If you’ve ever worked with me, you’ve probably heard me talk to myself mid-conversation and say, “That belongs in the book.”
For years, my coaching calls have doubled as research labs. My clients have become unknowing co-authors of The Entrepreneur’s Voyage. Every pattern I’ve spotted in their struggles, every breakthrough we’ve celebrated, every recurring question – all of it is becoming the DNA of the book I’m writing.
In many ways, this book-in-progress is a thank-you note to the entrepreneurs who have let me sit beside them in the messy middle of their journey.
The Book Behind the Curtain
Here’s a secret about writing a business book: it rarely starts as a grand idea you develop in isolation. More often, it begins as scraps of insight gathered in real-world conversations.
That’s how the 7Seas Framework is evolving. Not in a boardroom with a whiteboard and a fresh pack of markers. Not during a weekend retreat with endless lattes and post-it notes. (PLEASE will someone send me on a retreat like this?!) It’s being refined in the trenches – on Zoom calls with exhausted founders, in training rooms buzzing with sticky questions, and in coaching sessions where I can practically feel the weight of decision-making on someone’s shoulders.
The framework wasn’t invented. It was observed. And now, it’s being codified into a book.
How Coaching Shapes Content
When you talk to hundreds of entrepreneurs over decades, you notice patterns.
- The questions. No matter the industry or size of the company, certain questions come up again and again. “Why can’t I seem to grow past this revenue ceiling?” “Why does my team keep depending on me for every little thing?” “Am I even cut out for this?”
- The roadblocks. Some challenges aren’t about skill but about stage. Teams plateau for reasons that have nothing to do with their abilities and everything to do with the Sea they’re in. Recognizing those patterns is what’s guiding the structure of my chapters.
- The breakthroughs. Nothing beats that moment when a client’s eyes light up and they say, “Oh, now I get it.” Those ah-ha’s are becoming the compass points of the book.
All of that raw material is finding its way into The Entrepreneur’s Voyage. The chapters aren’t abstract theories – they’re being codified from lived entrepreneurial experience.
Real-World Research Beats Theory
Let me be clear: I’m not writing an academic textbook. The world doesn’t need more abstract theory. What founders crave is clarity they can apply in real time.
That’s why coaching is such fertile ground for the writing process. It isn’t hypothetical. It’s lived reality. When I notice the same struggle cropping up across completely different clients, industries, and geographies, I know I’ve struck something universal.
That’s how the Seas emerged: not as abstract metaphors, but as real stages entrepreneurs cycle through. It isn’t a thought experiment. It’s a pattern revealing itself because I’ve been lucky enough to be in the room when the struggles unfolded.
Think of it as evidence-based coaching being shaped into a framework others can soon pick up and use.
Clients as Co-Creators
I’ll be honest: without my clients, this book wouldn’t exist.
They are the proving ground. Their willingness to be vulnerable in coaching calls gives me insight into the universal struggles of entrepreneurship. Their stories (with names and sometimes even professions changed) provide the narrative heartbeat. But the struggles and the breakthroughs themselves? Those stay true, because they’re universal.
They are, in every sense, co-creators – even if they don’t know it.
And that’s why I think of this book as a thank-you note. To the hundreds of entrepreneurs who’ve let me walk alongside them: this is me holding up a mirror. You’ve shown me the messy middle, and I’m turning it into a map.
Chapters as Mirrors of the Messy Middle
When you eventually read The Entrepreneur’s Voyage, you’ll notice something: the chapters won’t read like linear steps in a success manual. They’ll be mirrors of what it actually feels like to run a business.
Messy. Nonlinear. Sometimes contradictory.
That’s intentional. Because coaching has taught me that entrepreneurs don’t need another promise of a perfect ladder to climb. They need a framework that reflects the chaos and helps them navigate it.
The chapters are being structured around the Seas because that’s the truest reflection of the messy middle. You don’t “graduate” from one stage and never look back. You cycle. You stall. You soar. You sink. And that’s normal.
The Value of Repetition
Another lesson from turning coaching into chapters: repetition is not a bug, it’s a feature.
When you hear the same challenge for the hundredth time, it’s tempting to think, “Here we go again.” But that repetition is what validates the framework. If one founder struggles with delegation, it’s an isolated case. If fifty founders struggle with it, it’s a pattern worth writing about.
Repetition also sharpens my delivery. Each time I explain the Seas, I get better at making them clear, concise, and teachable. By the time this book is finished, the framework won’t just be tested – it will have been rehearsed thousands of times.
That’s why I can write with confidence: these ideas aren’t just theories. They’ve been lived.
From Call Notes to Chapter Outlines
Want to know what my earliest “manuscript” looks like? Piles of notes from coaching calls.
Some are tidy bullet points. Others are barely legible scribbles scrawled in margins or jotted between flights. I have sticky notes, digital files, scraps of paper, voice memos and quite literally dozens of notebooks (Erin Condren if you must know, I’m a paper snob.)
Over time, I’ve started categorizing them by theme. Stall points here. Leadership breakthroughs there. Emotional rollercoasters in another stack. That’s when I saw the Seas start to emerge.
Now, those piles of notes are becoming chapter outlines. Outlines are becoming drafts. Drafts are becoming something coherent. It’s less about inventing content and more about organizing the content that was already living in my conversations.
Authority Through Codification
Here’s the shift happening for me right now: codifying the framework into a book is changing how I see my own authority.
Before, I was a coach. A consultant. Someone with experience and insights. But as the 7Seas take shape in book form, I’m moving into thought-leader territory. Not because my ideas are suddenly better, but because they’re being codified. They’re being documented. They’ll soon be teachable without me being in the room.
That’s the difference between private insight and public authority. A framework turns the invisible into the teachable. A book makes it accessible at scale. And I’m in the thick of that transformation right now.
Closing Reflection
The Entrepreneur’s Voyage isn’t finished yet. It’s still being written, shaped, and refined. But it didn’t come out of isolation. It came out of countless coaching calls, workshops, and conversations. My clients have been my unknowing co-authors, giving me the raw material I need to distill a universal framework.
The questions, the roadblocks, the breakthroughs – those are shaping every chapter.
And while I anonymize names and sometimes even professions, I never change the issues or the outcomes. Those belong to the entrepreneurs themselves. This book is for them. It’s a map built from their storms, their struggles, and their triumphs.
So the next time you find yourself in a coaching conversation that feels raw, frustrating, or repetitive – don’t dismiss it. That’s where the good stuff lives. That’s where patterns emerge. That’s where frameworks are born.
Sometimes, the best chapters start as call notes.
