Ep #200: Find Clarity & Direction: Coaching Q&A from 200 Episodes!

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 200. To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. 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 can be here with me today to celebrate 200 episodes of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast. I can’t even believe it. I mean, I can believe it. It does feel like it’s 200 because I’ve put a lot of work into it. And if I’m honest, I’m just surprised that I’ve been consistent, that I’ve stuck with it this long, that I am still loving it. Maybe that’s the bigger surprise. Maybe not that I haven’t stuck with it or that I’ve been consistent, you know what I mean, but that I still love it.

That this truly is one of my favorite parts of my business in general. It fuels me with ideas. It helps me give you free resources and teach you things that whether or not you ever hire me, you can carry on and use in your coaching, in your business. And we do have a lot of fun things coming up. I have been having a lot of new ideas lately and brainstorming a lot of new ideas. And I feel like I go through these stages, which this actually answers one of the questions that I’m going to talk about today. But I do feel like I go through these personal stages sometimes where in my business, it feels like I’m incubating for a while. And unfortunately, there’s really no prediction on how long that period will be.

I still kind of produce when I’m in that phase and run my current things and run my launches that were planned and all of that. But sometimes I really do go into these kind of deep states of incubation where I know that amazing things are about to be born and new ideas are coming and new things to teach and new ways to talk about things. And I just have to kind of wait until they’re ready.

And I think I’ve been in one of those a little bit recently. But you’re in luck because I’m coming out of it with so many new ideas. So now that my personal challenge is just going to be to kind of, you know, flip through all those ideas and decide what am I going to do first? Which ones are we never going to use? And we’re going to put them on a shelf for now, or maybe to be used later. Who knows? But I’m just so happy you’re here today.

This is the 200th episode, which means you all have submitted some questions that I’m going to answer on this episode. And if you have heard these episodes before, here’s what I will say. I didn’t go back and look over all the questions that I’ve answered before, so some of them could be repeats. But what I actually think is interesting about that and why I decided not to go back and make sure that there aren’t repeats is because I am sure that however, I answer a question now, almost a full year or year and a half or two years from the last time I did this, my answer will be different, right? Like at least slightly different with maybe a different viewpoint or a different lens that I’m looking through.

So I’m just going to answer all of the questions that you’ve sent in. And I appreciate all of you. I didn’t talk about this very much besides just mentioning it, really, on here. So if you are one of the people that found the link that clicked it and that submitted a question, I appreciate you or email me. A lot of you actually emailed me in your questions, which is perfect as well. So I appreciate you and we’re just going to dive in.

And just like I’ve done it before, I’m going to do it the same way today. I’m just going to read the question and then I don’t have prepped answers for these. I have kind of looked through the questions to be sure that they all make sense, that there aren’t repeats and kind of list them out here for myself, but I haven’t prepped my answer.

So the answer that you will hear is just the answer that is my most honest answer in this moment, right? The one that just comes to me. It might not be polished and perfect, but I actually think that that’s better. So just like if you were sitting here with me across from me, sitting on my couch, sitting at my table, just looking at me, asking me these questions, that’s exactly how I plan to answer these today.

So let’s just dig in. Are you ready? The first one, we’re just going to get deep fast. And I’m certain I’ve answered some form of this before, but I’m going to talk about it anyway, because I think it’s super important. How do you balance everything?

So my answer to that is I don’t. I actually don’t love the word balance when it comes to, you know, balancing our life, balancing our schedule, because in my experience, whether I’m running a business or not, whether I am just working full-time, whether I’m, you know, if I was home with my kids full-time, if I was homeschooling, if I was just anything. If I was training for a marathon, if I decided I was going to do a lot of traveling, right, like there’s no way that everything can ever be in perfect balance, no matter what decisions I’m making.

So the way I like to look at things is if we want to put it in terms of balance, I prefer to zoom out, right? Because a lot of us think like, in one day how do you balance everything? How do you get it all done? And actually the person that asked this question said something like, they elaborated on it, like how do you run a business, manage your kids, manage your household, remember to pay bills, you know, just like all of the day to day things mixed in with running a business, having a family, all of that.

