High Performance Coach - Personal Development Strategist - Philosopher - Published Author

Max's Coaching Philosophy Essay

The Coaching Industry Is Broken. Here’s Why:

Coaching, as it exists today, does not work.

Not in any deep or lasting way.

You already know this.

Maybe you've worked with a coach before. Maybe you've read the books, attended the workshops, set the goals, chased success.

And yet, something is still missing.

You’ve seen the endless cycle of self-proclaimed "high-performance coaches" selling motivation, mindset and productivity hacks, promising transformation but delivering recycled ideas.

And you’re right to be skeptical.

At best, most coaching provides motivation and structure. At worst, it keeps people trapped in the very patterns they are trying to escape. This isn’t an accident, it’s a systemic flaw in the way coaching is designed and sold.

Most coaching is about getting people to do what they’ve already been doing, just slightly better. It assumes that the key to success is more discipline, more accountability, more strategy, more goal-setting. But what if the real issue is not what you are doing, but how you are constructing your reality

Because here’s the truth: Your problems are never what you think they are.

The Fundamental Problem: A Misdiagnosis of Growth

A CEO comes to coaching saying they need help with time management.

A business owner says they need to increase revenue.

A high achiever says they feel stuck and unmotivated.

These are symptoms. They are not the real issue.

In medicine, if you go to a doctor with a persistent headache, they won’t just prescribe painkillers. A good doctor will investigate the root cause. Is it dehydration? Stress? A neurological issue?

But in coaching, the industry is filled with practitioners who mistake the symptoms for the problem. They might work on a few "limiting beliefs" or "high-performance habits" without ever questioning whether the very epistemic-framework their client is operating within is the real issue.

A CEO struggling with time management doesn’t have a scheduling problem. They have a leadership problem. They don’t know how to delegate, or they have a subconscious belief that their self-worth is tied to being "the busiest person in the room." Or that if they do delegate, the business will collapse, due to a lack of faith in their own team members, or their ability to empower them.

A business owner struggling with revenue doesn’t have a sales problem. They have a vision problem. They are wanting to be as successful as X competitor, and so their motivation is grounded poorly, leading to pushy sales-cycles, leading to lost leads.

A high achiever who feels stuck doesn’t have a motivation problem. They have a meaning problem. They work so hard because they grew up with parents who had no money and will do anything and everything in their power to ensure that their family doesn’t grow up with the same, even if it means they burn out.

This is why most coaching does not create lasting transformation. It simply teaches people to optimize their existing patterns, rather than questioning them at their root.

The Deeper Solution: Coaching as Philosophical Inquiry

The only coaching worth doing is coaching that restructures how a person sees themselves and their world.

This is not about motivation. It is about epistemic awareness—the ability to step outside of your own thinking and see the hidden assumptions that have been controlling your life.

You don’t need someone to hold you accountable. You need to understand why you feel you need external accountability in the first place.

You don’t need better time management. You need to understand why you’re afraid to say no.

You don’t need more clarity on what you want. You need to see why you’re stuck inside a narrow frame of possibility.

This is why I do not do accountability coaching.

This is why I do not do surface-level “let’s achieve success” coaching.

This is why I do not give advice.

Because real coaching is not about telling you what to do. It is about helping you see what you could never have seen on your own.

This is the work I do.

How Working With Me Is Different: You Are The Focus

  1. We build your program together. Unlike most coaches who sell pre-packaged programs they designed in their office, everything we do is constructed collaboratively.

  2. I do not give advice. I challenge your thinking. You will never hear me tell you what to do. My role is not to impose solutions, it is to reveal the blind spots in your thinking that are keeping you stuck.

  3. We work together weekly. Many coaches offer monthly or biweekly sessions, which, again in my view, is highly ineffective for real transformation. Would you expect to learn a new language seeing a teacher once a month? So why would you expect to rewire your entire way of thinking that way?

  4. We use data-driven insight, not vague “breakthroughs.” Many coaching programs rely on subjective self-reports. I use the Ontological Being Profile, one of the most advanced assessments of human behaviour, built by psychologists and engineers. This eliminates guesswork, we make the subjective objective.

  5. The goal is not achieving success, it’s becoming the person for whom success is inevitable. The work we do ensures that the inner shifts occur so that your outer results follow effortlessly. 

Who I Work With: Self-Aware Exceptional Performers

I do not work with demographics. I work with a very specific kind of person.

The kind of person who is already exceptional, yet knows they are only scratching the surface of their true potential.

My clients are leaders, visionaries, and innovators who understand that their own psychology is the single greatest lever for exponential success.

If that’s you, we should talk.

I work with industry leaders who are self-aware enough to know that they are the chokehold on their own success.

I work with people who understand that their greatest growth will not come from external strategies, but from expanding their own perception of reality.

This is not about fixing problems. This is about radically evolving who you are.

There is a saying:

  • Good coaches help you solve your problems.

  • Great coaches get to the root of your problems.

  • Elite coaches give you bigger problems to solve.

This is what I do.

Because as your perception of yourself changes, your purpose evolves, your leadership evolves, the entire meaning of your life changes.

Final Thought: A Life Worth Living

Most people live their entire lives inside the frame they were handed.

They go from one obligation to the next. One problem to the next. One achievement to the next.

They never stop to ask:

"Is this even the game I want to be playing?"

Most coaching teaches you to play the same game, just at a higher level.

But the real work is questioning the game itself.

Marcus Aurelius said:

“It is not death that a man should fear, but never having truly lived.”

That is what this work is about.

Not just achieving more.
Not just succeeding more.

But living. Deeply, masterfully, completely.

You have one life.
Are you going to live it on autopilot?
Or are you ready to play a different game?