Ep #145: Get Your Coaching Questions Answered

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 145. To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coach-ing. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am so happy you are here today. Hopefully you can hear me, I feel like I’m whispering to have a normal voice today. And I just want to say you may have noticed, I know you have because some of you have sent me messages, the last couple of episodes I have just been recording intros be-cause I have been sick for a couple weeks. And we finally figured out what it is. I’ve gotten some medicine and I should be on the mend. But, I appreciate you, I hope you are enjoying these replays.

And one thing I want to offer today, today’s replay is the very first Q&A epi-sode I did, which was episode 50. And we chose this on purpose because episode 150 is coming up and I do a Q&A every 50 episodes, I have so far. I want you to use this replay, this episode to jog your thoughts about you might be curious about what has changed since that 50th episode, any questions about my business, me personally.

So any questions you have, I would love for you to send them so I can an-swer all of them a couple episodes from now. You can do that by clicking in the show notes and that will lead you to a type form where you can just fill in what your questions are. Feel free to ask one or more than one.

You can also find me on Instagram or just DM me, preferably on Instagram, DM me your questions. I will just make a note of them. I’ll let you know I got them. I’ll make a note of them and I am compiling a list. So send them to me wherever you want to send them, I will add them to my list and I can’t wait, to be healthy first of all, and to record this episode for you. They are some of my favorite episodes that I always do and I always get tons of feedback from them.

So, hopefully what you hear today will be very useful and I’ll be back in a few episodes to answer all of your new questions. Let’s go, can’t wait. See you then. Enjoy.

So what we’re going to do today it’s going to be a little bit different, a little different than usual and I’m so excited for it. I have been asking you all to send in questions because today is my 50th episode, because I love you and I want to answer all of your questions. I wanted to have a kind of 50th episode celebration.

So you guys have been sending me questions and what I’m going to do is I’m just going to have them all here in a list, I’m going to read them and then kind of answer them on the fly. Some of them I read ahead of time and I started to really put together the podcast and think about how I was going to answer them.

And I realized as I was doing that that some of them are very deep, like they could be an entire episode upon themselves. And when I was prepping too much, I could see that this was going to turn into like a three hour episode, and that’s not what I want to do.

So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to read them and just like if someone was interviewing me or asking me on here, just asking me questions that I didn’t know about, that’s how we’re going to do it. I’m just going to answer them and we’ll see how it goes.

I will also be doing more episodes like this in the future. I love some of the questions you guys sent, and there are a lot of them so I might not even get to every single one today. Hopefully I will, but I will definitely be doing more episodes like this because I think that this is so fun. It also gives me really good ideas of what some of you want to hear in the episodes.

So some of these things, I will let you know right now, I will answer them briefly today and I will plan on doing more in depth full episodes later. So I’m just going to dive right in. Some of these are just personal questions, some of them are really fun, and then some of them, a lot of them are obviously like, “Help me with this thing in my coaching sessions.”

My first question, I’m going to just dive right in, from Maria. Should you charge your friends for coaching? I love this question and I think that, like I answer a lot of things, my answer to this is it totally depends. And here’s how I think about it, if I have friends, and I have had this, I even interviewed some of the people on this podcast, Sheri Strzelecki, for example is my best friend from college. She is now a coach, at one point she hired me as her one on one coach when I was doing one on one coaching.

But here’s how I think about this, should your friends pay you for coaching? Absolutely, if they are wanting to hire you as their coach. If they’re wanting regular coaching from you, the kind of coaching you do, and it’s like everything is the same as it would be with your other clients, it just also happens that they are your friend, for sure you should charge them.

And there are so many good reasons why, which I’m not really going to dive into all of them now, but one of them is that just the commitment is way different when someone is actually paying you for a service than just like, “Hey, friend, can I get some coaching?”

