What Coaches/Mentors Can Learn from The Zero-Waste Home
Devon ran leadership workshops for mid-career professionals and spent a weekend before a retreat sorting a storage closet: boxes of printed workbooks from a curriculum he had since revised, branded pens from a sponsor two seasons ago, and laminated exercise cards nobody had requested in over a year. Each item had made sense at the time it was ordered. A full print run felt safer than running out mid-session, a sponsor's swag felt like a fair trade, and laminated cards seemed durable enough to justify the cost. But looking at the closet now, he realized his business of helping people grow had quietly generated a steady stream of physical leftovers no client had ever asked him to keep.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Why the storage closet fills before anyone notices
The book's core claim is that clutter is an acquisition habit rather than a disposal failure, materials enter faster than anyone consciously decides. In a coaching practice this shows up as the full print run ordered before final headcount, and sponsor swag accepted because declining feels awkward inside a business relationship. Nobody is assigned to question what gets ordered before each cohort, so the closet fills quietly across seasons.
A coach orders workbooks for the maximum possible group size every time, and the unused surplus outlives several curriculum revisions. Practice: before printing or ordering for an event, size the order to confirmed registrations, not the hoped-for maximum.
Before printing or ordering for an event, size the order to confirmed registrations, not the hoped-for maximum.
Where it shows up across a coaching practice
It shows up in four places: the print run for handouts, sized before real attendance is known, sponsor swag accepted as part of doing business, retreat supplies bought fresh each time instead of reused across cohorts, and client follow-up materials sent as habit rather than request.
A coach switches to digital workbooks but still accepts every sponsor giveaway, so the storage closet keeps filling from a different source. Practice: review one of these areas before each new program cycle and ask what a smaller, more deliberate version would look like.
Review one of these areas before each new program cycle and ask what a smaller, more deliberate version would look like.
What a modest version looks like in a coaching practice
None of this means matching Johnson's own household, where a year's trash fits in a jar; a coaching business with printed materials and physical retreats cannot eliminate all physical waste. A modest version looks like printing only what confirmed registrations require, negotiating smaller sponsor quantities, and reusing durable materials like laminated cards across cohorts instead of reordering each time. A coach whose venue still requires certain printed materials has not failed by using them.
A coach tries to go fully digital and refuse every sponsor relationship at once, straining partnerships that fund the practice, and reverts to old habits within one season. Practice: change one recurring order this cycle, such as print run size, and leave sponsor relationships as they are for now.
Change one recurring order this cycle, such as print run size, and leave sponsor relationships as they are for now.
The bigger question this book leaves open
The book raises, without resolving, how much of a coaching business's waste is the practitioner's habit and how much depends on printing vendors, venues, and sponsor-driven marketing norms no individual coach controls. A coach can right-size their own orders and still work within an industry built around printed handouts and branded giveaways. This book focuses on what one practice can control, not the larger industry question.
Sizing every order precisely, auditing several parts of the practice, and staying modest compete with the real uncertainty of not knowing exact attendance until the last minute. A coach also depends on sponsor relationships for income, so refusing swag outright can carry a real cost. Most coaches do better picking the one habit, like print run size, that is easiest to change without threatening a partnership.
Name one thing, honestly
- What in your storage closet would you have ordered differently if you had known final attendance in advance? - Which sponsor material do you accept out of habit rather than because it serves your clients? - Where does a real business need for materials end and a hedge against uncertainty begin?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Change one recurring order this cycle, such as print run size, and leave sponsor relationships as they are for now.