I got on a call this morning with a client who'd just lost a major account. Not her biggest client, but one she'd been working with for years. One that felt stable, familiar, known.
She was shaken. And underneath the professional disappointment, there was something deeper happening—a quiet panic that whispered: Is everything falling apart?
I've seen this moment a thousand times in my 30 years of coaching. The moment when something you've been holding onto lets go. The moment when what was working stops working. The moment when the universe seems to be taking things away rather than giving them to you.
And every single time, what looks like loss is actually preparation.
Do Your Own Debrief First
Before we spiraled into strategy or problem-solving, I asked her to pause and answer a few questions for herself:
- How is this actually the best thing?
- Why was this obviously going to happen?
- What was true about this relationship or this work that made it clear (if you're honest) that it wasn't going to continue?
Because here's what I've learned: when we lose something, our first instinct is to make it mean we did something wrong. We failed. We weren't good enough. The whole thing is falling apart.
But if you can step back and look at what was actually true, you'll almost always see that the ending was inevitable. That the fit wasn't quite right. That you'd outgrown it, or it had outgrown you, or the alignment just wasn't there anymore.
The loss wasn't a failure. It was a completion.
Two Percent Isn't Your Whole Business
When we did the math, this client represented just over two and a half percent of her revenue. Not nothing, but also not anywhere close to the catastrophe her nervous system was telling her it was.
And even if it had been 40 percent? Then the real problem would be that she'd let one client become that big a part of her business in the first place. That's not stability—that's vulnerability disguised as success.
So whether it's two percent or twenty, the answer is the same: don't let one part of your business—one client, one program, one revenue stream—define whether you're okay or not.
You're building something bigger than any single relationship. And when you remember that, the loss becomes information, not identity.
Shedding Is Required Before Transformation
Here's the part that might sound a little woo-woo, but I believe it completely:
If you want transformation, the universe requires shedding.
You can't step into something new while gripping onto everything old. You can't call in different energy while holding the same space. Something has to move.
Something has to change. Something has to let go.
My client had already initiated a shift in her business. She'd been designing a new role, envisioning new possibilities, leaning into a different version of what she's building. And the moment she did that, the ethers responded.
Not by punishing her. By clearing space.
This client leaving? It's not a sign that things are falling apart. It's a sign that things are reorganizing to match the new vision she's stepping into.
When you say you want something different, the universe always asks: Really? Do you really want it?
And then it creates a moment where you have to choose again. Where you have to go back in and deeply believe. Where you have to prove to yourself—not to anyone else—that you mean it.
Move Along. Don't Over-Invest in This.
One of the most important things I told her was this: don't over-invest in this moment.
Yes, acknowledge the disappointment. Yes, feel what you feel. But don't make this loss more significant than it actually is.
Don't let two percent of your business take up 80 percent of your mental energy.
Instead, take all that focus and redirect it. She wanted to do more sales this year anyway. So go find a client who's more aligned. Go create space for someone who will actually benefit from what you're building now, not what you were building three years ago.
The loss isn't the story. What you do with the space it creates—that's the story.
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The Truth About Transformation
Here's what I've seen over and over again with the women I coach:
Transformation doesn't happen in addition to what you already have. It happens instead of some of what you already have.
You don't get to keep everything and add the new thing on top. You have to let some things go to make room for what's coming.
And the universe or God, or your higher self, or whatever you want to call it, will often do the letting go for you if you're holding on too tight.
This client leaving? It wasn't a punishment. It was a gift.
A gift of space. A gift of clarity. A gift of permission to stop trying to make something work that was already complete.
You say you want transformation. The universe says, "Okay, let's clear some space."
So if you're in a moment right now where something's ending, where something's not working, where it feels like things are falling apart—pause.
Ask yourself:
- What if this is exactly what needs to happen?
- What if the loss is making room for what I've been asking for?
- What if losing the client was the point?
Because I promise you, it almost always is.
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