Ep #221: A Coach’s Breakthrough to Emotional Wealth with Kirsty Knight

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 221.

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 glad you’re joining us today. I have something really special for you today. I am having a conversation with my client and colleague Kirsty Knight and I think this is a really important conversation that we’re about to have. I cannot wait for you to hear it.

I think that you’re gonna learn a lot and probably have a lot of takeaways from this conversation. Kirsty reached out to me. She was in my advanced certification. She sent me this email kind of giving me an update, telling me about all the amazingness happening for her right now in her business when it comes to coaching. And I just thought it was a really important conversation to have with you.

So I’m going to let it kind of speak for itself and for you to listen and hear all the things that we talk about and have your own takeaways from it. But I do want to say in this episode, we do talk a little bit about Kirsty really kind of struggling at some point, having maybe not knowing exactly what to do about it, investing in several coaches at the same time and maybe thinking now, like maybe that wasn’t the best decision.

And I just want to be very clear that if this is you and you have things coming up for you that you just feel like aren’t your norm, right? Like you’re feeling extra low or just things that you can’t snap out of, I just wanna offer that there are so many options for support, we will link them in the show notes. And although we talk about coaching in this episode, I think there are many, many effective resources that you could tap into for help when you’re feeling however it is that you’re feeling and for you to take care of yourself.

So with no further ado, I want you to enjoy this conversation I have with Kirsty.

Lindsay: Hello, I am so happy to have you here today. Let’s start by telling everybody who you are and what you do.

Kirsty: Thank you so much for having me, first of all. So I am Kirsty, Kirsty Knight, pronounced like thirsty.

Lindsay: Hold on, pause already. I think that every, literally every time I hear your name, I’m like, right, Kirsty, like Thirsty. Because you told me.

Kirsty: I have to say that, otherwise everyone, yeah, it’s not a common name in America. I know. I lived there for a year and got called about five different names. So now I’m just like, I’m Kirsty, like Thirsty. So I am an LCS certified coach, Master Certified through Them and You. I did your advanced certification and I’m also trained in hypnosis.

Lindsay: Oh, fun.

Kirsty: Yeah, And I coach mostly women, a lot of mums, all business owners, basically who are struggling with some aspects of a time and or productivity challenge. So that kind of ranges from overworking in their business and hustling, having their business take up too much of their time, right to the other end of the spectrum, which is like a lot of procrastinating, not getting the needle movers done, affectionism, people pleasing, not enough time, all of the range of time and productivity problems.

Lindsay: Do you coach people like me who tend to swing back and forth between those two things because that’s where I feel like I am. I’m like either nothing or everything is happening.

Kirsty: Yeah, all or nothing. I catch on that a lot.

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. I am so happy to have you here today and so grateful. So let’s just set up first like why you’re here, how this happened, and I’ll just say from my end quickly and then I’ll let you take over. You sent me the loveliest email maybe now a couple weeks ago as we’re recording this and you just said you were in my advanced certification like you said and you just said I’m sorry I was so hard to coach and just sent me all the things and it was really touching.

And my first thought was like, well, you weren’t that hard to coach, so this is interesting. But you kind of just opened up about some things and I said, hey, do you want to be on the podcast to talk about this? Because I think it’s going to be really relatable to some people. So I’m just going to let you go from there. Start wherever you want to start.

Kirsty: Okay. Well, I reached out to you actually because I was having a call with someone who I met in your group, Teresa, Teresa Hug, who is like my business bestie now. And that was one of the most amazing things that came out of the container that you basically offered that I was in. Because the in-person retreat, we just really, like, we clicked so much. We’d met in a mastermind previous to that, but it was so lovely and she really helped me with a ton of things over the last year.

And we were on a call and we were basically saying how much our internal worlds had shifted, even though on the outside, not a lot of things you could visibly tell had changed. I was just in a completely different headspace and so was she. And we were talking about the concept of emotional wealth versus an emotional poverty versus like financial wealth and financial poverty and just the value of emotional wealth and what you can create with coaching and just how amazing coaching is and we were just yeah wigging out over that and so I it just reminded me oh my goodness I should reach out and actually tell you that I’m in a much better space because last year I had a very hard year, a very hard year. So do you want me to tell you all the things?

