John Harvey rocked up to a TCI training out of curiosity in 2014. Fast forward to now, and he's running a business from Bali and helping clients including international athletes find and reach their dreams.
When John Harvey turned up for a business marketing training in Sydney in 2014 he was looking to boost his existing interests, not find an entirely new way of life he now calls "a truly beautiful gift."
One question John was asked at the training? To identify a theme happening in his life. "It got me thinking, 'People come to me during a crisis.' I thought, 'I don't want to be a counsellor, what could I possibly do?"
That exercise "sparked my curiosity", says John, who used the impetus to book a training session at The Coaching Institute.
"I had no intention of becoming a coach. I was just sniffing around, thinking, 'What is this coaching stuff?'" he says. "I'm into personal development and I was quite intrigued and that was the start of it.
"And in the training, something quite profound happened to me that did shift me to want to become a coach."
What happened was trainer Joe Pane identified "a little unconscious stumbling block" that John didn't know he had: "And it was this type of fantasy that one needs to be whole, perfect, complete, before they could dare coach someone else.
"The way Joe spoke about it was so beautiful. Something along the lines of, 'You will attract and coach people at the level you're at.'
"It opened up this door. And I stepped through the door and things have never really been the same since."
“Where TCI exceeded my expectations is the transparency and multi-dimensional facets Remi Pearson brings to the trainings. The depth. When I joined Pro Coach I was invited to come walk through the company, ask questions, and that level of transparency combined with the level of mastery is astonishing."
How did you feel at the start of your journey with TCI?
"It was definitely eye opening to see there are so many models and frames I didn't know. I thought I knew a fair bit ... I was like a kid in a candy store. It was very exciting."
What challenged and surprised you most?
How much shit I have to process. This is part and parcel of human potential, they're one and the same. My goodness, the depth of layers we can let go of and concurrently then move into.
What are you doing now as a coach?
I put three years into a product, worked my ass off, and it flopped in the sense that I wasn't able to monetise but it did open up doors, was featured on TV, all great stuff for my profile. In that process I learned something about my ideal client so I then pitched to a room around speaker training and did 40K in one day. The distinction was they wanted hard skills—speaking, facilitating. That was the big awakening: just find people who really resonate with you. As I found that niche, the revenue has opened up.
I would call myself a speaker trainer, but it's highly coaching based. I run webinar events with one of my long term clients, I mentored him for a year and it was an easy match. At the moment we have 20 clients at 5K each.
What has been your biggest milestone?
I’ve been with my partner now for five years. Three years into it there was this soul-to-soul telepathic moment where she looked at me and all this pain came out of her being. What she was communicating to me was, 'Are you there for me? Will you hold the space for me?' It was such a deep, profound moment. Those moments when they happen change things completely. My highest value is human potential so to have those transcendental experiences is amazing.
“I love that the TCI coaching journey never ends. I prolifically love that! It's deeply exciting to scale this journey and say, 'Wow, we get to play in this space' and bring that connection to all the different environments we're in."
Your best marketing strategy?
Definitely selling from stage. If you learn that skill it's just epic.
What are you loving most about your TCI journey?
The fact that the foundation Remi Pearson sets as a standard that you can never teach the same training twice means there's a constant arc of evolution and growth. What that means for me as a lifelong learner is I can just keep plugging in to new things.
What do you know about yourself that you didn’t before TCI?
How much of a need for significance I had before, in a kind of twatty way. Now I feel like I'm just naturally softening and softening all the time. I thought I was cool before and spiritual and smart—what you don't know is so exciting. You have to be willing to embrace both shittiness and the beauty, and the beauty grows exponentially. I can feel more joy.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I will be working with a small team under 10 people and rocking out in the space of speaker training. Still coaching and building online funnels.
Three things you can't live without?
Definitely love. Love drives everything. Closing gaps, so the opposite of stagnation—gap analysis and growth. And deep compassion for all beings.
What advice do you have for other TCI coaches?
I was slower at reaching my targets than a lot of coaches. The more I studied the benchmarks, the more inadequate I would feel at times. So study the benchmarks and be very gracious and kind to yourself as you do. Otherwise you'll want to medicate the pain by not studying them.
John is a former pro tennis player from Melbourne whose passion for travel has seen him regularly visit India, where he has been involved with an orphanage since 2005. He likes to care for homeless animals, cooks a "mean" pasta and plans to never stop learning: "I like to help people like you get your message out to the world and make a difference doing what you love."
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