It’s three years ago this week that I left my job and set out on my own as an independent Executive Coach. I’ve written before about what motivated me to do it – and about some of the ups and downs along the way – so today I’m reflecting more on the learning so far.
If you’re about to set out to do something that needs you to screw your courage to the sticking place, this one’s for you.
🪂Start broad. It took me a bit of time to settle on coaching as the core focus of my work as I\’d considered lots of other options and ideas along the way. If I’d been able to download my consciousness on to a screen back then, the word cloud would have been pretty big and eclectic. I knew I was fascinated with people development – but there were so many routes into working on that, from L&D to Occupational Psychology. Key to this for me was talking to loads and loads of different people. I was shameless in cold calling folks on LinkedIn if I thought their role, profile, or thinking looked interesting and to this day I’m grateful and inspired by just how many said, \’Yeah, sure let’s have a chat!\’.
️🫂Don’t go it alone. When things were hardest it became clear to me that I needed more support. It can be easy to get stuck in your own head when you’re doing something that scares you and feels really hard. Six months in, I realised I was in overdrive and stuck in thinking loops that weren’t helping me to make progress. Taking a step back to realise this and then be intentional about finding and building the support networks I would need to thrive was a real turning point. And so now I have my coach, my fellow entrepreneurs and explorers, my supervision group, my mentors, my Madrid gurus, and others – including my clients – to sustain me through all the twists and turns of this adventure. One practical tip: if you connect with someone and enjoy it, make a plan straight away for regular future conversations. It\’s such a delight most weeks when I look in my diary and see I have a routine catch-up with one of those people that I love. The universe (or my calendar) has a way of making it just the conversation I need at that moment.
🎮You decide. There’s a lot of advice out there about what you need to do to succeed: niching; marketing; sales; pricing; value propositions; thought leadership … It can all leave you feeling a bit like whatever you do might be ‘wrong’. Did I niche enough? Or too much? Is offering something for free a great way to get known or a heretical step that undermines your value? Over these three years I’ve gradually got more comfortable with charting my own course through such debates. I\’ve learned to test things out, and be open to what they might bring, without scolding myself for ‘not doing it right’. I offered some free sessions last year and it didn’t really lead to anything beyond some wonderful conversations with the individuals involved. But a year later, some of those connections have prompted delightful referrals. Who knows what that might lead to? But I’m glad I decided to try it (and I never regret time spent coaching, so win-win).
🌱Make space for growth. One thing I hadn’t expected was how important work with teams and action learning sets would be in my practice, or how much I would love it. I knew from the start that one-to-one coaching with senior leaders would always be at the heart of my work, but by creating space for joint exploration, I increasingly found myself being asked to work in new and different ways with groups of leaders wanting to learn and develop. I’ve learned that sometimes people see in you things that you might not see (or prize) in yourself, and that keeping these channels open can lead you into new identities and avenues that are fascinating and fulfilling in ways you hadn’t expected.
️❤️🔥Be audacious and brave. \’What’s the worst that can happen?\’ is something I’ve often asked over the past three years – usually when I’m about to press publish or send. Shameless networking is one aspect of this, and I’ve written before about getting over our fears and hang-ups about it. Thinking big and then having the courage to have a go have been key ingredients for me over the past few years and even though it might not look like it from the outside, that hasn’t come easy. Publishing my first blog and then doing my first video was excruciating. I had always been the faceless civil servant whose name hardly ever appeared when decisions or strategies were announced. Submitting a bid to a global research competition was scary enough; when we actually won, I had to do something I’d never done before. So now when I have an idea, I push myself to think bigger, to put aside the ‘who am I to do this?’ and flip it into ‘I am someone who can do this’.
So, I’m three🥳! I’m toddling along, some days more steadily than others. Like all three-year olds, there are tears of fear and frustration. But the teething and terrible twos are over and carrying on growing up looks like it’s going to be fun…
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