It happened several times this week that clients got angry. My clients getting angry is not unfamiliar to me and not my intention though it is part of being an intuitive business coach.

Their stories are similar. We are working on their business. They have ambitious goals to achieve.  We assess progress and how strategies need to change. The success of a business is always so clear to me, but that is because I am not working in the business. My perspective is neutral and clear. The owner, however, holds all the energy; pictures and emotions of their lives and their business in their space and from here try to create success. Creating success with these energies in their space is challenging. The perspective of a coach helps the owner to get out of the energy, the pictures, and the emotions to see more clearly and to re-gain perspective.

Change sounds simple, but it is not easy. In each situation this week I either stimulated a painful picture in the space of the owner or pushed them a bit too far out of their comfort zone. Being a successful business owner is always a journey in self-awareness.

There are many ways to be a successful. Some barrel through the energy in their space and override self-awareness to create what they want. Barreling through is one way but when that success is achieved, they often find they are not where they want to be. They created success by ignoring and overriding what was going on within them.  Their success was external with no change within them.

These three business owners got angry for different reasons. They are men and women focused on their successful businesses and are self-aware.  When these owners got angry, it was an opportunity to stop and find what was in them that is painful, that they resist or puts them into fear. These energies, pictures, emotions or programming are not only in them; they are in their business or more accurately, in the way of their business.

One owner who got angry has a strong ego and feels the need to know everything about being a business owner. I asked to see his financials. He has been in business nine years, has gross sales of $6 mil. It was embarrassing to him that he does not know his business financials as well as he should. His lending partners expect better financials from him so now he has to admit what he does not know. We are working together to get his financials to the level his funders need and that he expects.

Another is a new business owner who got angry when we were creating strategies for her sales process. She preferred using strategies she felt comfortable doing. When I showed her how new strategies would create better results, she got angry.   These ideas were too far outside her comfort zone. She knows these steps are needed to succeed so we are creating a new sales process with new a new approach.  She is ready to step outside her comfort zone.

The third client has owned her successful business for years.  Currently, she does a great deal of the work of the business herself though she has a staff of eight. When I challenged her to become a better manager and leader in her business, learning how to mentor staff to do the work, she became angry. It is easier for her to do the work herself than to develop staff. We are now working to develop systems for staff development and to change her relationship to her business.

These are three great examples of how the limits inside us can get in the way of our success. All three of these clients, released their anger to see where they were in their own way then decided steps they could take. Making these changes was not and is not easy for them. It will take work to create the personal changes that support their success, but they are not afraid to be self-aware and to create change.

Our challenge every day is to be aware of how we are in our own way. What do we resist? What do we not know? What steps are we afraid to take? Often we cannot see this because we are so IN it. Ask someone. Ask a neutral observer to help you see where you are stuck. It will make all the difference.