The following is taken from David’s interview with Ginger Cockerham in 10 Super Coaches.

What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?

Why give up a lucrative business before I am sure I can be a successful coach? Giving up a business that was successful but stressful and transitioning to coaching full time was a HUGE decision for me. If felt like jumping off a cliff and hoping the parachute would open. It was necessary to make that choice to have the time and commitment to coaching – but it was very scary.

One morning I got up and spent the entire day coaching – doing what I loved and being on my life mission and I realized that it was worth stepping through the fear. In addition, I have had fabulous senior mentor coaches in the 8 ½ years I have been coaching. It was with the support and encouragement of a coach who was ahead of me on the journey that gave me that courage – I was not stepping out alone.

The second block was the plateauing. In the first two years, I built my client base to 10 or 12 clients consistently but I could not get past that number. It was then I read the anonymous quote – “If you can do it yourself, it’s not a big enough dream” – so I started building and increasing my network so that referrals come regularly from clients, from networking groups, for alliances, from other coaches, etc.