Coaching brings out the best and worst in you—it really does. And no one tells you that when you start.

When I entered the online coaching space, I thought it would be iced matcha lattes and working from anywhere. I saw other coaches building dream lives, handing everything off to a team, working part-time hours, and scaling effortlessly. And honestly? I was in. I believed the dream.

What no one warned me about was what coaching truly is at its core: a mirror.

Business mirrors your mindset, your beliefs, your patterns, your habits, your wounds, and your strengths. It reflects the good—and the parts you thought you’d left in your last job or buried in your personal life. Running a business and being a coach means staring directly into that mirror every single day.

The Strengths That Carried Me

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t know what I bring to the table. You know my strengths as a business owner and a coach.

I can command a room, an Instagram story, or a live training without skipping a beat. I’m a natural-born leader. That’s not something I had to learn—my life shaped me that way.

My heart of service? That’s real. I don’t just coach—I dive deep into your business, ask hard questions, and help pull you out of the hole you feel stuck in.

And my stubbornness? It doesn’t just cause fights with my partner. In business, it’s the tenacity that’s helped me stick things out when it got hard.

But that mirror doesn’t only show your power.

The Challenges That Came With It

It shows your blind spots too. And business has put a spotlight on mine.

Delegation? That’s a learned skill I resisted for a long time. Ask my OBM. I’ll pay someone to take things off my plate and then find myself doing it anyway because I can’t let go. It’s a control thing. And I’m working on it.

Boundaries? That’s a harder one. I’m an all-or-nothing person, especially in business. I’ve checked Voxer messages at 10 p.m. more times than I care to admit. Not because anyone asked me to. But because I care. Sometimes too much.

And while those traits may sound noble—“Look at how much she cares!”—they can burn you out if left unchecked.

The truth is that running a business exposes everything. You can’t hide from yourself. The stories, habits, and emotional patterns that you carried into your business will show up somewhere: in how you sell, how you support clients, how you lead your team, and how you treat yourself.

Business Isn’t About Perfection—It’s About Growth

The difference between business and corporate for me? In corporate, your flaws just kind of exist in the background. In business, they are front and center.

But here’s what changed for me: I stopped believing I had to do it all alone.

While I still catch myself overcommitting or controlling, I now have a team that helps me catch those moments before they spiral. My OBM nudges me when I’m in my “do it all” phase. I’ve created systems so I don’t have to show up all day, every day. I’m getting better—slowly—but intentionally.

That’s what growth in coaching really looks like.

If You’re New to Coaching, Here’s What I Want You to Know

Coaching is not just about leading others—it’s about facing yourself. It’s not about perfection. It’s about progress. And yes, there are messy parts. There are tears. There are days when you question everything. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just in the thick of it.

If you’re in a season where you feel exposed or frustrated by your own patterns, I want you to know this:

You’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re in the mirror.
And the mirror? It’s working.

Because this is the work. The inner work that fuels the outer success.

I’m not perfect. I never claim to be. And yet, I coach business owners every day because I know how to lead from the middle. I know how to hold space for your mess because I’m in mine too—just further along the road.

So if no one has told you this today: you’re doing better than you think.

Keep showing up. Keep growing. And let the mirror reflect not just what’s hard—but also how far you’ve come.