Four Real Life Examples
They are not lost. They just cannot see themselves clearly yet. They are in need of career clarity.
That is the quiet truth I have come to understand after coaching young professionals through some of the most disorienting passages of their early lives. They arrive at my door not because they lack talent — G-d knows, they have it in abundance — but because the story they are telling themselves is so much smaller than who they actually are.
Let me introduce you to a few of them. (Names and details changed, but the human truth? Every word.)
The Writer
There was the young writer, a real writer with a published novel, who was describing himself on his resume as a waiter. Because that is what he was doing to pay the bills. He had buried the lead so completely that even he had stopped seeing it. We did not rewrite his resume so much as excavate it. The waiting tables stayed since it is good honest work, but it was no longer the headline. His novel was.
The PhD
Then there was the young PhD. Brilliant. Rigorous. She had bravely walked away from academia, but had taken a customer service job to pay the rent. She was grateful for it and intimidated by entering the for profit world. She felt she was lucky to have the low paying entry level jobs because she felt so lost and afraid. It took some doing to help her see what I saw immediately. Her skills were not smaller than her circumstances. They were big and bold. My goodness, she was the author of a textbook. She just needed to patiently proactively seek the right cause to serve.
The Artist
Then there was the young woman studying child psychology in an academic setting that was slowly extinguishing her. Under all the academic course work and papers, she created art in every medium imaginable, with a talent so obvious and so alive it practically introduced itself before she did. The psychology program was respectable. Sensible. Her parents approved. But, it was not hers. Helping her give herself permission to actualize the talents G-d had clearly and generously given her was one of the great privileges of my work.
The Personal Trainer
And finally: the young man who had spent years in white collar banking, collecting mediocre performance reviews like souvenirs from a vacation he never wanted to take. He was intrigued by the idea of banking rather than banking itself. Once he gave himself the space to admit that he stopped apologizing for his lack of success. He started an entrepreneurial venture of personal training which he actually loved and that was the game changer. The performance reviews changed because the reviewer changed. He was writing his own destiny and doing something that suited his talents and personality.
What do these four people have in common?
Not their fields. Not their ages. Not their educational backgrounds or their bank accounts or their zip codes.
Every single one of them was hiding in plain sight.
What I Do
The writer behind the waiter. The scholar behind the service counter. The artist behind the psychology textbook. The entrepreneur and trainer behind the banker’s desk.
My job is to hold up the mirror. To ask the questions that slow everything down long enough for a person to actually see themselves. Not the resume version. Not the LinkedIn version. Not the version their parents hoped for or their professors expected.
The real version. The one that was there all along.
My Experience
Here is what I know after years of this work: many young professionals do not need more credentials. They do not need a different degree or a longer list of internships or one more certification to feel ready.
They need someone to help them tell a truer story. Someone to help them come to career clarity.
Because the career they are looking for? It is almost never somewhere over the rainbow.
It is right there. Hidden in plain sight. Waiting to be named.
I Can Help with Career Clarity!
If any of this sounds familiar — if you recognize yourself or someone you love in these portraits — I would be honored to be the one who holds up the mirror.
Try our Career Clarity Compass program for answers and direction.
📅 Book a free 30-minute conversation: https://calendly.com/phyllislehmancoaching/30min
The story you are meant to tell is already inside you. Let’s find it together.
