A cohort member, Karthik, arrived carrying receipts and scepticism. Coach one had sold him a "success mindset transformation": six sessions of vision boards while his actual problem, a stalled promotion in a matrix organisation, sat untouched. Coach two was kinder and vaguer: warm conversations, zero mechanics. Several thousand pounds lighter, he'd concluded the industry was weather.
Reasonable conclusion, wrong resolution. Scepticism that blocks everything is just cynicism with better PR, and it quietly costs whatever the right help would have returned. The fix is not more trust; it's a filter. Four questions, for evaluating anyone in this space, me included.
Question one: "What, specifically, will I do in month one?"
Mechanics answers with specifics: you'll map your deciders, build your calibration sentences, run your first negotiation rehearsal. Weather answers atmospherically: "we'll unlock what's holding you back." Atmospheric answers cost the same as specific ones and deliver fog. This single question filters most of the industry.
Question two: "Have you sat on the deciding side of the table you claim to explain?"
Ask for particulars: rooms chaired, decisions made, years done. Career advice divides into observations of the game and testimony from its referees, and the difference shows up in every session. Someone explaining calibration who has never sat in one is reviewing a restaurant from the pavement.
Question three: "Can I hear about mechanisms, not feelings?"
Past clients saying "life-changing" is marketing. Past clients saying "I ran the 72-hour protocol and my two-month stall closed in a day" (day 27, Micheal, real) is evidence. Ask for the second kind, and note carefully whether the seller even understands the distinction, because sellers who traffic in feelings will offer you more feelings as proof of feelings.
Question four: "Who is this wrong for?"
The honest ones answer promptly, because they've thought about it and they've turned people away. If everyone's a fit, nobody is, and you're talking to a funnel rather than a professional. (My answer runs as Saturday's entire edition, in writing, so you can hold me to the standard.)
The resolution of the opening case
Karthik ran a version of this filter, joined, and his stalled promotion resolved seven months later. His line, quoted with his blessing: "The others coached me. This coached my situation." That distinction, situation over self, is what question one is really testing for, and it generalises to courses, mentors, and consultancies of every kind.
Your assignment
Whatever help you're considering this autumn, mine included: run the four questions, in writing, before money moves. Scepticism after being burned is data; the filter is how you use it without it using you.
Talk soon, Yasar
P.S. 7 days. Interrogate me before joining if that helps; it's what the call is for: https://ovdlab.com/book/team/strategy-discovery-call/15min
