The Third Skill No One Warned Me About in Self-Employment

I remember the day I left the safety of my regular pay cheque and stepped into the unpredictable world of being self employed. Up until then, I’d worked in childcare - employed, structured, predictable. But when I completed my NLP training and decided to go into private practice, the world suddenly looked very different. Luckily, my training included not just therapeutic tools, but also a taste of business-building strategies. Even so, I quickly realised there was a whole other skill I needed - one that no one had mentioned. Because when you become self employed, you don’t just need to master therapy and business. You need to master something that connects the two. Beyond Therapy and Business: The Hidden Third Discipline When I think about the people who join our coaching franchise, I often see them standing at that same crossroads I once stood at. They’re learning the therapy techniques, and they’re learning the business side - how to set up websites, optimise SEO, and convert consultations into paying clients. But there’s a third skill that underpins both: the ability to quickly identify the type of problem a client is experiencing. When I first trained, the philosophy was that every client’s challenge traced back to a “significant emotional event” - one big trauma at the root of it all. If you could resolve that, the rest of their difficulties would dissolve like dominoes. It’s a neat idea, and sometimes it’s true. But not always. Sometimes the issue isn’t one catastrophic event. It’s what someone once described to me as “death by a thousand cuts.” A childhood full of small criticisms. Years of quiet disappointments. Subtle, repeated experiences that teach the brain to expect struggle. These tiny fragments of pain can accumulate like shrapnel in the client’s neurology and psyche. For the self employed practitioner, this can be a challenge. If you treat every fragment as a full-sized trauma, you risk becoming a lifelong therapist to a single client. Before you know it, you’ve unintentionally turned your self employment into a full-time job working for one person - and that’s not a sustainable or desirable outcome for either of you. Why Great Practitioners Know When to Exit One of the greatest benefits of the interventions we use in the People Building coaching franchise is that they have an end point. Clients get to leave feeling lighter, freer, and self-sufficient - and practitioners move forward to help the next person. It’s an empowering model for both sides. Our clients are not trapped in endless therapy, and our self employed practitioners maintain freedom, variety, and momentum in their businesses. Because successful self employment isn’t about keeping clients forever - it’s about setting them free. Finding the Pattern (and the Path Forward) So, how do you work with those clients who don’t have one “big, juicy trauma,” but a cluster of smaller, moderate problems? The key is pattern recognition. There are six specific patterns we look for - ways that seemingly separate issues often connect beneath the surface. When you make the bold decision to become self employed and join the People Building coaching franchise, I’ll teach you how to spot those patterns. Once you do, you’ll know how to build structured sessions that achieve deep change - without endless digging or dependency. It’s one of the most valuable skills a practitioner can develop, and it’s the skill that transforms self employment from a guessing game into a sustainable career. Because ultimately, being self employed isn’t just about freedom. It’s about mastery - of your craft, your business, and the people you serve. by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai) https://www.peoplebuilding.co.uk/franchise