As I was sitting down for a one-on-one full day session with a new business coach, she looked at me and said "I didn't think this was going to work out. I wasn't sure we were a fit." Yikes! She just undermined the entire experience and a significant investment in time and money.
I was unable to cancel the session in that moment, though I very much wanted to. So I determined to find gems amongst the bed of stones I felt I'd just landed in.
This coach continued with her own agenda, not open to what I wanted to explore, and I realized I was going to have to look really hard for the gems in this stony experience. I found a few over the course of the day, but still struggled greatly to get past my feeling of disappointment and frustration. I knew there was a gift in this challenge, and I was determined to find it.
The gift proved to be my ability to find the gems amongst the stones, to find what she was good at and learn from that and let the rest go. I also learned a vital lesson in how I never wanted to behave as a coach to my clients.
Never allow your own agenda to be overturned by another when it is about your work and your life. It is your work and your life that needs to resonate with you at your very essence. It isn't about them.
