Why My Coaching Has Changed: What I’ve learned after decades of coaching is that people rarely need more information — they need help turning what they already know into consistent action
Back when coaching was simpler, and information was harder to find
When I first started as a personal trainer in the late 1990s, working in commercial gyms, coaching looked very different from what it does today. Back then, the process was fairly straightforward. A gym member would put their name down asking to be contacted by a personal trainer — and whenever that happened there was usually a small stampede of trainers eager to get the opportunity.
You would sit down with the potential client and talk through their goals, their medical history, their diet, and their lifestyle. After that, you would offer a solution based on what you provided as a trainer. If you did that well enough, you would gain yourself a new client.
Once they signed up, you would typically meet one to three times per week. Each session involved taking them through a tough workout while trying to educate them about what they should be eating, how they should structure their lifestyle, and the importance of things like sleep and recovery.
More often than not, by the time the next session came around they had forgotten most of what you had explained, so you would find yourself repeating the same information again. The world was different then.
Before long, the world changed and so did the way people learned
The internet was only just starting to become part of everyday life. It wasn’t the first place people went when they wanted to learn something. Instead, they hired someone with expertise and learned directly from them in person. Over the past couple of decades, however, access to information has become almost unlimited. Today it takes only a few minutes to search for almost any topic and find detailed explanations from experts around the world.
We now have instant access to some of the most knowledgeable people in any field. You don’t even need to be in the same country — let alone the same room — to learn from them.
But more access to knowledge hasn’t necessarily meant better results
So the obvious question becomes this: if knowledge is now so accessible, why do so many people still struggle to achieve the results they want? You might assume that the more someone knows about how to achieve a certain outcome, the more likely they are to succeed.
But that assumption turns out to be wrong.
Intelligence can be defined by what you know. Wisdom, however, is the application of what you know.
Knowledge alone doesn’t guarantee progress. If someone struggles to apply what they already know, then more information rarely solves the problem. And this is where my approach to coaching has changed over the years.
That realisation slowly changed how I saw my role
Today, I don’t see myself as the person people come to simply to learn about exercise, nutrition, or healthy living. Competing with the entire internet — and now artificial intelligence — on the delivery of information simply isn’t realistic.
Even back in the early days, I began to notice something interesting. I had invested heavily in my education: certifications, courses, diplomas, and eventually a degree in exercise science. Naturally, I wanted to share that knowledge. After all, if I had spent years learning it, surely it was important for my clients to know it too.
But the reality was different. Most clients could realistically absorb only a small portion of what I knew. Much of the detail simply wasn’t necessary for them. What they actually needed wasn’t more information. They needed help applying what they already understood.
Over time, it became clear that the clients who achieved the best results weren’t the ones who knew the most. They were the ones who consistently did the things they needed to do. That realisation changed how I viewed my role.
People were never really paying for information alone
People weren’t paying me to become experts in exercise technique, nutrition science, or stress physiology. They were paying for results. And results come from doing the right things consistently. My job was not simply to educate, but to help people follow through — to stick to the actions that would move them closer to their goals. Of course, knowledge still plays a role. A little understanding can help people see why certain actions matter. But information alone rarely drives change.
Coaching, at its core, is about the connection between people. It’s about working together toward a specific outcome.
Yes, a coach needs to know what they’re doing and whether a particular approach will work. But more importantly, they need to help someone actually implement what needs to be done.
That, to me, is what coaching has really become
Over the last three decades, I’ve watched technology evolve at incredible speed while coaching and personal development have grown alongside it. The coaches who have adapted best to this new world are the ones who have recognised something important: the real value they provide isn’t simply knowledge. It’s helping people turn knowledge into action.
And that’s a very different role from the one I started with back in those busy gym floors of the late 1990s.
And maybe that’s the part that matters most
For anyone working as a coach today, I would still encourage learning as much as possible. Education is valuable in its own right, and the pursuit of knowledge is always worthwhile. But just as important is learning how to help someone apply what they already know.
Because sometimes that’s all they really need.
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