One whole year
It’s been just more than a year since I said goodbye to my staff and colleagues, handed my ID badge to the security officer at the front desk and walked out on my last full-time job.
My leap of faith, as I called it.
The job was fairly secure. Not civil service or academic tenure secure, but not subject to imminent firing by tweet either. The money was really good, the benefits even better. I had more autonomy than in past jobs, but was far from insulated from the frustrating squabbles and office politics that happen everywhere I’d ever worked.
Ever since my training and initial baby steps into coaching, I didn’t want to let it go. It was something the world needed more of. Something I did pretty well and was getting better at. Something I could use to pay the bills and give me more flexibility over how, when and where I worked.
A year later, I still feel the same way. And I’m as eager to keep going as I was to start.
At this particular moment in the world, I feel incredibly fortunate to be healthy, to be loved, to live in comfort. My coaching practice has been a key ingredient in that recipe for more than a year now.
I’ve had plenty of moments when I wondered if this whole thing was actually going to work. The first month, I grossed about the same amount of money I would have made in a minimum-wage job where I live. Plenty of challenging engagements. Plenty of rejections. Speaking to a potential client is a bit like interviewing for a new job, except I do it a few dozen times a year.
I am a solopreneur. I don’t have coworkers anymore, and I am my own boss. (This means I have the best boss in the world, or that my boss has the same limitations and personality quirks that I do.) But I do have community. My fellow coaches in the DC area, my classmates from the Georgetown program, coaches from the ranks of the two contract companies where I work, are a varied and outstanding bunch of human beings. They are a constant source of inspiration, advice and yes, plenty of referrals. To my surprise and delight, coaches send each other business all the time.
The work has been meaningful, challenging and steady despite — or perhaps because of — the pandemic. It’s my earnest hope that year 2 will be marked with a lot less chaos and uncertainty than year one. But if not, I stand ready in my little basement home office to help my clients meet the challenges they’ll all be facing as a result.
Sophomore year. Let’s do this.
