How To Choose Your Coach with Acute Self-Awareness

 This week's chat examines the complexities of routine disruptions, the nuances of financial success in coaching, and the pivotal role of personal effort. We dissect the discussion about the coaching industry stirred by Reddit critiques and confront the industry's pattern of coaches coaching coaches, while emphasizing the significance of self-awareness in choosing the right coach for your journey.

Embarking on a quest to pinpoint exactly what kind of coaching support will spark your growth? Join us as we delve into the myriad of coaching avenues from strategy to mindset work, and how to effectively match your needs with the ideal coach. We share insider perspectives on how I weave neuroscience and mental health insights into developing personalized strategies, ensuring your business activities resonate with your core values. Listen in as we dissect a client's hesitation to email her list, revealing the transformational impact of aligning marketing approaches with one's genuine energy and aspirations.

As we wrap up, prepare to empower your decision-making skills and bravely face the fears that trail behind. With insights into the finer details of the decision-making process and how to cultivate an optimal emotional state, we aim to equip you with the resilience to make self-assured choices. Our conversation is a heartfelt bid to foster a journey towards self-reliance, ensuring that your coaching experience paves the way for independence, not dependence. So here's to a week of bold decisions and fearless pursuits — until we meet again, Besties!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Hey Bestie, what's up? How are you doing today? Happy Thursday. I'm getting this episode out a little late just because I've had a lot going on the last couple of days and, I'm gonna be honest, I didn't carve out the time to do it like I normally do. And so that's just a little note for everybody, right, that like if we don't carve out the time ahead of time and we think we're just gonna get to it, that's usually not the case, we're usually not just gonna get to it.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So, and it's because, like yesterday's schedule was different, like I added something to my schedule Yesterday that's not normally a part of my schedule which was a free group coaching call, and I'm gonna be doing these once a month. So I'm super excited about those and if you want to be involved, if you wanna come to a free group coaching call, you gotta get on my mailing list, because that's where I am sending out the links et cetera for people to come to those calls. But yeah, that was a new thing on my schedule yesterday. That's not normally there, and having new things in my schedule kind of throws me off. Like I have a pretty set routine where I don't really have to think too much about having the time to like, say, produce my podcast. It's sort of like an unconscious commitment loosely scheduled into my calendar for like Wednesday afternoons, and my Wednesday afternoon had this coaching call and then I had to get some other things done and then it was like dinner time and it just like there it was, it was gone. So, yeah, that is just a perfect example of how, like not really thinking ahead, like I wasn't thinking ahead this week, I didn't do my planning for the week on like Saturday or Sunday, like I was going to, and this is where we ended up. So note to myself right, anyway, I'm well, things are good and we're just gonna dive straight in.

Speaker 1: 2:42

So today I wanna talk about something that is on my mind, and partly why it's on my mind is because I have been spending a little bit of time on Reddit. I know I shouldn't I tell myself not to and then I'm curious and specifically it's this Reddit thread community I don't even know what you call them that specifically was created to trash talk, the life coach school in Brookestio and it's sort of branched out into trash talking Some of the other coaches who you could call them, like her disciples. Another way to say it would be like her horcruxes. There was this like funny reel about Oprah and her horcruxes and how they're like Dr Phil Ian Levenson, dr oh my God, what's his name the guy who ran for office. I can't even remember his name anymore Dr Oz or whatever. Anyway, so this life coach it's called life coach snark and it's just like they just are obsessed with being snarky about Brook and the life coach school and all the things and specifically like complaining about what they feel like they didn't get from the experience. And I then think I want to talk about things like Coaches who are coaching other coaches, which I mean I think that is definitely like a thing right, like coaches want coaching so they get coached, and a lot of coaches have built their businesses around coaching other coaches.

