I was once asked about my clients, Professional & Entrepreneur Women. Someone asked me how I came to work with women… and it brought up every scrap of my insecurity.
The question posed was, “Hey Dave, I’m curious about how you picked this particular niche?”
What I read was, “What business do you, as a man, have coaching women? What are you trying to pull here? What qualifies you to coach women? Who in the hell do you think you are? The last thing high achieving, high functioning women need is one more bearded, 40something, white dude, mansplaining “how to be” a woman.”
I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. I felt like a fraud, like I’d been found out. It felt as though my mask had been torn off by Freddie, Scooby and those meddling kids.
I began to get defensive, angry. I love my clients and do great work. I’m super good at what I do and I\’ve been doing it for a really long time…
It was time for me to let go of my emotional internal knee-jerk and get clear. What would I ask a client in this state? What was the lesson to learn here? What was the teachable moment? Not my understanding of the question. Not my insecurity based response.
What was the truth?
The truth was that I actually didn’t choose my niche, it chose me.
I began my professional coaching business as a men\’s coach. All my early YouTube and Facebook videos had me speaking directly to men. I identified myself as a men\’s coach from the stage at a sold-out Kyle Cease event. I had dreams of men’s retreats, and dinner events where we would cook for each other, then have meaningful, vulnerable conversation. We would talk about what it means to be an emotionally healthy male in today’s world. It was going to be great! I had moderate success… Nothing to write home about.
Then one day I got a call from a woman who stated plainly, \”I know you\’re a men\’s coach, I want you to coach me.\” She had a successful career, was a director in the company she worked for, followed everything I did, and wanted my input and support.
I asked her a few questions, realized that I could help her, and took her on as a client. Shortly, another woman called, a brilliant musician with a Masters degree. She was a former national forest ranger, tough, smart, and was in a situation that I was 100% confident I could support her through.
There was a flurry of incredible women sending inquiries. There were entrepreneurs, creators, artists, and healers who needed clarity, accountability, and a game plan… Right in my wheelhouse.
Then a woman from New York, CEO of a 7-figure business that was growing rapidly. She was crushing it in business, but not having similar success in her personal life. Almost immediately, a highly sought after female acting coach reached out to me. By the end of 2019 all my clients were women (half of them identifying as LGBTQ+), despite my marketing to men.
The women I work with today are all business owners, creatives and entrepreneurs. High functioning and high achieving badasses. They tend to spend most of their time in their masculine, because those are the traits that get rewarded in the business world. They are often frustrated with their personal lives and relationships. Some struggle with feelings of unworthiness, self-doubt, difficult/abusive/inappropriate relationships, etc.. Work/life balance, juggling a career, kids and a partner (or trying to date), negative self talk, and difficulty setting boundaries almost always come up.
So… Why do they choose to work with me?
I hold a very strong, very safe, very clear boundaried, masculine container for them to feel safe to return to their feminine… And we begin from there. The women I work with feel seen, and heard, and safe with a man (some of them, for the first time in their lives).
The truth is, I\’m a man and don’t know anything about being a woman; fortunately, I don’t have to. My clients do, and they finally have a safe space to do it in. I hold the space, ask the questions, call out the bullshit, remind them of their worthiness and their enoughness, and lovingly invite them into their real power and creative essence. Watching them emerge from those defensive postures into their full power and potential is truly a magical experience.
I don’t play games, I don’t skirt the edges of inappropriate, my boundaries are clear, and so is my energy. I plant myself like a tree stump in their lives; I hold them accountable, hold them in their power, and in their grace, without judgment and with plenty of room for the messiness of just being a human.
Again, for some, I represent the first male in their life that doesn\’t tell them that they\’re too much, doesn’t get frustrated by their process, and doesn’t come with the threat of abandonment. There is no fear of disappointing me or not \”doing it right,\” and because of that, women can begin to set down that masculine energy that they spend so much time in. It becomes an empowered choice, not a protective shield.
Badass women respond to my style and my energy. The results they get are a testimony to that, and I fucking love their fierceness.
I used to be fearful about what people would assume about me. That old liar Imposter Syndrome would show up and tell me that I had no business working with women. So, what was the truth?
The truth is that I didn’t choose my niche. The niche I could serve most powerfully came banging at my door and didn’t care much about my opinion or my little insecurities. They chose me. They called me to rise to the best version of myself so I could make a fearless stand for them.
I’m so clear about who I’m here to serve that I literally married my ideal client avatar; her colleagues are my clients.
I am who I am, and I serve who I serve, because of the women who demanded that I evolve into the best version of me.