Now, you’ve also heard me talk to some of my colleagues on this podcast, for example, Danielle Savory, her and I coach each other sometimes. We are good friends, we don’t pay each other at this point. But sometimes it’s like she’ll message me when she’s in a launch, “Hey, can I get some quick coaching on this?” That’s a little bit different, that’s not like regular coaching it’s more like peer coaching. Like, “Can we just talk about this thing today? Can you help me with this? I’m feeling a little stuck.”

And those are just two different things. It’s like in that situation it’s more of a back and forth, we coach each other every once in a while. I have other friends that I do this with too. But that’s really different, we are also both coaches. So that’s very different than just having a friend in your life that wants to do the work that you offer. Hopefully that is a helpful answer.

The next question, can you talk about the difference between hard coaching and being willing to risk the relationship, versus having a manual for your clients? This is from Siersha. Siersha, I love this question also.

Yes, I can definitely, again, this is one of those I could probably do a whole episode on this. But for now, here’s what I’ll say. To me, the difference between coaching someone hard and being willing to risk the relationship, which risk the relationship isn’t usually terminology that I use. I know where it comes from and I’ve heard it before. I understand the concept of it, I just think we have to be careful when we say that because, to me, I think it can be easily misinterpreted.

But I’ll just say the difference between coaching someone hard and having a manual for them, coaching someone hard is you have a client or you’re on a sales call with someone or whatever it is, and they tell you, “I want this thing. I want this result. I want to hire you. I want to have a better relationship with my partner.”

It’s like they are deciding I want this thing. Coaching them hard would be sometimes pointing out some things that they’re thinking or some things like the way they’re thinking about a situation and how it’s influencing the results that they’re getting around that particular topic.

Having a manual for your client, and this is such a good distinction. And I’ll give you an example in a second, but having a manual is kind of the opposite. It’s more like, “I know what you should be doing. I, as your coach, know what you should be thinking, what you should be doing, how you should be feeling because my manual for you, my instruction manual for how humans act, or how my clients act, or how my friends act or whatever it is, is this certain way.”

Those are two really different things. But I can see how in the moment, let’s say on a sales call, it can be confusing which one you’re doing. So let’s just say you come to the end of a sales call, and you have told a prospective client your price, and how you work with your clients, and kind of what that whole relationship is going to look like.

And the client says something like, “I really want this. I feel so excited, so scared, I’m not sure. I don’t know that my partner is going to love this. Or he might have thoughts about me spending this money.” Or something like that, right? That’s a really good opportunity to kind of jump in and say, and really show them the difference between their thoughts about what their partner might say, or what their partner might think, versus actual facts. Because the partner is not on the phone, we don’t actually know what they would say or what they would think.

And just really showing them their thoughts and how that is affecting their decision. Not in a way that you’re trying to convince them that their thoughts are right or wrong, but just really showing them. Like, “Here’s what’s actually happening right now, you want this thing. You’re afraid someone else might feel uncomfortable because you’re spending the money. You get to decide.” You can go have this conversation with them, but it’s really just exploring it.

Versus having a manual in this situation would be if that person said to you, maybe those exact same words, but your response, like in your mind you’re like, “Well, that’s ridiculous. They shouldn’t have to talk to their partner about this. Their partner sucks.” Whatever your thoughts are of like, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You’re just supposed to say yes. You shouldn’t feel scared.” That’s having a manual for your client or prospective client.

That’s like if you’re jumping in and the difference would be how that would show up is instead of coaching them and really helping them understand the way they’re thinking about something, because it’s not right or wrong, right? It’s just like, this is the way you’re thinking about something.

A manual is like, “No, no, no, here’s the right way. Here’s my way, let me tell you how to do it. Just go tell your partner that that doesn’t matter. Or just don’t even tell your partner. Or let’s just make the decision, let’s just put that to the side, because who cares? Your partner shouldn’t think that, they should be supporting you.”

That’s having a very strong manual in that situation for how they should be reacting. That can show up in coaching calls in so many ways. I think the biggest thing about having a manual is just really noticing when you do. Noticing like, “Oh, I’m really believing there is a right or wrong way for my client to act or to feel or to think in this situation.”

