Let’s talk about fear tactics, MLM energy, and why you don’t need another payment plan

The coaching industry might prefer I stay quiet.

But if you’ve ever felt pressured to invest, wondered why you keep buying courses without real results, or questioned why success still feels so out of reach... this is for you.

Because while there are incredible coaches doing aligned work, there’s also a growing pattern of manipulation, fear-based marketing, and recycled strategies no one wants to talk about.

So let’s talk about it.

When coaching starts to look a lot like an MLM

If everyone’s business model relies on teaching others how to copy the same business model, something’s off.

Coaches coaching coaches to coach more coaches.

Success built on selling high-ticket programs to other aspiring coaches... not diverse clients or industries.

A cycle that only works if people keep buying in.

It’s giving MLM energy, and no one wants to admit it.

Profiting off fear disguised as empowerment

You’ve probably heard lines like:

This version of you already knows the answer.
Money is just energy, how are you circulating it?
If you’re feeling resistance, that’s exactly why you need this.
Collapse time by saying yes now.
You’re not paying for information, you’re calibrating to a higher frequency.

It sounds expansive, maybe. But really, it’s designed to make you override your intuition.

You’re coached into ignoring that feeling of misalignment... and told that if you just lean in and go hard, transformation will follow. But often, what follows is disconnection.

Some drop.
Some flop... forcing themselves through a strategy that never fit.

A very select few become the next poster child. She’s thriving, high on results, celebrated publicly, and dancing in her money pit. Not because the strategy was magic, but because her energy just happened to align with it.

Her story fuels the next funnel... while no one talks about the rest.

Because those stories don’t sell.

When “investing in yourself” is just clever marketing

Let’s be honest about how this all plays out.

It starts with a free masterclass...

Maybe one, two, three long sessions, filled with emotional storytelling and surface-level breakthroughs. You think, maybe this is different.

Then come the emails...

Multiple per day. Testimonials. Sliding scale timelines and early bird specials. Payment plans.

And finally... the “we made it easy for you” message.

Twelve monthly payments. A full year of financial commitment for something you weren’t even sure about to begin with.

If someone is already struggling with money, locking them into a year-long contract to heal that exact pattern isn’t healing. It’s entrapment.

It’s especially disorienting when the offer is being endorsed by thought leaders you typically trust.

This isn’t empowerment. It’s pressure dressed up in self-development language.

And when you hesitate, they pull out the final tactic...

The partner play. A surprise pop-up Q&A about how to get your spouse “on board” with the investment.

At some point, it stops being support and starts feeling like spiritualized persuasion.

So what’s the alternative?

You don’t need fear tactics.
You don’t need to prove your worth by stretching into misaligned investments.

You need space to hear yourself.
You need tools that reconnect you to your own clarity... not distract you from it.

To be clear...

Some people do benefit from coaching containers and experiences like these. There are offers that truly shift lives.

But what I’m naming here is how often people say yes to these investments from urgency, pressure, and the fear of being left behind... not from alignment.

And when that happens, even the best container becomes another way we’re pulled further from our own inner compass.

This isn’t about rejecting support. It’s about reclaiming sovereignty.

My issue isn’t with coaching itself... it’s with how often it teaches people to override their own knowing.

That’s the part I can’t be quiet about anymore.

Have you ever been love-bombed by a funnel? Pulled into a “transformational” payment plan you regretted?

I want to hear your story. Let’s talk in the comments.