“Everyone has their unique version of hell.”
When Jordan Peterson said that and I felt things made sense again.
Since last year, I signed up myself to be a coach. Why? Because of many reasons that you don’t want to know, so let’s not go there. Along the way I realized, my choice of being a coach is not just for being there for someone else(for their rebirth), it is the atonement of my own past fault.
What is this fault exactly?
I didn’t love myself when I could.
That is my fault.
This thread manifested in different forms.
Late last year, after some healing from somatic work and shadow work, I was in a relieved state and went on a shopping date to update my wardrobe (so it reflects how I currently see myself). I tried on this random pants and….they looked…. AWESOME! I’ve never see a pair of pants looked so damn good on me. I ended up buying two expansive pair of pants for that shock.
What’s funny was, later that month, while I was organizing my Google Drive, I noticed there were some old photos of my legs. To my surprise, they looked exactly same as the legs I have today. For whatever fucking reason, I just never liked them.
At that moment, it clicked. It’s not those pants that made my legs look good, it’s how I perceive myself changed. Then I tried some old cheap pants, gosh, they all looked beautiful. Now I lost $300 on those cute pants for not realizing where the source of beauty is. (But! here we are, I got a story to share with ya.)
My fucking stupid eyes.
How this long thread related to the topic of yelling at your customers?
First of all, if that title didn’t get a smile out of you, this article probably isn’t for you. This article is about how the aim of driving a successful coaching business makes your a better person, a higher spirit that’s capable of loving people and things that your past self not able to reach.
Let me explain.
Before I became an entrepreneur, I was a pharmacology student, then a biology researcher, then a machine learning engineer. Each role exists in a specific environment that reinforces the views and believes in that specific environment for that specific identity.
When I decided to start my own business, everything shattered. My old understanding of this world, people, and myself got completely crushed. They are like floating mud in a blackhole. Time stopped existing and only chaos is peace. I was scared by my own power and couldn’t move. It’s like an orgasm that came so strong that your body will melt from the explosion if you let it. Yeah, I was speechlessly awing and scared at the same time by my own potential. I guess you can label it another spiritual wakening, but I hate labeling anything that I’m fascinated with. So, no, no word for it.
Experiencing that infinite power first hand while fighting my own way in reality as a foreign female entrepreneur made me so conflicted. I suffer from the daily fact that so many people walk around feeling lost, fearful, and shameful. No, they don’t actually walk like that, but if you stop your time and start having a conversation with them, most of them are like that. It’s so sad and pisses me off.
Whenever I see someone not living up to their power, being held back by their current believes about themselves or how this world works, or not having clarity within themselves and therefore not able to speak up for themselves, I got very very triggered. As a coach and business owner, I know my role is to hold the space for them, to help and guide them. But my frustration tends to slip in and get the better part of me — the frustration from my standards on how fast people must move to get where they need to be and my stubbornness in trying to bypass physical laws occasionally.
That is why I yell at my clients. Yeah, it’s all paved with good intentions. The problem is, as you guessed, it doesn’t work. People will retreat and close up. The relationship will suffer and wither. Coaching is like a brain surgery with out the knife. If I can’t make my clients open up themselves in front of me then I simply can’t do my job.
To sum up, high standards makes me a failure. That actually makes logical sense, doesn’t it? that’s funny. Unlike dealing with my machine learning models or anything mechanic, the moment I started calculating time and efficiency, the human connection starts vanishing.
So, unconditionally, don’t yell at people.
Our agitation and frustration of current reality IS the energy to keep us moving and act like an entrepreneur. However, undirected movement only breeds more chaos. That high energy inside most entrepreneurs demands a extremely organized and stoic mind to not spill it over others.
That’s the subtle art of not yelling at your clients. See you next time~
“Anger is a loss of control over the situation. It’s contract you made with yourself that you will go through turmoil and you gonna signal that until they get it, that you are capable of violence. The way to handle it is to realize the suffering and loss of moments anger is causing you.”
— Naval Ravikant
