Just returned to my apartment from the conference after speaking at the Asia Pacific Alliance of Coaches APAC2025 Conference and as I humbly exit the hotel after today’s conference, guess what started looping in my head?

🎵 “Ain’t about how fast I get there… It’s the climb.”
Yes, Miley Cyrus. The Climb. It hit me square in the gut.

Because that’s exactly what coaching is.
And that’s exactly what we’re all in right now.

We’re seeing an industry shift.
Jobs are being created and evaporated.
Gen AI isn’t just “coming”, it’s already rolled out in stealth mode.

Case in point: DBS partnered with Marshall Goldsmith to implement iCoach across the organisation. The machines are not just at the gates; they’ve been given keycards.

And this? This is the part we need to own:

Humans are strange.
We want faster everything: faster coaching, faster healing, faster ROI.
We want to cut costs but demand premium impact.
We want deep presence and convenience.
Autonomy and control.
AI that saves us time but doesn’t dare replace our voice.

We want everything 🙄 And we don’t want to compromise.
And that’s the real climb.
Before we go into existential panic, let’s pause.

This isn’t the death of coaching.
It’s the mirror.

🧠 Gen AI can mimic powerful questions.
🧠 It can read tone.
🧠 It can generate “coaching-like” responses that sound plausible to the untrained ear.

But what can’t it do?
• Sit in discomfort without rushing to resolve it.
• Feel the heavy silence of human tension and choose not to fill it.
• Wrestle with nuance, intuition, and trauma-informed presence.
• Take accountability for who it is while holding space for who you’re becoming.

Machines can assist.
Sure, they have geniuses to program.
But they do not climb.

If you’re in the helping profession, I’ll ask you:
𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴?

Because the public’s confused.
I’ve heard it all:

“Oh, so coaching isn’t healing?”
“So you can’t fix my inner child?”
“Can you help me get my estranged wife back?”
“Wait… so why do I need you again?”

Exactly.
Because coaching isn’t about fixing your past.
It’s about awakening the ‘now’ and ‘future’.
With precision. Awareness. Responsibility. And choice.

This is not the time to shrink.
It’s time to re-strategise.
Upskill. Reframe. Specialise. Use AI but don’t let it dull your brain.

The climb is steeper now, yes.
But the view? It’s probably never been more worth it.

We don’t need more empathy-bots.
We need humans who’ve done the work, who are the work, and who are still-still-still-climbing.

👣 What part of the climb are you in right now?