‘Kill your Darlings, Go Beyond …’

Why I owe it to myself to be the best fr*ck*n coach this Universe will ever know …

*Post: inspired by the Being a Trusted Advisor Program by Rich Habets - Winter 2023

During the past days I noticed that in my excitement of seeing how ANNything can become possible, in my eagerness of wanting to walk towards that light, towards that 'Malibu villa', in my ANNthusiasm of wanting to fully step into that ever ANNspiring being I can feel at the core of who I am, there lies a blind spot.

In fact, I am being so eager with wanting to walk towards the light that I’m blinding my own vision in the process. And that's NOT what I desire if I'm genuine in my ambition to inspire and empower others - and I truly feel that's what I want and can do.

This takes me back to the days when I was a host on national radio. I LOVED playing the records that lit me up – understatement … . However, our station manager, Stefan Ackermans always reminded us DJ’s to ‘kill our darlings’ and that makes sense. Since when I completely lose myself in a record I am choosing to play, I lose the connection with the audience I am serving and even with my-self! And to me a good radio show should be all about connecting with your listeners.

Similarly, I recognize that also in my business I am not always relating to my client, not really. It commonly occurs when I get insecure, when I’m not sure if what I'm creating is or will be ‘good enough’. Doubts get in the way: ‘Am I doing it right?’, ‘Do I come across smart enough?’, ‘Will he find I know what I'm talking about?’, ‘Will she sign up?’, ‘I really need him/her to sign up or I will not be a good enough coach, I will not make enough money, I will not be worthy, yadajadajada … !’

A few years ago, when I decided I would be coaching next to voicing professionaly, I felt I needed to ‘get this right’. So I enrolled in an online life coaching course. It was very different from how and what my current mentors and coaches like Rich Habets and Moritz Lembert are teaching me. And – maybe even more importantly – at the time, I was not looking from the same perspective I take on life and learning today.

In the training, I found a lot of different ‘coaching techniques’, facts and figures around landmarks and leading names in psychology. From the very start all this theory had me feeling ‘stuffed’, all it seemed to do was ‘fill me up’, since I figured I had to know all this knowledge by heart to be able to call myself a ‘proper coach’. So right before the end of the program I lost interest and dropped out while secretly labeling myself as … a failure.

I suppose some of the knowledge presented in that life coaching course surely has been of value to me, but I was missing the point. Coaching is not something you learn from a book. Or at least not one single book, nor one single person. Empowering people really comes from inspiration, from openness, from stillness and from listening from a place of NOT knowing.

This has been a common occurrence for me recently, realizing that I’m left without an answer, without a clear definition of who I want to be as a coach for instance. I do not have a ‘niche’, I do not have an ideal client and maybe I never will. But I do genuinely want people to (re)connect with their innate superpower and (re)learn that ANNything is possible. Simply because of all the love and joy the universal spread of this rekindling would bring into the world.

I actually feel I want people to DANCE WITH ME. How can I create that reality without imposing my taste of music on others? I suppose I WILL HAVE TO DISCOVER and fully ALLOW WHAT MAKES THEM DANCE FIRST.

I’ve never really liked that expression ‘to kill your darlings’, simply because I did not want to give up on MY treats. However, it holds a lot of truth since it implies having preferences. And when I'm coming from a place where I'm favoring something over something else, I'm locking the door on what I do not like so much. I'm compromising on openness, on my listening.

I just found this quote by actor Alan Alda that states ‘LISTENING IS BEING ABLE TO BE CHANGED BY THE OTHER PERSON.’ If this is true, it would entail that if I’d fully open myself to who the other is being, if I’d genuinely relate to others as if THEY already KNOW all there is to know and possibly can see much more than I can from my perspective, not only can I inspire the possibility of transformation for them, but also for and WITHIN MYSELF!

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