I prefer to zoom out and say over a certain period of time things that are important to me, are they in balance or are they all being met to some like minimum standard, right? And just knowing that in different seasons of my life, different things will be a focus. So sometimes I am busier with my business than other times. Sometimes I might be more focused on my health. I’m having a little bit of a health journey currently that is taking up more time and attention than I would love it to, but in this moment, it’s a necessity, right?

And so if I think about each thing as these are all important, but I can’t balance them all perfectly at all times, then I just zoom out and say, okay, like, how am I doing, right? I kind of rate it. Am I showing up for all my priorities? Sometimes I might notice, okay, like I see the people that live in my house, right? My immediate family, I see them all the time, but I haven’t been spending as much time as I like with my extended family, my parents, my in-laws, my grandma, like anything like that.

Or maybe it’s like, oh, we haven’t been on a trip in a while, which I’ll be honest, that’s rare because I love to travel. So that is something we try to do as often as possible. Or have I spent quality time with my kids lately? I will just look into kind of all of those things, depending on the season, depending on what’s happening in my life, and just make sure that I am kind of checking all the boxes when it comes to things that feel really important to me. And maybe even just noticing is anything out of balance as in, is there anything that I am doing often that isn’t really a priority, right? That might be a time that I look into that and maybe make some cuts or make some adjustments.

Next question is, when you’re working with a client, how do you set goals from the beginning and evaluate them along the way? This is a great question. And we talk a ton about this in The Coach Lab, which is foundational coaching skills. And so if you’re like, “Yes, please tell me the answer,” you should definitely look into The Coach Lab because we do talk a lot about this, but I’ll just give this my most simple answer.

To me this seems very obvious, so if you’re listening and this was your question, if you want to know more, if there’s something specific you’re looking for, let me know. But my thought, like, how do you set goals? You just ask your client when they hire you, or even when you’re doing a consult or a sales call or whatever you call them, what do they want, right? What do they want to work towards? Why are they hiring you? Why do they think they need a coach? Why do they want to coach?

And then how do you evaluate them along the way? I’m going to answer this from the perspective of one-on-one coaching, because that’s the sense I get that the questioner is asking in. Like, that’s the thing I think that you’re asking about. To me, that also is pretty simple, you just check in each call, right?

When I think about coaching and I think about what coaching is, it really is setting goals, thinking about what’s getting in the way right now of you reaching those goals. Like, why aren’t you already there? Why don’t you already have them? What is in the way? What are all the obstacles that you think will be in the way? And then making a plan, executing on the plan, and then evaluating and trying again, right?

So if that’s what you’re doing with your clients, if that’s what you’re doing in your coaching, and all coaching, depending on what kind of coach you are and who you work with and whatever, that could vary slightly. But most coaching plans will fit into some form that sounds very similar to what I just said.

So if that’s what you’re doing, it’s super easy, right? Just each call, how’s it going? What happened when you took action on the things we talked about last time? What came up? What felt hard? What got in the way? What felt easy? Did you hit the goal, right? Just checking in each time. I don’t think there’s any like magical perfect questions you can ask to check in. I think you just have to kind of come up with them yourself depending on, you know, what kind of coach you are, et cetera.

When should a client renew versus not renew? Sorry, next question, I should have said that first. So to me, this is also a very easy answer, when they want to, that’s the main thing, right? But from the coach perspective, really thinking through like, when does it make sense for a client to renew with you versus when does it not?

My kind of longer answer besides when they want to, would be to kind of look at are they making progress? Are they moving in the right direction? Are they hitting goals? Are they getting closer to what they want to create? If so, and they want to keep doing the work, then for sure they should renew if they want to, right?

Or maybe they’ve hit the goal. Sometimes y’all ask me about this, we talk about this in The Coach Lab. Sometimes they hit the goal and then the question is like, well, should they renew? How do you know? And some of you get very stressed about this or over analyze it. And again, I would come back to, well, ask them, right? Like, do they want to? Do they want to keep doing the work?

And know yourself as a coach, are you the right coach? If they have hit whatever goal that they’ve hired you for, are you the right coach? If they still want coaching, if they want to keep working on it, are you the right coach for the job? If yes, then absolutely. You just have that conversation. When shouldn’t they renew? I think that’s a great question. So for me, and again, this depends because all coaches operate differently. For me, I have a thought that is if a client isn’t moving forward at all, or they seem really stuck or for whatever reason maybe my coaching isn’t a great match for them and it’s creating a coach/client relationship that isn’t going great. I think those are all reasons not to renew.

