Of course, in many ways I was crazy.  Now here she is asking me about it and after some text exchanges (we haven’t connected to talk yet) I am soooo glad she reached out!  I am looking forward to speaking with her and giving her the straight truth that she is so famous for giving me over the years. 

You see, it seems she has stumbled upon what seems like milllions of coaching programs out there.  She mentioned two and that one was $5,000 and the other is $10,000.  I am not AT ALL surprised at those numbers but she was.  To be candid, I spent that and waaaaaay more in pursuing my coaching career a few years back.  Even just recently, I spent $2,400 for a program to teach people how to create programs.  Ha!  Isn’t that amazing?  Jury is out on whether it will be worth it but I suspect this one is actually providing more value than many of the others I have bought.  Not yet, because I realize that I am still far from creating a program.  But back to my friend. 

She was asking me about it because she is practical.  Yay for her!   She is not thrilled with her current job and I strongly suspect that she stumbled upon this idea, this promise, that you can replace your full time professional income with coaching.  I suspect she is thinking, like I did – I like to help; I know a lot of things; I could do this!  Certainly that was my thinking back when I quit my job and went all in spending tens of thousands of dollars to do the coaching thing.  What I didn’t know could fill a book.  Several books. 

But it ain’t that easy.  It ain’t that quick.  And for the vaaaaaast majority of folks, it ain’t gonna happen the way the sales page promises or at all.  I do not mean to down it.  I think coaching is an excellent service.  I believe strongly that receiving coaching can change your life for the better and that coaching, for people like me and my friend, I believe, can be very rewarding.   

It is just that there is so. Much. BS in the online space.  There is so much circular logic and “limiting beliefs”, “money story” and “possibility” vs real logic, soundness of thinking, straight talk and speaking in terms of probability.  But that is how the circle grows.  I simply cannot play that game.  I am not going to get on some high horse and say that I would never!  Because I tried.  I drank so much koolaid that I actually did try it that way.  It was a disaster. 

So I am super excited to speak with my friend and help her on her path with the wealth of wisdom I acquired.  She will not be duped the way that I was. 

Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash

The Restored to Better experience here is the documenting of one such journey to embrace the virtue of patience and all that entails. I am being developed in this character in not one major life area, with the complete planned restoration of our old farmhouse into our mid-mod dream home, but with this blog and any business that springs forth from that.

Each of these in itself is a challenge of the greatest order. I should know, I have been working to blog and build a business that serves for over six years now. And we have had our little suburban oasis property for 11 years now and our design and building team lined up for over two. It is a process. It is a challenge. It is painstakingly slow. And I know that it is developing me and, I pray, it will help you, too. Step by step, increment by increment, sometimes imperceptibly tiny improvements that lead to giant advances.

I am feeling quite like Shirley McLean’s character in Terms of Endearment right now. If you haven’t seen the movie or are too young to know who Shirley McLaine is (really?), let me add some color (and please, google the hospital scene).

In the movie, Shirley McLaine plays the Mom to Deborah Winger’s portrayal of her only child. It is a difficult relationship and Mom is pretty self-interested and high strung. But when her daughter is hospitalized and needs pain medication, Mama Bear comes out strong. She and her daughter have had to wait until 10 until she can get the next dose of meds. So Shirley comes out to the nurse’s station to remind the staff that it is 10. When she is met with more delays and please waits and not my problems, she loses her ever-loving shit.

It is a classic film scene and is still so freaking poignant that I cried again just now as I watched it for the first time in years.

And that is how I feel right now.

I “went out to the nurse’s station” by sending a friendly email reminder to check in with the architect regarding our first set of drawings. He did reply, rather promptly and I am grateful for that. But the answer was NOT what I wanted to hear. You should have your initial drawings on Wednesday for review and then we will get together to discuss, but oh by the way, first I am going out of town. What the fudge?!!! (oh thank you, Kimmy Schmidt) Seriously?!! You said 3 weeks! Three weeks is tomorrow, not mid next week!

And that do you mean that even after I get the drawings I am going to have to wait a week and a half to get together to discuss?!!!! This is on top of having to wait nearly two weeks to get your proposal and then 3 weeks after that to get on your schedule (when at first convo it had been 2 weeks) and then (supposedly) 3 weeks (now 3 and a half) for the drawings to be complete until now.

That is 8 going on 8 ½ fudging weeks ALREADY!!! And I have no initial drawings, much less final drawings, approvals, final bids or any gosh dang idea when we can START the stinking project!!!!

For the love of all that is holy and great, please. Merciful, Father. Pleeeeasse let this get sorted out sooner rather than later. …ahem, thank You.