A coach asked her audience what they wanted next.
She got 47 responses. Most contradicted each other. A few were specific. A few were vague.
She picked the most common request — a course on Instagram growth — and spent two months building it.
She launched it to her list.
Twenty-three people said they wanted it. Six people bought.
She built what they asked for. They did not want it that bad.
The “what does my audience want” trap
Asking your audience what they want gets you the lowest common denominator of what they think to say in the moment of asking.
They are guessing.
They want a hundred things. They will tell you the first three.
The thing they actually pay for is rarely on that list.
You spend two months building a thing nobody asked for in the way that actually mattered. Six buyers and a tired email list.
What the coaches who scale do
They ask themselves a different question.
What do I actually want to teach right now?
Not what is hot. Not what would convert best on paper. Not what the audience asked for.
What is the thing I have new insight on, fresh data on, recent experience with? The thing I would teach at a dinner with three close friends without checking what they wanted to hear first?
That is the next offer.
The market follows the energy of a confident teacher. It rarely follows the energy of a polite one.
Why selfishness wins
When you teach what YOU want to teach, six things happen.
You bring your real voice. Not a watered-down version trying to please everyone.
You bring conviction. People feel it through the screen.
You finish the build in days, not months. Because you actually care.
The launch is louder. You hype it instead of dragging it out the door.
The students get a better experience. The teacher is awake.
The next launch lands sharper. You learned from the first one and have new material burning.
What this is NOT
It is not “ignore your audience entirely.”
It is not “teach random things nobody can use.”
It is not “force a niche to take your hot take.”
The discipline is the intersection of two questions:
- What do I genuinely want to teach right now?
- Is there at least a sub-segment of my audience that would get value from this even if they did not ask for it?
If the answer to question two is yes, even a small yes, go.
If the answer is honestly no, you are looking at a positioning problem, not a topic problem. The fix is upstream of which course to build next.
The shift that matters
Stop polling. Start picking.
Pick the topic. Set the date. Build the offer. Open the cart for seven days. Close it. Decide what to teach next based on what YOU want next.
Run that play four times.
By the fourth time, you have data on what your audience actually buys — not what they said they wanted. And you have content that came from a place of confidence, not anxiety.
There is a precise method for picking which selfish topic to teach in which order so the offers ladder up into your larger business. We map this inside our productized offer workshops, and it is one of the first audits when a new client joins the catalyst with offer fatigue.
The free Skool community is the doorway in.
Frequently asked questions
What does 'Be a Selfish Bastard' actually mean?
It means picking the topic for your next offer based on what YOU want to teach right now — not what your audience asked for, not what is trending, not what would convert best on paper. The conviction shows up in the work and in the launch. Polite teachers underperform. Selfish teachers compound.
Won't this hurt my audience?
No. The opposite. An audience can tell the difference between a creator phoning it in on a topic they were asked to cover and a creator firing on a topic they could not shut up about. The second one delivers real value because the teacher is awake. The first one delivers a competent course nobody remembers a week later.
What if I want to teach something my audience doesn't care about?
Then ask yourself this: is there a sub-segment of your audience that would get value from it even though they did not ask? If yes, go. If no, the issue is positioning, not topic. Your audience does not match the work you want to teach. Either refine the audience or refine the topic until it lands. Do not water down both.
How do I know what I actually want to teach?
It is whatever you find yourself talking about in DMs, on calls, in your community, in casual conversation. The thing you keep returning to even when nobody is paying you to. The thing that makes you lose track of time when you start explaining it. That is the next offer.
Doesn't this contradict 'listen to your customer'?
Listening to customers tells you what to fix in the offer you already launched. It does not tell you what to build next. Listening at the wrong stage produces watered-down offers. Selfish picking, then listening for refinement after the launch, produces sharp offers.
Keep reading
May 19, 2026
3 Buyers a Day
Most coaches kill a new offer when the first launch breaks even. They just killed the proof. Validation is not about profit. It is about three buyers a day.
May 14, 2026
Get Paid to Create
Coaches build courses nobody asked for, then wonder why nobody buys. The ones who scale sell the thing first, then build it. Here is why.
May 11, 2026
The One Container Rule
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