If they feel, those are kind of like the negative. Negative is not the right word, I don’t know what the word is I’m looking for. But those are like the, it’s not going well reasons to renew. And then on the other end of the spectrum, maybe they’ve hit their goal. Maybe they only had it in the budget to work with you for however many months or weeks. Maybe they haven’t quite hit their goal, but they’re well on their way and they feel really confident doing it themselves, or they want to try it for themselves for a while. Amazing.

To me, this is just all a conversation with a client that when you truly aren’t attached to knowing what the right answer is for them, knowing if they should renew or not, then you can just have an open, curious conversation around if they want to keep working with you or if they don’t, right? And also knowing on your end there could be reasons that you, you know, that it might be time that a client is finishing up their sessions with you and maybe you don’t want to renew them as a client. That’s something you could always consider too. And for me, that would just usually be, it’s like not a good match. You don’t enjoy coaching them, or they want coaching on something that you don’t feel confident in, right? They have new goals. They want you to coach on something that you’re like, that’s not my jam, right?

Which brings me to the next question. How do you coach on business when you aren’t a business coach? Like if you’re a general life coach, but your clients have a business and sometimes they want coaching on it, or they love the idea of coaching or something similar to what you do, and so they start a business while you’re working with them.

So again, just like all my other answers, this is very nuanced, right? My thought on this is first of all, how do you coach someone on business? The simple answer is you coach them on business just like you would coach them on anything else, but it also depends what they’re looking for, right? So it would depend. If they are wanting strategy along with the coaching, if they’re wanting you to tell them what’s the best way to make a ton of money, what’s the best way to sign clients, what’s the best way to, fill in the blank, something that you haven’t done before that you have no idea how to answer, or maybe it’s a business that you don’t know that’s very different from coaching and you just don’t even know the answer, I think that’s just an honest conversation of saying, that’s actually not what I do. I’m happy to help you research a strategy if that’s what you want to do. And then I can coach you, I can mindset coach you around this.

But I think it’s just you showing up and being honest as the coach and just knowing, do you feel comfortable coaching them on what they want coaching on? Now, if they don’t want strategy and they just want you to help them explore their thoughts, help them with their decision-making, help them set goals and strategize parts that you do know how to strategize, then you just coach them on that, like you would on anything else.

The only reason it would feel different is if you get in your head as the coach around, you know, who am I to, I’m not a business coach, who am I to coach on this, you know, thoughts like that. And I think this is a great place to have a very open and honest conversation around what you’re great at and what you aren’t, right? What’s your area of expertise? What isn’t?

If they’re wanting some heavy business strategy, for sure don’t pretend like you have that if you don’t. It will create so much more trust and safety between you and the client if you’re just honest and you say, here’s what I can’t do. Here’s what I can’t do. If you want a specific type of business coach, I’m happy to connect you with one, right? Like just think about how much trust that will create between you and them.

When I was a one-on-one coach, I worked with a lot of entrepreneurs or people that were CEOs or owned companies, right? Like owners, founders, those types of clients, because I was already an entrepreneur before I was a coach. So I was just kind of in that world. And I worked with a lot of people who I had no idea what their business was. Some of them, a couple of them, I didn’t even understand. One was something very specific that had something to do with science and tools that medical companies or scientific companies used in labs, et cetera.

I didn’t really understand it, but I was a very effective coach for her because she didn’t care. She didn’t need me to tell her how to run her business. She wanted coaching on things like dealing with her business partner. How to have tough conversations with her. How to prioritize her schedule. How to stop working every day at five when that’s what she told her family she would do. How to prioritize herself and stop overworking. Like all those things I was fully equipped to coach on. So just consider that when you’re trying to make this decision. And never be afraid to just ask the client, let’s get specific, what do you think, you know, when it comes to business what are the types of things you want coaching on? What are you expecting from me as your coach?

