What Trust Actually Feels Like in Business Coaching

Day 256 of a 365-day commitment to show up and write my truth

There was a pause on a coaching call this week that I haven't stopped thinking about.

I'd just told a client something I knew they probably didn't want to hear. They had an idea for part of their business and genuinely believed it would make them more money, and I understood why — it wasn't a ridiculous idea, and it wasn't something I needed to swoop in and save them from. I just knew the space a little better than they did, and from what I've seen and experienced, I didn't think it was going to work the way they were picturing it.

So I had a choice. I could tell them what they wanted to hear, let them move forward feeling excited, and hope I turned out to be wrong. Or I could do the thing they were actually paying me to do, and tell them what I really thought.

I told them what I really thought.

I'm changing some details here, because what happens inside my clients' businesses belongs to them — but I recommended they rethink the offer entirely. Instead of the price and structure they'd originally imagined, I thought there was a better way to get them to the bigger goal they'd told me they actually wanted.

Then came the pause. I felt it. They were disappointed, and I understood that too.

There's a very particular feeling that comes with getting excited about an idea, already seeing it working in your head, and then having someone you trust say, I don't think that's your best move. Most of us have been on the receiving end of that sentence somewhere in our lives — from a partner, a friend, a doctor, a coach, someone at work. And even when we asked for their honest opinion, there's still that tiny internal voice going, yes, but I was sort of hoping your opinion would be my opinion.

I get it.

Trust in a Coaching Relationship Doesn't Mean Blind Agreement

My client didn't immediately say yes, and I'm glad they didn't. They asked me questions — they wanted to understand what I was seeing that they weren't seeing yet. We talked through the strategy: what could happen with their original plan, what I thought could work better, and, most importantly, the bigger goal they were trying to reach in the first place.

Then they sat with it for a minute, and said something close to, I trust you. Let's do it your way.

I felt an immediate sense of relief. But underneath the relief was something else — recognition. Oh. This is what trust feels like.

Maybe I noticed it so clearly because I'd had a very different experience with another client recently — someone I'd known for roughly the same amount of time, so this wasn't about one relationship having years to build trust while the other barely knew me. Both of them had told me they trusted me. But those two relationships felt completely different.

With one, I found myself continuing to explain, continuing to prove, continuing to sell the value of my own recommendations, even after we'd already agreed to work together — conversations about price, negotiation, more explanation, more reassurance. None of that automatically makes someone a bad client, and questioning something certainly doesn't mean there's no trust. But there was something in the exchange that never quite settled. The words said I trust you. The experience felt more like convince me.

Then there was the other conversation. I gave someone an answer they didn't particularly want. They took a breath, asked questions, listened — and once they understood why I was recommending it, they made their decision. There wasn't some huge declaration of faith in me. There didn't need to be. The trust was in what happened next.

The Best Coaching Still Leaves the Decision With You

I've realized the clients I work best with aren't necessarily the people who already know exactly how they're going to get where they're going — that's usually why they're talking to me in the first place. But they know what they want, and they know the bigger picture they're walking toward. That changes everything.

If someone can tell me, this is where I'm trying to go, I can look at the path they're considering and say, based on what I know, I think there's a better route. Sometimes they agree immediately. Sometimes we talk it through. Sometimes they decide not to take my recommendation at all, and that's okay too.

What I never want is for someone to hand me their own judgment and say, you decide everything for me. That's not coaching. They're still the person living their life and building their business. My job is to bring everything I know to the table and help them make the strongest decision they can — and that means there will be times I say something they'd rather I didn't.

Caring Enough Not to Just Say Yes

I could have agreed with my client this week. That would have been easier — I wouldn't have had to watch the disappointment cross their face, and they wouldn't have had to rethink an idea they were already excited about. We could have both left the call feeling pleased with ourselves. But what would have been the point of that? They didn't hire me to be an expensive person who nods. They hired me for another perspective — my experience, my judgment, my willingness to look at the goal they gave me and say, I think this gets you closer to it, even when the route looks different from the one they originally pictured.

I'm never going to tell someone what they want to hear simply because it's easier. Not because I need to be right, and definitely not because I think I know everything. I don't. My job is to care enough to be honest, give the best advice I can based on what I know and what that person has told me they actually want, and then let them decide.

That's the piece I've been thinking about since that call. Trust isn't somebody agreeing with everything you say. It isn't never questioning you, and it isn't handing over your own voice just because somebody else has more experience in one particular area. Real trust leaves room for questions — for why, even for I'm not sure — but there's an ease underneath it. You don't feel like you're constantly auditioning for a role you've already been hired to do. You can tell the truth, they can process it, and neither person has to turn the disagreement into a threat to the relationship.

Most of us know the opposite feeling too. The relationship where you're forever explaining yourself. The friendship where honesty has to be delivered so carefully that eventually you stop saying much of anything at all. The person who says they want your opinion right up until your opinion isn't the one they wanted.

And then, every once in a while, you find someone who takes a breath, hears you out, and says, okay. I trust you.

This week, that small moment reminded me how much lighter things feel when trust in a coaching relationship doesn't have to be constantly proven — in business, and probably in a whole lot more than business.

About the Author | Day 256 of 365

I'm a soul-led coach, entrepreneur, mother, and recovering perfectionist, currently navigating healing, uncertainty, temporary chapters, motherhood, work, big transitions, grief, nervous system healing, overstimulation, emotional growth, and the ongoing lesson that life works a whole lot better when we stop trying to carry everything alone. Today, that lesson looked like a coaching call where I said something a client didn't want to hear, and got to watch trust look like a breath instead of a fight.

Day 256 of 365. Trust isn't agreement. It's a breath, and then, okay — I trust you. 🐧