Coaching Client Case Studies
Shawn left a ‘good job’ to become a speaker and corporate trainer 7 years before we first spoke with him, and he’d done pretty well for himself. But he’d hit a plateau he couldn’t seem to get past, mostly because he couldn’t identify exactly what it was or where it was coming from.
As we began coaching he started to realize his wildly fast-paced business life was often about keeping up with (the hours and hours of) work and travel he felt he had to do (and didn’t really like) instead of work he passionately loved and really wanted to do.
He’d also been investing the lion’s share of his time and energy with just one client whose business was making less than 25% of his total revenue. A closer look showed that income was what had been his first steady ‘base’ revenue when he began in business, which helped explain why he was having a tough time redirecting his energy, attention and focus.
Daring to believe he could make a great living doing only work he loves, and slowing down long enough to dig deep enough to discover what that actually was, Shawn came to see he was answering a calling to purpose: to inspire people of all ages to believe in their dreams no matter what and live their full potential.
With coaching helping him identify, distinguish and define his direction and best route, he got clearer about what he does and who he does it for. He refocused his energy on speaking and facilitation - thoughtfully withdrawing from his ‘base’ client while helping them adjust and fill in the gaps his departure created - and kept his eyes focused on his new and larger sense of vision.
Then he revamped his old web site to suit that new vision, and began making use of new mediums of communication and social promotion to give people an ‘up close and personal’ sense of who he is and what he’s about. Then he did what he does best: engage and relate in a real, fresh and inspiring way with people.
He simultaneously renegotiated old business (or replaced it with new), and retooled his key presentation (making it much more personal) and taped a video of it that’s getting rave reviews.
A couple of months of letting the people he already knew what he was now doing – and keeping his eyes (and mind) open for opportunity and opening - and soon a new kind of booking started rolling in.
Today he books more revenue in a single day than he used to in three months. He’s doing exactly what he loves, without the drag of stuff he doesn’t enjoy, and making much more doing it than he once dreamed possible, securing engagements from coast to coast and building a following of raving fans as he goes.
‘I’d been bumping up against something for a while, I just couldn’t figure out what. Working with Lissa and Randy was like someone turned floodlights on! Once I could see what the problem actually was, and what to do to change it, I could refocus and really get to work. Now, I only do what I love and I’m making more in a single day than I used to in 3 months.’
Lorna is an attorney with a deep sense of social justice who was earning a great living working 100+ hour weeks doing what was, in her own words, ‘sucking the life right out of my life’.
When she came to coaching she was thinking (sadly) that she might have to leave the profession she ‘once really loved’. In her mind the choices were black and white: it was either a happier life or it was the security of a steady legal practice. It wasn’t both.
Not long after coaching began, she realized that – like many of us - she’d mistakenly put a higher value on earning and security than on living a life she loved, and that had taken a steep toll on her deep senses of vocation, creativity and possibility.
She also began to see that the solution might not be ‘happy life’ versus ‘law’ but a redefinition of life lived more tailored to her with both included (which challenged her thinking but brought a rush of excitement and passion).
As she began to unearth her old dreams and take their connection to her calling seriously, she started to see that it was possible to remain an attorney while living and working differently - without necessarily losing solid, steady income (her greatest fear).
She started to realize that she didn’t need to trade-off a happy and fulfilled ‘now’ in the name of a great investment portfolio and secure future ‘later’. She also began to see how the migraines and ‘spells’ of extreme fatigue and achiness she pushed her way through were her life’s way of saying ‘NO’ in an effort to redirect how she was living.
Within a couple of months, Lorna took a leap by taking a ‘scouting’ trip to California, a place she’d long dreamed of living, where she discovered she loved it as much as she’d dreamt she might.
Within six months she’d moved to her dream city of San Francisco and began an exciting new position with a leading North American environmental agency’s legal team. There she serves as champion for causes she passionately believes in, doing what she does best.
Today she’s energized, headache free and on fire with optimism – and being paid almost as much as before while working a substantially shorter work week (and the moving and licensing costs were covered by her new employer!). That leaves her plenty of room to enjoy and explore her new home, new city and new life ‘right now’.
While taking a break, Lorna wrote us this e-mail:
‘I almost can’t believe I lived anything other than this for as long as I did. It seems so simple now, but it sure didn’t feel like it at the time. I’m still stunned at how things just came together, and how fast. I’m actually doing what I love to do for causes I believe in. Life’s beautiful, isn’t it? And we’re just getting started, aren’t we?’
Brian was a successful serial entrepreneur with the Midas touch. In record time - and with great public acclaim over the course of his 25-year professional life - he’d turned half a dozen troubled, and very diverse businesses, into star performers producing real profits.
But when we first spoke, he was stressed out and completely stumped.
During the same period he’d married, divorced, and remarried – and was back in marital counselling, sadly wondering if divorce was on his horizon again.
He was also between businesses and unable to take any meaningful steps in any particular direction.
The idea of turning one more business around - or starting a new one – really ‘wasn’t doing it’ for him. But he had no real idea what else to do ‘with the rest of his life’.
As a result of working with us, he got a clear picture of his deeper passions (public service, connection, community, golf!), true calling (teaching, building power coalitions dedicated to public service and positive change, social promotion) and deeper purpose (helping people make meaningful personal turn-around’s and using those results to inspire others), and he re-evaluated his definition of success to include effective public service that makes a measurable difference in the world with ‘at risk’ populations that are all too often underserved.
He also began to see that the women in his life were more ‘projects’ than partners, and his relationships were very much like his businesses had been, with him in the dedicated – and perpetual - role of ‘white knight tuning things around’.
As his professional focus began to reorient itself, he found himself attracted to women (and men) of a wholly different kind of character, values and life outlook. He also found himself unwilling (and in some cases, no longer able) to maintain old relationships where he was in his old role.
Through these overlapping experiences, he discovered he had new preferences for shared partnership and responsibility, and new boundaries when it came time to taking the casual to the serious. These discoveries added to his sense of ‘right’ direction, and informed his ideas of ‘how to’ in his reoriented professional work.
Today, he’s loving life as a first-time unattached ‘silver fox’ with a beautiful place overlooking the bayou he loves and lots of time for ‘the sacred game of golf’.
He’s also refocused his touch-of-gold business acumen on creative consultancy work with flagging national NFP’s in sore need of reinvention and renewed financial and program delivery performance. And that allows him to bringing the best of his experience and flair together with his sense of purpose in a whole new and deeply satisfying way.
*** Names in Green are the names of those happy both to share their experience of coaching and to be identified, and names in Blue are the names of those happy to share their experience but preferring to remain anonymous (largely to shield those closest to them)