What do you do when your family doesn’t support you in being a coach? I think this is a very interesting question and I’m pretty sure I have answered this before, but I think it’s really important. So I’m going to definitely answer it again. When your family doesn’t support you, and this is something that came up for me, not necessarily that my family didn’t support me. I think they just didn’t really understand what I was doing and the changes that I was making from going from one business to another and like, why would I do that?

And my just biggest advice from being on the other side of that is to just be willing to have an open and honest conversation with them, right? Just ask questions, be curious. Why don’t they support you? Do they really not support you? Or are you just thinking they don’t support you? You could also have a conversation around that with them, but that might look a little different, right? But if they actually say they don’t like what you’re doing, they don’t support you, I would just be really curious about why and kind of what are they afraid of happening? What are they afraid is going to happen if you’re a coach, if you start this business, if you whatever?

And it could be something really simple that’s easy to make a plan for, right? Maybe it’s like, well, I fully believe that this business is going to work, but I’m thinking like, if you quit your job, we’re not going to have health insurance. Okay, that’s totally figure-out-able, right? Like that’s a problem you can solve and now everyone’s on the same page. Or I don’t know, there’s so many different reasons that they might not, or, you know, I was planning on you being home with our little kids, taking care of them. And now if you’re doing this whole coaching thing, are you not going to be?

So many things like that can just be transparent conversations. Make a plan, move forward, stay open about it. And then along the way, when they start to see, oh, like then just prove them wrong, right? Show them that you know what you’re doing, that it’s going to work and just keep going. When your client has lots of different goals, how do you know where to start? Okay. I have the most simple strategy for this. I teach it in The Coach Lab. If you’re in The Coach Lab, you’re going to laugh, you hear me say this all the time. You just ask them. You can always ask your client.

Sometimes as coaches, you think you have to be able to read your client’s minds and just to know where should we start, just know ahead of time, everything that should be happening in your session, have it all planned out and then it’s all going to go perfectly. Instead of, if they’re like, okay, here are the five things I want to work on. The first thing I would say is amazing. Which one do you want to start with?

And my belief is when you help your client in one area, it’s also going to influence so many other areas of their life, right? I know this even from what I do now. It’s like when I help my clients be more confident in themselves as a coach and show up, really know what they’re doing and own that they know what they’re doing and feel really great about their business and build a business that they love, think about how differently they will then show up for other areas of their life.

How does that confidence influence other areas? How do they make decisions differently? How do they, you know, when they feel more confident, just how do they walk around the world? The same is true for you, right? So if you’re helping your client in one area, it will influence all areas of their life just simply by you showing them how they can take ownership over their decisions, over how they react to situations, right? Over all of that. It will influence every piece of their life.

And you can even ask them if you’re like, okay, well, I wonder like, should we just coach on one thing and go all the way through till they hit that goal? Or should I just coach them on whatever they bring to each call? And maybe it’s going to be different each time. Again, that’s a situation, I think, where you could come back to just ask them, what would they prefer to do?

You can even make a plan, right? Like, okay, here’s how we’re going to start. In the beginning, you just are going to come to the calls. Like I kind of, I understand what your goals are, so now you’re just going to come to the calls and we’re going to coach on whatever is coming up for you then. And then if that’s not working out, we’ll make a different plan, right? If it seems like we really need to spend a larger chunk of time focused on one area, then we’ll just do that. How does that sound? Just always turn it around to the client. Kind of describe to them, here’s what I’m thinking. How does this sound to you? Let them be the expert of them, right? Let them be the expert of what do they want right now and what do they think would be the best path forward in the moment?

When is the next Coach Lab launch? Great question. As I am recording this in August of 2024, The Coach Lab is always open. So there’s no launch, although we will be hosting, for those of you that have been around a while, you’ve heard me do this before. We will be hosting Coach Week in the fall. Usually we do this in October. This year, it’s going to be in either October or November, we’re still pinning down the exact dates. As soon as I have it, you will have it too.

But Coach Week is just a week long of all types of coaching. I do workshops for pretty much every day of the week, all different times of every day with recordings. It’s almost like you get to join my spaces for a week and see what it would be like.

We usually have a community like on Facebook or something along those lines that will go along with it. And it will just be kind of the full experience of what it would be like to work with me. So we will be getting you those dates. I want you to get them on the calendar as soon as possible so that you can plan ahead.