Next question, I’m wondering what you do on the very first call with a client. This is from Justine. So again, I could probably do a whole episode on this, but it’s something we really dive into in my mastermind. I really go through the whole process of first call all the way to last call.

But the simple answer here is you just want to set goals. You want to figure out, you might know this already a little bit because you’ve talked to them, you’ve probably done a sales call. Maybe you’re a very specifically niched coach, so you know why they hired you. But you want to get really specific on the first call about why did they hire you? What are the goals they want to start working on? How will they know if it’s working? What’s the measurement?

Just really spending time exploring that and kind of setting the stage for the next however long, three months, six months, 12 months, however long the coaching relationship is. The first call is just really setting the stage. There might not even be tons of coaching happening on that call. It might just be getting super clear on what the goals are, and how they’ll be measured.

Okay, here is a question from Tracy, how do you differentiate the skills that coaches need to master for groups from the skills that coaches need to master to excel at one on one coaching? Do you think a new coach can learn how to do one on one and group at the same time? Or do you suggest mastering one on one skills before expanding to groups? I’m just beginning my formal coaching training and want to master both, I appreciate your guidance.

Tracey, this is a great question. So there are differences, you can definitely learn them at the same time because a lot of the skills are the same. And, this is like an and also, like and both kind of question, usually for most coaches, it is easier to learn to coach one on one first, and then transition to groups. But all of the skills that you are using on one on one, certainly you can use in groups.

So the main differences are, when you’re coaching one on one it’s very customized. Like the client tells you exactly what’s happening specifically for them. You get to coach just on what they bring. You can maybe go a little more in depth. You can take longer, you can explore things longer.

When you’re a newer coach, this is really useful because you might not be thinking as quickly on your feet as a seasoned coach. So you can really take your time. You can be curious, you can keep asking questions, just really exploring their brain.

In a group the difference is, you can do that, and let’s say like I do my mastermind on Zoom so I might have 20 people on the screen. And I’m coaching one person, I have 19 other faces looking at me. So there’s just a lot more going on, and specifically, there’s a lot more going on in your brain.

And I’ve had people come back to me and kind of laugh about this and say– Actually, I’m interviewing someone today after I record this podcast, so you’ll probably hear the interview later, and it’s something she kind of came back to me and said this so I’ll bring it up on the call and we’ll talk about it more in depth so you can hear her answer. But she came back and said, “Oh, you were right. It is very different coaching in a group.”

Because what happens is not that the coaching is that different, but your thoughts about what is happening can be very different. Especially if you’re not used to that. Some people are just very comfortable teaching in groups or they’ve had some kind of experience, they have a lot of experience with that and so it doesn’t affect them as much.

But let’s say you’re coaching one person, what can happen. What will start going through your mind, while you look around the screen and see that all these other people are looking at you is something like, “I wonder what they’re thinking. Is everybody getting value from this? Oh no, am I spending too much time with this one person?”

I mean, obviously, notice these are my practice thoughts. I’ve had these thoughts before. It still happens sometimes and I’m on like my sixth round or something of my mastermind. Is everybody in the group getting value out of this? Why does that person have that look on their face? Why does this other person– Oh, did she just get up? Does she not like this?

It’s like a never ending barrage– Is that even a word? I don’t know– of thoughts. It is a skill to quiet those. And to really know and to believe I am coaching this one person on this one thing, and everyone in the group is getting value out of it. That is a different skill.

And to be aware, and cognizant of the other people in the group. So for example, if the one person that you’re coaching in the moment, if they are wanting coaching on things that don’t relate to the rest of the group, like are actually outside of what you are coaching on in that group, to be able to say, “Okay, let’s put a pin on this.”

For my group, for example, I have a Facebook page that goes along with the mastermind. So I might say something like, “You know what, bring that to the page, post it on the page. I will coach you there. This just isn’t maybe useful in this moment for everyone and I want to be sure that we stay on task.” So they’re just different skills.

