Today is the 15th anniversary of my being in business as a coach. Perhaps I can let myself claim it’s a coaching business success story. 😊 Here’s a bit of that story.

This anniversary marks the day I had my first paid coaching session. It was with someone needing career clarity. I had taken many many steps before that day to get to that point, and I’ll explain more in the story below.

I still remember how happy I felt during and after that session. It was a life-changing moment of experiencing that I could actually get paid to do something I love. That’s huge. It became real.

My whole body had a big sigh of relief. I want everyone to have that feeling. I think that’s how work should feel. Joyful. 🤗

I’m celebrating my anniversary today by:
1) Writing about the journey, below.
2) Thanking people from the early days. 🙏
3) Sending a half-off gift to my subscribers.

Before the transition

I had had both good and bad job experiences, and the bad stuff was soul-sucking. (I know you know the feeling.) So, little by little, I started exploring self-employment as a possible way out.

As part of that exploration, I did some freelance consulting and copywriting, I saw a career coach, and I started looking into the coaching profession when a consulting client told me I was “coaching” her. 💡 A light bulb went off.

15 years ago

I started a coaching training in September 2009 to try on this coaching idea but didn’t commit to the full training until after that first training module. Two months in to the training, in November, I had that first paid coaching client (at a very low rate just to get started).

Then I finished the training and publicly launched the coaching business two months later.

I remember some pivotal moments from before that first paying coaching client: a conversation at the Florence Diner with Derek who had taken the self-employment leap before me, having Adam’s help with my not-so-DIY website, finding my first office thanks to Jenny, and some life-changing words of wisdom from John over tea at Cup and Top.

Then that very pivotal moment: an email from that first paying coaching client, referred to me by Denise. 🙏😃

We set a date to meet at my new office. Exciting, and um, did I really know what I was doing? I got my ducks in a row in time for her arrival.

We clicked and kept doing more coaching from there. I remember when she had a big Aha about her career and family life balance, and was able to make a big decision about her direction. Oh that was a joyful moment for both of us.

She referred my second coaching client to me! I thought, this might actually work! ❤️

Bumps and Faith in the Early Days

I remember hard things like trying to learn bookkeeping (ugh) and finally a kind woman helped me understand it. And there were too many days of trying to work alone with such head spin and lack of focus.

A critical piece of support was having a holistic business coach walk me through things like shrinking all.the.fears, and addressing practical things like setting goals and pricing. I fell in love with coaching as a client too. Such a relief every time we met. (Now I get to do what she did for me.)

Each positive outcome was deeply humbling and amazing, like taking a trembling step of faith and the Universe caught me and then opened the next door. It was a spiritual experience and I was in awe, even amidst confusion and worry.

It started to work.

Until my coaching could pay the bills, I continued the consulting as bridge work.

After a lot of leg work and perseverance, it started to pay off, slowly slowly, to my surprise.

For the short story of how it added up to a sustainable business, the most essential ingredients were:

1. discovering my niche (introverts and highly sensitive people)
2. crunching the numbers
3. letting in great help (like a business coach and help with hosting workshops)
4. showing up to let people get to know me and my work. (No small thing at first as an introvert, but I found my way with networking and visibility without using an extrovert mask.)

There’s a lot to say about each of those. I get into the details in my course about how self-employment works for introverts and HSPs.

How It’s Going Now

It still amazes me everyday that I get to do work that I love. It’s gotten more meaningful each year actually.

I still have down days like any human, and slower months like any business, and those can kick up worry, it’s true. Being 15 years in brings a lot of faith to carry me through.

On the whole, I landed in the right thing for me, and I’ve learned to keep pivoting as needed. (By pivoting, I mean that I have tweaked my niche, my messaging, my offers, my pricing, my hours, my software, my website, and my team many times.)

Doing work that fits me has saved my soul in a way.

Before this path, I didn’t think I could stay with one thing, being someone who is multi-passionate. And yet, I found a way to have enough variety within my work, and I have (slowly) learned to stop spreading myself too thin. An ongoing balancing act.

Gratitude for You

By being here with me, you are part of making this path possible for me. Many of my readers have been here from the early days cheering me on. Many of you have helped me too. Many of you have referred to me, hired me, and/or taken my courses. I’m so blessed to have this connection with you. Thank you thank you.

One of my goals for celebrating this anniversary is to reach out to a few of those who helped in that first year and I’m humbled by how long that list is already! I’m bound to miss a few people so I’m sending gratitude waves out to the Universe: Thank you. You made a difference! ✨