What should you get coaching on?

Try asking AI

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think coaches are super, super useful. I also think that in the world we’re rapidly approaching, or more accurately, already embedded in, AI is going to stretch every role and every job function we have, and Coaching is not exempt.

So here is an experiment for you to try:

If you use AI on a regular basis, try this prompt:

“What would you recommend that I get coaching on, knowing everything you know about me?”

Shout out to the amazing Kirsten Dierolf for the prompt. The response didn’t come immediately. It asked me a few questions first, which I’ve trained it to do. Then it came back with a handful of themes.

Pretty damned accurate. Not in a vague, horoscope kind of way. Accurate in the slightly uncomfortable, “oh...” kind of way.

Here’s what it surfaced for me:

• The gap between insight and leverage

• My relationship with output vs incubation

• From a portfolio of ideas → a coherent body of work

• My edge as a teacher vs a thinker

• The subtle one: emotional exposure vs intellectual mastery

None of these were new and that’s what made it interesting.

AI doesn’t reveal new truths. It sharpens old ones.

There’s a temptation to think AI will tell us something we’ve never seen before.

Sometimes it does, but more often, it reflects back what we already know… just with less noise and fewer excuses.

For me AI has spotted patterns across my writing, what I return to again and again, what I avoid and occasionally what I almost say but don't.

It names them cleanly. (note sometimes it doesn't so you have to pay attention to what is being written not just how pretty the wordss are)

So where does that leave coaching?

If AI can do this, what’s left for a human coach? Quite a lot, methinks. Based on what I've been seeing

AI can help you:

• See patterns

• Name tensions

• Generate hypotheses about your development

But at the moment it can't:

• Sit with you when you avoid the hard thing

• Notice when you choke up or your breathing changes mid-sentence

• Call out the gap between what you say matters and what you actually do

• Stay with you long enough for something to shift

That’s still human work.

The shift that’s coming

What I think is changing is where coaching starts.

It used to begin with:

“So… what would you like to work on?”

Increasingly, it might begin with:

“What did your AI surface for you?”

That’s a very different entry point. I'm seeing it on some of the coaching platforms

AI is helping coachees show up more focused and at least a little more honest.

That offers coaches potentially much higher leverage. Most coaches recognize that a client who shows up with a topic gets better results...

A small experiment

If you’re curious, try the prompt and don’t just read the answer. Try these three things:

• Notice which point makes you pause

• Notice which one you want to dismiss

• Notice which one you quietly skip over

That last one is worthy of looking at again... I find for me at least, it's where the deepest work sits

Try asking AI what you should get coaching on, and notice what comes back. It won’t magically reveal something new, but it will sharpen what you already know and may be avoiding. And remember the real value isn’t in the answers themselves, but in how you respond to them.