How letting it be easy became a North Star

A few years back, a former coaching client reached out and asked if we could meet. She said there was something she wanted to share with me.

She chose a small coffee shop near her office – exposed beams, wide pine floors, and wooden tabletops. When I walked in, the hum of the espresso machine and low conversation filled the room.

She was already seated and jumped up to give me a big hug. When she pulled back, her smile stretched from ear to ear. She slid back into the chair across from me, and for the first few minutes we caught up, passing our phones back and forth and sharing favorite photos of our kids and dogs.

Then she looked down, touched her sleeve, and grew quiet.

When we had worked together years earlier, she was ambitious, driven, and deeply capable, building a business while raising two small children. But she constantly found herself bumping up against challenge and struggle. She questioned her decisions, deferred to the opinions of others, and allowed herself to be pulled into drama that wasn’t hers.

“What am I doing wrong?” she had asked.

As I often do in my coaching, I gently held up a mirror. Not with judgment, but with curiosity.

And at some point, I asked her a simple question…

Read the full reflection on Substack here →

Four Words that Changed Everything

You can find more reflections like this on my blog.