Is AI Coaching Costing You Real Growth? What Leaders Must Know — Podcast

Is the AI-generated development plan your client just submitted actually costing them their growth? Because if the struggle to name their own problems is the growth, then skipping that struggle means they paid for coaching and got content generation instead. [PAUSE] Right now, coaching and consulting firms are facing a quiet crisis. Clients are increasingly using AI to complete intake work, reflection exercises, and development plans before they ever get on a call. It looks polished. It looks complete. But a recent Forbes piece by executive coach John Rex called it out directly — when his client Nikhil submitted a suspiciously smooth leadership development plan, Rex realized the deliverable was there but the development wasn't. That gap is costing firms real money and real referrals. [PAUSE] First, the struggle is the product. Rex's core argument is that forcing yourself to articulate your own growth areas in your own words is where the cognitive and emotional work actually happens. When AI does that for your client, you haven't saved them time. You've removed their return on investment entirely. [PAUSE] Second, it's a data quality problem. If your diagnostic inputs are AI-generated approximations instead of the client's authentic self-reflection, every coaching intervention you design is calibrated against a proxy. The sessions still happen. The invoices still go out. But measurable behavioral change at the end is weaker — and in a referral-driven industry, that weakness compounds fast. [PAUSE] Third, the financial stakes are asymmetric. A corporate client whose team shows no measurable leadership improvement after six months doesn't renew. A B2C client who feels the process was generic doesn't refer. As Samuel Ellis of Ellis Strategic Holding, LLC puts it — the client's discomfort with self-diagnosis is the first and most important data point in any engagement. Protect it. [PAUSE] Here's your one action item today. Before your next client kickoff, add a single line to your intake instructions that explicitly asks clients to complete reflection exercises without AI assistance — and briefly explain why their unfiltered thinking is the raw material your entire engagement depends on. That one sentence protects your outcomes, your referrals, and your reputation. [PAUSE] Read the full article on the Midas blog at agentmidas.xyz. And if you want AI-generated content like this for YOUR business every single morning, start your free trial at agentmidas.xyz.