THE EVIDENCE
CLIENT EXPERIENCES
A Note on The Evidence That Follows
Most testimonial pages tell you very little.
They’re usually variations of the same message:
“I got results.”
“I feel better.”
“I recommend this.”
That kind of feedback is reassuring, but it isn’t very useful.
It doesn’t show you how someone thinks.
It doesn’t show you how a problem was diagnosed.
And it doesn’t show you what actually changed in the way decisions were made or action was taken.
The evidence on this page is different.
What You'll Find Here
Instead of short endorsements, you’ll see material designed to show the work in action.
- Composite case studies: Detailed narratives constructed from hours of real session transcripts. These walk through the diagnostic process step by step, showing how the presenting problem was reframed, what was uncovered, and how clarity emerged. Where composites are used, this is clearly stated. All identifying details have been anonymised.
- In-depth client Q&As: Clients answering specific, practical questions about what they experienced, what shifted, and what changed in how they approached their business afterwards.
- Extended client reflections: Longer written pieces from clients who wanted to articulate something that couldn’t be captured in a short testimonial. Often describing the difference between insight and actual structural change.
What To Pay Attention To
The point of this page isn’t just to show outcomes, though those are here.
What matters more is the pattern you’ll see repeated across very different people and situations:
The gap between what someone initially believed their problem was and what the Diagnostic revealed was actually driving the results.
That gap is where this work operates.
A Few Important Notes:
- Due to the nature of the work, full names are not disclosed.
- Some details have been altered at clients’ request to preserve privacy.
- Engagements vary widely, from a single Diagnostic session, to work spanning years. There is no “standard journey” because the work responds to real conditions, not a programme.
Additional case studies, examples, and client feedback are included in the Strategic Friction Diagnostic Brief, which you can download at the bottom of this page.
Composite Case Study
Type of Engagement: Short-term Intensive
Client: James H. - UK
James earned six figures a year working two days a week from home. He had a girlfriend, kids he adored, and complete control over his schedule.
By any measure, he had won.
He couldn't stop feeling like he was getting away with something.
Every morning started with a low hum of anxiety. He'd sit down at his desk knowing he'd finish his client work in a few hours, then spend the rest of the day feeling guilty about not working more.
He bought course after course, convinced the next one would unlock whatever was missing. He'd get excited, start the modules, then abandon them when they required actual effort. The fantasy of building something was more compelling than building it.
He knew exactly what he was doing. That was the worst part. He could articulate the pattern with perfect clarity, watch himself repeat it, and feel powerless to stop.
The first session was dense.
I introduced a framework that sounds abstract but lands hard when you're ready for it: the difference between seeking the secret that will make you whole, and accepting that the feeling of lack is permanent. It's baked into existence itself.
James had been treating his anxiety as a problem to solve. What if it wasn't a problem? What if the endless seeking was the problem, and the lack was just the human condition?
I asked him to listen back to the recording. Not to understand it, but to let it work on him.
The second session, I pushed harder.
We ran the numbers on his life. Two days of work. Six-figure income. Time with his kids whenever he wanted.
I asked him a question: If I hired you to do exactly what you're doing now, same hours, same pay, same freedom. Would you feel guilty?
He laughed. No. Of course not.
So the only difference between peace and anxiety was permission. He was living the life, but nobody had told him it was allowed.
"You're producing The James Show," I said. "All this drama about being stuck. The guilt, the courses, the anxiety. It's more entertaining than just accepting you've already won."
A week later, something had shifted.
He couldn't explain it. He used the word "lightness." More patient with his kids. More assertive with clients. The catastrophising that had been background noise for years had gone quiet.
I asked who was watching in his fantasies of success. When he imagined the bigger business, the passive income, the freedom he supposedly didn't have. Who was the audience?
He sat with that for a long time.
The insight landed: everything he'd been chasing was a performance for someone who didn't exist. An imaginary authority he was trying to impress. His father, maybe. Society. Some version of success he'd absorbed without choosing it.
"What if there's nobody watching?" I asked. "What if you stopped performing?"
He described the feeling as "nothing." No charge around work. No anxiety about whether he was doing enough. No need to prove anything.
That might sound like emptiness. It's actually freedom.
I suggested we skip the next session. He didn't need more to think about. He needed to live in the new space without analysing it.
