Origins of the Impatient Coach
The name
As part of my International Coaching Federation certification process, I spent nearly a year practicing coaching with a group of colleagues. As we went, we reflected on our coaching presence. Those things that made each of us distinct, what we brought into the room that nobody else did.
When it came to me, people suggested words like "urgent," "spicy," maybe "impatient." Hearing them, everyone in the room smiled and nodded. Including me.
Urgent felt a little clinical. Spicy, well, maybe I'll save that for the cooking show I have in mind! But impatient? That felt exactly right. Not impatient with people. Impatient with wasted time. Impatient with the gap between where someone is and where they could be. Impatient with the habit of deferring the things that matter most.
The Impatient Coach was born in that moment.
The focus
Early in my coaching practice I worked with a client I'll call Jun. Smart, capable, and genuinely motivated. But he kept coming back to the same question: what would I do if he didn't meet his commitments?
I gave him all the right answers. That it wasn't my job to force him to do anything. That we could explore why he wasn't meeting his commitments, but that the action was his to take.
Inside, I was frustrated. Not with Jun. With myself. Because those answers felt incomplete.
There had to be a halfway point between passive observer and drill sergeant. And slowly I realized what that halfway point was: someone who is genuinely, relentlessly on your side. Not watching from a distance. Not pushing you around. But standing next to you, helping you understand and overcome whatever is standing in your way.
That is the coach I decided to become. That is the Impatient Coach.
The path to urgency
I didn't start out as the Impatient Coach. I got there the long way.
Early in my career I worked in large organizations where the dominant mindset was departmental. Protect your turf. Scramble for budget. Follow the process. Wait for approval. At the end of the day, work was set aside and picked up again the next morning. Stable, predictable, and not particularly productive.
Then I moved into consulting, where everything ran on project deadlines. The mindset shifted. We adapted to the ebb and flow of milestones. A predictable pace most of the time, then an all-hands push when the deadline loomed. Better. But still reactive.
Then I found myself consulting inside the Silicon Valley ecosystem, working with startups and the teams around them. And everything changed. The energy was constant and directional. The daily work shifted, sometimes multiple times, as new information came in. Milestones were added, dropped, or checked off as understanding evolved. Nobody was waiting for permission. Nobody was watching the clock. Everyone was focused on where they were going and moving toward it without apology.
That is the mindset I bring to my coaching. Not the inertia of an org chart, and not the predictable sprint to a deadline. The relentless, purposeful drive of someone who knows what they are building and is not willing to waste a minute getting there.
The background
The Impatient Coach is part of Clarity+Momentum Coaching, a name I chose deliberately. Clarity for the work we do together to establish where you are going and why. Momentum for the relentless focus on getting you there.
My career has spanned global consulting firms advising Fortune 500 companies and top-tier universities where I taught and researched leadership, team dynamics, and organizational change. I have coached individual leaders, built and scaled teams and programs, and led large organizational interventions.
My Clarity+Momentum executive coaching practice works with senior leaders in their late 40s and 50s. The Impatient Coach is something different, built specifically for people in their 30s and 40s who are ambitious, time-pressed, and ready to stop waiting for the right moment.
The through line across all of it is the same: helping capable people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.