Now, sometimes people come into coaching with a background in already working in groups, teaching in groups, mentoring, I find a lot of physicians usually like to have groups, from what I have heard from some of my friends who are physicians, who are now coaches. They’re just used to that, they’ve been in teaching positions before in academia, and hospitals when they’re learning to be physicians doing their rounds, like there’s always an element of teaching.

And so I think teaching for physicians comes a little more naturally, just because they have practiced it over and over. And that’s just a specific example. But there are so many other people like that.

And if that’s you, then yeah, for sure, the actual coaching skills are the same, to a certain extent, there are some small differences. But mostly the coaching is the same. The bigger question would be learning to sell to a group versus selling to one on one. There’s also a difference there.

It’s like selling to one person is selling to one person. Selling to a group is, okay, now I’m selling to 10 people, 20 people, however many people you want to have in your group. So it’s like, do you have the demand for that? There’s just lots of stuff that goes on around that.

Next question from Sam, how does being a better coach, which is what I teach, affect my selling and marketing? Great question. They’re all great questions, I think I said that after everyone. How does that not? That’s my first thought.

But I want to give you a very specific example. Imagine that you’re selling a car that you’ve never driven. You’ve never even sat inside of it. You’re not exactly sure what it does, what the features are, why it’s a good car, why it’s not a good car. Someone delivered the car to you and your job is to just sell it.

Maybe you looked inside really quick. You know, like, Okay, well it has four seats, and has AC, and power windows, that stuff you know for sure. It doesn’t have four wheel drive. You know the basics, but you don’t really know anything else about the car.

Versus selling a car where you know everything about it. The ins and outs, you’re like, “I actually own this car too. I can tell you anything you want to know about this car. Here’s what’s amazing about it. It’s the only car – If I think about the car I drive, one thing I tell people is always, not because I’m selling them on it, but because to me when I think about my car it’s like, “This is the best thing.”

I’m like, “It has a third row. But the middle row, even though it’s not a minivan, it’s an SUV, the middle row has captain’s chairs.” So the inside feels much more like a minivan. It feels so different. It’s like there are two chairs, you can walk through them. There’s so much room. And I could just go on and on.

So many people that I’ve told about that are like, “Wait, what?” Because when you have kids or just need to haul stuff around or whatever, you need a bigger car, a lot of people that want a third row, the third row usually is super annoying. It’s hard to get to, you have to put it up or down. Usually you just leave it down because it’s terrible. There’s no way you can put a car seat back there because you’ll be sweating by the time you put a kid in it and get them out and all the things.

So I’ve convinced so many people to buy my car, because I’m so passionate about it, because I love it. Because I can tell you the exact reason that it’s amazing. And just so I don’t get a bunch of messages asking me, it is a VW Atlas. Love it.

But do you see the difference? It’s like when you know the ins and outs, when you know exactly how you get your clients results. When you know exactly the results you can guarantee and can’t guarantee. When you know exactly what your process is, and you can talk about it so confidently, it’s like selling that second car. Versus selling coaching that you’re like, “I think I know how to coach and I feel like a mediocre confidence in what I’m doing.” That’s like selling the first car, right? Where you’re like, “Well, I know it has four seats, and air conditioning.” There’s just a huge difference.

When you’re so clear about your clients getting results, when you feel so confident that anyone that comes to work with you, they’re going to get amazing coaching. It of course affects your confidence, and your marketing, and in your sales, and in everything.

It’s like coaching is the backbone of our business, we are coaches, you are a coach. If you aren’t super confident in what you’re doing as a coach, it’s going to show up in every piece of your business.

Now, of course, there’s always going to be a learning curve. I still say I’m becoming a better and better coach every day. There’s always a learning curve. But if you aren’t confident right now in what you’re doing, yeah, it’s definitely showing up in all the places.