When we reconnected, the shift had held. Better with his kids. Taking action on things he'd procrastinated for months. Not because he'd found motivation, but because the resistance had dissolved.
The work wasn't finished. His philosophical breakthrough was stable but his business decisions were still a mess.
He was accepting terrible deals, building other people's businesses for pennies because he hadn't learned to value what he offered.
That became the next phase: not existential work but tactical. How to evaluate opportunities. How to negotiate. How to stop accepting whatever was offered and start asking for what he was worth.
Different problem. Same relationship. The work adapts to where you are.
What shifted:
The morning anxiety disappeared. Not managed, not reduced. Gone. He stopped buying courses and started acting on what he already knew. The guilt about working only two days dissolved once he gave himself permission to design his life that way. His relationships with his kids improved because he was present instead of performing productivity.
What he said:
"Nothing's changed but everything's changed. I can't explain it. It doesn't make sense. But the weight is gone."
DIAGNOSTIC SUMMARY | James H. - UK |
|---|---|
Presenting Problem | Guilt, anxiety, inability to enjoy success, course addiction |
Actual Problem | Seeking permission from an external authority that doesn't exist. Performing for an imaginary audience instead of living. |
The Shift | When he saw the audience wasn't real, the performance stopped. The anxiety wasn't solved, it was revealed as unnecessary. |
Results | Morning anxiety gone. Present with family. Taking action without resistance. Eighteen months of procrastination cleared in weeks. |
Diagnostic Summary: James H. - UK
(click to reveal)
Guilt, anxiety, inability to enjoy success, course addiction
Seeking permission from an external authority that doesn't exist. Performing for an imaginary audience instead of living.
When he saw the audience wasn't real, the performance stopped. The anxiety wasn't solved, it was revealed as unnecessary.
Morning anxiety gone. Present with family. Taking action without resistance. Eighteen months of procrastination cleared in weeks.
Further Case Studies and Client Feedback
Are Inside The Diagnostic Brief - Access Now
Client Q&A
Client: Harriet C. - UK
Q. What was the situation before we started working together that prompted you to contact me? How were you feeling?
Before we started working together, my business had zero structure. I had a false sense of confidence through believing strategies or ways of working were either right or wrong. I wouldn't even consider giving other options out of fear of them falling into the "bad" category.
To be honest, I just felt lost. I felt so stuck in this lens of seeing things as right or wrong, which actually just kept me frozen in a space where I couldn't move forward. I also felt incredibly scared.
Q. How long had you been feeling like this?
I felt like this from day one of starting my business, but I also realised that all of my beliefs and ways of thinking have been (somewhat) carrying me my whole life. I've always been scared to test the waters out of fear of it being the wrong thing to do, and stuck within "safe" parameters which were keeping me above water, but not letting me live in a way that I wanted.
Q. Why did you want to work with me?
I really liked your simple, no BS approach. I worked with a few people 1:1 for a variety of reasons, and I really love 1:1 work, but I was tired of fluffy conversation, and paying people who still held back from being straight with me when it came to what was holding me back. It's because the thing that was holding me back was me, and a lot of people find it difficult to articulate that to a client.
Q. What has happened since we started working together? What changes have you experienced?
My business has taken a lot of turns. I've landed an opportunity that could potentially turbo boost my business growth. My quarter goal was to obtain 20 new clients, and I've reached 40. My confidence in what I can achieve has also turbo boosted. I actually believe that I can achieve amazing things, and I'm ready for opportunities to manifest out of making a structured plan, and to accept and roll with the opportunities that come out of left field.
The best way I can explain it is that I feel that I have expanded. I now understand what true growth feels like.
Q. What are the biggest lessons you have learnt during our time together?
Where do I start — there's been so many!
- To stop viewing things as being "good" or "bad" but as data to assess and evaluate
- To own a method that is as simple as possible
- To stop hiding and showcase my business and myself
- The best way to market yourself is to be yourself
- That you can feel negative emotions AND take action
- How to actually plan authentically
- The power of subtraction over addition
Q. Summarise your experience with just 3 words?
Expansion. Mind-blowing. Breakthrough.
Q. What would you say to others considering reaching out to me?
Just do it. You won't come across someone easily who will be straight up with you and call you out on your BS whilst still being compassionate and non-judgemental. This is an investment that will change your life.