And I love it, it’s one of my favorite things to do in my business. So I hope that you will join us this year. If you’ve joined before, I have some brand new ideas this year for some things that I am going to talk about. And if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat because it is very fun. We have a lot, a lot of fun.

What coaches are you working with currently? I love this question. So let me think. I’m only actually working with one coach right now. Sometimes I have had a couple of coaches at a time. Sometimes I’ve even talked about in the past how I have been on like coach overload, right? Like I had too many coaches at a time, which wasn’t good. Partially because I was in maybe a training program and there was some coaching that came along with that. And then I joined this other thing and there was coaching and it was just like so much coaching.

Right now I’m working with one coach. Her name is Trudi Lebron. She is incredible. And specifically, we are working on kind of thought leadership and what I want my mark to be on the industry. Like whether that’s the coaching industry or a bigger topic, but just kind of thinking through, like what is something that I think that is unique to me that I can turn into a teaching, a talk, a way to support the humans in the world. So that is what we are working on now all through an equity lens, which is always very important to me.

What is your favorite part of being a coach? Ooh, this is a question. Let me see. I feel like I could answer this in so many different ways. So, okay, first I’ll start with I love being an entrepreneur. So that’s not the same thing necessarily, but I do love being an entrepreneur. I love creating my own schedule. I love working on my own terms. I love all of that. It’s also one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. So there’s that balance.

But I really love a challenge. I think that staying in that, you know, working towards something is always really good for me. It keeps me focused. And if it’s hard, that’s okay. I’m usually up for the challenge. So even though it can feel really hard, it can feel frustrating, whatever, if I’m really honest, if I dig deep and answer honestly, that is actually part of what I like about it. Now, my favorite part of actually being a coach and coaching my clients is knowing that I am having an impact, hopefully a significant impact on things they’re creating, right? On them living their dreams, whether that’s through building a business that they’re currently building, coaching their clients, which for so many of my clients is like the dream, right? What they’ve been wanting to do.

Or whether it’s sometimes, depending on what program or whatever a client is in, I might be coaching them on something that’s outside of their business, which is actually really fun for me sometimes because I don’t get to do it very often anymore. So I love those calls. But it’s just knowing that I am there for them, right? That I can be something in their day that will feel like support, that I get to be part of their support team is how I think about it.

And that look on their face when they believe something new about themselves for the first time or figure something out, right? And that look that’s just like, oh my gosh, how did I never think of that? It’s so clear, right? Just the look on someone’s face when they’re in the middle of a breakthrough is pretty incredible. And I don’t take that lightly. Hopefully you know that about me by now, but it really truly is one of my favorite things.

I actually, just a side note, I had a coaching session with my coach today and I kind of came to the session like, well, I don’t really know what I need. I don’t really know what I need coaching on. And she just started asking me questions. And next thing you know, I’m crying telling her about how I want to change the world and why does it feel so heavy, right?

So I think that is part of the magic of coaching, right? Sometimes as the client, you just really don’t know what you need. And a coach, you, whoever you are that’s listening, a coach just asking the right questions, right? You just getting in there and asking your clients questions that might seem very simple. Like to you they might be like the most obvious questions. We had a laugh about that today. I was like, look at me, I didn’t think I needed anything. And here we are.

So that’s my favorite part. And I think it’s also the part that makes coaching so powerful and so important. For me, one of the most important things, one of the most important parts of work that I do with humans, with all the humans, with all the other humans is that I really help them have a better relationship with themselves, understand themselves better, have a better system for making the decisions that they want to make.

Knowing that they can do things on their terms, whether that’s building a business, coaching their clients, and then wherever else that ripple plays out in their life. That to me, is the most powerful thing about coaching. And I just think it’s like magic, except not because it’s more tangible. How do you decide who you want to work with? I am going to assume this means like, if I want to hire a coach, how do I decide who I would hire, who I want to work with? So I think there are a few things and a few different reasons I might work with a coach. And some of these are going to be opposite of each other and I think you just have to kind of know which one is right for you right now, because I don’t think that every coach is right for every person. I don’t think that every strategy aligns with the way I do things.

