The online coaching industry often talks about integrity, embodiment, sacred business, and ethical leadership. But beneath the branding and language, many business models are still built on disconnection, extraction, and performance. This piece explores the contradictions within modern coaching culture, the emptiness of aesthetic spirituality, and why rootedness, stewardship, and sustainable foundations matter more than ever.

The Double Standards in the Coaching Industry

I stumbled across a post this morning from a coach who was criticising the industry.

Not uncommon... pretty standard these days as more people are calling out the behaviours and standards that have been playing out in this unregulated industry.

What fascinated me about this post in particular was the double standards.

This person was calling out bad behaviour... people who default on payments, people who promise the world and deliver very little...

People who proposition clients inside other containers.

And yes, I agree all this stuff should be called out.

I’ll also own that I’ve participated in all of these aspects of the industry.

I’ve defaulted on payments. I’ve joined spaces with the hope it might connect me with clients. I’ve let people down when I couldn’t deliver on my promises because I could no longer afford to keep platforms running.

We learn and we grow and we’re humbled pretty quickly when we are operating out of integrity.

I still don’t always get it right. I’m still cleaning up some of the messes I created when I was acting out this chaos.

But the thing that particularly triggered me about this post was the entitlement.

It was all: “don’t steal clients”, “don’t copy offers”, “don’t manipulate people”... circling in that me, me, me energy.

As an observer and participant in this industry for many years... it’s something I’ve noticed is rife. Especially amongst a particular brand of coach.

When Spirituality Becomes Aesthetic Consumption

I know very well how many of these coaches are out there borrowing and stealing from entire cultures and lineages.

Running retreats in “spiritual” places, dressing the part, receiving the downloads and sharing the “codes”... from places they have no cultural connection to.

And I wonder, where’s the integrity in that?

Not to mention outsourcing work to offshore contractors so they can cut costs.

Or hiring locals and expecting high quality delivery and round the clock availability, while trying to avoid paying the rates that level of service requires.

How come that kind of extraction is normalised? But when it’s done to a coach, then there’s outrage about the industry...

There’s an entire niche that claims to be about connection, when it’s totally disconnected in many ways.

Built on disconnection from:

• lineage

• land

• culture

• devotion

• responsibility

• depth

• reciprocity

• lived understanding

In many ways it becomes aesthetic consumption masquerading as spirituality, leadership, healing, or transformation.

And of course it works... people buy the facade. They see the fancy branding.. they hear the right language.. they get hooked in by the allure and promises.

But it all feels a bit hollow.

The Search for Roots and Real Connection

Maybe because I’ve been on such a deep journey of reconnection to my own ancestry, roots, and lineages… this is what began to feel more important to me.

Not just what we build, but how we build, and what we are building upon.

Building on empty ideals that have no connection to your roots and don’t carry those strong foundations, just doesn’t sit well with me.

And when I see people posing these surface level critiques of ethics, while participating in extractive structures themselves... I can’t help but cringe.

“How dare people take from me” they preach... while building businesses that take from traditions, symbols, medicines, rituals, sacred lands, or cultures without reciprocal relationship.

The industry often talks about:

• embodiment

• feminine leadership

• sacred business

• spirituality

• integrity

…but many business models are still operating through colonial capitalism. Wrapped in linen, cacao, and pretty fonts. No connection to the roots. No solid foundations.

I’ve definitely participated in this too. The spiritual tourism. The mish-mash of practices all blended together in certain communities.

But there was also some sense of emptiness for me. I wanted connection to real culture.

And it wasn’t until I returned to Italy that I truly felt that. I realised I didn’t need to be circling in everyone else’s rituals and traditions. I just needed to start delving deeper into where I come from.

What Are We Actually Building Our Businesses Upon?

For me, it also started to feel a bit empty when I realised how little people actually cared about anything happening in the world beyond their little bubbles.

When we’ve been witnessing ecocides and genocides live-streamed on our screens for years and people are still just talking about processing their feelings, or manifesting millions.

I learned there’s also a line between advocacy and running your entire life into the ground. And we’re not really any use to anyone when we don’t have our own safety and security needs met.

Hence, the refocusing back on my own foundations, with the bigger picture in mind. And why I’m so obsessed with getting back to my Italian roots.

This is what I woke up thinking about... and I wasn’t sure where it was going…

But I think it comes down to this... so much of the online industry wants the aesthetic of sacredness without the discipline of devotion.

Everyone wants the fast results, the overnight success... they’ll borrow, steal, and tread on others to get what they want.

And it gets results.. but is that really integrity?

When those foundations aren’t there, everything becomes consumable. When businesses are built on shaky ground, eventually they crumble.

And I wonder if this is why we’re seeing such a mass exodus to Jesus. People recognising how shallow the foundations were and jumping ship.

But to me it looks like much of the same shallow footing. When all the other models started to feel empty... it’s on to the next.

When I feel into it, integrity isn’t just what we call out in others. It’s what we’re choosing to be in relationship with.

It’s about looking at our own backend and answering honestly, what are we building our work upon?

Systems as Stewardship

Because if we’re invoking things like:

• sacred leadership

• transformation

• healing

• devotion

• community

• cultural wisdom

• impact

…then something has to be holding that weight.

Is it a business model, trend cycle, borrowed language, performance? Or is it relationship, responsibility, practice, depth, stewardship?

What does it mean to be in right relationship with the things we touch, teach, profit from, and transmit?

Not just clients and customers. But culture, land, ideas, stories, systems, and creativity.

These are questions I’m still pondering.

Where I’m landing.. integrity happens when the structures and containers we build for the world to see, are in coherence with the values we hold.

This is why identity and shadow work is so important, and why we can’t rush the process of our becoming.

I want to make money, I really do... I have big goals and visions for when I am… but at the end of the day... that’s not the primary thing that drives me.

When I think about integrity.. I think about longevity and sustainability... I think about cleaning up my inner world to ensure it’s in coherence with what I’m building... I think about the kind of life I want to be living and the people I want to be sharing it with.

I want to take my time building things that have structure, and depth. Not be in a rush to pump things out to meet some made up success deadlines.

I think about what I’m saying yes to... who and what I want my name associated with.. whether our values align, or if I can sense I’m just in it for money.

If the answer is the latter, I get myself out.

I think about how do we create businesses that are coherent extensions of soul, ethics, artistry, and lived reality?

That’s why I care so deeply about foundations and why I’m so obsessed with systems, sustainability, stewardship, and coherence.

Because I no longer want to build things that just look good from the outside.

I want to build things that can actually hold weight — financially, ethically, emotionally, and spiritually.

To me, systems are not just tools for efficiency, they’re expressions of stewardship.

Which is why I don’t rush what I build, and I don’t force alignment where it doesn’t exist.

Because I’m not here for quick results. I’m here for lasting impact.