, but I really think the coaching industry as it is right now isn’t sustainable. Perhaps more on this to come, but long story short, a lot of the strategies people built empires off in the past aren’t nearly as sustainable as they make them out to be. Some flat out don’t work anymore, but some of these upper level coaches who made it big years ago continue to shove these strategies down people’s throats, telling their clients they just have a mindset issue, instead of sitting down to process why their clients may be struggling and re-evaluating the state of the industry and world as a whole.)
Not to mention, I hit burn out multiple times along the way before finally accepting that I just wasn’t okay. I desperately needed to rest, not to make more money.
I hit 6 figures in sales in my business within 1.5 years of graduating college and running my business full time. Not only did I burn out, but the natural next step was for me to hire someone... at 23 years old.
I battled with that for a minute, thinking something was wrong with me and I was sabotaging myself somehow by not wanting to hire someone before I finally realized I just had 0 desire to be in charge of a growing team at 23. I actually want to be part of a team where someone else is in charge and can train me first before I train anyone else.
Which brings me to… update two: a bitch is employed.
photos by Michael Vo
Update two: A BITCH IS EMPLOYED.
Beyond feeling so exhausted and burned out by the coaching industry, I also decided to press pause on my business because… I kind of just didn’t feel like it anymore.
I had been pushing and pushing for so long, placing my business as my top priority and goal, that I hadn’t actually stopped to think whether that was still what I wanted. And truthfully, it wasn’t and isn’t.
More on this to come in the next update, but long story short, a LOT of personal growth related to my queerness has come up lately. And I just didn’t have space to explore that while I was 1) hustling to build a business and 2) living in a predominantly white, heterosexual suburb an hour outside of Philly.
Major shoutout to my healer and spiritual coach, Cody, for all her guidance that helped me fully express my truth. I owe them SO much thanks for guiding me during so much spiritual upheaval in my life.
Anyway, with the realization that my #1 priority was to move to Philly, it really hit me that what I was doing in my business, while financially sustainable if I wanted to take my time with scaling my business and stay at home in the meantime, wasn’t sustainable if I wanted to live in Philly ASAP.
So, I applied for jobs. Huge shoutout to Oneisha for our magical spiritual mentorship during which she helped me get SO clear on what I wanted in a career/job after also spending time helping me figure out whether I wanted to pursue a full time role to begin with.
As of this past Monday, I am an employed ass bitch! I started my first, full time, salaried position as an Associate on the lovely Integrated Marketing team at Her Campus Media and I couldn’t be more thrilled! It’s been such a whirlwind. I’m already helping out on different campaigns and my days are jam packed with meetings, but I’m loving every second.
As I move forward in this stage of my life, that’s what I want to be feeling: love. Deep, radical, expansive love. For myself, for my friends, for all the people in my life, for what I do, for where I live… I’m going to fill every crevice of my life with SO much love. Even the bits I don’t like, I will love.
And yes, that is absolutely a hint at what's to come with update three. Lots of love. (hint: google relationship anarchy!)
Thank you for reading, love! Drop me a quick comment if you made it all the way through so I can say thanks personally :)
xx
annabby