Young people and coaching: Trainers don't get rich

The "vendehumos" coaching business creates no wealth

A 14-year-old claims studying is unnecessary because a footballer his age already earns millions. Another, aged 20, wakes at five in the morning to meditate and plan his day, convinced this will make him a millionaire. They are the visible tip of a phenomenon spreading across Spain: young people with no work experience who confuse physical training and motivational rhetoric with a business plan. The diagnosis circulates bluntly in the thread: they do not get rich by training; the ones selling them courses do.

The thesis articulating the discontent is simple. Real entrepreneurs do not go to the gym, states one participant. It is not on the agenda of Bill Gates or Amancio Ortega. Money is made by selling things, not by motivating via YouTube. Another user summarizes it thus: those who really profit in this gold rush are the ones selling picks and shovels to miners. The coach always gets paid, whether the student succeeds or goes bankrupt.

Where does this generation of aspiring millionaires come from?

The phenomenon is not new, but its scale is, according to participants. Comparisons with major Spanish financial frauds—Fórum Filatélico, Afinsa, Gescartera, Nueva Rumasa—appear immediately: those who mocked their parents for falling into those traps now see their children paying for entrepreneurship courses. The difference, they point out, is that before the deception came with bricks and mortar, and now it arrives with a ring light and a camera.

Some argue the problem is not intergenerational but class-based. That 90% of the population is easily manipulated and resentment towards young people extends to older generations. The most uncomfortable criticism points out that many of these courses were public: institutional campaigns with names like "learn to start a business" pushed, according to one user, people incapable of managing a monthly salary to set up companies that ended in lifelong debt with parents as guarantors.

The void filled by "vendehumos": sects for a gray life

The clearest explanation for the appeal has nothing to do with money. It has to do with belonging, according to one participant. The crypto and motivational scene is for guys what New Age, yoga, and Reiki are for middle-aged women: a substitute for Christianity, ultra fan clubs, and any sect. Feeling part of a community and a purpose greater than the grayness of daily life. In other times, these same kids would have been happy working as warehouse porters, with a tuned car, a girlfriend, and a rented flat where they could smoke their joints.

The breeding ground is material, according to forum users. A young person fifty years ago knew that effort led to pogre, and it did. Thirty years ago, many achieved it. Twenty years ago, some. Today, they argue, social mobility has become so improbable that it is more antiestéticasible to drop to the lowest rung and cheat the system with welfare payments than try to climb. Added to this is an educational system without consequences: whether you are a good or bad student, you pass the year anyway. There is no incentive for those who strive.

What role do smartphones and spectacle culture play?

The smartphone is the channel, according to participants. Kids repeat what they see on social media without knowing exactly what they are saying, and anyone stepping out of line is cut off. The culture that previously occupied that space—Oasis, Bon Jovi, REM—has been removed from the market in favor of another type of product, argues one user. It is not just that they do not know who Lennon was: it is that the cultural map that made it possible to distinguish smoke from craft has been erased.

This is not exclusive to young people, several participants agree. There are mature adults over 35 abducted by the same thing, and not few adults speculating on anything convinced they are Warren Buffett. The generational difference lies in intensity: the bodies displayed by many of these youths surpass those of professional athletes from the nineties, according to one user. But a sculpted body is not a P&L statement.

The real cost: lost years that cannot be recovered

The damage is not only economic. It is temporal. Years of youth spent in a Franciscan routine of gym, meditation, and visualization, instead of experiencing the world, traveling, going out, or simply educating themselves, according to participants. When the mirage breaks, the clock has already run, and rebuilding a professional life at a certain age is much harder. Some defend that at least these kids work out and read instead of injecting heroin in a park or committing crimes. The bar, they acknowledge, is on the floor.

The question hovering over all this has no easy answer. If the system no longer guarantees upward mobility, if school does not reward effort, and if the cultural reference is a character from a video game, the "vendehumo" does not create demand: it finds it. With these materials, it is likely the next batch will find an even more convincing coach and an even more expensive course. Although nobody knows how much of this is a passing fad and how much has already settled in the mind of a generation.