Why Hiring a Business Coach Won't Solve Everything
The wellness and business coaching industry has a guru problem - and it’s a business coaching accountability problem.
I don’t say this because I believe most coaches are frauds. But because the industry has built a culture that encourages coach dependency rather than autonomy. Special language. Special systems. Special access. Wisdom is wrapped in mysticism that implies: without this framework, without me, you cannot know yourself - you cannot succeed.
That's the problem. Not spirituality itself — but spirituality used to create hierarchy. It’s about the wellness industry standards.
And the practical consequences are real. The industry operates without structure or standards. Anyone can call themselves anything. People with genuine wounds seek guidance and sometimes receive harm instead. Coaches expand clients without holding space for the contraction that follows. This field has lacked honest conversation about responsibility and ethics — and it needs one.
I include myself in this. I hold myself to the same standard I'm naming here.
What guru culture actually sells
The guru culture sells certainty in a territory that is fundamentally uncertain.
Building a business means not knowing. Not knowing if it will work, if you're on the right path, or if you're capable enough. That exhaustion of not knowing is real, and the relief of finding someone who seems certain is understandable and human, even.
But no external framework can reach the place where the real answers live. You end up fitting yourself into someone else's map without ever exploring your own territory. And eventually you hit walls that no strategy can fix.
How to choose a business mentor
There is no program or coach that solves everything. But good guidance at the right moment can be genuinely powerful.
If you are wondering what to look for in a coach, the right direction is always toward your own authority, not away from it. A good guide offers keys, not answers. A map to help you explore your own territory safely. But no one can hand you a destination. She walks alongside you, not ahead. She challenges without needing you to need her. She speaks plainly rather than wrapping everything in beautifully worded spells.
And she can do this because she has walked a similar path herself, not just studied it. That is embodied business mentoring.
The unglamorous alternative
I believe in honest brick by brick work. I believe in taking radical responsibility for your own life design.
This is less exciting than a framework that promises to unlock everything. It won't go viral. It doesn't have a catchy name.
But it builds something that is genuinely, lastingly yours because you built it from who you actually are.
If you ask me, that’s body-led business that leads to sustainable business growth.
What would it mean to stop fitting yourself into someone else's map — and start exploring your own territory?
With kindness,
Anna-Mari
I wrote a longer article on this in Substack. Read the full text here: https://annamarifrolov.substack.com/p/the-era-of-gurus-is-over-and-what