One Coffee, One Choice, and the Reason Most Coaches Quit Too Soon

There’s a moment in adulthood when you realise that not all danger looks dramatic. Sometimes it arrives quietly, wrapped in politeness, disguised as a harmless invitation for coffee. And often, the real threat isn’t what’s being asked - it’s what’s being avoided. When Discomfort Knocks Softly, Not Loudly A situation unfolded recently within a friendship group that stopped me in my tracks. One person, on the fringes of the group, not especially close, not often present, reached out to another friend with an invitation for a one-to-one coffee. On the surface, nothing alarming. Civil. Casual. Ordinary. But context matters. It emerged that this person was experiencing difficulties in his marriage. Quiet fractures. Unresolved tension. Emotional dissatisfaction. And when the invitation was shared with the wider group, an uncomfortable pattern became visible. This wasn’t connection-seeking. This was escape-seeking. The instinctive response from the group was clear - meet as a group if you must, but do not step into a private space where blurred boundaries can thrive. Because this wasn’t about coffee. It was about avoiding the harder work at home. This is what avoidance looks like when it’s dressed up as opportunity. Why People Reach Elsewhere Instead of Looking Within What struck me wasn’t the invitation itself, but the psychology behind it. When something in our world feels uncomfortable, unsatisfying, or confronting, the human brain looks for relief. Not resolution - relief. It’s far easier to redirect energy outward than to repair what’s cracking inward. And this is exactly what we see time and time again with practitioners entering a coaching franchise. They arrive passionate, hopeful, and hungry for change. Yet the moment the work starts to challenge their identity, their habits, or their emotional patterns, something shifts. Instead of doing the work inside the ecosystem they chose, they start scanning for another answer elsewhere. Another course. Another mentor. Another business model. Another promise. Just like the coffee invitation, it isn’t about growth. It’s about discomfort avoidance. A coaching franchise doesn’t exist to rescue you from yourself. It exists to reveal you to yourself. The Cost of Leaving Before You’ve Learned Here’s the part most people don’t want to hear. If you leave before you’ve grown, you don’t escape the problem. You take it with you. The practitioner who quits early often tells themselves a story. It wasn’t aligned. It wasn’t right. It didn’t work for me. But the truth is far more confronting. They weren’t willing to stay in the room long enough to change. People Building was never designed as a quick fix. It was designed as a container for transformation. And transformation, by its very nature, is uncomfortable. In any coaching franchise, the ones who succeed aren’t the most talented or confident at the start. They’re the ones who resist the urge to look elsewhere when the mirror gets held up. They stay. They reflect. They adapt. They do the inner work instead of searching for external validation. Growth only happens when you stop trying to escape discomfort and start listening to what it’s asking of you. Staying When It Would Be Easier to Leave The uncomfortable truth is this - staying is harder than leaving. Staying means examining your patterns. Staying means noticing when you want an emotional coffee date with something new instead of fixing what’s in front of you. Staying means committing to the long game of becoming someone different, not just owning something different. A coaching franchise demands maturity. It asks you not to jump ship the moment it stops flattering you. It asks you to build capacity, not chase novelty. And just like relationships, businesses don’t thrive when you abandon them at the first sign of strain. If you are inside a coaching franchise and feeling restless, dissatisfied, or tempted by something shiny elsewhere, the question isn’t “Should I leave?” The question is “What am I avoiding learning here?” Because until that’s answered, every new opportunity will eventually feel just as uncomfortable. by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai) https://www.peoplebuilding.co.uk/franchise