AI Can Create a Course in Seconds. So Why Are People Still Buying Mine?

AI has revolutionised online learning in ways we could never have imagined.

These days, you can ask AI to create a course on almost anything—from astrophysics to how to keep your houseplants alive—and it will hand you a neatly structured programme in seconds. Want six modules? No problem. Learning objectives, worksheets, quizzes, reflection questions and suggested reading? Done.

The smarter your prompting skills, the slicker your course.

AI-generated courses are now popping up everywhere, at every price point imaginable. And, quite honestly, much of the information available in paid online courses can now be found—or generated—for free.

Which raises a perfectly reasonable question.

So then… why are people still buying online courses?

And, more specifically, why are my courses still selling?

The answer is surprisingly simple: I don’t just hand you information. I help you do something with it.

Because information, however brilliant, does not automatically change your life. Knowing what to do is not the same thing as actually doing it, and that is where most of us get stuck.

Welcome to the Digital Graveyard of Half-Finished Courses

I must confess.

I have bought online courses that I was absolutely convinced were going to change my life. I enrolled enthusiastically, downloaded the workbook and watched the welcome video. I may even have completed Module One.

And then life happened.

The course disappeared beneath emails, appointments, shopping lists, family responsibilities and whatever unexpected drama decided to arrive that week.

Sound familiar?

Most of us have a digital graveyard of half-finished courses gathering virtual dust somewhere. There are courses we meant to complete, courses we were genuinely excited about and courses containing perfectly useful information. Yet somehow, we never made it to the end.

It isn’t necessarily because the course was poor. It isn’t because we are lazy, and it certainly isn’t always because we didn’t want the outcome badly enough.

The problem is that information alone is rarely enough.

When you are trying to make significant changes in your life—particularly after a major disruption—you often need more than another video to watch. You may need encouragement when your motivation disappears, help working out how a general principle applies to your particular circumstances and somebody to ask the slightly uncomfortable question:

“That’s all very well, but what are you actually going to do about it this week?”

Sometimes, you simply need somebody in your corner.

AI Can Give You Answers, But It Cannot Live Your Life for You

Please don’t misunderstand me: I think AI is an extraordinary tool, and I use it myself. It can help us research, brainstorm, organise ideas, explain complicated concepts and generate possibilities at breathtaking speed.

But there is an important difference between having access to an answer and being able to integrate that answer into your life.

You can ask AI how to find your purpose and receive an excellent list of exercises. You can ask how to become more resilient and receive a thoughtful explanation of stress management, emotional regulation, boundaries and self-care. You can even ask how to reinvent yourself after a major life change and receive pages of useful suggestions within seconds.

But eventually, somebody has to close the laptop and ask what all this means for them.

What am I actually going to change? What am I ready to let go of? What am I afraid to admit? Which advice fits my particular life? What should I do first?

And perhaps most importantly, what am I going to do when my enthusiasm evaporates next Tuesday?

That is the point at which information has to become implementation. And implementation is where the real work begins.

The Missing Ingredient in Online Learning: Accountability

I recently did a little market research into how people are using AI and how this is changing the online learning industry. The picture is interesting.

More people are undoubtedly turning to AI instead of automatically purchasing an online course. After all, why pay for information when you can ask a question and receive an instant answer?

But there is something people still value enormously: human support, particularly when they are trying to complete something that requires sustained effort, personal reflection and meaningful change.

People may not need another person to tell them everything they could theoretically find on the internet. But they often appreciate someone who can help them stay focused on what matters, make sense of what they are learning, apply general ideas to their own circumstances and identify the obstacles that are getting in their way.

They also value accountability.

Most of us know considerably more about what we should be doing than we actually do. Knowing that exercise is good for us doesn’t necessarily get us out of bed on a cold morning. Understanding the importance of boundaries doesn’t automatically make it easier to say no. And buying a course about finding your purpose does not, unfortunately, mean that you wake up three weeks later with your entire life mapped out.

Sometimes we need somebody to help us keep moving, especially when our motivation disappears. We may need encouragement, perspective or simply somebody who notices that we have quietly abandoned the very thing we said was important to us.

And occasionally, we need someone to ask:

“That’s all very well, but what are you actually going to do about it this week?”

Which is exactly the kind of work I most enjoy doing.

Which Is Why I (Now) Call Them Challenges

The word course can sound rather passive. You enrol, consume the content, tick off the modules and, if you’re particularly diligent, make it to the end.

But that isn’t really what I want for the people who work with me.

I don’t want you simply to complete a course. I want you to engage with a challenge.

A challenge implies movement. It suggests that you are going somewhere and acknowledges that there may be obstacles along the way. More importantly, it implies that you are expected to do something rather than merely absorb information.

My challenges are designed to give you a structured pathway through a particular stage of change, but you don’t have to do all the work in isolation. When you enrol, you can add as many coaching conversations as you need. These are structured, supportive conversations designed to help you turn what you are learning into something useful in your real life.