Speaker 1: 4:25

But I don't think it's as like predatory or as, like you know, mlm is, as people are making out to be like. I know so many people who have coaching businesses, not coaching other coaches, coaching like lots of other kinds of people, and they make money doing it. They make money to support themselves. Not everyone's going to be making, you know, multiple six figures and seven figures. Like that's just not realistic and you know, thinking about going into the coaching industry and believing that like it's just like an easy road to six figures, it's like not, it's not true at all, but it's very, very possible and if you're, you know, willing to put in the time, and that's the thing it's. It's not an immediate thing. It's not immediate gratification. There's very low bar for entry and you can create a business with very little overhead, but what ends up happening a lot of times is people keep investing in coaching and in other people's programs at very high prices, I will say, expecting that just by paying to be in that room, that it's somehow going to like skyrocket their business and that's just not going to happen. Right like, you still have to show up, you still have to do the work. So, anyway, one of the things that really I noticed is the people who harp on coaches who are marketing to other coaches or anybody, on creating like a six figure business, and the biggest sort of criticism is that some of these coaches have never done that themselves, and I think that that's valid and it's also not valid, and so this is kind of what I want to talk about today is how to hire a coach. That's where, that's where this conversation is interesting for me and I think it's interesting and useful for you, the listener.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Whether you are a coach yourself and you're thinking about your marketing, you're thinking about yourself and the value that you offer, and maybe you're having some imposter syndrome about what you do, and for those of you who might be interested in having a coach, kind of what to think about when you're looking for someone to help support you on achieving what you want to achieve. So let's just dive in and talk about the first thing that you really need to think about is personal accountability. Like I said before, just paying to be in someone's program does not guarantee you your results and not every single thing that someone else suggests in their program is going to work for you. So personal accountability and personal awareness, I think, are the two most important things to get really clear on and have a great grasp on when you're looking to hire a coach or anybody who is going to be helping you. You want help, you know to reach your goals, and so the personal awareness piece is kind of knowing for yourself what works for you, what doesn't work for you. You know when you're in someone's container, what you're going to apply and what you're not going to apply. And I love to bring this back to dance, cuz that's my first, my first love and it's one of those things where you know there's a I think I've talked about this on the podcast before there is a point when someone is younger or just beginning, right there beginner dancer when we basically, as an instructor, I would say like, just assume every correction that I give is for you and just apply it right. You're working with a group of people maybe there's 20 people in the room.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Giving, handing out, like individual corrections is not always possible, right, and so you know, when you're in someone's container say it's a group container or it's like a mastermind not everything is going to be applicable to you, and so learning how to discern what is actually going to benefit you or not is a really perfect skill. But at the beginning, when you're like, when you don't really know, you do kind of have to try on all the advice. You do kind of have to like take every like, quote, unquote, correction right, every piece of information that someone's giving you, because you just don't know, and that's how you figure out what works for you, what doesn't work for you. You can't ever just take someone's process and copy and paste it into your own life and think that you're going to achieve the same results that they achieve. That's just not possible. It's not a thing. I don't care who you are.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Everyone, everyone that I've ever worked with has had to make tweaks to whatever process it was that they were following in order to eventually get the results that they wanted. So that's the first thing to think about is, like there will be that point where you're taking everything on and you're you're trying it all, and then you will develop, like, the discern ability to know what is for you and what's not for you. And this happens with, like a very advanced dancers right, where they can, I can yell out a correction and they can scan their body and know whether or not they're already doing the thing I'm talking about Right, or they'll see like, oh, maybe I can do that a little bit more. Can I do it a little bit more? No, I'm actually at my max. Okay, great, right. And they can start to like self correct and like self edit, like what what's important to them and what what's important for them to Pay attention to what's not right. So that's going to happen for anybody who's being coached using any kind of a container. It's like, eventually you'll start to understand, like, what is being taught to you, whether or not it's going to work for you or not work for you. And again, this all just takes time and practice and evaluation, really.

Speaker 1: 10:39

And then the accountability piece, right, is that like, are you committed to that trial and error process? Are you committed to showing up and being a beginner and now, and being a beginner and not having any idea what you're doing, and trying everything in the world and figuring out what works and what doesn't work, and running experiments? Like, are you committed to that? Because if you are not committed to that, it does not matter who you work with, you're not going to achieve the results you want. So I don't think that people are marketing like To you to lie to you about the results that are possible, because you know the results are possible, but they're not going to be possible if you're not somebody who's willing to go through that process and who just wants it now. And so that's the personal accountability piece.

