How do I get people out of the matrix?
Three clients. Three breakthroughs. One wild week of synchronicity.
In one of those rare weeks where everything seems to align, three of my clients experienced timeline-bending shifts — the kind they’d been working toward for over a year. Honestly, I’m still blown away.
Synchronicity like this reminds me that change isn’t linear. It builds, quietly, until it bursts through in waves. I see it again and again: years of dreaming, months of steady work, then suddenly — multiple breakthroughs at once.
All three clients came to me as highly successful professionals looking to get out of toxic environments where they were overworked, under-appreciated, and stuck with a creeping sense that they could be soaring if they could only figure out how.
All three are now on very different paths.
They’ve given me permission to share these slivers of their stories…
The Free Agent
One client is a natural connector. She envisaged a life where she no longer had to grind in a toxic banking culture but could trust her gift: making high-impact introductions.
This week, eighteen months later, the finder’s fee for her first major M&A deal hit her account. One connection. More than her old annual salary. Proof that her gift was always enough — and that the proof really is in the pudding.
The Culture Shaper
Another client knew she wanted to keep leading in a major organization, but her creativity and vision weren’t being recognized. She was seen as an operational whizz — valued for putting out fires, not sparking change.
A few weeks into working together, she texted me: “This is my dream job.”
She’s now in a major leadership position at an iconic institution, with a multi-million-dollar commissioning budget. She’s about to catalyze our creativity at a moment when our country needs it most.
The Blank Slate
The third client longed for the blankest of blank slates. A fresh chapter where she could rest, recover, and sketch the outlines of a long-held dream.
When we started, she had minimal savings, an overwhelming schedule, and no mental space to breathe, let alone quit.
This week she boarded a one-way flight to Europe. After a year of work, she’s gone from zero savings to a multi–six-figure cushion, from insane overwork to working less and earning more. Now she can invest in herself financially, mentally, and physically — and step into her new chapter with clarity and restoration.
One thing I love about these stories is how different they are.
One found freedom by stepping out of the system entirely.
Another by stepping deeper in, but on her terms.
Another by wiping the slate clean.
I am not a career coach in any typical sense — only one of these pivots involved a résumé refresh.
Nor am I a classic executive coach — there was only a dash of “how to manage a team/deliver feedback/navigate up or down” in these shifts.
If you ask my clients, I’m somewhere between a cheerleader, co-founder, best friend, mindset aligner, spiritual guide, co-writer, and magician.
It’s (mostly) not magic… it’s a tapestry.
I weave together four strands:
Who you are now (your dreams, gifts, strengths, insecurities, quirks, habits — the whole picture)
Who you’re becoming (it’s already in you, even if you can’t see it — and I have tools to help draw it out)
What the world needs (this moment is calling for your gifts; when you’re solving a “you-shaped” problem, the universe has a way of aligning)
What you’re going to be doing (the choices, strategies, and actions that bring it all into form)
How do I help people see their path forward?
It’s slightly different for everyone, but it always includes learning to listen to their desires, articulating their unique gifts, and paying attention to what whispers to them.
I have a very non-linear mind, and honestly some of the magic is opaque even to me. If you tell me enough of what you love, what lights you up, what role you like to play, what dreams you have, what you loved as a kid, what you’d change about the world if you could… at some point the puzzle pieces light up into a 5D story in my mind. I’ll start talking, download/channel a version of your future, and you’ll say: “that’s it.” A few tweaks later and we know the direction you’re heading in.
When it comes to mapping out the path from here to there, I’m deeply practical.
I’m not a passive coach who just asks what you want to talk about — I carry my own agenda alongside yours. My curriculum is about money, power, visibility, relationships, and trust. If we have at least six months together, I will explicitly and implicitly be tuning up all of this in your system.
Once you know where you’re going, the practical steps are fairly clear: résumés and interviews for job searches, coffees and proposals for consultants, or full-on product/service envisioning and fundraising for entrepreneurs.
Everyone needs a compelling vision that aligns your gifts with what the world needs, confidence in your worth (and the numbers you’re going to ask for), and nudges to go deeper into your network than feels comfortable at first.
Here, practically, I’m often operating as a career coach, a part-time thought partner/co-founder, or a brand/storytelling expert.
I’m profoundly committed to making business more human, and my takes on networking, interviewing, brand building, fundraising, etc. are a little atypical.
This is where you might find us talking about:
the energetics of relationship building,
how to embody your queenly self and invite prospects into your kingdom, and
yes, lots of dating analogies (which are also surprisingly useful if you’re dating).
I engage in a constant confidence-reinforcing loop — reframing the story away from “this isn’t working/this dream isn’t for me” (which will come up — doing new things is hard when you’re already masterful in another domain), to “look at how you’re learning, growing, and becoming more yourself.”
Because becoming more yourself is exactly how you realize your dream.
By this stage, we’re already reorienting away from “what do others think of me” toward deep self-regard: healthy pride, self-love, and self-acceptance. Plus a lot of self-mastery — keeping promises to yourself, eating/sleeping/moving well, treating yourself as if you’re already operating at the highest level.
At some point, though, you’ll probably want to turn back.
Almost all my clients do. They show up saying:
“I’m freaked out/this is taking too long/I don’t think my dream is for me… and I panic-applied for a job in my old industry.”
or “I know I said I wanted this, but now that it’s here it feels too big/too much — maybe I should aim lower.”
This is the tender part of change no one posts on LinkedIn. The nights of panic, the mornings of doubt.
It’s so easy to forget think this fear means you’ve made a bad call, when instead it’s a part of you that doesn’t give a shit if you evolve, it just wants to keep you safe and safe = familiar.
I wrote an article about processing big sabotaging fears here.
TLDR: I’ll hold your hand while you get it out of your system, but I’ll also lovingly make sure you don’t let fear drive the bus.
Once you’re where you want to be, then the magic has to level up.
Because living in your vision raises new questions:
How do you become the leader you want, not just repeat the leaders you’ve been exposed to?
How do you shift the norms of your industry away from toxicity and extraction?
How do you ensure today sets you up for where you want to be in 5–10 years?
How do you find the peers you need as you rocketship into new kinds of rooms?
How do you keep your relationship with power and money clean and bright as you acquire more of each?
How do you hold more complexity without becoming brittle or overwhelmed?
How do you keep space to dream?
How does this growth ripple into your primary relationships, dating, motherhood, family of origin?
How does your vision keep evolving in this moment of extreme technological, societal, and political change?
And so much more…
These aren’t overnight successes. A big realignment takes time — 9 to 18 months in these cases.
That can feel like an eternity when you’re in the messy middle, unsure if it’s working. But it’s not so long when you realize each of these women had been carrying the ache for years before they chose to act.
Here’s something I think about a lot: The myth of the necessity of independence runs deep, especially for high-achieving women. But the truth is, the most expansive lives are always co-created — with loved ones, mentors, peers, and sometimes with someone like me helping you hold the big vision while it feels oversized and you grow to meet it.
KCH x
P.S. About half my clients find me at these “overdue” moments — exhausted, ready to get out. The other half come post-exit, out-of-the-matrix, with power in their hands and the desire to evolve into their next even freer iteration. In both cases, the same rule applies: what got you here isn’t going to get you where you want to go next and it is my privilege to help you become the most “you” you can be.
And next week’s post is all about that - how I work with women who are ready to question everything, create the future and bring millions of others along for the ride.