I Spent $20K+ on Business Coaching. Here's What I Actually Learned.
I Spent $20K+ on Business Coaching. Here's What I Actually Learned.
A raw, honest look at what those investments cost, what they taught, and what would have actually moved the needle faster.
I'm going to tell you something most business coaches won't say on camera. I failed. Repeatedly. Expensively.
Over $20,000. In coaches, consultants, "business in a box" programs, done-for-you systems, mentorships, and masterminds that were supposed to be the thing that finally worked.
Some of those investments had value. Most did not. All of them were purchased by a version of me who was desperate, exhausted, and working off two 15-minute breaks and a lunch hour — trying to build a business while managing a newly blended family of five, grieving my dad, and showing up for my local ministry. The bandwidth was not there. But the credit card was.
What Failure Actually Looks Like
Failure in business doesn't always look like a dramatic crash. Sometimes it looks like six months of effort producing $300 in revenue. Sometimes it's a full rebrand because the first three didn't land. Sometimes it's you quietly closing something you were publicly excited about and hoping nobody notices.
I know all of those versions. Every single one.
What nobody tells you is that each failure was a data point. Expensive data. Emotionally taxing data. But data nonetheless. Every "didn't work" taught me something specific about what I was actually building toward.
What I Learned That No Mastermind Taught Me
- Your audience is the strategy. Not the funnel. Not the platform. The people you're built to serve.
- Complexity is the enemy of execution. Every time I simplified, something started working.
- Systems save businesses. Hustle alone doesn't. I was working hard with no infrastructure — that's a hamster wheel.
- Your story is your differentiator. I kept trying to hide the struggle. The struggle was the product.
- Grief and business coexist, messily. Losing my parent mid-build changed me. I had to build around it, not through it.
The Pivot That Changed Everything
At some point I stopped asking "why isn't this working" and started asking "what is actually true about me and the people I can help most?" That reframe was the pivot. Not a new tool. Not a new coach. A real, honest audit of what I was building and who I was building it for.
If you're in the failure phase right now — and you might be — I want you to know: it is not evidence that you shouldn't be doing this. It is evidence that you're in the part of the story before the turn. Keep going. But go smarter, not harder.
The Offer Ladder Audit
Map your client journey and audit your offer ladder end to end. Find the step where people fall out, and fix it before you build anything else.
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