Think of them as personalised guideposts. You may know where you want to go and even have a reasonably good map, but every now and then it helps to have somebody beside you who can say, “Yes, you’re still on the right road,” or perhaps, “I think we’ve discovered why you keep getting stuck here.”

And sometimes the most useful question is simply:

“Wonderful insight. Now what are you going to do with it?”

From Information Overload to Permanent Transformation

I have never been particularly interested in selling people vast quantities of information. The world already has plenty of information. What interests me is what happens when somebody takes an idea and begins to weave it into their everyday life.

That is the difference between knowing that boundaries are important and actually saying no to something you don’t want to do. It is the difference between understanding that stress affects your wellbeing and making meaningful changes to the way you organise your life. It is the difference between recognising that your old identity no longer fits and having the courage to begin creating a new one.

It is also the difference between buying a course about finding your purpose and actually making decisions that move you towards a more meaningful life.

Information may inspire transformation, but implementation is what makes transformation possible.

That is why the coaching element of my challenges matters so much to me. Sometimes you don’t need more content. You need space to think, somebody to listen and a little perspective. You may need encouragement, support and, occasionally, a gentle but unmistakable nudge.

Because there is an enormous difference between understanding something intellectually and actually changing the way you live.

The Radical Renaissance: A Structured Pathway Through Change

My online challenges form the backbone of my Radical Renaissance Program. They were previously known as the Post-Crisis ReConstruction Protocols, and although the name has evolved, the underlying philosophy remains the same.

Life can change suddenly.

A relationship ends. A career disappears or no longer feels meaningful. Your children leave home. You retire and discover that freedom is rather more complicated than you expected. You move country, experience a significant loss or find that your health has changed the way you see your future.

And sometimes nothing dramatic has happened at all.

You simply wake up one morning and think:

“Is this it?”

These moments can leave us feeling overwhelmed, disoriented and uncertain about who we are and what comes next.

A Radical Renaissance is not about pretending that the past never happened, nor is it about throwing your entire life into a skip and reinventing yourself as a yoga teacher in Bali. Although, naturally, if that is genuinely your dream, I am not here to stop you.

It is about taking what life has given you—the good, the difficult, the unexpected and the downright inconvenient—and asking where you go from here.

How can you weave your past and your future into a meaningful present? How can you use what you have learned rather than simply being defined by what happened to you? And how can you build a life that feels more purposeful, meaningful and fulfilling?

That is the journey these challenges are designed to support.

A Clear Pathway Through the Chaos

The Radical Renaissance ecosystem offers a structured, step-by-step pathway for people who are navigating significant change. It is designed to help you move from feeling overwhelmed and disoriented towards creating a life with greater clarity, purpose and fulfilment.

You don’t necessarily have to start at the beginning. Life is not a neatly organised curriculum, unfortunately.

You may already feel reasonably stable but have no idea what you want next. You may know exactly what you want but lack the resilience or confidence to pursue it. You may be ready to focus entirely on your future, or you may need help simply getting through a particularly turbulent period.

Each challenge can stand alone, but together they create a powerful pathway through the different stages of reconstruction and renewal.

Starting by Surviving the Storm

Sometimes the first task is not to discover your purpose or create a magnificent vision for the next ten years.

Sometimes the first task is simply to stop feeling as though your life has been turned upside down.

The Survive the Storm Challenge is designed for periods of major transition and upheaval. It helps you create greater stability, regain a sense of perspective and begin moving forward when everything feels uncertain.

When you are in the middle of a storm, you don’t necessarily need a detailed ten-year plan. You need to know where to put your next foot.

This is where you begin.

Finding or Refocusing Your Purpose

Once life begins to feel a little more stable, many people find themselves facing a different question:

Now what?

The purpose-focused challenges are about rediscovering what matters to you and deciding where you want to direct your energy.

Sometimes we lose our sense of purpose because life has changed. Sometimes the purpose we once had no longer fits, and sometimes we have spent so many years doing what was expected of us that we have forgotten to ask ourselves what we actually want.

Finding your purpose is not necessarily about discovering one magnificent sentence that explains your entire existence. It can be much more practical than that. It is about understanding what matters enough to you that you are willing to organise part of your life around it.

Purpose gives direction to your decisions. And direction can be extraordinarily helpful when you have spent a long time feeling lost.

Becoming Rooted in Resilience

Purpose is wonderful.

Unfortunately, purpose does not protect you from difficult people, unexpected bills, disappointing news or the occasional complete disaster.

That is where resilience comes in.

The Rooted in Resilience Challenge is about developing the inner resources that help you cope with stress, setbacks and uncertainty. Not by becoming invulnerable—none of us are—but by learning how to recover, adapt and continue.

Resilience is not necessarily about bouncing back into exactly the same life you had before. Sometimes the point is to bounce forward into something wiser.

Accelerating Your Growth

There are times when you don’t want to work through a process entirely on your own. You want individual attention. You want somebody to help you connect the dots between where you have been, where you are now and where you would like to go.

You want to be able to say:

“This is where I am. This is where I want to go. How do I get from one to the other?”

