Coaching Is Failing in the AI-Era: 4 Reasons Why

Text us a question and we'll answer it on the podcast...

👉📘 Get your FREE copy of 'Train Your Brain for the AI Revolution' here

Why do most performance psychology approaches fail to deliver lasting results? Dr. Jon Finn - creator of Human-AI Performance Psychology - tackles this challenging question head-on, revealing statistical evidence that even gold-standard talk therapies like CBT only help one in five people—with benefits typically fading within a year.

Drawing from three performance psychology degrees and extensive field experience with elite performers, Dr. Finn shares the four fundamental flaws in traditional coaching approaches that led him to develop the Habit Mechanic AI Edge system. This revolutionary framework has helped clients secure tangible results like circa $90,000 salary increases, and equity positions by becoming leaders in human-AI performance.

The breakthrough lies in understanding Brain States first, creating both long-term and daily strategic plans, and implementing a comprehensive behavioral automation system. Unlike conventional approaches that offer disconnected tips and tricks, this system treats personal performance with the same strategic seriousness businesses apply to their planning processes. The result is a four-step AI-Edge Success Cycle that addresses the growing complexity and overwhelm of our AI-enhanced world.

Most remarkably, Dr. Finn's and his team's approach doesn't require abandoning everything you've tried before—it provides a better container that amplifies existing tools and adds "super boosters" to make them stick. As he eloquently puts it, "You're only ever one Brain State habit away" from transformation.

Ready to experience what's possible when performance psychology is rebuilt from first principles for the AI-Era (i.e., Human-AI Performance Psychology)? Learn more about one-to-one coaching on our website, download "Train Your Brain for the AI Revolution," or join our upcoming webinar "The AI Lie" on May 14th to discover what successful individuals and teams are doing differently in the age of artificial intelligence.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello Habit Mechanics .
It's Dr John Finn here I amdoing a walking podcast on my
way into the office this morning.
I've been astounded by some ofthe results that our coaching
clients are getting with our newhuman AI performance psychology

(00:27):
structure.
They're consistently justgetting these amazing results,
and often highly tangible, likesecuring $90,000 pay rises,
being given equity in businessesbecause they're now seen as
leaders in human ai performance.

(00:50):
So we've been reflecting onwell, why is that?
Why is this?
Why?
Why is the system we'reteaching getting such good
results?
And I think for me I have to goback to the beginning, which is
why did I create tougher minds?
Why did I create the habitmechanic?
Why did I extend that in the AIera to the habit mechanic AI

(01:17):
edge system?
Sorry, I'm walking up a hill,so I'm slightly of breath.
So it's because broadly what Igot taught at university and
I've got three performancepsychology-related degrees,
including a PhD just didn't workso well in the field and

(01:41):
largely what I was taught wasbased on talk therapy.
Sport psychology gets prettypractical.
You learn tools and things likethat to teach people.
But when I got into the fieldand started to work with clients
and athletes in particular,very high-performing elite
people, I learned that thosetools didn't work very

(02:06):
effectively.
That's why I started creatingthe tools and systems I have and
I think and actually if you,that's not just me saying this
there are now large sets of datashowing that, for all the hype
around talk therapy, it is notvery effective.
The data shows very clearly.

(02:27):
Studies of over 52,000 peopleshows that CBT, which is the
sort of gold standard talktherapy only can be proven to
help one in five people.
One in five people.
And the kicker is those resultsdon't seem to last more than 12

(02:53):
months before people defaultback to the unhelpful ways of
thinking and doing they werebefore the therapy.
And why is that the case?
I think there are four corereasons and I want to unpack

(03:14):
those.
And it goes to some way toexplaining why we created a
system like we did.
Traditional coaching doesn'tconsider brain states.
Most of it doesn't consider thebrain at all in the first
principle sense.
Even the systems that saythey're neuroscience based, I'm

(03:35):
very dubious as to what theymean by that.
What is understood?
It doesn't strike that theyoperate from a first principle
model about how brains work, andthat's completely
understandable because we'veonly been able to look inside
brains for about 25 years now.
I was very lucky at the startof my education that that's what

(04:07):
I began to learn about off thebat, so to speak.
So if we want to be successful,we've got to understand our
brain states and get brain stateintelligent.
And that's why, in ourfour-step success cycle which we
talk people through in trainyour brain for the AI revolution
, we show you how to measureyour brain states to start with,
and you get a score.

(04:28):
You get a human AI readinessbrain state score.
And the next reason, then, thatI think traditional approaches
talk therapy based approachesare failing people is because

(04:48):
people are more overwhelmed thanever.
The world is more complex.
Ai is making it even morecomplex and they tend to um,
when you learn how to coachusing a cbt talk therapy based
model, you really get taught tofocus on tools and tactics,

(05:12):
which sometimes people call tipsand tricks, and they make sense
when you're taught them andpeople agree it would be a good
idea to do that thing to helpthem to be a better leader or be
a better team member or managestress better so they can sleep
at night.
But people quickly forget themand often those tips and tricks

(05:37):
are not part of a biggerstrategic approach for the
individual.
You all, we all, know that andunderstand that businesses have
strategies, they have strategicplans, they have long-term
strategic plans and short-termstrategic plans, and what we've

(05:58):
learned is that if you, if you,if you're an individual and
you're trying to be at your best, and you don't have a long-term
strategic plan and a short-termstrategic plan, the likelihood
is you're going to struggle.
So that's why in steps threeand four of the success cycle so

(06:18):
sorry, steps two and three ofthe success cycle step two is
the, the task director systemand step three is the day
designer system.
These are essentially ways todevelop your own strategic plan

(06:38):
for your future self, but alsofor today and the next 24 hours.
And then, once you have thosestrategic plans, any tools that
you're using or that you learnto use and you know, in our own
approach, we have I think wehave about well, nearly 40 tools

(07:00):
now.
Actually, those tools are morepowerful because they're part of
a strategic approach to beinghealthy, happy at your best in
the AI era.
And again, when you're justdoing normal coaching and people

(07:20):
tell us this, they tell us Idon't think there's one person
we've worked with who hasn'ttried coaching before?
And they always tell us I'vetried this before, but your
stuff works and the other stuffdoesn't work.
People very nice, they're very,very friendly, but and I
thought it was going to help mebut it didn't but this is, and

(07:41):
that's because we're taking intoconsideration the brain in a
friendly way brain states, we'rehelping people to create the
long-term strategy plan and thenthe daily strategy plan using
our task director system and ourday designer system.

(08:02):
And then the final step and thisis where traditional approaches
this bit often just doesn'texist.
And if it does exist, it has nolevel of sophistication.
Um, it's.
You need a way of automatingyour approach, your behaviors,

(08:25):
in other words your habits, sothat you don't just do them once
or twice, you make them asautomatic as the unhelpful
behaviors were.
And this is why you need acomprehensive understanding of,
of behavioral science, not justnudge theory.
That's just one ninth of whatexplains why we do what we do,

(08:47):
not just skin as reward andpenalty systems again, that's
one ninth not just carol dwight,mindset ideas, and I could go
on but all of these bigbehavioral science theories that
people trumpet as the answerare actually part of a jigsaw
puzzle and we've learned thatthe jigsaw puzzle has nine parts
and that's what our nine actionfactor system represents.
It's like a bridge between.

(09:08):
It gives you literally a bridgebetween where you are now and
where you want to be.
Um, and in our success cycle, intrain your brain for the air
revolution, in Train your Brainfor the Air Revolution.
That's captured in the routineengineer component.
So, yeah, I'm not saying thisstuff to be to brag or anything.

(09:30):
I want to help people to dobetter.
I'm just trying to explain whyI don't think that the gold
standard therapy that everyonetalks about all the time is only
actually proven now to help onein five people and those
results only last for about 12months.
It's very explainable when youunderstand first principle

(09:53):
insights about human brainfunction and that's what we
designed the success cycle to dojust to give you that four-step
model to address those fourcore points we know are
essential if we actually want tomake a positive strategic
change in our lives, and I think, more than ever as the world

(10:18):
becomes more aggressive, we needto think about ourselves as a
business in the sense of youneed a strategic plan, you need
to be very if you want to behealthy, happy and at your best,
and that might be the goal ofyour business.
You need a strategic plan tohelp you to do that.
But that strategic plan will beuseless unless you understand
your brain states.

(10:39):
It'll be useless unless youhave a daily way of deploying it
, like our day designer system,and it will be useless unless
you have a robust behavioralscience approach, like our nine
action factor model and theroutine engineer system.
So I hope that um that's gotyou thinking that, even if

(11:06):
you've been trying things beforeand they haven't been working,
there is, I think, a differentapproach that you can use, and
it doesn't mean you have tothrow out everything you've been
doing.
You can keep doing that.
But what the success cyclegives you is a better container,
a better model to put thosethings into and to add some uh

(11:27):
super boosters to, so that itmakes some of the things you've
tried before but couldn't quitestick with um even more powerful
.
So that's all I wanted to say.
We do have a webinar onWednesday, the 14th of May, and

(11:49):
we're going to be talking aboutthe title is the AI Lie and it's
about how many people and teamsare getting overwhelmed by AI.
It isn't delivering what it saysit will on the on the packet,
if you like, um, and I want toshow what, what teams that who

(12:11):
are being successful and whatindividuals who are being
successful are doing instead.
So that's what we're going totalk about, um.
If you are interested inlearning more about one-to-one
coaching, just go to the websiteand give us an email, um.
You can now also actually get acopy of the train your brain

(12:32):
for the ai revolution from thewebsite, um, so you can just
download it directly from thereif that's of interest.
And then the only other thing Iwould finish with is if you
have found something in thisinteresting, write it down, make
a note about it, and thenyou've got a better chance of

(12:57):
putting it into action.
So I hope that was insightful.
I hope you enjoy the rest ofyour day and remember you're
only ever one brain state habitaway.