Freeport, Maine, Oct. 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Katie Pulsifer Coaching today announced that enrollment is open for the January 2027 cohort of the Golden Coaching Certification, a 16-week live program that trains coaches to coach themselves before they coach others. The cohort begins Jan. 12, 2027, and enrollment closes Jan. 5, 2027. The program is led by Katie Pulsifer, a Master Certified Coach and former executive leader at The Life Coach School who has trained more than 4,000 coaches over 13 years, and opens as more Americans bring personal decisions to AI chatbots.
Katie Pulsifer, Master Certified Coach, creator of the Golden Coaching Certification and former executive leader at The Life Coach School.
Nearly half of U.S. adults now use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024, according to Pew Research Center. More than 1 in 4 bring them personal, emotional and social questions, a Washington Post analysis found in September. Pulsifer says the tools are useful for almost everything except the one question people most want answered: How do I know what I want?
"You cannot outsource knowing yourself," Pulsifer said. "AI is for the how. It is never for the what."
Pulsifer arrived at that line the hard way. After a year spent implementing the strategies of well-known business experts, running 3 versions of the same plan and giving each a fair runway, she found herself in tears at a mastermind meeting, having handed over too many marketing decisions to AI and feeling completely disconnected from the heart of her business. She went home, stopped following the AI checklist and rebuilt her business around what she already knew was true for her and what her clients cared about most.
"The strategists are there to help when we have skill gaps," she said. "But a confidence gap, an intuition gap, a self-trust gap? That is inner work, self-coaching, that you have to do yourself."
AI for the how, not the what
Pulsifer is not an AI skeptic. She recently used Claude to connect three business tracking tools to each other, a setup she says would have cost her hours of learning or a contractor's invoice. "I appreciate the efficiency, time and money savings, so I can focus my attention on the people I coach," she said.
The trouble starts when the same tool is asked to decide. When she let AI suggest a content marketing plan that would have had her writing and creating videos that felt performative and out of line with her values, it felt terrible. She has watched friends go further, asking a chatbot to coach them through significant personal decisions.
"AI isn't reading body language or listening for what's left unsaid. It can't regulate a human nervous system or hold space without judgment," Pulsifer said. "It will pump you up, so it's easy to think that's what you're supposed to do."
The result, she says, is a slow dilution of a person's own critical thinking and self-knowing. It becomes easy to believe someone else, or AI, knows what's best for you. "It feels like you end up with a carbon copy of a carbon copy of yourself, and you're wondering, is that what I believe now? When did I decide that?"
What a coach does that a chatbot can't
A coaching session, Pulsifer says, is built on things that do not survive transcription: a pause, a held breath, a shift in posture. A coach asks consent before going deeper, stays with a hard topic a beat longer, prioritizes client safety and draws connections between what is happening now and something said 6 weeks ago.
"Eyes welling up. Holding their breath. Shoulders going up, or leaning back in their chair," she said. "A client who keeps looking up at the ceiling may be searching her brain for the answer and needs more time to process." Those cues, she says, guide the session as much as the conversation does.
That attention has become rarer as trust has become scarcer. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found 7 in 10 people hesitate to trust those with different values or backgrounds, and that trust is retreating to close circles. At the same time, coaching keeps growing. The International Coaching Federation counts 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide, up 15% since 2023, in a profession that requires no license.
Pulsifer knows both sides of that. She began coaching before she was officially certified, after 3 years as a client transformed her own life and friends asked for her help. "Passion was my engine," she said. "It wasn't bad coaching, but it centered my experience, because I hadn't learned the tools or the responsibility that comes with them." Certification, she says, added ethics, tools, safety, nervous system regulation and cultural responsiveness. It also added trust. "People are craving to feel seen, heard and understood. That can happen for clients in a coaching container where there is a high degree of trust," she said. "That's what I hear over and over now. People can trust me."
She went on to spend 5 years as an executive leader at The Life Coach School, one of the most recognized names in the industry, where she helped train entry-level coaches, led intermediate applied coaching for thousands of students and ran master coach training. She still teaches advanced coaching skills inside programs run by other coaches, including Corinne Crabtree's No BS Business Membership, has taught in Emily Gibson's The Coaching Mentorship and has coached in programs led by Karen Fagan and Bev Aron.
Corinne Crabtree, who hires Pulsifer to teach advanced coaching skills inside her business program, uses AI heavily for the administrative side of her companies. She draws the same line Pulsifer does. "AI cannot feel things. It confuses what is helpful with what is accurate. Katie teaches coaches to trust themselves, and a coach who trusts herself will always coach better and faster than one who is second-guessing," said Crabtree, founder and CEO of No BS Weightloss and No BS Business.
A certification that starts with the coach
In January 2025, Pulsifer launched the Golden Coaching Certification, a 16-week program taught entirely live by Pulsifer herself. The first 8 weeks are the inner work of learning to coach yourself. Only then do students spend the next 8 weeks learning to coach others.
"The foundation of everything I teach is the belief that we are all whole, wise and worthy," she said. "Once you can believe that about yourself, your life will change in the most extraordinary way."
Every participant has 1-on-1 time with Pulsifer before the training begins to co-create an individual plan, and has another 1-on-1 session mapping their next 90 days. In between, students get a curriculum book, worksheets to use on themselves and future clients, a Slack community and unlimited coaching from Pulsifer. Graduates receive a certificate and badge, and the program includes a Code of Ethics modeled on industry standards Pulsifer says she admires. "In an unregulated industry, we have the responsibility to uphold the highest ethical standards," she said. "We all benefit from taking this very seriously."
Not everyone enrolls to open a coaching business. Students have included health and wellness professionals, C-suite executives and mothers deciding what comes after the kids leave home. Some want to lead employees better. Others, Pulsifer says, "just want to improve their relationships by having more courageous conversations." Nearly all are women, most over 40. Enrollment for the next cohort closes Jan. 5, 2027, and the program begins Jan. 12, 2027. Tuition is $5,500.
Three questions to ask before hiring a coach
For anyone weighing a coach, human or otherwise, Pulsifer offers 3 questions to ask first. "How much flexibility and customization is in your program, or is it one size fits all? Have you done this work on yourself, and are you still doing it? Who is not a good fit for you?" she said. Then one more piece of advice: "Look for testimonials about where people are a year later, not how they felt on the last day of the program."
That last piece matters most to her. "You want the results to last longer than the payment plan."
Pulsifer has put a version of that first conversation on her website: 6 questions to help you figure out what you want next. She reads every response and replies with a personal voice memo. She also writes You Are Golden, a Substack on self-trust for high-achieving women who have outgrown the life they built.
About Katie Pulsifer
Katie Pulsifer is a Master Certified Coach, creator of the Golden Coaching Certification and a guide for high-achieving women ready to stop treating their own lives as an afterthought. With more than 13 years of experience, including 5 years as an executive leader at The Life Coach School, she has trained more than 4,000 coaches and works privately with clients navigating inflection moments and what comes next. She has been featured in Life Coach Magazine and on podcasts including The Gutsy Podcast and Life Coach Business Building School. Learn more at katiepulsifercoaching.com, explore the Golden Coaching Certification or book a private coaching conversation.
Pulsifer speaking on stage. With more than 13 years of experience, she has trained more than 4,000 coaches and works privately with high-achieving women navigating what comes next.
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