When Steph first reached out, she described herself as “someone who really needs to get my shit together.” On paper, she was juggling a lot: three kids, a family-run business, home life, and a serious interest in health and fitness. But underneath it, she felt like things were slipping. The gym routine had gone, her head felt full, and she wasn’t sure how to keep all the plates spinning without dropping herself in the process.

Like many capable, high-functioning adults, she wasn’t sure if she was “the sort of person who gets a coach.” She just knew that struggling alone wasn’t working anymore, and sticking her head in the sand wasn’t a strategy.

We met once a fortnight. At first, she assumed coaching would be about discipline, habit, and motivation. But very quickly it became obvious that her health and fitness weren’t actually the problem — her strengths were intact. The real friction was in how she was running the business and how much of it she was carrying in her head. When she shifted focus, the changes were immediate and meaningful.

Across the months, she made tangible shifts: output increased, communication improved, weekly meetings became strategic, systems were automated, flexibility returned, and time became proactive rather than reactive. Strengths were recognised rather than dismissed, and self-trust grew as she stepped into authorship of both work and home life.

Then life threw something else into the mix. Steph became the primary carer for her dad in his final year as he faced terminal cancer — something she never imagined she’d do, especially given their historically strained relationship. It turned her world upside down. She had to work remotely for the first time, adapt the business, manage complex care needs, and navigate family dynamics, all at once.

In her words:

“Unbeknownst to me at the time, the business coaching I thought I was going to receive really put me in good stead for the months ahead when work life was thrown into chaos. I had to care for my terminally ill dad (also a director in the business) and I had to work remotely — something I’ve never done. I needed to carefully plan my time, work ahead of schedule, and I couldn’t predict the days Dad would need more support. The skills and confidence Jen helped me find meant I could take control, advocate for both of us, and face everything head on instead of sticking my head in the sand. It helped Dad, it helped the business, and it helped me.”

What she discovered is something a lot of people don’t realise about coaching: you don’t always know what you’re preparing yourself for. Sometimes you start to improve your business, and instead you find the resilience, clarity, and direction you need for the hard parts of life.

Steph didn’t need fixing. She needed space, perspective, and a way to do life and work with more agency and less overwhelm.

Steph’s story is a reminder that coaching isn’t just for crisis or burnout, and it isn’t for people who can’t cope. It’s for the already-capable; the ones who are quietly holding everything together and want to live, work, and lead with more clarity, confidence, and direction.

And sometimes, the work you think you’re doing prepares you for the life you didn’t see coming.

As life moved on, those gains didn’t disappear. The self-trust, perspective, and intentionality she built through coaching became the foundation that carried her through her own breast cancer diagnosis, and surgery. She navigated that period with steadiness, values, and a kind of grounded resilience that didn’t come from force, grit, or denial, but from clarity.

She ran her business. She cared for her family. She cared for herself. And she stayed true to who she was becoming.

Coaching didn’t remove the hard things. It gave her the identity, direction, and agency to meet them well.