PYG 110: Is your lane already saturated?

I’ve seen a few posts recently about saturation – one post about there being too many courses. Another post about there being too many coaches. Both posts discouraging people who’d never coached or created courses to even try.

Because saturation.

But saturation doesn’t matter when it comes to having a better solution. A more convenient solution. A more you solution.

When you think about coaches and courses simply as education, it makes me wonder why no one ever asks why there are so many schools?

We have public neighborhood schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, Montessori schools, private independent schools. Co-ed schools, single sex schools. PK-12 schools. Middle school only schools. High school only schools. And let’s not even get started on college options – from community, to state university to small liberal college to prestigious Ivy League.

No one blinks at education options when we think of children. It’s considered an unspoken truth and fact of life that children must be educated, so an overwhelming list of options is what we’ve come to accept.

And when it’s time to choose an educational model for our kids, we buckle down and look at what makes the most sense for our children and our family situation.

Can we afford private or is public more our speed? What type of programs do they have for STEM? What’s the art instruction like, my kid’s super creative. We appreciate options when we look at them from the vantage point of giving our kids the best because we understand each child and each family is unique and has different needs.

Children grow up to be adults, and their education needs evolve but don’t disappear.

And if you’re a lifelong learner you already know that.

That’s why new books come out every day: there are constantly new ways to explain old problems, more modern methods, more up to date approaches.

Which is why there are so many courses and coaches on the market. Since the economy is dynamic and changing, we need more people lighting the way not less. More styles of instruction, not fewer. More diverse voices and content, not the same old same old.

In Todd Rose’s book Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment, he talks about among other things what he calls the Standardization Convenant. He shares that after the Industrial Revolution, we reached peak standardization – everything had to be uniform. But now we’re entering a new era – the age of personalization.

One of the premises in the book is that in the era of personalization, education and work will be personalized – which we are already seeing with the advent of different types of schools and for adults, courses and coaches.

The proliferation of coaches and courses then, is a natural response to this new Wild Wild West of personalization: people who have been educated in the standardized way have to relearn how to listen to themselves and uncover what they’re good at.

People are more and more interested in investigating what unique difference they can make with their lives – not how they can fit into a role that was designed for just anyone with a certain set of skills to fill.

So the next time someone sows seeds of doubt around your new course or coaching venture – and even if you’re the one doing the sowing, remember that as our economy and society shifts from standardization to personalization, the need will likely grow for good coaches and course creators and guides – if you don’t like the term expert – who can light the way.

If that is you and you have a message to share, don’t miss the wave.

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