So when I want to hire a coach, I’m thinking about what is their coaching style? How are they going to coach me? What are they great at? What’s their work? What are they known for? How do they talk about it? And sometimes, depending on what kind of coaching it is, have they created results that I have created?

I think it’s really useful to hear the way someone thinks and the way they talk about it and the way they interact with the world when they are creating results that you want to create. So it can be really powerful just to see that and hear the way they coach and the strategy that they give you. Sometimes I might hire a coach because they teach something very specific with a specific strategy. So for example, if I was going to learn to run, this is an example because I don’t do this. If I was going to learn to run Facebook ads on my own, I would hire someone who had a very specific expertise. I wouldn’t just hire a mindset coach to do that. I would hire either a coach or just a contractor who is excellent, who has created those results for themselves, who knows what they’re doing, and who very specifically is going to walk me through step by step how to do it myself.

Or maybe I’m going to hire a coach sometimes who just really inspires me and I’m like, I just want closer, more access to that human, to that brain. I want to know how they think. I want to feel that inspired all the time. And I just want proximity to that. So that could be a reason. And then sometimes, and this is one that some of you might not like this answer, actually. I think sometimes it can be really powerful to hire a coach that thinks the opposite of you, that thinks about things very differently than you do, because it can kind of help poke holes in things that you believe are just true or stories that you’ve told yourself.

Now, not in a way that you totally disagree with them, or that you have different values. I think it’s important to have similar values, not exactly the same, but just nothing that fights against each other. Not so different values that you can’t even imagine learning something from them, because that will just make it difficult.

But I’ll give you a specific example. Sometimes I know clients hire me, they tell me this, because they love the simplicity that I create in my business and in my coaching, and just the way I operate in my business and in my coaching. And they’re like, I am all over the place. And they want that, right? They want to learn the simplicity, when normally their tendency would be to overcomplicate everything.

So that was a lot of different reasons. I think it just depends. Like what season are you in? What are you working on? What type of goal are you working towards? And who is the coach that is going to support those goals, right? Are you looking for a community as well? Are you looking for continued support throughout, you know, between sessions? Just what is it that you are looking for? That’s where I would start.

And if you can’t find someone, if you’re looking for a very specific type of coach and you can’t find it, I mean, I would say I’m a great resource for that. I know many coaches. You can always email me, but you can always also just ask around, post in communities and don’t settle for something that is kind of like, well, I don’t know, this doesn’t feel very aligned for me, but I know other people like this coach. I think that you can get in trouble by doing that just because it won’t feel good and you’ll be kind of fighting against it the whole time.

What do you do when your client isn’t taking any action towards results? So they’re coming to coaching sessions. I don’t know if I’ve done a podcast episode on this. If I haven’t, I should probably do a whole episode on this. We do talk about this very often in The Coach Lab, so again, if you’re not in there and you’re like, oh, I need help with this, definitely come join us. But I’m going to give you just the shortest answer, right? Which is, there are lots of different things you can do. And again, this always comes back to, it depends what kind of coach you are. It depends who your clients are, all of that.

But if you are helping your clients, either you’re teaching them a strategy or you are helping them create their own strategy, you can just ask them, why do you think you’re not doing any of it, right? Like we make a plan on the calls and I’m just so curious. And I would use like real-time situations. So last call, we talked all through it. We made a plan. Something got in the way. And I’m just curious what that is. And just see what happens. See what they say. Right?

Sometimes it might be like, well, I don’t know. I’m just scared to do it or I’m confused or it wasn’t clear. So at first I don’t think it’s a problem. It’s like, okay, well let’s just go over it again. Are you on board with this plan? Is there any part of that you don’t like? You can just question all of it. Just assuming that your plan, as the coach, isn’t always the best. If you’re giving them a strategy, maybe it’s not the best strategy for them.

Maybe you need to help them modify it a little bit. Maybe there are some beliefs about themselves getting in the way of them taking action that you could explore. Right? What comes up for you when you go to start taking that action? What’s coming up? What’s getting in the way? Is it thoughts? Is it a relationship? What is it? Is it fear? And you just dig into that.

