The problem is not your ability
The common thread is not a profession – it is a feeling. Something has to change, but it is hard to name what.
People come at turning points: returning from a career gap and unable to find footing again, stuck in a role that no longer fits who they have become, carrying ambition they haven’t been given room to use, or simply feeling that the next step is somewhere they can’t yet see.
The work is not for people in crisis. It is for people who are functional, capable, and quietly dissatisfied – who know there is more in them than their current situation allows.
“At first I didn’t know what to expect. I doubted that talking could change anything. And I wasn’t sure I had anything worth saying about myself. I was wrong on both counts.”
– Business professional
A guide who has been there
I know what it feels like to carry ambition in an environment that doesn’t quite see it yet. I am Esko Lehtme – design executive and career coach. Twenty years in design, leading teams since 2012, coaching professionals one-on-one since 2023.
I also know what changes that – and it is rarely what the person expected when they walked in.
The most common thing I hear after a first session: “I already knew that. I just hadn’t said it out loud.”
People who find their way to this work usually come through someone else – a colleague, a friend, someone who went through it and couldn’t stop talking about it.
The work is not motivational. It is deep, and people surprise themselves.
How it works
Sessions are one-on-one – in person in Tallinn when possible, over video when not.
Coaching
I ask questions people haven’t asked themselves. The answers are already there – the work is creating the conditions to find them. I don’t give advice. I don’t hand down frameworks. I listen carefully, ask the next question, and reflect back what I hear. The pace is set by what emerges, not by a fixed agenda.
One question I come back to often: what else?
“You always guide me into the discomfort zone to find answers within myself – without ever saying them to me.”
– Team lead
Mentorship
Mentorship works differently. I share experiences and anecdotes from my own career openly – including the failures. Where it helps, I bring in frameworks, tools, and references.
In coaching, the client finds their own answers. In mentorship, I offer mine as material to work with, not conclusions to adopt.
“You ask questions I wouldn’t have thought of myself – even though the answers were already inside me. You never handed me the answers. You helped me see them.”
– UX designer
A simple plan
1. Book a free discovery conversation We talk for 30 minutes. You share where you are. I share how I work. We find out if this is the right fit – for both of us.
2. Design your growth plan together Based on what emerges, we map out what the work looks like – the focus, the cadence, the goals.
3. Ongoing sessions for clarity and momentum We meet regularly. I ask the questions. You find the answers. The direction gets clearer with each conversation.
What becomes possible
Professionals who do this work leave with something they didn’t come in expecting: not a solution handed to them, but a confidence in their own judgment they hadn’t felt in years.
Some apply for ambitious roles they’d been circling for years – and spend weeks preparing, because now the direction is clear. Some finally have the direct conversation with their manager about the thing they’d been avoiding for months. Some start the business they’d been calling just an idea. Some shift positions entirely, retrain, and build toward something that fits who they’ve actually become.
They know what they want – and can say it out loud.
“Your approach, your flexibility, your uncomfortable – meaning necessary – questions, your warm presence. Every session felt psychologically safe. I could talk without a mask.”
– Architect
What stays the same if you don’t
The next opportunity will come – and pass – before you’ve figured out what you actually want. The role that doesn’t fit will still not fit. The gap between your capability and your situation will keep quietly growing.
Clarity doesn’t arrive on its own. It takes the right conditions and the right questions.
Ready to find out if this is right for you?
The first conversation costs nothing. What it does require is willingness to be honest about where you actually are.
Book a discovery conversation