What Happens When The Right Person To Work With Finds You

A client said something to me this week that I have been ruminating on (in a good way!)

We're a few sessions into our one-on-one work together. She's in a high responsibility role in her industry. Capable, clear-thinking, the kind of woman who has been carrying a lot for a long time and doing it well. From the outside, she has everything moving in the right direction.

But she'd been feeling flat around mentorship. Stagnant. Like something was missing in terms of who she had in her corner.

She told me there's a lot of male energy in her workplace. People who technically try to mentor her, who mean well, but don't land. There are also women in senior roles that HR point her toward. On paper, exactly the right people. Experienced, credentialed, respected. But she doesn't enjoy being around them. Doesn't feel lit up in their presence. Doesn't walk away from those conversations with anything she actually wants to take forward.

She said she didn't want to be mentored by someone who doesn't inspire her. Who doesn't bring anything forward in a way that actually moves her.

There's an unspoken pressure on women in senior positions to be grateful for whoever shows up with a hand extended. To take the mentor that's offered. To be in the room with the right titles and not ask whether those people actually light you up. Whether their way of operating is one you actually want to move toward.

Knowing yourself well enough to say "this isn't my person" takes more courage than most people give it credit for.

What Was Said Next

When she told me that our sessions had been doing the opposite of that, energising her, inspiring her, giving her dialogue that felt meaningful and real, my heart just about bled.

Not because I needed the validation. But because I know exactly what she's describing. The feeling of finally being in conversation with someone who actually gets what's going on under the surface. Who doesn't just give you a framework and send you on your way.

She then talked about something specific we'd been working through together. Pattern recognition. In her case, some of the patterns around control and imposter syndrome that had been showing up in her work and in how she leads.

She'd done some work on this with her therapist too, which I think is important to name. Therapy is valuable. It does something that coaching doesn't do, and vice versa. But she made a distinction that I've been thinking about ever since.

She said her therapist had framed the control pattern as something that needed to go. Something that wasn't serving her. And on one level, that's true.

But what she found useful in our work together was understanding WHY it was there. Why control had become a default. What it was actually running. What it had been protecting her from, or trying to. And when you understand that, something changes. You stop being at war with yourself. You stop trying to white-knuckle a pattern out of existence and start actually working with it. Understanding it. Knowing when it's useful and when it's not.

That reframe turned a light on for her.

And I don't think that's a small thing.

What It Actually Takes

When a client says something like that to me, it validates everything.

Every training I've invested in. Every certification. Every framework I've committed time, learning, questioning, applying, and refining. Every hour I've sat in rooms being stretched by people smarter and more experienced than me. Every time I've chosen to go deeper into understanding human behaviour and identity and the way patterns form and run, rather than just collecting tools to hand out.

It's not glamorous, the back-end of building something like this. It's a lot of quiet, unsexy investment in actually knowing what you're doing. In being able to hold complexity in a session. In understanding not just what to say but why it matters and what it's doing.

I didn't build Leading Rein around a formula. I built it around a genuine understanding of how women function, how identity forms, how pressure changes behaviour, and what it actually takes to help someone move forward in a way that relates and sticks. That's the Emotional Fitness Formula at its core. That's what the eDISC work does. That's what bringing horses into the room does. It creates real-time, honest feedback that you can't manufacture in a conversation alone.

When a client tells me the work has hit the mark, that it's given her a new lens, not just a new tactic, that's not just a good testimonial. That's proof that the intention behind the work is making impact too.

The Mentorship Problem Nobody Talks About

I want to go back to something this client said, because I think it's more important than it might seem.

She knew who didn't light her up. She knew whose approach didn't energise her. And she trusted that knowing, even when the conventional wisdom pointed the other way.

That is not a small act of self-trust.

Women are socialised to be grateful for whoever shows up. To not be too fussy. To take the opportunity even when it doesn't feel right. To push through the discomfort of being around people who don't actually inspire them, because at least someone is showing up to develop them.

But being in the wrong room doesn't just waste your time. It slowly convinces you that this is what mentorship, learning and development feels like. That inspiration is a luxury. That the flat, going-through-the-motions feeling is just part of the deal.

It isn't.

The right person in your corner, the right conversation, the right space to actually think out loud without performing competence, changes things. Not because they handfeed you answers. But because they help you access what was already there in you. The clarity, the self-trust, the ability to see your own patterns without shame.

That's what I'm creating here. That's why the work matters SO much to me the way it does.

A Note For The Woman Who Recognised Herself In This

If you read the part about being surrounded by people who don't light you up and something stirred in you, I want you to pay attention to that.

The people you let into your corner matter. The conversations you have about your own development matter. You are not obligated to grow in the direction of whoever happens to be closest.

You get to choose your person. You get to choose the room.

If you're curious about what it looks like to do this kind of work, you can find out more atleadingrein.com.au or send me a message directly. I’d love to hear from you.