Lindsay: Whatever you want to share, to tell us, it’s fine. But first, I’ll just say I first I love that you found Teresa. She is fantastic. She’s been on the podcast too. So listeners probably know who we’re talking about.

But I am so grateful for that. And that sounds like such a coach conversation to have the difference between emotional wealth and poverty versus financial. I love it.

Kirsty: Yeah. Yeah, we often have conversations like that. So anyway, so last year, last year was a hard year for me. And I think this probably is going to be relatable for maybe not for everyone. I really hope that nobody has the same year that I had.

Lindsay: And I don’t even know if I know, like I I’m like, what did something bad happen? Was it just like a lot of hard, emotionally hard things in your business or in your life? I actually don’t even know what the, any backstory, so you share whatever you wanna share.

Kirsty: So it was not circumstantial at all, really. I mean, there were a couple of things that triggered like a bunch of emotional, but it was just an emotionally really hard year for me, which of course trickled out into my coaching business and, and then created more challenges, as it does. But essentially, at the end of 2022, I was fully booked in my coaching business, which was amazing. But it was one of the things that really kick-started a not great year. Purely because I was beginning to feel burnt out.

I was having quite a lot of voice issues from having so many coaching calls every week in addition to, I have a podcast, my normal Instagram reels and Facebook live marketing. It’s a lot of talking in addition to the coaching containers that I was in and getting coached and all of those things. And so I just realized that I think I’d gone from a job – I used to project manage construction buildings – so I would meet up with the builders in the morning for like 15 minutes and tell them what to do. Then I’d be on my own for the rest of the day. I think I went from a no-voice job to a career that just involved a lot of people, a lot of talking, a lot of listening to, but also a lot of talking.

And it was just too much for my vocal cords and they just had a little freak out. And so I think it was a combination of that and also the fact that my calendar was so packed that I was having to say no to family things again and time with my other half and spontaneous things. And prior to that, I’ve never had, like I’ve always had businesses, I’ve never had a proper job. So I’ve never been tied to my desk, I’ve never been tied to a calendar or a schedule before. I’m so lucky, I’m so grateful for that, but I didn’t realize how much my lifestyle before had suited me and how that’s what I wanted. And then I’d filled up my calendar. And so it was beginning to feel like I was resenting my business even though I loved my clients. And so I was feeling bad because I was not looking forward to getting on a call with them.

Lindsay: And you were coaching them on time.

Kirsty: Well, but I can see how that – I wasn’t saying that in a way that was like, oh, I can’t believe you were doing that. More of like a – that had to have just created even more – and I think this came up a little bit. You got a little bit of coaching on this maybe in whatever mastermind that you were in with me. But I could see how that would really like kind of mess with your head and create like a, well, why am I feeling this way? And I’m feeling burnt out when I’m like coaching my clients on managing their schedules and time and all the things.

Yeah, for sure. And it was hard for me because I think prior to that, I’d had another business, which was a campsite business. I had completely streamlined that business, got all my time back from that business. I’ve actually just now leased that business out completely. So it runs completely without me.

I’d done a lot of that work beforehand, so I thought I’d kick that habit. I thought I’d go on from, okay, I’ve learned the lessons of hustling and overworking and no work-life balance. I really had had all those lessons and come through them and got tons of coaching on them. And then I was like repeating the same cycles, hustling to my goal. And yeah, it was beginning to feel very bad.

And so that was like the start of the year was I just decided I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t carry on. And I wanted to change to a more time-leveraged model and move to group. The problem with that, and I had tons of resistance around it, was because I had launched a couple of groups a few years back. I think I’d got some low-level PTSD from the groups that I’d launched.

Not everyone in the group got their goal, like created the results that I hoped that they would get. And I was totally making that mean that I had failed them in that container. And I’d launched the first group and then the second group a few months later. The first group had been a great launch for me. I’d had like 19 people.

The second group, I’d only sold four spaces, which to me felt just so humiliating and embarrassing. It just felt like a massive failure. So I had internalized those two negative experiences or the meanings that I’d taken from them. And that was like creating so much resistance around me actually just launching my new group. So that was part of it.

So I was like, okay, trying to get coaching on moving to group. And I couldn’t do a soft transition like most people will do. I was like, my voice needs recovery now and I need to go from my one-to-ones. So I stopped selling my one-to-ones.

