How an intensive Power Session helped to break down the fears of scaling
He had been working 12 hours a day plus weekends for a while now. Wearing all the hats. He once was an incredible designer, but his business had grown, and now all the admin was sucking the life blood out of him. He hated his business, had no time for himself, and wished he was free. His life was so full, and empty at the same time. He was scared of scaling as a business. He booked a Power Session with me. I threw him a life line.
My Power Sessions are 90-minutes of 1-to-1 deep dive coaching for people who feel stuck. They are perfect for those of you who don’t want to commit to 6 months of working with me, but basically need help to get them out of the trenches and back on the road. Most of my Power Session clients are creative entrepreneurs who feel overwhelmed and trapped in ongoing worries about where to take their business next.
This week’s client, in fact, did not come to me for marketing help at all, he came for a mindset and clarity booster shot.
As a creative business coach, I don’t just help people get more clients. My coaching goes much further than that. I explain this in my philosophy. I am deeply interested in what moves my clients, what gets them out of bed in the morning, but also what triggers them. In this week’s Power Session, I sent my client quite a bit of homework to do a few days before, including worksheets around values and a scoring of his current activities. This gave us both a great base to work from, and it already helped him gain some valuable insights before we even met.
What was my client struggling with?
A high achiever, and go-getter, he’d had his web design business in Germany for ten years, growing it into a company with now four employees. He was very proud of ‘his baby’, as he called it, as it had become very successful and they were fully booked with clients. The thing was, he was no longer the creative he once was, he was now the manager of the company, wearing ALL the hats.
He was doing everything from accounts to client meetings, and it was sucking the life blood out of him. Working 12 hours a day plus the weekends to catch up, he had absolutely zero time left to spend on himself and his creativity.
He loved to write, and felt this was when he felt most satisfied and truly himself, and had written and published two books in the past. But right now? No energy. He felt overwhelm, exhaustion and paralysis. He was ready to pack in the business, and run far away from it all. But…it was his baby, and he still cared enough to hold on.
What did I do to help my client?
First; I got him to list his values. He had to choose from about 50 different ones, and sort them between very important, important, neutral, not very important and least important. We talked through his top five, and discussed where these values were working well in his life and business, and where they didn’t. This gave some great insights into where the true problem lied.
We also went through a scoring sheet of his business activities and other projects, and discovered where his true joy and passion lie, and what is causing all the energy drain right now. Both exercises came up with heaps of answers and clarity.
Re-framing reality and switching on light bulbs
A lot of these insights were already obvious to him, but had been things he had been pushing away because they were simply too painful to deal with. To hard to solve. Being so exhausted, he simply did not have the energy to think about solutions. I re-framed things for him, so that it no longer felt overwhelming.
His baby had grown up, and was now a teenager, with teenager problems. The problem was, he was acting like the stubborn single dad trying to drive this now much bigger ship all by himself, but he got lost at sea. He kept wanting to jump off the ship and feel free again, but in fact, he just needed to find a co-captain – and trust them with the business. Fear, confidence, trust, guilt…these were all issues to face as a growing entrepreneur.
Introducing creativity back into his life
As a creative business coach, I of course focus on the creative aspect too. Once we had a plan to deal with being scared of scaling as a business, we looked at where we could try and build in space to nurture the starved artist. I suggested starting the Morning Pages routine, a practice taken from the book ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron.
Writing three hand written pages each morning in your journal, to dump all thoughts before you start your new day, and getting into the habit of writing – without the pressure of posting/publishing. Just for you, not for anyone to read. Writing morning pages has helped many people to break through creative blocks, and come up with fresh ideas, joy and motivation.
In those 90 minutes we went from overwhelm, feeling stuck and staring into the dark, to a feeling of relief. We found new motivation, and clarity about the future. My client was no longer scared of scaling as a business.
I love all of my clients, and I care deeply about their results and well-being. I love coaching people for 6 months, and giving them the accountability to reach their goals. But these Power Sessions are incredibly powerful, and an absolute joy to offer.
Do you want to work with me too?
If you are feeling trapped too in your ongoing circle of thoughts and worries, then a Power Session with myself as creative business coach, is an ideal, and very quick way to get out of this situation. What your life look like if you did nothing about it? If you kept struggling? Is another year of this worth it?
How would you feel if you had a solution?