Why you need a coach

About two and a half years ago, I was at a point in my life where I knew that I needed a huge, pardon my french, kick in the ass. I was recently divorced, my girlfriend at the time had just left me to move across the country, I had a good steady job and a side hustle (which is what it takes for most of us to live in San Francisco) but I wasn’t in love with either. My compass needle was bouncing all over the place. I had no focus, no direction, no drive. I was letting life take me wherever it happened to take me. But I was smart enough to at least recognize this, and lucky enough to have the time and resources to do something big about it.

I had recently seen the Netflix documentary ‘I Am Not Your Guru’, which follows Tony Robbins through the intense six day event Date With Destiny in West Palm Beach, Florida. This film struck a chord with me. That, in addition to having had Tony pop up in a number of podcasts, articles, etc that I regularly consume, led me to investigate and finally enroll in Date With Destiny 2017.

The things I learned about myself, the shifts that I made, and the new person I came out of that event as were life changing. I would encourage anyone seeking something in their life to try this or something like it. But you have to be ready and willing to “play full out”, because anything less will be short changing yourself and all of the amazing people that are on that journey with you. Coming out of this event, I stepped up, travelled across the country and got the girl back, proposed, and shortly after moved her back to SF. We’ve been happily married for almost a year now.

Now I was not new to the “self help” world before I made the decision to jump into this. I had been reading and listening to Tim Ferriss and countless other great authors in the self improvement space for nearly 10 years. But as most of us who have read books like this, listened to podcasts, and even attended a live event like any one of Tony Robbins events, find that after you leave the event, finish the book or podcast, there is a honeymoon period, and then things start to slip back little by little into your old patterns. You are definitely playing at a higher level than you started, but by no means at the level when you were fully engaged.

This in my opinion is best described by the phrase “shelf help”. We pull the book off the shelf, read it intently, nodding our heads along the way, seeing all of the truth in the words, maybe even taking some notes. But once the book is finished it goes back on the shelf, along with all of the wisdom we hoped would stay with us. I have been more guilty of this than most. But this is where things changed for me, and I hope for anyone else that has made the decision to start this journey that it can change for you too.

I happened upon a Facebook page called Escape the Office, that was meant to gather people that had been successful in their jobs, were high performers, but felt that something was missing or not right. The intention being to unchain yourself from the 5 day a week, 8 hours a day, cell that most people feel their office job is, and to embrace the freedom that we are seeking, while creating work that lights you up, pays the bills, and let’s you live your best life. It sounds like a fairytale, and I was skeptical, but also very interested. I wrote a post to the group, and immediately received a few replies from others in the group. I heard their stories of going from where I was to working from wherever they wanted, doing the things that they loved. And as fate would have it, the founder of the group, Christian Piuma, responded as well.

This is where things get a little weird if you don’t believe that there are forces in the universe pushing you in the right direction. Christian just happened to be visiting family in Palo Alto where I work. We chatted through FB for a few minutes and agreed to go grab a beer after I finished work. The rest is history. There are people you meet, and immediately know that you are kindred spirits. This was one of those times. We told each other our stories, and Christian told me about his program, and I knew this was what I needed to take me to the next level. I had the knowledge in my head from all of the material I had consumed in the past 10 years, but I needed something, or more particularly someone, to help make it all stick and become an everyday part of me.

I wrote the check, which was scary. This was not an insignificant sum of money, but I knew this was an investment in myself. The cost of making this leap was nothing compared to the cost of where I knew I would still be in 10 years if I didn’t. So off we went.

This is not one of those stories where we have a few calls, and then I’m on the path to fame and fortune, never to look back. Even having already done a lot of hard work on myself, I still held on to quite a few limiting beliefs that kept me firmly planted right where I was, and fearful of taking the steps to free myself. We moved through the what was supposed to be an 8 week program, making progress, breaking through old stories, but I really liked eating that shit sandwich I had been eating for so many years, so things moved along in fits and starts. We blew well past the 8 weeks, and I was still not ready to jump off the cliff and leave my cozy, well paying day job. I was moving in the right direction, but I was just not there yet.

After what felt like walking through waist deep mud for months, one day the floodgates opened. I came back home after the holidays, where I had spent a few weeks with my wife’s family holed up in freezing rural Minnesota, and it was like the clouds parted in the sky and the sun came out in full force. I was on fire. I started taking action on things that I had been procrastinating on for months.

Within a matter of a few weeks, I had given notice (a lot of notice, as in 6 months) to my boss, I formed my own LLC in a city on the opposite coast of the country, got a business bank account and credit cards, built a website for my new business, and put my side hustle business partner on notice that I was deadly serious about taking over the business to allow him to retire. I felt like a new person.

I had always shied away from being demonstrative in work or conversations, but now I felt a new confidence to speak up, and speak with authority. I was not afraid of what others thought, because I had certainty in myself, what I wanted, and where I was going. I like to think that this is the moment that I stepped into my identity as a business owner. This was the person that my coach had been telling me about for all those months, even though I couldn’t see it or feel it.

Christian stuck with me through all of it, seeing and reflecting to me the person that he knew I was going to become, not the person that was stuck in the old loop. His energy, his certainty, his compassion, and the fact that he had already done what he was helping me do, kept me engaged, built my confidence in myself, my certainty of my what my future looked like, and allowed me to find the joy in the journey getting there.

There is so much inside each of us. Literally everything we need is there, and for those that can tap into that, to know that, and to live that, the possibilities in life are endless. But it can be so hard to find that light on your own. Most times it takes someone to help us see the trees for the forest.

We are fighting against the stories we’ve been told and have been telling ourselves for our whole lives. We are fighting prehistoric genetics that are still trying to protect us from saber toothed tigers or being ostracized from our tribe meaning certain death.

We need someone to break the cycle, to hold up the mirror so we can see what they see in us. To remind us that we are not alone on this journey. To be our cheerleader when we’re on fire and when we don’t want to get out of bed. To be our taskmaster that holds our feet to the fire and holds us accountable for our commitments.

I have been so fortunate to have seen the profound results not only for me personally, but for others on this journey as well. To see this transformation first hand is truly humbling.

This is why I need a coach, and I’m guessing this is why you might need a coach too.

*If you are even a little curious, I would encourage you to take a look at christianpiuma.com & yourauthentictruth.com for more information.

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