The One About Almost Quitting

Did you hear the one about almost quitting?

It was December 2016. In March of that year, I completed a year-long coach training program to become a certified coach and launched my coaching business. My first website went live that summer, and I told everyone I knew about my work and how they could refer people to me.

And then...not so much.

It wasn't crickets exactly, just much slower than I expected. I honestly have no idea why I thought it would be otherwise. It was probably equal parts excitement, naivete and nobody in the coaching business talking openly about how hard it is to get a sustainable coaching business going!

So, in early December 2016, I reached out to a handful of people in my network, letting them know that growing my coaching business was going slower than I had planned and asking for their help to return to the corporate world. The next month, I was having face-to-face interviews with a big agency in LA.

Then two things happened.

First, the week after my interviews, the LA agency announced a big round of layoffs, so hiring was off the table.

And then things started to progress with another coach who runs an executive coaching firm who had approached me about potentially joining her team. By March 2017, I had become a part-time contract coach for them, and it was just enough for me to stop looking to return to the corporate world. I took it as a sign (and I was looking for signs) to recommit to coaching full-time and running my own coaching business. 

It felt like a minor miracle.

Most of the creatives, coaches, and consultants I've supported have similar stories of the universe throwing them a bone just when they needed it in their early years.

I realize that, along with talent, training, and hard work, perhaps the primary distinction between the people who start their own businesses and stick with them and those who don't is that they don't quit.

They keep going long enough to be open to those minor miracles that occur along the way.