You can also say, okay, here’s the plan, but maybe we didn’t break it down into small enough steps. So what’s just the first tiny action? I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Right? What’s just the first tiny step you can take? Just the first one. Just do that. What if that’s your only goal for the week? And see what happens.

And then if they still don’t do it, they still take no action, sometimes it can be time for a heart to heart, right? Like, okay, you tell me you want this thing. You hired me. You paid me a lot of money to be your coach. How do we get you on board? Right? Like your brain is on board because you tell me you want the results, but what do you think is getting in the way of taking action?

And you can say that, you can question that in such a loving way that it will really help. Like if you, as the coach, your number one strategy, I think in that situation is to be curious and compassionate, right? Curious, kind of like, let’s just explore it. Let’s dive in. Let me ask you some questions. And compassionate instead of judgy, right?

Just noticing if you have any judgments of, well, they haven’t taken any action and I don’t know what to do. And if it were me, blah, blah, blah, right? Just let go of all of that and have compassion. There’s something getting in the way for your client. It’s your job to figure out what it is.

Okay. How do you run a coaching practice with a full-time job? Like how can I transition from my full-time job into a coaching practice? What do I do when I don’t, you know, I’m not making the money in my coaching yet. I’m not making enough money to make up for my full-time job. So what do I do?

So my advice in this situation would be to, and this could be true, so maybe you have a full-time job. Maybe there’s something else you do during the day. Maybe you have little small children and they are home. Maybe, I don’t know there could be so many things. Maybe you are in college. Maybe you are helping with a loved one who is sick, anything, right? Anything that’s like taking up your time. I think the most important thing you can do is be honest with yourself and ask yourself, okay, how many hours a week do I have to do this thing? How much time am I willing to give to this business? And then letting that be enough at first, right? If you’re like, okay, I have five hours and that’s all you’re starting with. Amazing.

But be honest with yourself because what a lot of you do, what I see you do in the beginning, when you’re like this whole coaching thing, I’m going all in, I can’t wait to retire from the corporate world. What a lot of you do is you don’t take that minute to say realistically, how much time do I have? When am I going to work on my business? You don’t make that decision.

And so then what happens is you’re just trying to cram it in all the time and there’s never enough time and it’s always overwhelming and it’s always too much, right? Well, if you take a second to really plan it and to say, okay, here are the hours. I can work these days, I can work these hours. Making sure also that you have time off. You can’t work 24/7, right? That will create burnout.

And I know for some of you, it feels like that’s the fastest way to get there, to just work, work, work as much as possible. But really it’s not. If you burn out, if you’re exhausted, if you just don’t have the fuel to keep going, or if you get sick, right? Like if something happens and you’re in that state, then it’s like, oh no, everything has to be on pause.

Versus really being honest with yourself, making a plan, looking at how many hours a week do you have to work and then thinking through, okay, if I am going to build my business and build it up while I’m working, what could that look like in the beginning? But also, if you have five hours a week and let’s say then you have five clients. Now that takes up all those five hours. You don’t have time for anything else, if you’re just running one to one hour long coaching sessions, kind of business. What are you going to do? Is it possible to decrease your work hours? Are you going to, for a while, add in some more time? Have you done the math to think about how much do you need to make to replace your full-time job or to, you know, before you could start thinking about leaving your full-time job?

Are you saving up money so that when there’s a weird in between when you’ve quit your job, but you haven’t built your business to where you want it to be. It’s fairly difficult, I would say, to bring in income immediately, I mean, it depends on what kind of job you have, but usually it’s hard to bring in income that immediately replaces a full-time salary, depending on what you do and what your salary is, quickly, right away, without there being any like lag time between not having full-time money coming in and replacing that with coaching, right?

Because a lot of times, let’s say you make $100,000 a year in your job, and so then you’re like, okay, well, my goal is in my coaching business to make $100,000 a year. But that’s not the same, right? Because out of that $100,000 that you’re making as a coach, you’re going to have some just fees, general fees that it takes to run your business.

You might want to hire some support. You might want your own coach, which I would usually recommend. You might want to go to coach training or something like that. You might want to join The Coach Lab and learn foundational coaching skills and have that support. You have to pay taxes, right? Like there’s going to be money going out.

