You know what you should be doing.
You should be posting content. You should be reaching out to past clients. You should be raising your rates. You should be having enrollment conversations instead of tweaking your website for the fourth time this month.
You know all of this. And you’re not doing it.
That gap between knowing and doing is where most coaching businesses go to die. Not from bad strategy. Not from lack of training. From fear you don’t even realize is running the show.
Why does “just do it” never work for coaches?
The conventional advice is simple: feel the fear and do it anyway. Push through. Hustle harder. The problem is that advice treats fear as a willpower issue when it’s actually a wiring issue.
I sat down with David Edmonds, an ontological leadership coach and author of Becoming You, and he said something that reframed everything I thought I knew about why coaches get stuck.
“The brain’s main function in life is to keep you safe. It doesn’t want you to have an amazing life. It wants you to have the most mediocre life it probably can, because it wants you to stay safe.”
Read that again. Your brain is not broken. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do. It refers to the past constantly. This happened last time, so it’ll probably happen again. This went wrong, so avoid it. Your brain ends up using you rather than you using your brain.
That’s not a motivation problem. That’s a systems problem.
What’s actually stopping coaches from growing their businesses?
Fear of rejection drives nearly every avoidance behavior in a coaching business, from undercharging to not posting content to never following up with leads.
David told me something I’ve heard from dozens of coaches, but the way he framed it hit different. He talked about having 250 clients on his mailing list. He knew he should reach out. He’d write the email. And then he wouldn’t send it.
“I’d always find an excuse. It wasn’t quite the right time, or you can’t send it on a Friday because they’re not gonna be around till Monday.”
Sound familiar? Every coach I’ve worked with has some version of this. The content that never gets posted. The follow-up that never gets sent. The rate increase that gets pushed to “next quarter.”
And here’s the thing - David is a coach who works with top executives and politicians. He coached someone involved in the Brexit negotiations. He’s worked with leaders at one of the top four energy companies in the world. And he still had to fight through the same fear of rejection that every new coach faces.
The fear doesn’t go away as you level up. You just learn to recognize it faster.
How does fear show up differently than coaches expect?
Fear rarely looks like fear. It looks like being busy, being strategic, and being “almost ready.” It disguises itself as productivity.
David nailed this: “Most people’s go-to place is to do what is secure, do what is safe. And when people reach their uncomfort zone, what they do is they spread out. Rather than pushing through it, they do a lot more of what they’re already doing. They get busy.”
I’ve lived this. When I was starting my own business, I knew I needed to create visibility for myself. Post content. Talk about what I do. Instead, I kept creating other projects, other things I needed to do - anything besides the thing that actually mattered. Because talking about yourself publicly means risking judgment. And judgment feels like danger to your brain.
But here’s the distinction David draws that changes everything: fear and danger are not the same thing.
Danger is a bus about to hit you. Your amygdala fires, you move, you survive. That system works.
Fear is your imagination telling you a story about what might happen if you post that LinkedIn article, raise your rates, or ask for a referral. Your brain can’t tell the difference between a real bus and an imagined rejection. It triggers the same response. Same cortisol. Same freeze.
“What stops most coaches isn’t the reality. It’s the story they tell themselves.”
The Filing Cabinet Error
Most coaches are building their future out of materials from their past. They’ve made a filing error that guarantees they repeat what they’re trying to escape.
This was the framework from my conversation with David that I can’t stop thinking about.
Imagine two filing cabinets. One labeled PAST. One labeled FUTURE.
When something goes wrong - a failed launch, a bad client experience, a prospect who ghosts you - where do you file it? If you’re like most people, you don’t put it in the past where it belongs. You file it in your future.
“I’m bad at sales” goes into the future cabinet. “That niche doesn’t work” goes into the future cabinet. “People won’t pay that much for coaching” goes into the future cabinet.
Now you’re living into a future that’s just a copy of your worst past experiences. Every decision you make is filtered through what went wrong before.
David gave a perfect example. A pharmaceutical executive became a coach and refused to work with pharmaceutical leaders. Burned out, bad experiences, didn’t want to go back to that world. So she tried coaching a completely different population. It didn’t work. She eventually realized her deepest expertise, her biggest network, and her best coaching all pointed right back to pharma.
She had filed “pharma = burnout” in her future cabinet. It cost her years.
| Filing Error | What It Sounds Like | What It Actually Costs |
|---|---|---|
| ”I’m not good at sales” | Avoiding enrollment conversations | 3-5 clients per quarter you never talk to |
| ”People won’t pay premium rates” | Undercharging by 50-70% | $30,000-$80,000/year in lost revenue |
| ”My old industry burned me out” | Ignoring your deepest niche | Years rebuilding expertise and network from scratch |
| ”I tried content and it didn’t work” | Posting inconsistently, then quitting | 12+ months of compound visibility lost |
| ”I’ll raise my rates next quarter” | Never having the conversation | Permanent undervaluation of your work |
What should coaches do about fear instead of ignoring it?