Okay, a couple more serious questions. And then I have a handful of just fun ones that people asked. Do you have any tips for holding space? This is from Diana. Of course, I have tips for all the things coaching. But I was trying to think, if I could just give you one tip, because again, I could do a whole episode on this and I probably will.

But if I could just give you one tip, here is something that I talk about in my mastermind. Holding the space means showing up for your client in a neutral way. In a way that is not judging what they’re saying, not to being in your own mind. But just being really open and being there for them. That’s how I think of it.

The first tip I have is just to remember that you still have a human brain. Just because you’re a coach doesn’t make you a robot, doesn’t make you immune to having thoughts. Sometimes I think just remembering that can be so useful for holding the space.

So your clients are going to come to you, they’re going to say, “I want coaching on this thing. I want coaching on this thing.” Immediately your brain is going to have thoughts, that’s just what happens. And some of those thoughts might be opinions. They might be strong opinions even.

And I think just noticing that, and like, “Okay, there are my thoughts. I’m going to put those in a box and set them to the side for now.” To me, that’s what holding the space looks like because I think a lot of people come to me and ask this question in a way that’s like, “How do I fix my brain so that it doesn’t have thoughts?” And I always say you don’t. What are you talking about?

The other kind of tip I would say that goes along of course with the first one is seeing those thoughts, putting them to the side. And then really leaning into just curiosity and compassion. We’ll definitely be doing an episode about this. But just being curious keeps you open in general as a coach. It keeps you open to what is your client thinking? What is happening for them right now? What are they experiencing? What are they feeling?

And having compassion keeps you out of judgment. It’s like of course they’re uncomfortable. This is okay. This can be hard work sometimes, or whatever it is. But being compassionate, not necessarily empathetic where you’re all in their feelings, but just feeling compassion for them can really help just take all the judgment away.

Next question from Rachel, what unintentional thought still pops up the most even at your level of success? I love the way you asked that because it implies that once you reach a certain level of success, you think the thoughts just go away. Spoiler alert, they do not. Okay, the rest of your question is, and what intentional thought or feeling shifts it?

So the first thing that comes to me when I think of this is I think that all of us have thoughts that are just very programmed. They’re very practiced, they may have even served us for quite a while in our lives. But I think everyone has these thoughts. And those thoughts aren’t easily replaced with other thoughts. It’s not easy to just like, “Okay, no longer need that thought, it’s not serving me. Get rid of it.” Because we’ve spent possibly our lifetime practicing them.

So for me, one thought that pops up a lot, and this might be surprising for those of you that know me, I’m so far behind. I share this a lot with my clients and in my mastermind. I’m so far behind, my brain loves to offer me that in so many different scenarios. So many. When it comes to making money, even though I’m making a lot of it. When it comes to the progression of my coaching business, even though it’s amazing. When it comes to my daily schedule. It’ll just pop up, “I’m so far behind.” “Wait a minute, what? That’s not even true. What does that mean?”

What I do about it, it kind of depends. Sometimes it feels very true and very heavy. Now, this doesn’t happen as much. In the beginning I always had that thought, I’m so far behind. When I was trying to learn how to make money and I would look around and some of my friends and colleagues were making money and I wasn’t, or they were making more than me or whatever.

And it never felt like a comparison, like race for me. And it still doesn’t, I love watching my colleagues make all of the money. It’s so fun. But I would make it mean something about me, about my ability to figure it out. And my favorite thought was, “I’m so far behind.” Never did I take into consideration all the ways I was “ahead.” It was just like, “You’re so far behind.”

That thought served me a lot in my life. That’s probably why I had straight A’s, why I was a great student. Why anything I committed to I was really good at it. Because it’s like, “You’re behind, you better catch up.” The more I believed that, the harder I worked. It also created tons and tons and tons of anxiety and panic attacks.

So where I am now in my business, it still pops up. It’s like, hey, still here. I notice it, but it doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t feel like I have this emotional attachment to it. And so one thought that I use that might be really helpful instead of like one thing you’re asking is what’s my intentional thought or how do I shift it. I actually don’t try to shift it. What I do is I say, “That’s just part of my process.”

