Why Coaching Crushes the Market: A Contrarian Investment Case Study

Most people treat investing like a slot machine.

They throw money into the market, cross their fingers, and hope for a decent return a few years down the road.

But if you think the best ROI comes from stocks, crypto, or real estate, you’re missing the biggest asset class of all...YOU.

That’s the foundation of the Contrarian Investment Portfolio (CIP).

Conventional investments build wealth slowly.
Unconventional ones can create massive upside if you know what you’re doing.
But the third bucket — You — is where exponential growth happens.

Let’s prove it with numbers.

The $10K Coaching Experiment

Imagine you invest $10,000 into a 90-day coaching program.

The goal: a 3x return or more translating into $30,000+ in value created from your $10,000 spend.

Sure, there's other things that can come with coaching like clarity, improved mental health, increased life satisfaction and stronger leadership capabilities, but let's pretend you ONLY care about the financial ROI.

"Good feelings don't keep the lights on," a misguided client once told me. He quickly realized that you can put a number on peace.

But for most people, before they make a decision about coaching, they want to know there's some kind of money they're going to save, make or both so let's dive into that and how it crushes stocks 99 times out of 100.

Step 1: Calculate Your Effective Hourly Rate (EHR)

Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time equation makes this simple:

EHR = Annual Income / 2,000 working hours

If you earn $200,000 a year, your effective hourly rate is $100/hour.

That means every wasted hour costs you $100.
Every hour you buy back — through systems, delegation, or better decisions — earns you $100 or more.

If your time was a rental car, coaching is the valet that turns off the engine and hands you back the keys.

Step 2: Measure the Time You Buy Back

Now, let’s model three scenarios based on real outcomes from high-performing professionals.

Low-End ROI (Bare Minimum)

• Reclaim just 5 hours a month (1 hour a week)

• 30 hours in six months = $3,000 in time recovered

• Add one small win (fewer mistakes, better focus, faster decisions) and you’re easily at $5K–$8K total value

• You’ve earned back half your investment doing almost nothing different

Mid-Range ROI (Most Clients Experience This)

• Reclaim 10–15 hours a month (2–3 hours a week)

• 60–90 hours in six months = $6K–$9K saved

• Reinvest those hours into higher-leverage work that creates an extra $10K–$20K in revenue or results

• Total ROI: $16K–$29K (a 2–3x return in the first year)

High-End ROI (Top Performers Hit This)

• Reclaim 20+ hours a month (5 hours a week)

• 120 hours in six months = $12K in value

• Use that clarity and time to launch a new offer, hire right, or scale revenue

• Adds $50K–$100K+ in new income or opportunity

• Total ROI: $62K–$112K+ (a 6–11x return in the first year)

And that’s BEFORE compounding. Because the systems, clarity, and habits you gain don’t expire after 30 days.

The Market Comparison

Let’s stack that same $10,000 against the “safe” play — the stock market.

Even in an incredible bull run, the stock market can’t touch the ROI of coaching.

And once you factor in capital gains tax (15–20%), your “$10K to $17K” investment becomes more like $10K to $14K after three years.

You risked your capital for three years to make roughly $4,000 in profit… one time.

Contrast that with a conservative $20K–$30K return (in income, time, and energy) from coaching in the first year.

And here’s another edge: coaching is a tax-deductible business expense. That $10K can actually lower your taxable income while multiplying your results.

You can’t deduct all of your bad crypto buys. But you can deduct the investment you make in yourself.

The Byproducts the Market Can’t Match

The math is powerful, but the real upside is invisible:

• Risk reduction: You stop making costly mistakes.

• Focus: You know exactly where to invest your time and energy.

• Quality: Your decisions improve, which multiplies every other result.

Those invisible wins keep compounding long after the invoice is paid.

The Reality Check

Even the low-end ROI pays off because it fixes the one investment the market can’t...your time.

The stock market compounds dollars.
Coaching compounds decisions.
And better decisions compound everything else.

The Contrarian Conclusion

You’ll never out-earn unclear thinking.
You’ll never out-hustle wasted time.

The best investors multiply capital and capability.

The real contrarian move is betting on the only asset you can totally control...YOU.