The fix isn’t pushing through fear. It’s building self-awareness around what your specific fear is, then taking small steps that prove your brain’s story wrong.
David’s approach is practical. Not motivational. Not “feel the fear and do it anyway.” He teaches people to use their brain instead of letting their brain use them.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
1. Identify your red flags. David watches for procrastination as his personal early warning system. “If I’m procrastinating, that’s a red flag. I always stop. Okay, what am I afraid of?” Your red flag might be different. Overplanning. Busywork. Endless course-taking. Whatever your version of “getting busy instead of pushing through” looks like, name it.
2. Stop promising big, start delivering small. “I’d rather you did 15 minutes and fulfilled what you say. Because if your brain doesn’t believe you when you say you’re gonna do something, it stops taking you seriously.” Don’t say you’ll post every day. Say you’ll post Tuesday. Then do it. Rebuild trust with yourself first.
3. Collect nos. David’s coach told him the path to building a coaching business is collecting nos. “You have to be willing to ask the question. You have to be willing to have people say no. If you are terrified of people saying no, because you make it mean something about you, you never ask.” The math is simple. More asks equals more nos equals more yeses. You can’t get yeses without the nos.
4. Separate your fee from your identity. David went from charging £350 for five sessions (still unconsciously billing his old architecture rate of £75/hour) to £15,000 for a year of leadership coaching. What changed wasn’t his skill. It was his relationship with what saying a number meant about him. “It really doesn’t matter how much that initial figure is. People will always say it’s expensive. They’ve got no point of reference.” If they’re going to say it’s expensive regardless, you might as well charge what the transformation is worth.
5. Get a coach. David put it bluntly: “My biggest bit of advice to any coach, full stop, is get yourself a coach.” Not because you’re weak. Because you can’t see the label from inside the jar. Every coach David mentioned in our conversation - including himself - had their biggest breakthroughs because someone else could see what they couldn’t.
What is the real cost of letting fear run your coaching business?
Coaches who let fear dictate their business decisions lose an estimated $50,000-$100,000+ per year in revenue they never generate, clients they never serve, and impact they never make.
David said something that reframed how I think about money entirely: “Money isn’t an outcome. Money is a measure. If you’ve got zero pounds in the bank, it’s because you are not contributing. If you’ve got lots of money, it’s because you are contributing massively.”
That’s uncomfortable. But it’s true.
If you’re undercharging, you’re not being generous. You’re under-contributing. Because the coach who charges £350 for five sessions doesn’t invest in their own development the same way the coach charging £15,000 a year does. They don’t show up with the same gravity. They don’t attract clients who are truly committed to transformation.
The hidden tax of fear isn’t just lost revenue. It’s the ripple effect you never create. Every leader you don’t coach. Every team that doesn’t improve. Every family that doesn’t benefit from a parent who finally learned to lead differently.
David coached an energy executive who could negotiate deals with prime ministers but couldn’t tell his own mother he loved her. After their work together, he made that call. His mother had waited her whole life to hear it.
That’s the cost of coaches staying small. Not just your bank account. The transformations that never happen because you let fear keep you “safe.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are coaches afraid to charge higher rates?
Most coaches unconsciously anchor their pricing to past income, hourly billing habits, or a belief that helping people should be free. The fear underneath is rejection - if someone says no to your price, it feels like they’re saying no to your worth. Separating your fee from your identity is the shift. People will say “that’s expensive” whether you charge $100 or $10,000. Price the transformation, not your time.
How do I know if fear is holding back my coaching business?
Watch for the pattern David Edmonds describes: getting busy instead of pushing through. If you’re constantly tweaking your website, taking another certification, or planning your content calendar instead of actually posting and enrolling, that’s fear disguised as productivity. Ask yourself: “What am I avoiding right now?” The honest answer points directly at the fear.
What is the difference between fear and danger for coaches?
Danger is a real, immediate physical threat. Fear is your brain’s imagination creating a story about what might go wrong. Your nervous system can’t tell the difference - an imagined client rejection triggers the same fight-or-flight response as an actual threat. Recognizing this distinction gives you a choice: respond to what’s actually happening, not to the story your brain is telling.
Should every coach have their own coach?
Yes. David Edmonds coaches top executives and politicians, and he has his own coach. The reason is simple: you can’t see your own blind spots. A coach can mirror back the patterns you’re running - the avoidance, the stories, the filing errors - that feel invisible from the inside. If you believe in the power of coaching enough to sell it, invest in it for yourself.
How do I stop projecting past failures into my future business decisions?
Use David’s “Filing Cabinet” framework. When something goes wrong, consciously file it in the past where it belongs. Learn from it, but don’t carry it forward as a prediction. “I had a bad experience with that niche” belongs in the past cabinet. “That niche doesn’t work” is a filing error - it’s past pain disguised as future fact. Clear the future cabinet and you create room for possibility.
Ready to stop letting fear run the business side of your coaching practice? Take the Growth Gap diagnostic and find out exactly where fear is hiding in your business infrastructure: growthgap.kyberfive.com