So for example I’m going to set a goal. I’m going to start working towards it, I’m going to tell myself I’m so far behind. I’m going to notice that’s a lie and I’m going to move on. It’s like that just becomes part of my process, it’s not a problem. And as long as I don’t make it a problem and attach more things to the thought it’s like a cloud that just passes. And next thing I know, I look up and the cloud is gone because I’ve moved on, I forgot about that thought.

This probably happens for most of you, and you probably have your favorite go-to thoughts. Whether it’s about business, whether it’s about being in groups. One thought that I’ve talked about on this podcast before is, I don’t belong. That can also be one of these types of thoughts, where it’s like that could be practiced over your entire lifetime. You might have lots of proof of the times that you haven’t belonged. And sometimes that’s just noticing like, “Oh yeah, there it is.”

What I promise you, for anyone listening, if you have your own coaching business, if you’re working on growing it, making money, all the things, whatever thoughts you have now, whatever your next level of growth is, those thoughts still show up. So just be on to yourself when you have thoughts like, “I’m not enough” or “This isn’t enough, it’ll be enough when I make X amount.”

That’s not true. You’ll make X amount and you’ll be like, “What? Wait, it still doesn’t feel like enough. Now I have other expenses. Now we have blah, blah, blah, it’s not enough. I have to keep going.” It’ll just keep coming back until you work through it and really notice it and like, “Okay, how are all the ways it is enough?” Like all of that.

And then it doesn’t still, like my example that I gave, the thought isn’t gone. I just now notice it and it’s like, “Thank you. Next.” Like, “You’re so far behind. Great. Thank you so much. Next.” I hope that helps. Rachel, I could just go on and on. Again, probably need a whole episode about this.

Next question, when a coaching conversation begins, what are you listening for? Or are you listening to what the coachee’s, so the client’s words bring up in you? In other words, once the client is done explaining what they want coaching about, how do you decide what to say first? This is from Dre maybe, or Draya? Sorry, I’m not exactly sure how to say your name.

I feel like there are lots of ways I could answer this, but really what I’m listening for is– I’m not thinking anything about what’s going on in my head or what it brings up in me. I’m listening for what it brings up in them. Why does it matter? How are they feeling about this? What are the thoughts that they are having in this moment when they’re telling me this story?

And I have other episodes where I talk about other things. Actually the one that just came out last week might be really helpful for you kind of separating out all the things. And then there’s the episode, I have no idea what number it is, about making decisions, that might be really useful.

Because sometimes it’s like I’ll hear things, and part of this just comes with practice, but sometimes things stand out to me. Like, “Oh, there’s a decision that they haven’t made. That’s where we’re going to start.” Or there’s lots of stuff jumbled up together, we’re going to start by separating it all out.

So I’m really just listening for, what are they saying? But more importantly, how are they saying it and how are they feeling when they say it? Like how is this really affecting them? So when I think about how to decide what to say first, I mean, I could give you 100 different things that you could say first, but probably my number one tip in this situation is find for yourself, find curiosity, and let that lead you.

So it’s not about what to say, but how to feel, how to be open to exploring your client’s brain. The way they’re thinking, the way this is showing up for them, just be really curious and go from there. Because there’s no right or wrong thing. The most important piece is that you are being attuned to the client. You’re paying attention. You’re being super curious and open.

Okay, the rest of the questions, there’s just a few, and they’re just more personal questions. So I’ll just answer them kind of quickly.

First one from Anna is where do I live? I’ve talked about this a couple times, I think, on the podcast. But I live in Indiana, in the United States in Indiana. More specifically, I live in Westfield, which is a suburb north of Indianapolis, which is the capital. Which is right in the middle of the state. Indiana is close to the middle of the country. So I just kind of live in the middle of everything.

