You climbed the career ladder. Is this the view you want for the next 5 or 10 years?
You already know the answer. The hard part is that "no" doesn't come with instructions, and there's no deadline forcing you to find them.
In 12 weeks, you'll have proof of concept for your next career.
20 YEARS IN RESEARCH ✦ CURRENTLY AT AMAZON ✦ 2X FOUNDER OF 6-FIGURE BUSINESSES ✦ ICF-CERTIFIED COACH
01 / WHERE YOU ARE
Nothing is wrong enough. That's why you're still here.
Something is wrong. It just isn't wrong enough to force anything. A crisis would have moved you years ago. What you have instead is a good job and a Sunday evening feeling you have never quite been able to justify out loud.
"I chose all of this. It just doesn't reflect what I want for my life now."
You chose it. The promotion, the relocation, the shape of the week, and you were right about what you wanted at the time. What you want now is different. A career does not update itself when your answer changes.
"I want to be there for my family. I don't want to work twelve hour days. And I'm not willing to give up the life I've built."
Each one is reasonable. Together they look impossible, and somewhere along the way you started assuming they are, which is why you stopped saying it out loud. So the hours stay where the job wants them, and everything else takes what is left.
"I'm the person everyone comes to for this. That's exactly the problem."
You got good at it, so you were given more of it. Now you are the one people route the hard version to. A trap built from your own competence has no natural exit, because nothing is going wrong.
WHAT IT COSTS TO WAIT
Nothing about this sets a deadline. That's the expensive part.
No crisis is coming. One would have moved you years ago. Instead the question rolls forward, quarter after quarter, and nothing outside you will ever make you answer it.
The reasons to stay keep improving. The comp, the vesting, the seniority you would have to rebuild somewhere else, the people who would be surprised. Every year adds another one. Nothing about the job improves at the same rate.
The move gets costlier, not easier. The move you make later is the same move, with less time left for it to work. Waiting does not buy you certainty. It buys you fewer options and a higher price to leave.
That Sunday feeling is worth listening to. But it will not turn into a deadline on its own. There will not be a better time, only a later one.
02 / WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Three core formats, depending on what you need from the next hour or the next year.
Every one of them starts with the same free 30 minutes, so you're never choosing blind. If a single conversation is all you need, that's a real answer and I'll say so.
The Single Session
90 MINUTES · ONE OFF
One decision, worked all the way through. The offer on the table, the role you're not sure about, the conversation with your manager you keep rehearsing.
- →A pre-call form so we start in the middle, not at the beginning
- →Ninety minutes on the one thing
- →A written summary with what you decided and what happens next
- →No package, no follow-on expected
Proof of Concept
12 WEEKS · PLUS CHECK-IN
For when the question isn't one decision, it's the whole direction. Twelve weeks, three phases, and a plan with dates on it.
- →Twelve weekly one to one sessions
- →Values, strengths and a multi-week energy audit with real data
- →Candidate paths tested against reality before you commit
- →The Personal Path Plan, and a first step already taken
- →A check-in call 30 days after we finish
The Retainer
4 SESSIONS · CANCEL ANYTIME
A standing hour every week, for the part nobody sells a program for: actually doing it. Also where most Proof of Concept clients go next.
- →Four sessions a month, agenda set by you
- →Negotiations, first ninety days, the pivot mid-plan
- →Month to month, no minimum term
- →Session summaries and artifacts kept in one place
Not sure which one? Start with the free discovery call. Thirty minutes, and the point of it is that you leave better off whether or not you ever pay me.
Proof of Concept
Three phases: why, what, how. It ends with a written plan and a first step already taken, which is the whole point. Plans are easy. Motion is the deliverable.
What is actually driving you
Intake and the cost of staying. Values, mapped against how present they are in your week. Character strengths. A multi-week energy audit that gives you real data instead of an impression.
What is viable for you
Three parallel five-year versions of your life, expanded and narrowed to one to three candidate paths. Then you test them: interviews, shadowing, a small project. Reality gets a vote before you commit.
The path, in dates
Your skills mapped onto the direction you chose. A named Board of Directors with the first ask already made. Then the plan itself, and you execute move one before the program ends.
The Personal Path Plan
One page. It answers a single question: what does Monday look like?
- 01 The destination, in one sentence
- 02 The first three moves, each with a date
- 03 Your transferable skills, matched to the new direction
- 04 A Board of Directors, named, first ask made
- 05 One contingency: if this fizzles, I pivot to that
- 06 First step taken, not planned
04 / WHY ME
Emily Harrison
Coach
I'm not coaching this from theory. I learned this the expensive way.
My career has never been linear. I've been a corporate researcher, a founder twice over, and then a corporate researcher again, turned executive and career transition coach. I started out studying consumers for Coca-Cola and P&G in Argentina after college, and built two businesses past six figures along the way: a handbag label in my twenties, then an Amazon private label that hit $700K by 2020.
In 2021, the $700K Amazon business imploded in a single week. My manufacturer shut down, shipping costs multiplied sevenfold, and I had a newborn at home and a $100K line of credit I'd just drawn down. I rebuilt from there, retraining as a UX researcher and landing at Amazon, studying the sellers I used to be.
I've spent twenty years getting strangers to tell me the truth about what they want. Turning that on your own life is harder, which is why people need someone to do it with them.
Primary Source Coaching is for people who suspect their next move isn't inside the org chart but can't yet name what it is. We start with four questions: what are you excellent at, what are you passionate about, what are your non-negotiables, and what will people pay you for. Then we turn the answers into a Personal Path Plan, a written document with your next steps, the experiments that will tell you whether the idea holds up before you bet on it, and a short list of people who will hold you to it.
You'll leave knowing what you're building and what the next few months look like. The 3am redundancy email may still come. It just won't be the thing that decides your future.
Most people I work with have been running their careers on someone else's version of success.
The work here is returning to the original: what you actually value, where your energy goes, and what you would choose for yourself if the next step wasn't already chosen for you.
BEFORE THIS
Coca-Cola and P&G research, 2X Founder of 6-figure businesses, research at Amazon
TRAINED
ICF-Certified Coach
05 / FIT
An honest read on whether this is for you.
This is for you if
- ✓ You have an established career and no visible emergency, and the quiet version of the question has been running for a while
- ✓ You want structure rather than encouragement
- ✓ You are willing to run small experiments in real life, not just think harder
- ✓ You know you want to make a change, but are uncertain of what that actually looks like
- ✓ You can protect a weekly hour and a few hours of homework for three months
This isn't for you if
- ✕ You want a résumé rewrite and a list of openings. That's a job search, and it's a different service
- ✕ You want the answer handed to you by week two
- ✕ What you actually need is therapy. I'll happily point you toward it, and it's a different kind of support
- ✕ You need to move next month. Start with a single session instead
05 / FIT
Three exercises. No call required.
Each one takes about fifteen minutes and gives you something on paper. They're the same exercises clients start with.