Recently a new client told me something that totally triggered me.
They had approached their boss about doing our coaching sessions during the workday. The response was quick: first they were told that they didn’t need coaching, and second that the company couldn’t make space for it during work hours.
The more I thought about it, the crosser I got.
Part of me recognises that this is exactly the kind of mindset I don’t want to be working with anyway. But another part of me wants to punch them in the nose and show them what can be done. I realise that’s not exactly healthy motivation, but it’s how I feel.
A part of me wants to rant about the narrow-mindedness of it all. The unwillingness to support someone who is actively trying to grow and develop themselves. Someone who is willing to invest their own time and money to do the work.
Honestly, it breaks my brain.
But the more I sat with it, the more I realised something else.
This story isn’t really about the boss or the company.
It’s about the people who choose themselves anyway.
Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with people who decided that something in their lives needed to change. Not celebrities. Not big-shot executives. Just normal, everyday people who reached a point where they realised they couldn’t keep doing things the same way.
People who felt the discomfort and didn’t run from it.
People who were willing to sit with that discomfort long enough to start asking questions. To look honestly at where they were. To admit that something needed to shift.
And then they started doing the work.
Some were able to do their sessions during work hours.
Others sat in their cars in the parking lot before work.
Some showed up after long days.
Others squeezed the work into lunch breaks or weekends.
Not because it was convenient.
But because they had decided that their own growth mattered.
They kept showing up even when the path wasn’t clear.
And slowly, things began to shift.
New jobs.
Mindsets shifted.
Relationships improved.
Confidence grew.
Not overnight.
Just one decision at a time.
One uncomfortable conversation at a time.
One small shift in thinking at a time.
These people are my heroes.
Choosing yourself in a world that uses most things as disposable is, to me, the highest act of self-love and self-respect.
Choosing growth when it would be simpler to stay comfortable takes courage.
And choosing to keep going, even when progress feels slow or uncertain, takes real commitment.
So this story isn’t really about the boss who said no.
It’s about the people who say yes to themselves anyway.
The ones who keep learning.
Who keep growing.
Who keep showing up for their own lives.
Those are the people who quietly change the world.
Starting with themselves.
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