Speaker 1: 11:33

And then, once you have those two things right, once you kind of have the awareness, or you know you're going to build awareness over time, but you're going to start with the awareness that you have and you have the accountability, then it's time to ask yourself the question of, like, what do you actually need? What kind of support do you actually need to achieve your goals? And I think this is the piece that people don't actually do when they are Seeking out help, when they're seeking out a coach or a program in order to help them. And now I will be. I will be 100 percent honest about the fact that I do think there are some people who are selling Like we talked about this, like potential results, and we want to stop buying potential results. I do think that that's a thing. There's a marketing thing going on where people are doing that. But I think if you really look into the work, if you really look at what, if you follow someone for long enough and you see, like what they're, what they're consistently talking about, they're going to show you right, like what the process is and what it's like and what it sounds like and what it looks like and how long it might take for some people to achieve that right. So I think it's there if you do your research.

Speaker 1: 12:55

But what kind of support do you need? So, when we're thinking about, let's say, coaches, for instance. What kind of a coach are you looking for? And this is where we start to break down the different kinds of things that people offer. So, are you looking for someone to help you with strategy? Are you looking for someone to help you with accountability? Do you want mentorship? Is it education? Is it mindset work? Is it motivation, like, what specifically do you need?

Speaker 1: 13:32

And this takes some like personal work to even get to that point and you might be like you know what, I don't even know what I need. And that's where then you can start to kind of look to the people. Have you know connection calls, consult calls with people, whatever they call them, and find out what they do, find out what they offer. Like, ask them do you, you know, if I come into your container, are you gonna tell me what to do? Some people really want someone to tell them what to do, to give them a strategy. Right, are you looking for someone to give you a strategy?

Speaker 1: 14:05

If you came to me and asked for a strategy, I would say that's not what I do, so let's look at what I do and then we can sort of branch out into what other people do. I think I have to. I really focus on mindset first. So it's mindset education. There's gonna be stuff that I'm gonna teach you different concepts. I'm gonna bring in information from, like you know, any of the books or studies that I'm reading, like neuroscience, mental health, stuff, like there's gonna be components of that where it's like explaining like, okay, yeah, this is what the brain does or this is why you might do that right. So there's an educational component to it.

Speaker 1: 14:46

And then, when it comes to strategy, we're going to do that together. We're gonna brainstorm strategy together. We're gonna talk about, like here is like conventional advice, right, that you, anyone can find on the internet. Let's talk about what might work for you, what might not work for you, what have you tried? What felt good about that, what didn't feel good about that? And this is where, when we talk about what felt good and what didn't feel good, we start to get into like, why did it feel good? Or not feel good?

Speaker 1: 15:16

So perfect example is someone I coached yesterday on the free call. She was like not wanting to like email her list, for instance, and she really had fun with, like you know, making her podcast or producing, producing content for social media. But when it came to emailing her list, it was kind of like ugh, it's so boring. And first we just explored, like okay, you don't have to email your list. Like you definitely don't have to do that if you don't want to. We don't wanna be doing things in our business that, like that, aren't fun for us, because we're gonna see so much more benefit when we're actually doing stuff that we enjoy, that like helps us engage with people, because that's really what it's all about is like engaging with people. And if you hate emailing, if you hate doing that, like you're not gonna be super engaging.

Speaker 1: 16:09

So we first just talked about like the different ways with which she could like shift her strategy for marketing on social media. So here is where I had some suggestions. Right, have you thought about only offering? Right your consults? Like the only thing you're gonna make an offer on is around consults. So normally, as you know, she might do a call to action around go listen to this podcast or whatever. And I said, like what if, for a month, you only ever did a call to action that was sign up for a consult? And what if, in your link, instead of having a full link tree with all the different places people can find you. What if your link was just to book a consult? And she was like resistant to that at first, but she was like okay, yeah, that might actually work, because what is the result she wanted? The result she wanted was to book more consults. So let's go all in on the platform that you enjoy working in and that's fun for you and focus it on getting you those consults.

Speaker 1: 17:09

I did start with a little bit of strategy there and then we went back and talked about but like, why don't you like interacting with your list? Like, why don't you like emailing? And this is where it became some kind of mindset stuff and emotional stuff that we needed to work through. And it was like her own thoughts about you know emails that she gets that like sometimes it's annoying to be, you know emailed so much. But then she was like actually like the emails that I like I like getting. So you know, there is proof right there that, like people do subscribe to your list because they want to hear from you and she has examples of people that she wants to hear from. And then someone else chimed in and said you know, I'm not really on social media much anymore because there's so many ads. So I actually prefer to get contacted by the people who's lists I'm on, because I want to know what they're doing and I don't want to be on social media, right.

