I work with men who are carrying something heavy and have nowhere to put it down. In ninety minutes you will say the thing out loud, and you will leave knowing your next move. No judgement, no lecture, no report card.
Twenty minutes with me. It costs nothing and you are not signing up for anything.
Ricardo Zaal is a coach for men, based in Pretoria North, South Africa. He works one on one with men carrying pressure, grief, burnout or pretence they cannot talk about anywhere else. Sessions run ninety minutes, on a call anywhere in South Africa or in person in Pretoria, and every man starts with a free twenty minute conversation. He takes five men at a time.
Let me say it before you have to
You are the one people phone when it falls apart. You have carried men through things that would have finished them. You are steady, and everybody has quietly decided that means you are fine.
So when it is your turn, there is no queue at your door. There is just you, sitting in the car a minute longer than you need to, working out the numbers before you walk in and greet everybody like a man with no problems.
You have read the books. You have done a course or two. You know what you should be doing. And you still lie there at half past one going over the same thing, and by the time the sun comes up you have put the face back on.
It is not weakness. You have simply never had one room where you were allowed to stop performing. Not one. That is all this is.
Am I the right man for you
If two of those landed, you are the man I built this for. Book the call.
And if you want somebody to hand you a plan and tell you what to do, do not book it. That is not what happens in this room.
Before you worry about it
I do not care what you drink, what you have done, what you are still doing, or how far away from where you should be you think you are.
Every person is walking their own road at their own pace, and it has never been my job to grade anybody. I have sat with men in the middle of things they were sure would make me get up and leave. I did not leave. Nothing you say to me is going to change how I look at you.
And this is real life, not religion. We deal with your money, your marriage, your work, your temper, your grief and the Monday morning you are dreading. Whatever you believe or do not believe is yours, and it stays yours.
What actually changes
Not motivation. Motivation is finished by Thursday. This is what men tell me is different.
The thing you have never told anybody gets said, in a room where nothing bad happens afterwards. Most men have never had that once in their lives.
You stop holding up the version of yourself everybody expects. It is exhausting, and the people at home have been paying for it.
Not a ten year plan. One thing, this week, that you actually do. Then the next one. That is how men get out, and I have not seen another way.
How I work
Advice is just what I would have done. It fits my life and not yours, and you drop it the first week things get hard. The answer you find yourself is the one you still have in six months.
So I ask, and I let the room go quiet instead of filling it for you. When something out of my own life is useful you get it at the end, as a light and never as a map.
Twenty minutes. You talk, I listen. At the end I tell you straight whether I am the right man for this, and what it costs if we carry on.
Ninety minutes, just the two of us. Most men get further in that one conversation than in a year of turning it over at night.
Six sessions if you want to go further. Long enough for something real to change, short enough that you cannot hide inside it.
What I sound like
Ek gaan nie preek en se hoe goed God is nie, maar ek vra wees mens. Huil as jy moet. Skreeu as jy moet. Vloek God as jy moet. Doen net dit wat jou beter gaan laat voel.
I am not going to lecture you. I am asking you to be human. Cry if you must. Scream if you must. Swear at God if you must. Just do the thing that is going to make you better.
That is not a slogan for a website. That is how I talk to a man who is in it, and it is what you will get from me.
About me
My name is Ricardo Zaal. I could give you a list of things that would make me sound impressive. What I would rather you know is that I have been where you are sitting, and I did not have anybody to phone.
I have worked inside businesses for twenty eight years, ten of those running my own, so I know the week you are actually living. Targets, month end, the drive home, the pressure you do not put down at the front door. I have pastored for twelve years alongside all of it, which means I have sat with people on the worst day of their lives more times than I can count.
On 10 July 2010 I lost my two sons, my mother and my stepfather. All four of them in one day, a few hours apart. I know what it is to sit in a room full of people who love you and want every single one of them to go home.
I have been broke. I chased money for years thinking that was the answer. I spent a fortune on courses and coaches looking for the thing that would finally make me feel like enough, and it was in none of them. I have stood in a room telling everybody I was fine while I was working out how to get to month end.
So there is very little you can put in front of me that I have not either lived or sat with.
What you actually get
You have never had one place where you could put it all down. This is that place, and it is built so you cannot drift out of it.
Included
| One conversation | The Room | |
|---|---|---|
| How long | One session of ninety minutes | Six sessions across twelve weeks |
| Best for | One thing you cannot see past | Something you have carried for years |
| Between sessions | Not applicable | A message a week, answered in two working days |
| Emergency call | No | Yes, once, within forty eight hours |
| You leave with | One action, in writing | An action every session and a written close |
| If it is not worth it | You do not pay for it | The first session still counts |
Work out what this year has already cost you. The nights you did not sleep. What your wife and your children have been getting instead of you. The chances you did not take because you were too tired to see them.
Against that, the number is small, and I will give it to you straight on the call once I know what you actually need. A man who wants one conversation and a man who wants twelve weeks are not the same job and I am not going to price you before I have listened to you.
There are five places. As of today there is room. When it is full you go on a list and you wait, because I would rather you wait than get half of me.
Sit down with me for ninety minutes. At the end, if you tell me it was not worth your time and money, you pay nothing for that session. No argument, no awkwardness, no chasing you.
I can say that because I have watched what one honest conversation does to a man who has been carrying something alone. I am not asking you to trust me yet. I am asking you to test me once.
Before you ask
We talk about the number on the call, once I know what you need, because a man who needs one conversation and a man who needs twelve weeks are not the same job. The call itself costs you nothing.
You talk and I listen. That is most of it. Near the end I will ask you a question or two, and then I tell you honestly whether I am the right man for this. If I am not, I will say so.
Most men who sit down with me have. Usually they were handed somebody else's system and told to fit into it. We start from your actual life instead, and we go at the thing underneath rather than the thing on the surface.
You already spend more than ninety minutes a week going over it in your head at one in the morning. This is the same time, spent somewhere it actually moves.
No. Most of it happens on a call, so it works wherever you are in the country. In person in Pretoria North if you would rather.
Then you break down. It will not be the first time that has happened in front of me and I am not going to rush you through it. That is the point of having one room where you do not have to hold it together.
Something usually shifts in the first conversation, because saying it out loud changes it. The rest takes as long as it takes, and I will not sell you a timeline I cannot keep.
Yes. What you say to me stays with me.
It is November. You are still the strong one. You are still doing the sums in the car. The thing you have never said is still not said, it is just three months heavier, and you have gone one more season giving your family the leftovers.
You said it out loud in week one and the roof did not fall in. You have moved on the thing you had been circling for years. Your wife has noticed. And for the first time in a long time you are not carrying it on your own.
The difference between those two is twenty minutes on a phone, and it costs you nothing to find out.
Yes, book my free callTwenty minutes on WhatsApp. You are not signing up for anything. Or email info@ricardozaal.com