Lindsay: That was while you were in my container. Yeah.

Kirsty: Oh yeah.

Lindsay: It feels like, okay, that’s what I thought.

Kirsty: I mean, it was my whole year. It took me a long time to get over that hurdle. But yeah, that was the goal. It was like, come in, I’m gonna launch this group. And then I was about to launch it in, I think it was March time.

I was actually in the middle of a launch. I’d managed to like get the coaching I needed to get far enough along to just be doing it, going for it. And there was something that came up in the UK that was about a scam, a life coaching scam. I don’t know if you remember me talking about it at the time.

Lindsay: Like a tiny bit when you said something about that in your email and I was like a scam, oh yeah maybe I do remember that. So I do kind of remember but I don’t remember any details about it.

Kirsty: No, I mean, I didn’t know the bulk of the details either, to be honest, but I was, and I don’t pay attention to the news. I try to keep my, you know, in my little bubble, saving my people, enjoying my life. I don’t think it benefits me to go down those rabbit holes. But my mum, my kind, lovely mum, thought it was important that I needed to know about this.

Lindsay: With the best of intentions.

Kirsty: Oh, goodness me. She rang me up the day, literally like two minutes. I don’t even know why I answered the call, But she rang me two minutes before I was about to do my webinar to sell my group program. And she said, you need to listen to the radio. And I said, why? And she said, there’s something on it about a life coaching scam.

And these people have paid huge amounts of money for this coaching. And they’ve gone bankrupt. And it’s all a scam. And I think this might be what you’re doing because you’ve paid huge amounts of money because I had invested in a high-level, high-ticket mastermind. I’ve spent a lot on coaching because I value coaching.

Anyway, she said that to me and I was like, oh, I don’t have time for this right now. I hung up, like, no, that’s not what I’m doing. But it just threw me. I don’t know why in the moment, but I know why?

Lindsay: My gosh, of course it did. Even if you were like, not going to listen to that. Nope. And it just like gets stored in this little tiny compartment in your brain when the whole time is like, let me out.

I’m in here. Like, yeah, of course. That makes sense to me.

Kirsty: Yeah. And so I did a terrible job of my webinar and then I just pulled out of my whole launch. I just stopped selling. I was like, okay, I’m not doing that anymore. And I got coaching on it in a couple of different places. And I think it sort of meshed very nicely with the financial crisis and all the talk around that because all of a sudden I was like joining it up together in my brain that oh my god if I’m charging a high amount of money then that’s scamming.

People are struggling, people can’t afford this, who am I to charge this? It just brought up so much internal work that I needed to work through around money that I didn’t even know I had. Who am I to make decent money when there are people who are working more hours than me and struggling. I don’t want to be affiliated with this industry if this is what people are doing in the industry.

My mom clearly doesn’t think that I’m doing good things in the world. She doesn’t believe that I can do it. She thinks I’ve wasted my money, which of course then started making me think, like, oh my God, have I been duped here? Like, am I? Yeah. Am I in this pyramid scheme? And it just freaked me out massively. So that definitely didn’t help.

And along with, there was quite a lot of talk in the industry at the time as well about like the sleazy selling tactics and things like that. So all of that combined, it basically made me just wanna run in the opposite direction. And I did start questioning my life choices and all of that.

I think it also didn’t help that I was already feeling stretched thin from the investing I’d done. I don’t think I’d done the work to really create a feeling of safety in my body around investing. It just triggered that part of me as well. I was just spinning in Maguire’s, I was talking about her earlier with you, but her concept of your bad thoughts or your negative thinking is a little bit like weeds growing in your garden. And I felt like my garden was a jungle of weeds, like there was no good seeds in that. All the plants that I wanted had been choked out. And that was part of the problem, is that I was in the coaching spaces. I was in yours. I was in another mastermind.

I had my own one-to-one coaches. And although I was showing up for the one-to-one coaching in the group containers, I genuinely had the thought that this is too big. I have too many shitty thoughts right now. I was in the hole and I didn’t know how to pull myself out and I didn’t ask for help in so many spaces or so many opportunities within those spaces.