That is where more intensive mentoring and coaching can make a real difference.

The Radical Renaissance Program brings the various elements together into a more personalised journey. It allows us to look not only at what you are learning but also at how you are applying it to your particular circumstances.

Because your reconstruction will not look exactly like anybody else’s.

And it shouldn’t.

Building Firm Foundations for Your Future

Eventually, the emphasis shifts.

You stop asking only, “What happened to me?”, and begin asking, “What do I want to create next?”

The Firm Foundations for Your Future Challenge is future-focused. It is about creating a clearer picture of the person you are becoming and the life you want to build.

Not a fantasy life that looks fabulous on Instagram and collapses the moment reality intrudes. A life that actually fits you.

A life with stronger foundations, shaped by your values, your experiences and your evolving understanding of what matters.

Why Storytelling Is at the Heart of Everything I Do

I am a writer. I have written eight books so far, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that storytelling plays an important role in my work.

We human beings understand our lives through stories. We tell ourselves stories about who we are, what happened to us, what we are capable of and what is possible.

The difficulty is that some of these stories become rather limiting.

Perhaps you have begun to see yourself as the person whose marriage failed, the person who made the wrong career decision, the person who got ill, the person who was betrayed or the person who missed their chance.

But those are events.

They are chapters.

They are not necessarily the entire book.

One of the things I most enjoy doing is helping people look at their stories differently. Not by pretending that painful things were wonderful, and certainly not by putting a motivational quote on top of a tragedy and calling it healing.

Instead, I am interested in what happens when we place difficult experiences within a larger and more meaningful narrative.

What did you learn? What survived? What changed? What strengths did you discover? And who might you become next?

Your story is still being written.

You Don’t Need to Do It Perfectly

Another reason I prefer the idea of a challenge is that challenges acknowledge reality.

You may start enthusiastically and lose momentum. You may miss a week. You may discover that one particular exercise makes you uncomfortable. You may suddenly realise that the future you thought you wanted is not the future you want at all.

Excellent.

That is not necessarily failure. It is information.

The purpose of these challenges is not to turn you into the world’s most efficient personal-development student. You do not receive extra points for having colour-coded notes and completing every worksheet with military precision.

The purpose is to help you move forward.

Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes after taking two steps forward and one rather spectacular step sideways.

But forward nevertheless.

So, Yes, AI Can Create a Course

AI can create a course in seconds. It can give you ideas, explain concepts, generate worksheets and produce an impressive amount of information at extraordinary speed.

And I suspect it will continue to change online learning in ways we cannot yet imagine.

But I don’t think that means human-guided learning is disappearing. If anything, the sheer abundance of information may make discernment, support and accountability even more valuable.

Because the question is no longer simply:

Where can I find the information?

The question has become more complicated.

What information do I actually need? How does it apply to my life? What should I do with it? And how do I keep going long enough to create meaningful change?

That is where I come in.

I don’t want simply to sell you a collection of videos and hope you find them useful. I want to create challenges that help you engage with the ideas, think about them, question them, adapt them and, most importantly, use them.

Because sometimes you need more than content.

You may need somebody in your corner who can help you stay focused. Somebody who can help you see possibilities when you are stuck staring at the problems. Somebody who reminds you why you started.

And somebody who asks, with great kindness but absolutely no possibility of escape:

“So… what are you going to do next?”

Ready for Your Own Radical Renaissance?

The challenges that make up my Radical Renaissance ecosystem are designed for people who are navigating major change, questioning what comes next or simply feeling that the life they once knew no longer fits quite as comfortably as it used to.

You can choose an individual challenge that reflects where you are right now. Or, if you would like more personalised support, you can explore the Radical Renaissance Program and work through the process with mentoring and coaching along the way.

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you begin. You simply have to be willing to take the next step, and then the next one.

Sometimes that journey is easier when somebody is walking alongside you.

“Weave your past and your future into a meaningful present.”
Margaretha Montagu

The Purpose Pursuit Challenge – if you want to discover your life purpose, this course will provide you with the clarity, motivation and direction you need to manifest your next chapter – in both your personal and professional life. Get immediate access

The Purpose Pivot Challenge – drawing inspiration from the Camino de Santiago, this transformative course guides you through a proven framework to recalibrate your authentic purpose and create a meaningful and fulfilling next act. Get immediate access

Ready for a retreat? Do you dream of escaping your stressful life to raise a herd of goats or grow sunflowers in the south of France? Then you may be ready for an Esprit Meraki retreat. Get access to this “very serious” quiz to help you figure out how urgent your need for a change of scenery is when you subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or on the edge of burnout, you need immediate support. The Road Map to Resilience: Burnout to Brilliance online course (with the option of adding coaching sessions) is designed for exactly that: a practical, step-by-step course to help you regain control, rebuild your energy, and find clarity in the chaos. This isn’t a quick fix—it’s about proven strategies to calm your nervous system, shift your mindset, and create sustainable resilience. No need to cope with this on your own—let’s get you back on track.

“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu