Private coaching for capable people whose performance comes at a price.
It's not business coaching.
It's not counselling.
It's the thing in between.
You've already done the search.
You typed "business coach" and got growth frameworks, KPIs, and someone promising to scale your revenue.
Not it.
You looked at counselling and thought — closer, but that's not quite it either.
Maybe you even tried a coach once: vision boards, mindset, someone cheerfully holding you accountable.
Also not it. There doesn't seem to be a name for the thing you're actually looking for.
There is.
You've just been searching in categories that don't know you exist.
Does this sound like someone you know, or like you?
Very capable. Probably the most capable person in the room, which is how they ended up in the senior role, or running the business, or leading the team.
High standards. The kind that look like perfectionism from the outside and feel non-negotiable from the inside.
Takes criticism hard, even mild criticism, even imagined criticism.
Performs brilliantly some days and inexplicably can't start on others.
And lately the stress has stopped staying at work. It's coming home. It's in their sleep, their relationships, their Sunday nights.
"Performance is not the problem. The price of it is."
The effort it takes to appear fine, every day, in front of a team — that's the thing that's breaking them.
I know because I ran that exact pattern for twenty years.
Engineer, then coach, businesses built and rebuilt, everything looking capable from the outside while I quietly paid for it in ways I couldn't explain.
Eventually I worked out why, and more usefully, I worked out how to build a working life around the way I naturally operate instead of constantly overriding it.
That, in the end, is what I coach: capable people who lead things, learning to perform without paying for it in their own currency.
Why business coaching, counselling and "regular" coaching haven't fit
Business coaching
assumes the machine is fine and just needs a better strategy
Counselling
assumes something needs healing
Traditional coaching
assumes you need goals, pressure, and someone to hold you accountable
None of them fit, and the third one can actively make things worse, because more thinking about your thinking plus added pressure is exactly what you were already supplying yourself, thanks.
(I appreciate that's a bold claim from someone whose job is technically part of the coaching industry. I've made my peace with it.)
The real problem isn't strategy, damage, or motivation. It's that you're running your role, your calendar, and your whole professional life on a standard playbook that was never designed for the way you actually work.
The playbook is the problem.
This work sits deliberately in between
This work covers both the business and the personal.
How you plan, how you lead, how you recover.
Because by the time stress is coming home with you, they were never really separate.
And it isn't endless talking about your own patterns either; some of the most useful changes turn out to be surprisingly practical.
No two clients do the same work... on purpose
I don't run a programme.
Nobody gets week three's worksheet because it's week three.
What you get is a structure — a fixed rhythm, a predictable container, the same protected slot — and inside it, work built entirely around how you specifically operate.
I've designed the system precisely so the work inside it never has to be systematised.
The container is mine, the contents are yours.
What working with me looks like
We meet fortnightly, same time, same format.
It's predictable on purpose, with room between sessions for real life to happen to the work.
Engagements run three months at a stretch, because genuinely changing how you operate takes longer than a pep talk and less time than you'd fear.
No accountability theatre.
Just clear-eyed work on how you actually function, what it actually costs, and how to lead and perform without the bill landing on you.
Looking for help for an employee or someone you love?
Perhaps you're a practice manager, a director, someone's partner.
You can see a good person struggling, you've gone looking for help on their behalf, and everything you've found is either sales training in a suit or a bigger intervention than the situation calls for.
You've found the thing you were looking for.
A few useful facts:
Engagements run privately and discreetly.
Employers can fund them (invoiced simply, no diagnosis, no labels, no drama), and the person keeps full confidentiality.
What we work on stays between us.
You'll simply notice they're steadier.
Several of my clients arrived exactly this way, someone who cared went looking for them.
Questions people ask before they email
My employee is struggling — do they need coaching or counselling?
If something specific needs healing, counselling is the right call. If they're capable, stressed, and grinding themselves down trying to perform, that's coaching territory.
The practical kind that works on both the business and the personal, because by now it's both.
What kind of coach helps with stress and perfectionism at work?
One who works on how the person actually operates, not on generic goal-setting.
Perfectionism and criticism-sensitivity aren't motivation problems, so accountability-style coaching tends to make them worse, not better.
Do you only work with people in Wellington?
No. Sessions run online, wherever you are in the world, and the fortnightly rhythm works the same in any timezone.
Online is not the compromise option here; it is how this work is designed to run.
Can we pay for coaching for a staff member without making it a big HR thing?
Yes. Employers fund engagements regularly. Simple invoicing, complete discretion, full confidentiality for the person.
You'll see the steadiness; the content of the work stays private.
As an employer can we set a goal for the coaching, like better performance or staying in the role?
No, and it's worth being upfront about why.
The coaching belongs to the person, not the funder: what you're paying for is them gaining real clarity and confidence in themselves, and I don't control where that leads.
Usually it leads to someone steadier, more capable, and easier to work with.
Occasionally it leads to them realising the role isn't right, and leaving well rather than burning out slowly in place.
That's still a good outcome for everyone, including you; a slow-burning mismatch costs a business far more than an honest exit.
Start here
If this page described you, or someone on your team, email me at lorraine@lorrainehamilton.net and tell me what's going on — in whatever words you have.
You don't need the right vocabulary. Not having the vocabulary is usually the first sign you're in the right place.