“I Am What I Am” - The Most Dangerous Sentence

He was the walking definition of chaos. Every course he attended, something went wrong. Not once. Not twice. Eight times. Illness. Broken cars. Poor internet. Sick children. A cow loose on the motorway. Always five minutes away - which, without fail, meant fifty. Now, let me be clear. We all go through seasons like that. Life does occasionally pile it on. But eight courses in, with the same narrative every time, it stopped being circumstantial and started being something else. When Chaos Becomes a Personal Brand He hadn’t completed his home study because he’d been unwell. He was late because his child was unwell. He couldn’t engage because the Wi-Fi wasn’t working. He missed a session because the car broke down. At live training events, he’d text: “Five minutes away.” Five minutes - consistently - meant fifty. And every delay on the motorway was due to animals breaking loose. Three separate occasions. Statistically improbable? Quite. But here’s what really struck me. He told these stories with a kind of resigned humour. A shrug. A “That’s just me.” Over time, I found myself wondering whether he was somehow attracting chaos - so focused on it, so invested in it, that he never paused long enough to plan properly. Or whether chaos had become woven into his identity. You cannot build a sustainable coaching franchise if your identity is built around disorder. The Moment That Changed Everything Recently, during a role play exercise, he casually stated that his problem was that he lied all the time. It was said in passing. Almost as a throwaway. As a trainer, I was listening in. The exercise itself wasn’t being completed properly, so it could have been context-specific. But something clicked for me. What if the motorway animals weren’t the issue? What if at least some of the chaos was fabricated? And then the bigger realisation landed. It doesn’t actually matter. Whether the chaos is real, exaggerated or invented, the outcome is identical. He presents himself to the world as someone who cannot get on top of his life. And eventually, the world believes him. Research in identity-based behaviour change shows that when individuals internalise a label - “I’m disorganised,” “I’m unlucky,” “I’m chaotic” - they subconsciously act in ways that confirm it. Identity drives behaviour far more powerfully than goals do. Which means this isn’t about time management. It’s about self-concept. “I Am What I Am” - The Identity Trap The most dangerous sentence he utters is not about animals on the motorway. It’s “I am what I am.” Because the moment you attach a behaviour to identity, you solidify it. If chaos gives you stimulation, you’ll subconsciously create it. If chaos gives you significance - something dramatic to talk about - you’ll sustain it. If chaos reinforces a belief that you are the victim of circumstance, then you never have to confront capability. And when your values start to align with chaos - stimulation, drama, significance - your behaviours will follow. In a coaching franchise, that is lethal. Because business requires consistency. Punctuality. Preparation. Follow-through. Trust. When you identify as chaotic, you limit your capacity to become capable. When you define yourself as the victim of events, you surrender your power to influence outcomes. Beliefs shape capability. Capability shapes results. And if your core belief is “This always happens to me,” your results will faithfully comply. The Result You Can Predict You already know how this story ends if it doesn’t change. Missed opportunities. Eroded credibility. Frustrated clients. A reputation for unreliability. Not because of talent - he is capable. Not because of knowledge - he has invested in eight courses. But because identity always wins. The franchisees who thrive in our coaching franchise are not immune to chaos. They simply refuse to enshrine it as part of who they are. They experience setbacks without adopting them as identity. They say, “That happened,” not “That’s who I am.” If you ever catch yourself laughing about your disorganisation, your lateness, your drama - pause. Ask yourself whether you are rehearsing a personality that is costing you the business you say you want. Because the market does not buy intentions. It buys consistency. And you cannot scale a coaching franchise on a foundation of “I am what I am.” You can only scale it on, “I decide who I become next.” by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai) https://www.peoplebuilding.co.uk/franchise