In 1997, I was deeply unhappy in what appeared to be a perfectly safe and sensible career.

I was working as a public-school counselor. I had meaningful qualifications, a respectable position and the security I thought I was supposed to want. But something inside me knew I was no longer where I belonged.

A friend had read an article about a relatively new profession called life coaching and suggested I explore it. At the time, very few people knew what coaching was—and I certainly didn’t. I requested information from the two coaching schools that existed and took a short online class, hoping it would clarify things. It didn’t.

I was intrigued, but I still couldn’t quite understand what a coach actually did. So I continued searching for a new direction. Then I learned that the Coaches Training Institute—now the Co-Active Training Institute—was bringing a course to Phoenix during my spring break. Something in me said, Go. Within the first two hours, I fell completely in love with coaching.

Two foundational ideas reached straight into my heart: The client is naturally creative, resourceful and whole. The client is the expert in their own life—not the coach. Those principles changed everything for me.

I had spent years working in systems where the professional was expected to diagnose the problem, provide the answer and tell people what they should do. Coaching offered a radically different possibility: trust people, listen deeply and create the conditions in which they can hear their own wisdom. I remember realizing that a powerful conversation could awaken someone to strengths and possibilities they had forgotten—or perhaps never fully recognized.

I knew then that I had found my life’s work.

What almost three decades have taught me

When I wrote the original version of this article, I was celebrating 15 years as a coach. Now, almost 30 years after that first course in Phoenix, coaching continues to challenge, surprise and transform me. Over the years, I have coached executives, emerging leaders, people navigating career transitions, entrepreneurs, coaches, MBA students and women building businesses of their own. I have taught coaching internationally and helped train generations of Co-Active coaches.

The settings have changed, but the heart of the work has remained remarkably consistent. People rarely need someone else to hand them a perfect answer. They need a space where they can tell themselves the truth. They need questions that take them beyond the familiar explanations running through their minds. They need someone who can see their courage and capability when they temporarily lose sight of it. And they need both compassion and challenge: compassion for the part of them that is afraid, and challenge for the part that is ready to grow.

I have also learned that transformation is rarely a straight line. We move forward, doubt ourselves, retreat, begin again and discover that what looked like failure was often an essential part of becoming. Real change is not simply about setting better goals or creating a more impressive plan. It is about developing the inner capacity to become the person who can live that plan.

My clients have changed me too

I once imagined that becoming an experienced coach would mean having fewer questions and more answers. The opposite has happened. The longer I coach, the more respect I have for the complexity of a human life. I have become less interested in easy formulas and more interested in the truth of the person sitting in front of me. Every client has taught me something about courage, resilience, leadership, creativity and the longing to live a meaningful life.

I have witnessed people leave careers that no longer fit, speak truths they had been afraid to voice, claim their authority, rebuild after disappointment, create businesses from deeply held values and step into leadership before they felt completely ready. Their willingness to grow has continually invited me to grow alongside them. That is one of the great privileges of this profession: coaching is never something I merely do to or for another person. It is a relationship in which both people are touched by the conversation.

My work continues to evolve

My earliest work focused primarily on helping people discover meaningful careers. That calling is still very much alive in me. Today, I understand career and business development as part of a larger process of identity transformation. Whether someone is stepping into executive leadership, reinventing their career or building a business around their gifts, the deeper questions are often similar:

Who am I becoming? What do I want to stand for? What am I no longer willing to abandon in myself? How do I create success without losing my humanity? And what becomes possible when I stop waiting to feel completely certain?

These questions are also at the heart of the Feminine Business Circle, the community I am building for women who want to grow meaningful, successful businesses without believing they must do everything alone. Bringing women together to share their wisdom, challenge one another’s limitations and find strength in community feels like a natural continuation of everything I have learned throughout my coaching career.

Still believing in the power of one conversation

Almost 30 years later, I still believe that a single honest conversation can change the direction of a life. Not because the coach supplies a magical answer, but because the conversation helps a person reconnect with something they already know. Their values. Their courage. Their creativity. Their voice. Their capacity to choose.

When people become more fully themselves, their decisions change. Their relationships change. Their leadership changes. The work they create changes. And those changes ripple outward into families, organizations, communities and the world. That was what I sensed during my first coaching course in 1997.

Today, after thousands of hours of coaching and nearly three decades of learning, I believe it even more deeply. If you are standing at a threshold—knowing that something in your career, leadership or business needs to change, but not yet knowing what comes next—I would be honored to have a conversation with you.

Sometimes the next chapter begins simply by giving yourself permission to imagine it.