You don’t go to your gynaecologist to get your teeth checked.
For the longest time I struggled to get out of my body the words to describe how I work.
And how do I explain this clearly on this website?
Who do I work with?
In this mystical profession of being a Coach (yup, I hate that word even though I value the process) getting you to work with me apparently requires some or all or part of the following
Explaining to you - the client what the outcome of our work will be (while of course saying in disclaimers that none of it is guaranteed, and you can get a full refund if you can PROVE you have done ALL the work) - often called a “Signature Program’
Explaining to you where you are now so clearly that you feel seen (often this is your perceived “problem” and often called island A or maybe even a "bleeding neck” problem) and then I describe Island B (THE solution) so simply, you immediately want it
Stirring on your pain points and pointing out how terrible your life is so you REALLY feel the pain and book me out of urgency (just in case it doesn’t hurt enough)
Coming from a place where this offer is just so bloody wonderful, but you know… there is just one space left!
Coming at you with some sort of $27 offer, then a $97 offer and then the big one, so you gradually get to know me and I can “funnel” you through
Selling my soul to AI
Niching myself so you can understand exactly what I do, otherwise how can you book me?
There are more of these…
I want to know - are you ok with knowing this?
Personally I have fallen for them all, and I don’t feel ashamed, just annoyed.
It took me time to get here.
Don’t get me wrong - I’ve tried the niche thing. The best I could come up with
helping people who are thriving at work but struggling in relationships.
high-functioning people who can handle complexity at work but struggle in relational situations
helping humans move from conflict to connection
And then I ask, WTF does that even mean? Struggling can mean one thing for me and another to you. What does thriving look like, actually? High functioning - what does that even mean?
And does that mean I only work with people who can handle complexity at work and not others? That would be a lie, maybe complexity and nuance are just not your thing. Or not your thing YET.
And how do I know that you will move from conflict to connection? Maybe you will decide you like conflict?
Language, to me, often feels like a double bind. How do I get you to find yourself in what I write, and not sum you up or assess you in some way?
The moment I say “this is for you if…I’ve already started sorting people. And I don’t want to sort people, I want to MEET them.
I KNOW that when I go to my gynae, they won’t be looking in my mouth.
I know that a dentist will.
But I refuse to think that there are people out there who can’t read between the lines.
That having a NICHE is imperative somehow, otherwise you will not survive in the “Coaching World”.
Maybe I’m naive and have not been “in it” for long enough.
Maybe I refuse to stick myself into a Linkedin headline because it just feel so bloody reductive.
Apparently by refusing that I am not being of service - because if I immediately let someone know precisely what I do and they are busy, busy,busy they can send me a quick message and its a potential client! Not actually untrue.
I could make my life a whole lot easier if I just stop fighting this. I could just play the game.
But.I.Don’t.Want.To {stamps feet)
And if you are still reading this, and you end up in a coaching session with me, we may stamp our feet.
Maybe you will, maybe I'll join you. Who knows?
Maybe we will pretend to build an imaginary house of blankets and I will pin the corners to the sides of my screen, and you will pin yours and we will sit under it and you will read me a poem you wrote and never showed anyone and maybe we will speak gibberish and make up new words for new feelings and new things that haven't existed before and maybe there is no need for punctuation at all
And how do I put that into words?
How do I tell you that you are constantly changing, evolving, responding living breathing in an environment, in a set of macro and micro systems that fuck with your head and your body and you can do what you want when you want and not use commas and we will do some stuff together and talk, and maybe move and perhaps not talk at all if you want to and quite honestly anything could happen and a whole human a whole system cannot be reduced to a one line problem or solution
And there will be an outcome of some sorts because all actions have reactions on several planes, and I can't tell you what it will be because I just don’t know
