I Almost Became A Coach . Here’s Why I Didn’t

Last time I had an income, it was from teaching yoga teachers to write posts on Facebook to get clients.

That was 2024. From July to November. Before that I was just mom of a baby. Before that I was a yoga teacher who sells online video courses.

I was very interested in expanding that yoga-business-coaching business in 2025.

Until I didn’t.

I realized I was doing it because it was the only way I knew to make money since 2017.

I actually didn’t enjoy being in the yoga industry anymore.

So I decided to stop. Many people told me:

“Oh what a pity, you were so good”

But, does being good at something means you have to do it?

There’s the element of joy. It’s equally important.

I love Marie Kondo’s philosophy of home cleansing:

Holding each item in your chest and asking yourself:

“Does this spark joy?”

If not, throw it away.

Doesn’t matter how much money you paid for it.

If selling it or donating it takes too much time and effort, just throw it away.

I love how extreme Japanese minimalism is.

I feel like I lack being extreme. I need to be more extreme.

That’s why when I decided to abruptly stop the whole business, I was so happy.

It was an extreme action.

It was a relief.

I don’t do coaching calls anymore

I don’t listen to people’s problems

I don’t find pain points

Or solutions

I don’t squeeze content out of my ass just to end with a call to action that feels forced.

Believe me, at the peak of the hustle I sent one newsletter per day.

Don’t get me wrong. I pay for coaching myself and I enjoy being with my coach(es).

But it didn’t feel natural to me.

Anyway, then came the question:

What will I do next?

People still told me “Oh what a pity you were so good”

To which I replied with

“I will use the skill set to do something else”

And so many possibilities popped up

I have a lot of interests:

I could be a love - relationship coach. People often let me dig my nose into their drama.

And I tried writing about love and dating. I started on Threads. Oh my god how threads boosts drama. I got several viral posts. If you go back back back to the first posts here on Substack you can see they’re about love.

But I didn’t enjoy the attention so much.

And more importantly I didn’t see anyway of developing any kind of online product or service to sell with that niche.

I can’t see myself making courses or coaching people about relationships.

Why.

Because I can tell you right here and right now. The only way is to know how to love.

It’s really a spiritual matter.

What I don’t like about this niche is that

When coaches talk about it they always split human into men and women.

I used to agree with “what men should do” and “what women should do” in dating when I was in my 20s.

But now I know more than that.

Dating, relationship, marriage, and even friendship, they grow from the same root: love.

Without love there’s nothing.

Still strange how I rarely hear the phrase “love coach”. Dating coach, relationship coach, marriage coach I often see but not love coach.

Love is so powerful and transcendental through time and space. And it goes beyond all definitions.

So what men should do and what women should do and everyone not defined as men or women should do, is to learn true love.

And I can’t explain further even though I wanted to. Even if I could, I don’t think people want to pay to hear this.

Even if they want to, I’m not confident teaching. I’m still learning about love. I learn from Buddhist teachings. Buddhist monks are the best love coach in the world.

So no, not a relationship/ dating coach then.

Next.

I could be a money mindset & manifesting coach.

I actually pay for a money mindset coach. She’s a lovely woman. She helps me improve a lot in mindset. And money. Probably something in manifesting.

So I thought I could be like her. I even ask her to let me know when she starts training coaches.

And I tested out ideas, again on Threads.

Felt wrong again.

Money, wealth and poverty are very complex.

It’s also a lot about big factors like where you were born, where you live, what race you are, family history of money, education, life decisions, … so many things.

Even the tiniest things someone at some point did or said to you could set up a whole mindset problem.

This is why I freaking love Japanese murder mystery and it’s the only genre of books that I’m reading now. Because everything matters. Everything in the life of the people leads to the event (of murder).

And this is also why I’m oversharing on Substack because I want to see through my history.

I’m Vietnamese, I lived in Vietnam all the time until I was 27. I moved to Sweden and recently adopted a Swedish identity. I live with my husband and child in our own house in the countryside. We don’t afford luxury. But we are not poor.

And I have what I have thanks to a whole complex of factors.

I singlehandedly would never achieve this much.

That’s why I don’t want to talk about manifesting anymore.

In the East we believe good karma is accumulating through generations and generations.

Someone suffering not because they are losers.

It could be that it’s their fate to be like that at some point in their life and it happens to be now.

Well I can’t really say anything more because I’m not that capable.

The point is, it’s much more complex than “you have to believe you get it and you will get it”

What you have right now could be the result of some actions that your great grandparents took last century.

So, no manifesting then.

At this point I can see:

I don’t want to teach

I don’t want to be a teacher

I don’t want to coach

I don’t want to listen to problems

I want to be a student

A complete dummy. Sucking at everything.

So that I can learn from teachers.

I want to be a sponge to absorb knowledge from others.

And I want to learn things because it satisfies my willing to learn.

Not so that I can later teach it to someone else.

I want to learn to fill up my lake, not just to find an opportunity to pack it up into a course and sell online.

Long story short, I’m painting now.