I live here because my family lives here and I love them more than anything. Truly that’s why, it’s the only reason probably that I live in Indiana. I have always thought that I wouldn’t live in Indiana. But my family is just really important to me. My family lives here and my husband’s family and we’re just so, so fortunate to be able to live here. And I love to travel, so it’s like when I feel like I need to get out of Indiana I travel and that’s amazing.

But Indiana also isn’t as bad as people paint it to be. I love it because it has all four seasons, which is my favorite. I can’t imagine living someplace, I mean I can, but long term I would definitely miss all four seasons. The winter could be a little shorter.

Like if we could just lose February, great. That would be good. Maybe like halfway through January until like halfway through March, really like that’s the part of the year I don’t like and then maybe August when it’s so hot and humid. Otherwise, Indiana is pretty great.

One thing that people always say about Indiana is how nice people are here. And that is definitely, I don’t notice it because I live here, but when I travel when I visit other places, I notice the contrast.

Okay, what are a couple things we may not know about you? From Cory. Cory, it’s interesting you say this because I have had this feedback recently from people saying, like people who have gotten to know me who have become my clients saying things like, “I was so surprised you’re different than I thought. I thought you were like very serious.”

Which always surprises me because one thing I would say, one way I’m going to answer this is that I’m really funny, or at least I think I am. I might not always be funny, but I’m funny to myself. And humor is so important to me, I love to make people laugh. It’s one of my favorite things.

I’ve been thinking about this recently, like it’s truly one of my favorite things in the world is to hear people laugh. My kids, my husband especially probably because I live with them and so they’re like my 24/7 audience. But I just really, really love to hear people laugh, I love to make people laugh.

I’m very sarcastic so I do have to learn to draw the line because I think I used to not, especially pre-coaching I wasn’t as aware of how what I was saying was affecting other people. And so sometimes I would be very sarcastic and the person wouldn’t realize it. And they would think I was being serious when I wasn’t at all.

And so I do still love to be sarcastic and I love to be funny, but I have had to dial it back a bit. And one thing I think when I am in my business and really working, and even on the podcast and preparing the episodes, I don’t think about being funny and so I’m not. I’m so serious because it’s like I’m delivering this serious, amazing content for all of you. And I just like forget, it’s like this isn’t the place where I’m funny. So that surprises people.

To totally switch gears and give you something really random, I am obsessed, well some people actually do you know this about me. They message me and ask me questions about it all the time. I love you guys, all of you. I am obsessed with finding the best sweatpants in the world. Literally obsessed.

So I have like five pairs of one pair of sweatpants. I’m going to tell you what they are, so grab your pencil. They’re Vuori performance joggers, hands down my favorite. If you’re kind of tall, you’re going to want to get the longs. My sister is a little taller than me and she ordered some and she’s like, “What are these, capris?” Now, I’m pretty short, I’m five four, so they fit me perfectly. But if you’re a little bit taller, you want longs.

They are the best, technically I don’t know if you would call them sweatpants but they’re joggers and I wear them almost every day. So even when you see me, for those of you that work with me or you will see me do live coaching, sometimes I have joggers on as pants. Just know, I love to be comfortable. Love, love it. It’s one of my favorite things.

Let’s see, what is another brand? Oh, Cozy Earth, I love. They sell sheets, but they also sell it’s like organic bamboo, I don’t know. But they sell pajamas and, again, joggers. They’re my favorite, it’s actually what I’m wearing right now.

They do lean a little more towards pajama looking. So if that’s what you’re looking for, I love their pajamas. I don’t like to do silky pajamas so these are like in between. Because they’re still nice, they have like the button downs with the cute little shorts or pants or whatever. But they’re bamboo, they feel a lot more like cotton, which I love.

Something else that you wouldn’t know about me. I was thinking I would do three things. One thing that’s super weird that when people find out they’re like, “Wait, what?” I am allergic to everything, pretty much. Not really everything, but just lots of things. I have so many allergies. Indoor, outdoor. More importantly, I’m allergic to alliums, which is onions and all forms of onions and garlic, which really blows people’s mind.

