Story Submitted by Pegotty Cooper

I am looking through a magazine and find an ad for life coach training. Wow, would that be a great job – doing what I naturally do and getting paid for doing it? I wonder…naaah – get real Pegotty – that might be for others but not for you. While I have a job that pays pretty well, I really feel like it is the wrong job for me. I keep going back to this idea of being a coach – like it is calling to me. So, I go through that training course and imagine that I could be that coach that others come to because I can help them discover their unique strengths. What was I thinking! Here I am a big dreamer but scared to death to find out that I am just a big failure!And then the unthinkable happens. I am laid off from my job!Well, now you don’t have an excuse, Pegotty! Its time to focus on your dream of being a sought-after coach. Maybe tomorrow I will do something. “Maybe Tomorrow” is the same song I sing every day for months. I play with applying for other jobs but I don’t REALLY want a job. I want to be a coach. I keep hanging out with coaches and hope that some of their coaching magic will rub off on me. But I don’t really have both feet in. I am feeding my fears more than I am feeding my dreams, I don’t really believe I could become a sought-after coach that others would hire. I find non-profits where I can volunteer my coaching services AND I keep applying for any job I can get. Then one day I receive an email forwarded to me from a friend – Did anyone want to go to a convention for association executives and offer coaching sessions? Like a whack on the side of the head, I say Wait – that’s mine! I own that! You see I had spent 15 years as an association executive before I moved to Florida and I loved being around those people. BUT it had never occurred to me to go back to what I did before and reconnect to those people who were MY people. My TRIBE! At that convention, I was the only coach there, and I coached seven people each day for two days. I was so juiced at the end of each day. I knew this was the right thing for me. That was 2004. This year I am attending that same convention for the 16th year in a row. Association executives line up to get a coaching session with me and I have built a viable coaching practice coaching people that I love to be with. Once I got both feet in and believed I could do it, I stayed focused on feeding my dream, not my fears. I AM a sought-after coach! And It would have been so easy to give up too soon on my dream!