So I would suggest just really thinking through that. If it’s like a situation where you will be tight on money when you quit your job, then really thinking through how much money do I need to live on? And of course, this is like all over the place, depending on your situation, depending on how many incomes you have in your house, depending on how much your bills are, right? Like all of those things. And just giving yourself, I think some of you avoid this because you think it’s going to be scarier, but really giving yourself that clear picture of what it will take? What do I need to do in order to make it work? And how much am I willing? Am I willing to take out a small business loan to get my business started so that I can quit my job sooner? And like, there are options like that if you want to do something like that.

Okay, I think that I’ve answered most of the questions except one last one. I saved it for last because I think it’s a silly question and I want to talk about it for a second. The last question is someone took time, I don’t know who you are, you left your name blank. And I love you, but also I have a message for you. The question is why do you wear hair extensions? Your hair is so beautiful otherwise.

And here’s what I want to say. First of all, I don’t have hair extensions, but if I did, who cares? This is just my hair. I’m sorry that it, you know, to me, it reads as a little judgment. So clearly there’s something you don’t like about it. I do have highlights in my hair. So it could be that sometimes you might see the darker hair underneath and think that maybe I have like clip-in hair extensions or something.

I think it also depends on how I style my hair. It might look a little different. I do have lots of layers. So you might notice there’s like shorter layers and longer layers.

And can we just have a moment for this type of question? Why, when you could ask me anything, when clearly you are a podcast listener or you see me somewhere, right? You took the time to click the link and to come ask the question. Now, I am not shaming you, I appreciate you truly for doing that. I think that to take any time out of your day to interact with me, with this content, with whatever, is amazing.

And if you’re taking that much time to do that and you are a coach, I’m just so curious how many other ways you are just spending your time thinking about judging people’s hair or asking silly questions like this, when you could be fueling your coaching practice and delivering more value to your clients, right?

Now, I’m not offended by this at all. I will answer any question like this. And if it was like, you know, I love your hair, what tool do you use? Happy to share. I will send you the link for anything, right? But to send in a question that’s a little bit like, why do you make this decision? Which is actually a decision I don’t make because I don’t have hair extensions. It’s a little intellectually lazy, for lack of a better term, right?

Like just really consider like, where could that brain power be going otherwise? And actually, I’m going to record a podcast about this, not this question or not this specifically, but just the tendency that we have as humans to judge things, right? Which is by the way, total human nature. It’s not something that’s bad or that you have to stop doing, but to really consider how much of your time is it taking up if you’re fighting against it, if you’re sending in questions like this, right? Like telling me my hair shouldn’t be like this.

If you are creating content around things that you don’t like or judgments that you have, just notice how much of a time suck that is versus how are you fueling your clients? How are you lifting them up? How are you creating content that could change someone’s life, right?

Now, if I did have hair extensions, which I have looked into by the way. When my hair was shorter I was like, that could be fun. I’ve never had them. I honestly think that I’m like a, I’m so weird about textures and whatever, I think that it would drive me crazy to have extensions glued in. So I haven’t done it because I’ve been nervous about that. That it would either break my hair because I just have a lot of hair, a lot of long hair at this point.

But if I did have hair extensions, I would love them. And I might be offended by your question. So just, you know, take that into consideration. Thank you for the compliment that my hair is beautiful, but maybe next time just keep that as a thought in your head and just carry on, go create something that adds value to the world.

All right. I love you, I promise. I’m not mad at you, I don’t even know who you are. But we will do a whole episode on this for those of you that are like, how do I not have these judgments, right? How do I train my brain to use them? I’ve actually been thinking about this as a concept recently, how to turn your judgments into an asset. I think this is a super fun topic that I will either be teaching as a workshop or if not probably adding it to a workshop during Coach Week, because it’s something I’ve been thinking a ton about.

So even though I didn’t love that question, it was a great kind of frame around this concept that I do want to talk to y’all about. So thank you for being here today. Thank you for being around for 200 episodes. I feel very proud of myself and I am going to celebrate the podcast. I’m going to celebrate all of you that listen. And we have so many good things coming, so stay tuned because there’s a bit of a revamp in the works and some really great content. So stay tuned. Can’t wait to talk to you. See you next week. Goodbye.

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.