Speaker 1: 18:01

So then she was able to kind of shift you know out of that and like see that there is value in that and once, like we could be there with the like okay, it is maybe valuable to like think about engaging with the list more than we got to like how can it be fun? And she's like yeah, well, I mean it is fun when I'm doing my podcast and like great, so how do you bring that energy? You already have it in one place. What do you need to do to like bring it into this other place of what would make writing your emails fun? So see, I'm just like asking her questions to kind of help her figure it out for herself. I don't know what's fun for her, so I can't give her advice on that, but I can help her like with you know, questions, that's where the coaching is. The coaching is in the questions. So little bit of strategy, little bit of mindset, she walks away with a new plan, right. So that's a perfect example of like what it looks like to be in a container with me where I'm not going to lead with strategy necessarily, but we can talk about what's working, what's not working, why it's working right.

Speaker 1: 19:10

So I don't necessarily consider myself a business coach. I do coach people around their businesses, but I'm not focused on their actions necessarily. So this is where we get into like, are you looking for someone who's going to give you action coaching, like things to do Right, or are you looking for someone who's going to help mine, your own brain, to help you come up with solutions for yourself, right? That's kind of the difference. Then we're thinking about like you know, are you looking for mentorship? To me, like, a true mentor is somebody who has experience in the field that you're working in, that has experience doing the thing that you want to be doing and can help you, you know, with relationships, can help you Kind of with a roadmap, can help you with motivation, like I think motivation is a part of it With like Growth opportunities, but they're really going to be more like someone who is a few, maybe a few steps ahead of you In the pursuit of what you're doing and they've done the same thing right. So this is what I think about in terms of a mentor are they going to be coaching you? Are they going to be coaching you?

Speaker 1: 20:35

I don't think a mentor is really doing coaching, in my opinion, because coaching to me is a very specific act of Asking someone questions, helping them challenge their assumptions, their stories, helping them shift their mind around those stories. I don't think that's what a mentor is doing right. So you might be looking for mentorship. Then don't look for a life coach, right for mentorship, because that's not the job and this is where Someone again could be coaching people on their businesses, like I do, and saying like I can help you reach your goal from a coaching and mindset and education Perspective, and not necessarily from a strategic perspective, not necessarily from a mentorship perspective.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Now maybe you're looking for accountability. You don't necessarily need to pay someone for accountability and I don't like to be someone's accountability person. Some people might use me for accountability, but that's not really why I'm showing up like I'm not, like you know, check in with me to make sure that you did X, y and Z, like that's not really my job as far as I'm concerned. But there will be people right the like because I offer in between support, like in between session support. So there are people who use that, like you know, on Marco Polo, to reach out to me, to you know, say like hey, this is what we talked about, this is what I did, right, just to kind of like keep themselves accountable, but I'm not checking in to make sure they're doing right. If you want someone, you can get a buddy for that. Like you can hook up with somebody who, right, also wants to work on accountability and you can be each other's accountability partners.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Like I know, there are a lot of programs. Like there's a program that I just joined with Matia. They were on the podcast. We did that podcast together A few months back. They have a community and they do like a co-working time, right, so I know that's really helpful for, especially, a lot of neurodivergence. Like I'm not really a co-working person, like that doesn't help me Work, but like it does for a lot of people. So like that's a way that you can get accountability. And I caution against hiring someone, paying someone to be your accountability person Because, like what happens when they're not there, right, like I don't want to be the reason why you're doing things. My whole thing is like I should be coaching you to a point where you don't need me. You know I'm saying so.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Then let's talk about motivation. So I think one of the reasons why people are willing to spend a lot of money, especially for, like, high ticket masterminds etc or what, like, what masterminds have become in the coaching space Whereas, like I think, originally masterminds definitely had a different definition, but like, kind of what they've become is that motivation. You found this person who, when they speak, the things that they say just click. Other people could have said the same thing but, for whatever reason, you weren't ready to hear it or it wasn't said in a way that you could digest it or whatever. It's just like that person talks and it all makes sense for you and honestly, I think that's worth a lot of money. When someone can actually like, resonate with you and it can be motivating and it can make you feel like anything is possible and they're holding so much belief for you that you can borrow that belief Like.

