About seven years ago I started coaching, or something that looked like it.

At the time I was still making really good money in advertising, and this coaching gig (I didn’t call it coaching yet) was great as a playful side hustle.

A couple of years before that I had quit drinking and left my depressions behind, and now I felt stronger and somehow I was having meaningful conversations with people.

I didn’t take it too seriously.

But as things go, it slowly became more appealing to me, more exciting, and more fulfilling.

And when I seriously started to think about a career change, I thought it would be a piece of cake.

I was convinced that I was a great coach already.

I knew for sure that shifting from being a copywriter to a professional life-changer would be an overnight thing.

Boy was I wrong.

Because when I made the leap in December 2017 and started shaking the client tree, nothing happened.

I had some money saved up, so I could play around for a while, but soon it became apparent that I had to learn many new things and start investing in becoming a household name with a reliable way of doing this thing.

This would take me years.

Back then I never really thought I wasn’t a good coach though, and because I believed I was already there and that I was coaching at an expert level (I am cringing at that idea now), I kept going.

I simply didn’t realize that I was nowhere near a professional.

Thank God for that.

Here’s the thing: if I’d known back then that it would take me YEARS to become confident and skillful and savvy enough to have sustainable results with clients, again and again, I would have tried to stay in advertising for sure.

I would have done everything to stay safe and sound.

And I wouldn’t have had the guts nor the patience to go for my fourth career.

It was my arrogance that blinded me enough to not see how much I still had to learn, to see that I was a total rookie.

For years this overconfidence kept me going, until I realized that I had grown tremendously, secretly in the process.

I love this story.

It feels so powerful and deliberate in a way that I could have never come up with.

I was deliciously tricked by vanity and self-misconception, only to stay in the game and learn the ropes.

This is why I’m convinced that you can never miss your calling.

It will find YOU, no matter what.