Q. Any additional comments?
Honestly, just thank you so much. I couldn't imagine, or would want to work with anyone else.
Further Case Studies and Client Feedback
Are Inside The Diagnostic Brief - Access Now
Composite Case Study
Type of Engagement: Single Diagnostic Intensive
Client: Sophie S. - Netherlands
Sophie had spent weeks going in circles when she approached me.
Her task appeared simple enough: decide how to position her business and who to target. She'd stared at the question until it paralysed her. Every time she landed on an answer, she immediately saw reasons it was wrong. Too narrow. Too broad. Not quite right.
She'd frozen completely.
"I got stuck," she said. "I was going round in circles for days, then I just froze for weeks."
She'd recently qualified in a new field and was trying to build a business around her expertise. She had the credentials. She had real experience. She had everything except the ability to make a decision and move.
The first hour was diagnostic.
She kept bouncing between options. Each time she chose a direction, she'd immediately find problems with it.
"I want to help this group," she'd say. "But then I think, what about this other group? And maybe I should focus on this instead."
I pushed back.
"You're trying to fit yourself into a box. But you don't fit. That's not a problem with your positioning, that's the consequence of you trying to hide."
The real problem wasn't indecision. It was fear. She was scared of being visible as herself, so she kept searching for a framework that would let her avoid it.
She'd been hiding behind her qualifications and tools, using them as a shield against having to show up as herself.
Something shifted when we stopped talking about positioning frameworks and started talking about her actual life.
She'd moved abroad on her own ten years ago. She knew what it felt like to arrive somewhere new full of excitement and then, a few years in, find yourself wondering: Is this it?
Listening to the passion in her voice as she shared her story, the solution was obvious.
"What you're really want to help people with," I said, "isn't a methodology. It's the thing you've actually lived."
She went quiet. Then: "Yes. That's it. I know that's true. I just didn't thing that was possible."
The answer she'd been searching for wasn't in a framework. It was in her own experience. The very thing she'd been trying to hide was the thing that made her valuable.
The second hour got practical.
We mapped out what she was actually offering. Not the technical thing everyone else was selling. Something specific that came from her own journey.
She became calm, engaged, and present.
Now playing the game she wanted to play, instead of watching from the sidelines.
The perfectionism that had frozen her for weeks started to dissolve once she stopped trying to fit herself into a framework designed for others, and started speaking from what she'd actually lived.
"You just need to be you," I told her. "Stop trying to be like what you've seen elsewhere. If you really want to help people, you've got to show up as yourself. That's what actually works."
What shifted:
Sophie force herself into the neat boxes the marketing frameworks insisted on. The paralysis broke when she recognised that her own experience was exactly what provided the value, not the credentials she'd been hiding behind. The positioning she'd been searching for was the life she'd been living.
What she said:
"Every decision was tangled up. Now I can see it's not about the frameworks or the methodology. It's about me and what I've actually been through."
DIAGNOSTIC SUMMARY | Sophie S. - Netherlands |
|---|---|
Presenting Problem | Paralysed trying to make a decision. Weeks frozen. Perfectionism blocking all progress. |
Actual Problem | Hiding behind credentials and frameworks instead of showing up as herself. Using expertise as a shield against being visible. Trying to fit her messy human experience into neat professional boxes. |
The Pattern | Overthinking as avoidance. Each option generated reasons it was wrong. The perfectionism wasn't about getting it right, it was about not having to choose, not having to be seen. |
The Shift | When she stopped talking about frameworks and started talking about her own experience, the answer became obvious. She wasn't searching for a positioning strategy. She was avoiding the vulnerability of being herself. |
Results | Clarity that her own experience was her qualification. Permission to stop hiding behind credentials and start showing up as a human. Understanding that the reality of her own life was the value, not something to be hidden. |
Diagnostic Summary: Sophie S. - Netherlands
(click to reveal)
Paralysed trying to make a decision. Weeks frozen. Perfectionism blocking all progress.
Hiding behind credentials and frameworks instead of showing up as herself. Using expertise as a shield against being visible. Trying to fit her messy human experience into neat professional boxes.
Overthinking as avoidance. Each option generated reasons it was wrong. The perfectionism wasn't about getting it right, it was about not having to choose, not having to be seen.
When she stopped talking about frameworks and started talking about her own experience, the answer became obvious. She wasn't searching for a positioning strategy. She was avoiding the vulnerability of being herself.
Clarity that her own experience was her qualification. Permission to stop hiding behind credentials and start showing up as a human. Understanding that the reality of her own life was the value, not something to be hidden.
Further Case Studies and Client Feedback
Are Inside The Diagnostic Brief - Access Now
Client Reflection
Client: J.B. - UK via Email
Mark,
It has taken me a full seven days to recognise that the struggle to write an honest, reflective piece very closely mirrors the process we spent months working through together.
Not to be put off, to give up, abandon the task or convince myself that the excuses I told myself are the whole truth: "I'm too busy," "the kids were ill," "something came up with work."
To let go of the belief that it shouldn't be this hard. That others will produce something better, much more easily and quickly.
To just get on with the task, without judging it for how it should feel, or how it should work out, or what it means, or judging myself for not finding it easier.
I came to you with much the same problem: Help me shape my unformed ideas into something that other people will recognise in themselves and buy into.
Except it wasn't my truth to sell.
I wasn't facing up to my own constraints.
I told myself a lot of excuses for not getting it done and the time marched on.
It wasn't the fact that the work was going to be hard that kept derailing me. It was that I hadn't acknowledged the type of hard that I can do, and will do consistently.
The hard things that I've been doing all my life and all through my career, but never recognised or valued.
Leaning into that, acknowledging what I was resisting and being completely open to who I am, what I love and what I'm good at, everything started to fall into place after that.
I think that, in a nutshell, is what this has been about.
The Matrix references came in somewhere around the midpoint of our time working together and never left.
I don't know any of my compatriots on this journey, but I like to think that the one thing we have in common is a resistant mind.
We're here because we know something; we feel it, but we can't explain it and we can't avoid it. "Like a splinter in the mind."
And resistant minds need a guide to find their freedom, even if that freedom is painful and difficult.
You have been that guide.
The tough feedback, delivered with kindness and humour, that you want from a trusted friend, but they rarely possess the openness to get themselves out of the way, and allow you to have the experience you need.
The solid support you want from a partner, but without the baggage. And the accountability and direction you want from a really good mentor.
Working through this process through the lens of business has been especially effective. There's something uniquely confronting about money and business. Something that really holds up the mirror to some deep-seated beliefs about how we understand ourselves and the value of our time and energy.
I'm still having my slip-ups and misdirected moments.
But you showed me that the slipping up is the training. And what matters is to catch myself and reset. I'm getting quicker at it.
Thank you.
What You've Just Read
The examples above follow the same pattern.
In every case, the thing the client thought was wrong wasn’t the real problem.
What looked like a motivation issue was actually the business asking them to operate in a way they don’t sustain.
What felt like indecision was really avoidance of a role or action that didn’t fit them.
What showed up as inconsistency was a plan that required behaviours they don’t naturally repeat.
The visible issue was a symptom, not the cause.
The Strategic Friction Diagnostic exists to find that underlying mismatch.
Not to give you another plan or set of actions, but to show where your business is quietly working against you — in ways you and everyone you’ve worked with may have missed.
Further Case Studies and Client Feedback
↓↓ Are Inside The Diagnostic Brief ↓↓
Next Step: Access The Diagnostic Brief
The Strategic Friction Diagnostic Brief contains:
- A detailed breakdown of the Diagnostic process: What happens before, during, and after the session, and how the work actually unfolds.
- Pricing and practical details: Clear information on investment and logistics.
- Extended client case studies: Real examples showing what clients came in with, what was revealed, and what changed.
- An example Strategic Friction Map: A full, anonymised diagnostic document so you can see exactly what you’ll receive.
- An example Alignment Brief: A forward-looking document showing how diagnostic clarity translates into concrete decisions and actions.
- Frequently asked questions: Clear answers to common concerns around fit, expectations, and outcomes.
- A direct link to book your Diagnostic: If, after reviewing the material, the Diagnostic makes sense for you.
Access The Diagnostic Brief
Enter your first name and email address below to receive access to the brief.
Currently accepting a limited number of Diagnostic clients each month.
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