Speaker 1: 24:15

I do think that that's worth a lot of money, especially if you're going to get a return on your investment and again, that comes back down to you and how much you're willing to work and if you're committed to getting a return on your investment or not, if you are willing to try and try and try until things come together, or if you're just going to be like, well, I tried these three things that you said and it didn't work. And so this, this process, doesn't work Right. That's not it for me. Like you really do have to actually like show up, do the work, try to adapt it to fit your personal you know style or needs and then we can talk about whether or not, like, you got what you paid for. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 25:04

So these are the questions to think about. These are, like the kind of concepts that we want to be considering when we're looking for somebody to help us get where we want to go. Am I looking for someone to teach me how to do a thing that I don't know how to do? Or am I looking for someone to support me, because I know I get in my own way with my own mind drama and my like BS that I'm sick of dealing with, and someone can help me, like, move out of that, because I know what I need to be doing. I know what I want to be doing, I know what I'm capable of, but I need someone there to help me, like, sift through the madness when my brain starts like it's fuckery around. I'm not good enough, I have nothing to offer, etc. Etc. Etc. That is more what, like me, a mindset coach is doing for someone and what I hire people to do for me when I'm looking to move forward.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Now I did just recently start working right with this coach, this Audi HD coach, and she is helping me a little bit with strategy because she's helping. She's also a therapist and she knows what kind of strategies might be more beneficial for someone who's neurodivergent. And that's a whole different thing, right, like I am looking for someone to suggest strategy but at the same time, I know that I'm going to have to try it out and see if it works for me or not. Like there's still that piece where I have to go and do the work to figure out if what she's telling me is going to be applicable for me in my situation. So that's like us.

Speaker 1: 26:47

I don't know, I don't know if this is my soapbox or whatever, but I think that, like, when you're looking for somebody to support you, it doesn't necessarily matter if they've done the thing that they're coaching you, that they're coaching you to do. If they're a mindset coach, if they're a motivational coach, if they're there to help you believe in yourself more and gain the self confidence to go after your dreams, it doesn't matter. I've coached so many people on things I've never done, especially when I was working for the Life Coach School. I was a general life coach. I'm still a general life coach.

Speaker 1: 27:23

Like I said, I'm some people's business coach, but I basically am coaching people on whatever they bring to me, because it's all usually about mental fitness, mental wellness, emotional regulation, recognizing societal conditioning, like regaining your own voice and establishing you as the top authority in your life. Right, like all of those things. When we work on, those are going to make it clearer for you on the choices that you need to make to move you forward, and so I don't really need to know the specifics of how you get from A to B, like that's not necessarily what's going to move you forward working with me, like I'm not going to give you that because I don't need to know it, but I can help you get there when we clear out all those other things and you do become the number one authority in your life and you stop second guessing yourself and you start making decisions that empower you and impact you positively, and you don't second guess those decisions, you have your own back. That's gonna make you Capable of achieving anything that you want to achieve. You can take those skills and you can apply them to every other aspect of your life, aspects that we didn't even talk about. Like, I don't even need to coach you specifically on those other problems If we've worked it out somewhere else, and then you can borrow that Coaching and apply it to the other areas of your life. You see what I'm saying so. So get really clear right before you go out into the world and you start giving people your money.

Speaker 1: 28:59

Get really clear on what exactly the expectation is that you have for what's gonna happen in that container, so that you can ask that person Right, like is this something that you offer? Are you gonna give me a step by step if the step by step is what you want, or are we gonna figure it out together, or are you not gonna do that at all and I have to make all my own decisions? I have a client who's a coach, who you know has. She has a client that that, like asks her all the time, like what do you think I should do? And she's like I'm not gonna tell you what to do.

Speaker 1: 29:31

And I say that all the time I'm like I don't know what you should do, I have no idea. But let's figure out, like, how you're making the decision, like how do you want to make the decision about what you're gonna do? How do you want to feel while you're making that decision? How do you want to like Face the fear that comes up after making that decision? Like let's talk through all of that and then you're gonna be equipped to make that decision for yourself. All right, friends, I hope that you have an amazing rest of your week and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye.