Coaching in 2025: When Everyone's an Expert, Who Can You Trust?

Hope for Sale: The Dark Side of Coaching Culture and How to Navigate It

The Annual Onslaught of Hope and Hype

Welcome to the year 2025. Did you all survive New Year's Eve? For me, the greatest challenge at the turn of the year is always social media. From "New Year, New Me" bullshit to "Look how great my life was the last 12 months!" I can hardly look at a post without being severely irritated.

What is particularly worrying, however, is the flood of coaches and teachers of all kinds trying to make a killing out of people's hopes, wishes, and desperation at the turn of the year.

Most of the services on offer are at best misleading and at worst outright scams. This applies to all areas of life, from life coaching to nutrition coaching to career coaching to – yes, sadly – also running coaching.

Why Anyone Can Call Themselves a Coach – And Does So

Just like the term 'tattoo artist', the job title 'coach' is not protected. Anyone can call themselves a coach and that is the problem. Even a flood of certifications (available for everyone and everything on the internet) is no guarantee that a coach really understands his or her field. And if they do, I still wonder why there are so many coaches out there. I mean, who is still a coachee and not a coach?

Coaching or Cash Grab?

I understand the desire to pass on what you have learned. There is nothing wrong with that in the first place, I like to do it myself when someone asks me about something. It only becomes problematic when a strong financial and/or hierarchical (me: coach. you: nothing) focus is added. As in many cases, this is even the main motivation.

WhatsApp Voice Message vs. Textbooks

I'll be honest: I don't think most coaching offers, even in the field of running, are very useful. There is virtually nothing you can't learn on your own. In most cases, the content in books is much better researched, reflected and summarized than any would-be coach could ever deliver in a What's App voice message. Especially in running, you can learn everything you need to know with a handful of standard works. The rest (and that's the biggest part) is completely based on your individual experience and trial and error anyway.

We’re all Seekers

But hey, I don't blame anyone for falling victim to the quick charm of a 10-second Instagram reel. After all, we are all seekers, and a well-crafted ad catches us right there. But if you take a moment to think about what the self-proclaimed coach or teacher is promising (or trying to sell), every video and every offer, no matter how well made, is quickly demystified. Everyone should take that second look. Always. It can save you a lot of trouble (and money).

And yet, I myself have been working with a (paid) running coach for many years. And I do so with complete conviction. Why is that?

• Firstly, I was specifically looking for someone with his unique skills. Not out of desperation or need. Not in response to an Instagram ad. Not even to pursue a specific goal. But because I wanted to add a very particular facet to my running, one in which my coach has unquestionable expertise.

• Secondly, because I trust my coach. And this trust has been built up over many years of working together. I have gradually handed over more and more of my life as an athlete to him and I have never regretted it.

• The third reason is that I want to outsource certain things in my sporting life. I have the knowledge and experience to write my own training plan. And yet, or perhaps because of that, I hand it over. I know what it takes to train an athlete, how much and what kind of effort it takes and what the stumbling blocks are. So I know exactly what I want to do as a runner and what I do not want to do (spoiler: I primarily want to run).

• And then there is the sound that makes the music. My coach could probably make a lot more money by placing the aforementioned Instagram ads, but then he most likely wouldn't be my coach. The way he runs his business reflects a clear emphasis on working with clients to achieve their personal athletic goals. Everything he says and does, speaks that language. I feel seen and taken seriously, with all my strengths and weaknesses, and that my coach is pulling in the same direction as me. In the end, my successes are his successes and we celebrate them together.

Conclusion?

I don't have a general aversion to coaches, but I do advocate choosing to work together consciously and not out of an emotional or any other emergency situation. This is the only way to have a fruitful collaboration on an equal footing. And that is what not only we athletes are looking for, but also any serious coach.

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Everything Not Running

Thank you for taking part in last week's non-representative survey. Here are the results, freely interpreted by me:

Good. Thank you.

Thank you, even more.

This surprised me in a way. Lately, I felt there was a bit too much "personal" and not enough "Why the UTMB isn't cool anymore" or "Read the goddamn sponsorship contract before you sign it". But hey, maybe with my (newly awakened) running life in 2025, it will be a bit more exciting than my excessive descriptions of which part of my meniscus was cut out.

That's very flattering. But you should know that I'm known to have the best worst taste in music in the world. That's mainly because I listen to EVERYTHING and criss-cross it. If you can stomach it, feel free to continue following my recommendations from "On Repeat".

That's exactly the same split as before I started the (subscribers only) Das Z [+] Letter this year. I understand you. I really do. As soon as I think of a clever way to make myself rich and you eternally happy, I'll let you know. Until then, of course, I'm happy about every subscriber to the Das Z [+] Letter.

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On Repeat

This week that's easy. I grew up with German punk and have been listening to the classics for 35 years now, the same classics that carried me away as a kid. It's very, very rare that a "new" German punk band gives me something that SLIME, ABWÄRTS, TOXOPLASMA, HASS, RAZZIA, CHAOS Z or the early DIE TOTEN HOSEN can't give me.

But maybe it's just me. I have to admit that I don't follow the German punk scene at all. And yet, every now and then I come across a band that for me conveys the "spirit of yesteryear". In this case, it's PASCOW, who I've been listening to over and over again for about four years now (that's when I discovered them. Far too late).

PASCOW’s songs are weird, quirky, clever, provocative and yet catchy as hell. "Königreiche im Winter" is just one example of how amazingly good and timeless German-language punk can still be in 2023 (the year, PASCOW's current album "Sieben" was released).

I'm a fan. Probably forever.