I will ask you for some terrible advice. I am thinking of becoming a life coach/personal trainer, what terrible advice are you going to give me?
My answer
Man oh man. Seriously bro? A life coach AND a personal trainer? Are you nuts?
This is what we in the Defence Against The Dickhead Arts field of science call “The Dark Triad’s Habsburg Jaw.” It's a BAD IDEA. And that’s two links there, by the way, not one.
What, you may ask, the hell am I blathering about?
Okay. Bit of a science lesson ahead. And history. Pour yourself some Rosé and/or Bovril and waggle your bum deep into your favourite beanbag and I'll get cracking.
Ever heard of the House of Habsburg? It was quite possibly the most influential and power-mad family dynasty in Europe for the last thousand friggin’ years. Seriously. They kicked shit off way back in the 900s, as your bog-standard Nobles in the territories of today’s Switzerland. And they were REALLY good at politics. Through a rancid combo of intermarriages and military clout, they wangled their way to not only cobbling together central Europe’s Holy Roman Empire (not to be confused with the Roman Empire; two different empires!), but also commandeering both the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. Ever heard Brits claim that “The Sun never sets on the British Empire”? They nabbed that phrase from the Spaniards! Spain got there first. Then Portugal. Britain settled for bronze.
Thus these Habsburg chappies, at the height of their prestige in the 1600s, commanded a gobsmackingly serious chunk of the world. Half of Europe, half the Americas, oodles of territories across Africa and Asia. And holy balls they knew it. And dear oh dear, they became conservative, and greedy, and desired to stockpile and husband this precious worldwide clout for themselves and only themselves. Outsiders can fuc* off!
How? Royal intermarriage, that’s how.
Literally. We’re talking century after century of first-cousin incest. And boy oh boy did it show. The whole reason why incest is a Bad Thing, and why genetic diversity is a Good Thing, is that the inevitable random genetic mutations accumulated by any life form are actually fairly benign and unnoticeable, when one’s parents find each other fascinatingly exotic.
Like, when any animal breeds, each baby gets two copies of each gene, one from each parent. If one copy suffers a hideous mutation, then the other copy does sterling work as a backup. Zero woes, life remains good. That person may relay that crap gene to their own offspring, but the fab backup comes along too, so no problem.
But if both parents are close relatives? Similar genetics, similar mutations? Then oh dear. It becomes disturbingly likely that both parents possess and supply that same bad mutated gene.
And then the trouble starts. It manifests. The kid gets deformations.
The Habsburgs maintained this nonsense for centuries. Generation after generation of inbreeding. For they reasoned that the risk of hilarious deformities remained the lesser of two evils compared to the incalculable disaster of marrying an OUTSIDER, and thus diluting their stupendous accmulated wealth.
Result: the Habsburg Jaw. The last Spanish Habsburg King, Charles II, had such extreme jaw deformities that his lower and upper teeth didn’t meet, he couldn’t chew food, his tongue was so oversized he could barely speak, and suffered from chronic gastrointestinal issues.
And apparently sported deformities elsewhere. For despite severe and heroic encouragement from half of Europe, he didn’t produce an heir. No kids, no princes, no line of succession, no Habsburg on the Spanish throne, no more Spain.
All thanks to centuries of incest, of doubling-up of their crap genes, and of amassing so many intergenerational mutations and deformities they couldn't breed. Yay Habsburgs.
What’s all this got to do with life coaches, personal trainers, and this Dark Triad?
Cool yo tits, sunshine, I’m getting to that.
So the Dark Triad is a group of extra-nasty personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. People exhibiting all three share observable and repeatable behaviours. They’re superficially charming yet possess zero empathy, they’re exploitative, they’re manipulative, and experience zero remorse. And often incredibly sadistic. Gigantic assholes, basically.
Guess who’s most likely to become a life coach? Or a personal trainer?
These professions attract Dark Triad gigantic assholes like flies to poo. Such professionals demand and receive near-absolute leeway over their clients. They get to savour the exquisite pleasures of either physiologically or psychologically pulverising these clients over many days or even weeks. Upon their clients’ torsos they cack hideous great spurts of digestive acids. They exult in reducing their clients’ souls to a dreadful slurry. On this, they sup. They dine. They feast. They scrape their hind legs together with savage glee. They devour their clients’ noxious juices until naught but withered and desiccated husks remain. Then they move on to their next victims. Repeat forever.
But personal trainers and life coaches harness radically different approaches to liquefying their victims like hilarious Venus Fly Traps. Former, physical; latter, psychological. Each picks a lane and sticks with it.
What they don’t EVER do is attempt both at once.
Why? It’s far too oafish and cack-handed. You’ll give the game away in seconds, goddammit. For Dark-Triad-ers pride themselves on their manipulativeness and their subtlety and their mastery of the Long Game, and on out-cunning their prey. I mean geez. If you’re hunting a deer you don’t sprint screaming at it. If you’re chatting up a pretty girl you don’t sprint screaming at it. If you’re performing heart surgery … I mean you can if you like. It's a free country. Unless you live in North Korea or someplace. North Korea is basically the Dark Triad world capital, so that actually seems disturbingly plausible.
But anyhoo. To attempt both personal-training and life-coaching is considered by those in the Business as the height of oafish stupidity. I hear they label that particular malformed profession-pairing the Dark Triad Habsburg Jaw.
You sure that’s something you wish to embrace?
Though on second thoughts … I dunno, on reflection, the Habsburgs actually had a pretty good run. Before the final generation’s oodles of hilarious deformities, their ancestors first enjoyed many generations and multiple centuries of sweet sweet world domination. That actually sounds rather jolly.
Just to cross the Ts and dot the Is: were every single one of your last millennium of ancestors also simultaneously personal trainers and life coaches? Yeah? If so, perhaps reconsider following in dear ol’ Dad’s increasingly wonky footsteps. But if not, if you're the first … then what the hell. I say full speed ahead. Go forth, kick ass, and enjoy life. Just don’t come crying to me when your jaw falls off.