I don’t know if it’s an actual allergy. I’ve been doing recently some research, it sounds like maybe an intolerance more than an allergy. All I know is it makes me very, very sick. I get hives, like all the things. I have decided more recently I’m going to take a holistic approach to this and really try to figure out, because it seems to be getting worse as I get older.

I’m allergic to more things, the allergies are getting worse. If you have a solution for this, please feel free to just drop right into my DMs and tell me. But I am, I’ve been researching a more holistic approach to figuring out why this is and why it’s getting worse and if there’s a way to reverse it. So that’s like super random about me.

And to add on to that I also got a question that was, what is one of your favorite things to do on the weekend? So I’m going to link it to the allergy thing because it’s kind of funny and ironic. One of my favorite things to do is be outside on a fall day, on a fall evening, when it’s just a little chilly. Have a fire pit, we have this amazing fire pit, we have a Solo stove. If you don’t know what that is, oh my gosh, you’re missing out, they’re incredible.

And we put them in our backyard. Sometimes we do it like true Indiana. We just plop it right on our driveway, have a fire pit and have some neighbors over and roast marshmallows. It is one of my favorite, favorite things. Also, every time I do that, I wake up the next morning with like puffy eyes and stuffy nose because sitting outside for that long, my body is like, “What is wrong with you? You can’t breathe and all that fresh air.”

So it’s like one of my favorite things and also a double edged sword because I always pay for it. But I don’t even care because I love it. Probably one of my very favorite things about living in Indiana is the fall, the weather in the fall, and just being outside in it.

Okay, this question is from Kelly, what is my favorite kind of music? I love all music except, I actually had a hard time even answering this because it’s like, well it depends on the day. But the only music I really don’t like is music to me that feels like, and those of you that experience anxiety you’ll get this, but that feels like anxiety.

So for me, like really angry, hard rock, whatever metal type of music, I can feel it in my chest. And the experience of listening to it feels like the experience of being anxious. I do not love that. I’ve spent too much of my life having lots of anxiety before I found coaching. Not that I don’t have anxiety now but having lots of high anxiety. And so that experience of listening to that type of music just reminds me of how anxiety feels in my body. So I don’t like it.

But I love pretty much all other types of music. I know the words to pretty much every song that was ever written. My kids think that this is amazing about me. My husband probably thinks it’s really annoying.

But if I think about just kind of the top couple go-to, like on Spotify my go-to playlist would be depending on the day, on how I want to feel, on what I’m doing, I love Norah Jones. So like that type of music that’s just like calm and I would say that matches kind of my personality normally. Norah Jones, India Arie, things like that, that you can just put on that’s like this feels so good to listen to while I’m cooking dinner, whatever.

I also love hip hop and rap. I am obsessed with the new Lizzo and Cardi B song right now, which you might think is funny. I have rap playlists that my kids love too, so they love to put those on. I also love singer songwriter type music.

Concerts are probably also my favorite thing in the world. When I talk about like sitting outside in the fall my ideal probably date would be, with my husband, to go to a concert. I love live music, pretty much any kind. We could go to the orchestra.

We have like an outdoor concert venue close to our house, that’s probably my favorite place to go. And, yeah, I really just love all music. I also love some country. And I listen to a lot of musical soundtracks. I love the Wicked soundtrack, I love the Greatest Showmen.

My kids know every word to the Hamilton soundtrack, whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know. It has actually helped them, my older daughter, it has helped her on tests answering questions about dates and history. Don’t worry, I explained to her about the history. We go into depth about how there’s lots of sides to history and that’s just one side.

But anyway, I digress. That’s the end, that is the last question. If I missed yours, I’m so sorry, send it again, tell me I missed it. I had so much fun answering these questions and I hope that you had fun listening.

And let me know if you’re listening and you’re like, “Wait, what? I have questions.” Send them in. You can send them to podcasts at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. You can also just slide into my DMs and ask me all the things on Instagram. All right. I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. See you next week.