Why I Became A Coach

I launched my company, GC Collaborative, at the beginning of 2017, and I have to tell you my first year in business was insane. I had so many clients and so much work, I had to hire a staff of 3, and I had never hired anyone before. But, at the end of the year, everyone was happy, and everyone made money. 

We threw events that attracted the people that our clients wanted to work with. We created strategies that made people want to come to our events rather than stay home. And as we went through this process, we began diving deeper into how we could better help our clients express who they were as a brand.  

In year two, however, things started to change. As we dove deeper into our clients' differentiating points, we began to hear things like, "We can't do that. We don't want to offend anybody," and "No, no one has ever done that before." What they were really saying was, I am not comfortable standing out; just deliver the change we want to see and let us blend in. Can you see the predicament? 

Some clients left us, and other clients came, but the cycle seemed to stay the same. We'd throw an event or two, launch a program, and then move into ways we could maximize the brand's natural points of differentiation. We did this by developing products, creating strategic partnerships, and honing the brand's messaging. And the same thing kept happening over and over again. Then, when it was time to pull the trigger and launch a program, product, or partnership, we'd start hearing those dreaded sentences again, "whoa, whoa, whoa, we need to pump the brakes." 

I was deflated. I mean, these companies had hired me to help them stand out, and they were paying me a lot of money to do that. And yet, they were not allowing me to launch the strategies to deliver that promise. This is when I first realized that I had a messaging problem. (And let me tell you, if you are finding that you are not attracting the kind of clients you want, you have a messaging problem too.). Sure, people were hiring me, but they were not hiring me to do my best work. Conforming to what my clients wanted me to be, felt like I was betraying myself, my talent, and my clients because working with the constraints they placed on me was not allowing me to really deliver. 

I knew that something needed to change, and so I looked at my website, which I loved, by the way. It showed all of the STAND OUT work I had done in the past, work I was proud of, and yet the experiences I was having showed me that it was not working for me in the way I wanted it to. So I decided to sit down and write a manifesto…

When I wrote that first sentence, I realized this is where I needed help. I seemed to have a natural talent for recognizing companies' differentiation points in the market, but getting them to integrate them into their work and messaging is where I kept getting stuck. I had a feeling I knew what was getting in the way. My gut was telling me it was FEAR, but I had no experience in helping people move past fear so that they could move forward with their goals and dreams. 

That is when I knew if I really wanted to help people create change in their businesses, I needed some additional training. This is why I enrolled in the coaching program at IPEC and why I became a coach. I was not satisfied getting paid to do what I thought was subpar work. I wanted to deliver transformation.

This is the business that I am in now, the transformation business. I not only help my clients to create a foundation for their businesses and careers, but I also help them to work through the blocks that get in the way so that they can step into their fullest potential. 

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” - Anon