On Shedding Skins, Snake Oil and Becoming

My journey into a Worthiness Revolution

Once upon a time, there was a woman who fell out of love with the coaching industry.

Well- maybe didn’t fall out of love. Maybe had more of a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment {or full year}

Which was one of those most confusing of spaces to be in when she was simultaneously still madly, deeply in love with her own practice and clients.

I began coaching before coaching was ‘cool’- before Instagram & TikTok & bro coaches- in fact for a long time, it seemed like coaching was almost decidedly uncool.

But to me, it was a Calling born out of feeling trapped as an ambitious woman in finance who grew weary of the constant obsession with more, got out of the rat race and then studied extensively in more healing modalities than I can even count.

In fact I’ve always referred to it not as my business, but as my practice- sacred, close, intimate, client-first as my approach.

But like any industry, there are always those who see it more as a- how shall I be nice about it- opportunity than something they are deeply called to do.

I could always spot those types a mile away- where followers & subscribers are just leads instead of actual real people, writing isn’t art but sales copy, every event is a chance to ‘acquire’ new prospects and clients are another line on a spreadsheet- and deposit in their bank account.

Feeling eerily like my career in finance to intensely focus on making more and more money- no matter how- it’s never sat well with me.

I’ve always done my best to stay in my own lane and not give a second thought to the corners of the industry where this is happening.

But like everyone, I also have bills to pay and a life to lead & dreams I hope to one day see realized.

So it’s always been a delicate balance- how to show up authentically, operate from a client-first approach, share the wisdom I’ve gathered throughout the years in ways that feel true to me vs ‘marketing’ while also making sure my own needs & dreams are tended.

In 16 years in business, sometimes I’ve wildly succeeded at this balance- others I’ve fallen on my face.

To say I don’t want to tell the following story is telling that I need to- because I know that every one of us has moments or eras of feeling like a failure or like we stumbled upon the wrong path or feeling like we are not enough or…. a whole big jumble of it all….

And more of us need to share our tales. Because it’s in the telling that we can rewrite our story and help others not feel so alone.

So grab a cup of coffee & settle in. This is a long one but so important to be told.

18 months ago, a rumbling started in my soul.

Call it over 15 years in business.

Call it restlessness.

Call it a little middle-age freak out.

I turned 43 and suddenly, all of my deep work around worthiness & redefining success for myself seemingly went out the window and I felt ‘behind’ where I ‘should’ be by my mid-forties.

Ugh- can you relate?

Maybe it isn’t around a certain age, but maybe there was a time in your life when you unexpectedly felt radically behind where you ‘should be’ by now.

Maybe it was getting stuck in a comparison trap.

Maybe it was the result of a change in your business or change in your relationships or losing your job or a year of big challenges or not hitting your revenue goals or living through yet another unprecedented event or any myriad of things where suddenly this deep sense of

NOT ENOUGH

Creeps in.

No matter how much deep work you’ve done. No matter how happy you are with what is presently in your life. No matter if what you are currently experiencing could be defined as ‘success’- it leaks in so quietly yet so fiercely that we might not even recognize it until we are deeeeeeeeep in it.

Which you know- isn’t exactly fun.

It seems more & more common in this day & age of social media where we see beyond just what those in our local communities are up to and instead are bombarded with an entire WORLD of appearances of success slammed in our face- daily.

But here’s the twist- it’s funny how telling ourselves we aren’t enough ‘saves’ us from facing the truth of just how amazing we actually are

For me, it showed up 18 months ago when I really, truly felt like I had shed the skin of grief around the sudden passing of my dad in 2021 and felt ready to rock & roll into the next stages of my life- such as owning a home in California {which if I’m being frank is getting more elusive every day} and expanding my practice to serve more people.

The night my dad passed away, I stayed up late waiting for my husband to get off work on the West Coast to tell him the news. I sat out on the covered porch alone for hours as a thunderstorm rolled overhead and felt the lightning strike of a Calling to help as many people as I could focus on their worthiness, health & fitness: mental, spiritual AND physical.

I knew I had to grieve first and trusted I would know when the time felt right to expand.

And well- 18 months ago the time suddenly felt right.

So it started as an innocent quest- to learn what my industry is up to these days, see what is working, what no longer is and learn some new skills.

I’ve always been blessed by this seemingly magical flow within my coaching practice, and prior to that my bodywork/ CranioSacral practice in San Francisco. I worked hard for it & have structures in place, but I never really focused on ‘growth’ or hitting certain benchmarks-

My main focus has been and always will be sustainable success while providing the best service I can to those who hire me.

With that- the right clients always come into my world and I share my words & writing & art in full trust that those meant to work with me will find me.

I attribute that to all the deep soul work, shadow work, visioning and tending to my physical body that I prioritize.

By the summer of 2023 this rumbling to spread my message wider + father no longer could be ignored, while simultaneously my husband & I were getting serious about our visions for the future now that we are in our mid-40’s.

But it was harder to ignore that forces beyond my control like algorithms and ‘influencing’ and a grossly saturated market for coaching since the pandemic were also at play.

And so I took my 15 years of experience of entrepreneurship (at the time) and paired it with a beginners mindset to learn what I didn’t know, how the industry had evolved and hopefully figure out where I fit in.

But maybe that was my mistake: trying to fit in to something that had never really felt like home in the first place.

I went down the rabbit hole- and truth is- I really didn’t like what I found:

Reels! IG Lives! TikTok! Wellness Influencers! Podcast Bros! Complicated funnels! Engagement pods! Algorithms! Going viral! Hooks! Ads! Controversial opinions! Captions & posts done for you! ChatGPT! Make sales in your DM’s! ManyChat! Instagram account audits! Masterminds bigger than the size of my high school! Trending audios! Trending trends! White Label programs! MRR! Digital Marketing Experts!…

But the most glaring and loud were the: Make $xxK a month like me claims! Low-maintenance 7-figure businesses! Big Money Claims! Quantum Growth! Money Codes!…

It started to seem like an obsession with marketing around money- hitting on insecurities and worthiness wounds in Reels + IG Lives + Private DM’s + Masterclasses.

I wondered- in my best Carrie Bradshaw voice- is this still even…. coaching?

At first I chalked it up to feeling like an old dog trying to learn new tricks- the amount of discomfort I felt at learning about all of this was… a lot.

But I don’t run away from discomfort- in fact I train my body to know how to handle it in life beyond the road.

So I did the Hard Thing and sought to learn more- having a small business these days now comes with knowing how to be a Content Creator & I knew I had things to learn.

If you know how the algorithm works, once I started to look, it was all I could find…. and these coaches started to find me.

My DM’s were flooded simply by following a few- often using the same outreach tactics word for word.

I kid you not, I’ve had women outright ask me by the 2nd DM how much money I make because they could get me to way more, and even had several male coaches I didn’t even follow send me unsolicited videos (always from inside a Tesla…) in the DM’s telling me what they saw could be ‘fixed’ on my account and website if I hired them, guaranteeing income results and getting so aggressive if I didn’t respond I would have to block them.

I blocked A LOT of people in 2024 actually.

Suddenly- everyone is an expert yet the further I explored, the more it started to feel like a lot of ‘coaches’ didn’t have much actual…. Experience.

Which I later came to realize is the crux of the problem that could be the downfall of the industry- the coaches coaching coaches on how to coach coaches to be coaches with wild income claims…. But very few ever having actually had a successful business before they started ‘coaching’ how to make more $$$

And the marketing works. Extraordinarily- and scarily- well.

I serve a variety of different industries in my practice and most of my life coaching clients aren’t other coaches- most are executives, PhD’s or business owners/ CEO’s in other industries- so this was a whole new Wild West I had ventured into.

A lot of the work I do with my private clients is around success- what do you truly want vs what you think you should want, always looking at: is the quest for more or the next level coming from truth, necessity or a worthiness wound trying to be filled?

Often it’s a combination- and getting clear is the key to how to move forward.

Over a decade ago, I was in a mastermind with a woman- a trained actress- who was launching a coaching ‘school’. On a retreat together I asked her one night how many clients she was currently working with- as I was juggling a full client load & wait list at the time.

Her answer: TWO. In the total of her coaching career, she’d had TWO clients charging $700/month. Ever. Her business wasn’t working, so she decided to ‘pivot’ to coach people how to be ‘successful 6-figure coaches’ … it doesn’t take my Bachelors in Economics to see that it was something she had never done herself.

But it actually worked. As an actress, her videos were engaging and she talked the talk well. I watched her make a lot of money in that launch, scratching my head thinking this was a one-off situation because how could someone lie?

But more importantly, what was she delivering for the investment if it was built on said lie?

Unfortunately last year, I found out it wasn’t as uncommon as I thought…

Back to the summer of 2023- In the spirit of experimenting & being curious, I joined groups & memberships & tried a lot of new things & dabbled in experiences that were FAR outside my comfort zone to see what worked and felt right for me.

There had to be gold in the chaos somewhere and the burning in my heart to carry through with what I promised my dad the night he passed to help more people come home to their bodies and thrive was growing.

Again- being brave and doing the Hard Thing.

A rare few classes were incredibly valuable but most were… well… not.

Which led me to a place where I was tired of doing it alone and felt ready to really invest in a business coach for personalized support and was craving being in community with other women business owners again.

First I will say: I choose to believe in the good in people. And I choose to see that most who are drawn to coaching have a heart that loves to serve.

I’ve seen the incredible, life-changing effects that real, effective coaching can bring- my own life included.

But where I think the industry has gone sideways- and what I experienced- is when the allure of making money- especially a lot of money fast- becomes the sole, almost obsessed focus at the expense of delivering a safe, quality experience for those who trust coaches to invest in.

I’ve always believed in safe experiences for my clients to truly heal + grow + thrive with intentional, sustainable growth for both myself and those I serve.

This was the exact opposite.

I have no desire to ever drag anyone through the mud.

I will never name who I hired publicly or the other women who were in the community. It’s not my style- though plenty of women who were also in the mastermind I joined have, and Reddit has a wealth of posts about those who had a similar- and often far worse- experience as me not just with this coach but with many, many more.

I wish I could tell the whole story, but as one put it on a Reddit thread about what I’m about to tell you, it’s Netflix documentary-worthy a la Apple Cider Vinegar (which I tried to watch but just couldn’t because of the parallels)

I believe in investing in myself and coaching- obviously since I am one :)

Normally I invest in 1:1, but I was craving community so made what I thought was a straight-forward, significant up-front full year investment in what was sold as a small, intimate Mastermind with a coach that was supposed to also include 1:1, a ‘customized with her’ year-long plan of action, weekly coaching days in an app, small group calls of hot seats, plus other female business owners making a certain threshold in their business already.

The last time I made a similar sized investment in a Mastermind it was life-changing, so I made the 5-figure payment after discussions with her.

Sometimes, we need to take the chance of being burned.

And in the burning, we get the opportunity to uncover who we truly are.

And now I’ll add- who we are most definitely not.

The first 6 weeks of my one year commitment were beautiful and expansive- I truly liked the other women I met, the calls felt safe & nourishing and I began to see the possibilities of growth for both myself and my practice.

There were a few glaring red-flags after I paid that made me realize she didn’t have the experience she touted, but not enough to be deal breakers- yet.

But then I witnessed firsthand what happens when a business/coach obsessively focuses on growth then goes viral, and how it can be handled with integrity & safety for clients with Grace or… not.

Take a guess which side of the coin was flipped.

Suddenly, the small Mastermind I joined where I was sold direct, customized support ballooned in size to almost 200 women in a few weeks when a masterclass aimed at adding a 2-3 more women to our group went viral- as well as her Instagram with aggressive ads.

It felt like a frenzy- instead of funneling all of the new people suddenly applying to work with her into new offerings or starting a wait list, she doubled down on the marketing while admitting them into our Mastermind that required a significant investment…

With zero structures in place to handle it.

Exponentially expanding her income, but substantially changing the experience that she had sold to all of us already in there and- later I found out- what she had promised all of those new women who had joined too.

My first call when I joined had 15 women present and everyone who wanted a Hot Seat got one. 8 weeks later there were 150+ women live on a one hour call- almost all with their hands raised looking for the support they paid for.

Can you see where this is going? It was not sustainable.

The changes she implemented drastically altered the experience with months of drama following, where I witnessed from the sidelines as I watched on- almost like a car wreck I couldn’t look away from- and even more I found out about after I left.

Part of me never wanted to tell this story- but I do think that people need to be aware of what is happening in the industry at large because I later found out it was not an isolated incident.

I’ll spare you most of the gory details besides the most important, like when many went to her privately with concerns that the small group experience and 1:1 support we were sold was now just gone & looking for solutions, but instead of addressing them, she went on a weeks long rant on social media about the ‘war on happy people’ where she specifically called out & made fun of paying clients in all details besides name.

There were the ‘engagement pods’ for Instagram born out of the group full of other participants who were publicly declaring on social media making 6-figures or 7-figures in their businesses like she was suddenly privately teaching on these calls {and they would teach you how!} who posted audios in the group chat crying over… not making any money.

At this point I had stopped attending calls, was keeping to myself & felt physically sick every time I looked in the group chat.

I’ll spare you the very long story of my deal breaker- the ‘priestess’ she hired to start hosting most of the calls instead of her and begin moderating the group chat as her ‘solution’- who then started coaching women that they didn’t need strategy, they needed psychedelics, shamans and more ‘explosive s$x’ to make more money- often in graphic detail.

The calls got…weird…then this new coach specifically told someone- who is sober- worried about her revenue that they needed to go do a ‘ceremony’ with a specific plant medicine that in my opinion is dangerous (IYKYK)- which as someone who is also sober was my final straw.

When I addressed my concerns about it asking if I could simply switch into another offering to not be working directly with this new coach for the remaining 7 months of my paid-in-full contract, she personally ignored my email for 3 weeks and went on a rant on her Instagram for a few days about it.

But not without first having her ‘lawyer’ (I later found out actually her assistant in the Philippines) send me the same email other women received (I soon found out I was not the only one) saying I had to pay more to buy out my contract to leave (I didn’t fall for it).

We eventually had a nice exchange where I simply walked away wishing her well.

But I didn’t realize others were doing the same- one of at least 50 women who left that month alone I later was told- but my guess is there are many more who did so quietly like I did- empowered for standing up for what I believe is right…. yet simultaneously heart broken.

Not heart broken over the money I lost- though I’m not going to lie that still really stings- but heart broken that THIS is what is happening in many places in the coaching industry now.

Because you see- I then went down the rabbit hole to see if this was an isolated experience and Fierce Ones- unfortunately it was not.

After I left, I found Reddit threads & Instagram rants by former clients & lawyers hired & rumblings of investigations by the FCC, several Attorney’s General plus Stripe and PayPal for the high numbers of charge-backs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

{I personally did not hire a lawyer after I consulted with one and it was too late for a charge-back. I had no desire to deal with the drama for another minute}

And what I found was about a lot of people with similar experiences industry-wide.

This is what is now being taught by these ‘coaches’- to 10x their prices, lie about their income & experience in their marketing and then not fully deliver on the service they sold or grossly overselling experiences in an effort to ‘scale’.

It’s what she advised me to do myself in the only 1:1 interaction I had with her.

I ignored the advice.

If a client complains, threats of lawsuits and contract buyouts and smearing their names on Instagram are thrown around.

Triggering worthiness wounds and fears around money- I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it first hand.

It’s working. Spend a day going down the Instagram rabbit hole (I don’t have TikTok but I heard it’s worse over there) and then go check out Reddit. It’s a true Wild West out there.

To an extent that it probably isn’t going away any time soon because many of those it is working for are also those who are going viral selling a lifestyle & a dream.

And it’s hurting enough people that it’s starting to hurt those of us who are excellent coaches but want no part in that game.

It’s one of the reasons I took a break from long form writing here & pulled down my podcast for now- there is a responsibility to having a platform that I take seriously.

I needed to shed some skins.

I needed to get back into my own Power.

I needed to do the deep inner work myself to heal all the feelings this experience brought up for me- the shame that my own feelings of middle-age not-enoughness led me to be blinded to what I was really investing in, the ick of feeling like I’d been sold snake oil and then even deeper- a fear of never, ever, wanting anyone to ever feel that way about hiring me.

