True story...

When I quit my banking job in a fit of burnout in the summer of 2021, one question raised its ugly head in my fried & scrambled mind:

What do I do now?

This question led to weeks of brainstorming business ideas, listening to an unholy number of life-design podcasts and starting my daily newsletter.

But as the weeks turned into months, that question hadn’t gone anywhere.

So I finally did something I’d been meaning to do for a while.

I hired a coach.

Around this time I’d been sending daily emails for 6 months or so, maybe longer (can’t remember the exact timings).

The embers from my burnout were still glowing brightly and my fogginess about what to do next (coaching? writing? something else altogether?) hadn’t lifted. But at the same time, my newsletter was giving me a source of satisfaction which had been missing when I'd been banging my head against my desk at my all-consuming banking job.

Naturally, I talked about my daily emails with gusto as I worked with my coach each fortnight.

Which is why I was taken aback when he peered up from behind his monitor during one of the sessions and said:

“About those daily emails Tom. We’ll get them down to weekly”

In that moment, a few things dawned on me.

Not least the fact that this coach was stepping outside his lane in a topic he knew very little about. Daily emails are daily for lots of reasons. And just because 99% of newsletters don't go daily (or week-daily, as I do) doesn’t mean daily is wrong. I’ve always like the Mark Twain quote “whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect”. But Mark could’ve gone one step further and added “pause, reflect and do the opposite”.

So there’s that.

But what really hit home was that he clearly thought HE knew best.

I didn’t have the words then to describe why this left such a sour taste in my mouth.

But now I see that he wasn't just suggesting a genuine source of joy should be clipped at the wings. He was also signalling that advice is what moves the needle, that answers can be delegated and that our actions come from outside us.

It all felt icky.

This isn’t me having a pop at my old coach by the way. There’s a time and place for life coaching like this. For some people, being served the “answers” on a silver platter is just the ticket.

But it didn’t hit the mark for me.

No wonder.

As I've got eyes for how life works, I've seen more & more that the way to live the life *I* want to live is by tapping into MY insights, MY creativity, MY wanting, MY knowing, MY wisdom and MY direction.

This is where real clarity and answers come from. Not from something that worked for someone else once upon a time.

Honestly, those 11 words from my old coach had a huge impact when it came to figuring out that traditional life coaching wasn’t my cup of tea and that transformative coaching was where my bread was buttered instead.

So I guess you could say his coaching worked!

But either way, this is why you won’t find me offering my opinion, telling you what to do or pretending I know better than you if you take a coaching session with me.

I don’t have any of the answers.

But I do know how to help you find your answers. 

And there really are no better answers to find.

If you’re curious, intrigued or would like to explore this more, hop on my coaching waiting list here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

When Baby Grundy gives me the chance to come up for breath, we’ll get a free session locked in so you can experience exactly what my coaching is all about. 

To fulfilment, 

Tom