Tee Barnett recently interviewed me for Any Thoughts On. This recording should be a great overview if you’ve followed my work for a while but are confused about my shtick or want to understand my motivations. We recorded this in mid August, so it should be good for another ~2 months before it gets old. Thanks for having me on Tee!
Chris joins the show to discuss how he developed his unusual bounty-based, pay-on-results approach to his practice, which grew out of his frustrations with a coaching and therapy industry optimizing for the wrong things (like feeling good) instead of the right things (like people actually winning at life).
Notable Timestamps:
(00:06:50) The efficient market hypothesis, Chesterton's fence, and "local optimality" as a lens on self-help claims
(00:09:16) Chris's own burnout story and the limits of self-guided meditation and self-help books
(00:14:52) Developing embodiment, equanimity, and internal awareness together, safely and in sequence
(00:20:15) The origins of "one-shots" and the early pay-on-result bounty model
(00:27:03) Learning vs. unlearning: two fundamentally different modes of client transformation
(00:36:03) The structural incentive problems baked into therapy and coaching business models
(00:43:36) The origin story of Chris's pure-bounty, pay-on-results model in year one
(00:48:22) The "woo" language of coaching vs. tracking real, externally visible results
(00:59:13) Why awareness-raising practices can backfire, and the myth that equanimity comes from more awareness
(01:01:36) What actually gives people lasting equanimity, according to the success stories Chris has tracked
(01:15:33) Why unlearning is more like surgery than skill-building, and the risks of untracked self-help
(01:21:52) How Chris's business model is evolving from pure bounty toward value-based pricing