Again in my best Carrie Bradshaw voice- I couldn’t help but wonder in those darkest of healing moments: as a coach, was I by default also a snake oil seller?

Which my logical brain knows is not real because that’s not how I do business or operate in the world, but often fear is not logical.

It’s taken me almost a year to fully heal from this experience- a lot of inner work, a lot of rage runs, a lot of shedding of skins, a lot of really determining who I am, who I am not and who I wish to become in an industry that has radically changed since I joined it.

It’s taken me this long to remember that the heart of why I loved this industry in the first place- Growth + Empowerment + deep Healing- still remains.

And I truly needed to walk through the fires of the next levels of my own Worthiness Revolution because Fierce Ones- In working deeply with clients for over 16 years, I truly believe that’s exactly what most of us are walking through right now in each of our own ways.

Which is why I have changed the name of this Substack because this work around Worthiness- it is THE work.

Finding Fierce (the previous name of this Substack) was simply just a part of a bigger picture I’m now ready to start exploring and writing about again.

To be honest, at points I’ve considered leaving the industry, but instead of leaving, I deepened even more into who I am:

• I’ve doubled down- on myself & my craft

• I’ve since taken several courses plus got certified in both run coaching and as a Certified Personal Trainer to deepen my expertise in my programs to offer more of a 360 experience

• I’ve taken a long, hard look at all the places + spaces I was buying into the hype as well

• I dove into where I still needed healing myself- like in my definition of success as a now middle-aged woman

• I got brave & went INTO the triggers- exploring my own shadows so I could find my love for this industry again

• I started offering run coaching, refined my offerings & adjusted my rates to what feels in integrity- with a brand new website {www.jenblackstock.com}

• I took a long look at all my client success stories over the years and I’m daily in awe of how amazingly powerful this work can be

• And I vowed to hold to my own morals + standards- unapologetically

Because Integrity Wins.

Always.

It might not be the popular route or the fastest track, but it’s the right one for me.

In one of those weird twists of fate, yesterday I went to a coffee shop to finish the final draft of this piece. I went to a different location than usual on a gut feeling.

As I was sitting there editing, feeling so happy and a glow with where I’m currently at in my life, the former neighbor who referred me to that coach and mastermind walked in. She’s very distinctive with her tattoos but I almost didn’t recognize her.

Our time in the group overlapped very briefly before she upgraded to a ‘higher level’ group with the same coach but I hadn’t seen her in person for over a year. But she looked stressed, exhausted, like the light in her eyes was gone and the opposite of the glowing woman I knew for years before her business massively expanded & who now splashes online in fancy filters as this coach making millions (in every single post lately) and suddenly it hit me:

This constant chasing of more will never be enough if we don’t address the Worthiness wounds hidden deep within.

And when we don’t, more might actually be less- and it has nothing to do with making money.

This quote came rushing into my head as I watched her walk away:

“We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being ALIVE, is what it is all about” ~ Jospeh Campbell

And wouldn’t you know it- RAPTURE was my word for 2024 and hot damn- I got a Masterclass in it.

It’s been a challenging year, but I’m more me, more sure of who I am and more grounded in my body than I ever have been before from doing this deep worthiness healing work.

And that’s exactly why I’m ready to start writing and talking about it more.

I can’t stop what’s happening online in many corners, but me hiding out holding back this powerful work isn’t serving anyone anymore.

Will I ever hire a coach myself again?

Absolutely, without a doubt I will. I still believe the investment I made was worth it to learn these lessons, and I have a solid support system. I’m more clear than ever that 1:1 coaching- both to offer it and receive- is beyond powerful.

The big masterminds?

Very clearly not my scene. And that’s ok.

I’m secure enough in who I am as a woman and my own Worthiness to not need to be a part of what is happening out there in many pockets of the industry.

I have my people, and I love them hard. That’s what matters most at the end of the day.

Am I back in love with the industry now?

Yes + No

But I AM even more madly in love with MY OWN CORNER of it- and it’s still an epic love affair I’m not leaving any time soon.

It’s high time for a Revolution Fierce Ones- or maybe it’s time we all step into being Worthiness Warriors instead ;)

In Liberation + Celebration,

Jen