I think I asked for coaching a couple of times in yours and that was only because you had added additional calls. They were a little bit smaller and I felt like there was a little bit of extra time and maybe I could take up the space, but I had so much noise going on about taking up space. Yeah, I’m broken here, there’s something wrong with me, this is not working. And then it sort of compounded because the coaching wasn’t working to shift all of that. I had so many things.

So instead of me seeing that I was making progress or I was tackling each one of these things that had come up and actually there was some deeper stuff going on. I had some amazing sessions with Melissa Parsons and another one-to-one coach, Alana Schramm, on childhood stuff that came out of this. But apart from that, I was finding it so hard to see that I was making progress and that coaching was working. So I lost total belief that coaching was a good thing, the coaching industry was a good thing, like that even coaching worked because it wasn’t working on me. And so of course I couldn’t sell from that space. So yeah.

Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, that’s a lot of things just compounded, compounded, compounded on each other even coming into it starting with that, like being on the edge of burnout, right? Like you still even at that point, like you probably had no emotional capacity to handle any of those things that then started coming up that were just adding on to each other.

Kirsty: Right, for sure. And then a couple of months later than that, I found out I was pregnant, which was amazing. And that part wasn’t the problem, But then I thought I was miscarrying. So I had like a whole, yeah, it was just like a really emotionally hard year the whole time then not selling, not growing my business.

Lindsay: Which of course you weren’t, right? Because you’re thinking like, this is a scam, this is terrible, everything’s awful, I’m broken, this industry sucks, whatever, all those thoughts.

Kirsty: Yeah, yeah, which, yeah, was just making it even harder like circumstantially for me at home like financially and knowing a baby was coming and I was like, oh, I’m no longer gonna be able to provide if I’m, you know, like, what the hell am I doing here? So yeah, it was, I was a hot mess that year.

Lindsay: Okay, I have a question. I don’t know how, if you’ll be able to answer this or not, or if you’ll only be able to answer kind of in like retrospect or whatever, like looking back and maybe like filling in some of the gaps. But I’m curious because I think this will help people if they’ve ever been in this situation.

So when you say, I showed up to get coaching on it sometimes or like I kind of tried to or whatever. My experience of coaching you wasn’t – like you weren’t telling me all the things that you just told me.

Did you know in the moment – so you’re coming to a coaching session, You’re like, okay, this is a smaller group, like maybe I’ll get coaching here or whatever. Did you know you were holding back on some of the things or was it more like you didn’t even know where to start or how to say it? Can you put yourself back in the moment?

Kirsty: I think I knew all the things that were going on and what had triggered the things and what needed looking at. I think in the group containers, I just thought that it was just too big to tackle. I didn’t know where to start. It would have taken me 15 minutes to just even tell, like, okay, these are all the things that are happening for me.

Yeah, and my thought was like, oh, this is just too big for anyone to make any headway with. Before they move on to someone else, like, I’m going to be taking up too much space. And so I deliberately held a lot of that stuff back.

Lindsay: And did you get coaching on it or open up more in a one-to-one container?

Kirsty: I did. I did. So I did say, okay, this is what’s going on. So I think my one-to-one coaches knew all of the things that had happened. But even though, I mean, we did some really deeper stuff that was really instrumental to me getting to where I am now. I for sure say that that is one of the reasons because I didn’t realize at the time how deep they were.

I mean, it’s so interesting because I do memory reconsolidation and childhood. I use therapeutic tools in my coaching. So I do it with other clients. I go to their past and I find the belief or the situation that it was created from. I do that healing work with them. And I never once thought that any of it applied to me.

Lindsay: Amazing.

Kirsty: I think I just, I didn’t see the connection at all and that was what, yeah, some of the one-to-one sessions that I had, you know, particularly with Melissa really showed me, oh yeah, there is a link here. One example was that because I felt so triggered around how much I’d invested and then I wasn’t selling, and the scam all sort of meshed into that, she took me back to a time where I realized that my dad had sort of said something to me.

He’d done an exercise with me to demonstrate that gambling was wrong. And as a kid, the exercise was like, oh, it’s not a bad idea. He basically, he got us to pick lottery numbers and then he was like, pay us your pounds, your weekly pocket money. And if you get six numbers, I give you 10 pounds or whatever. So he was trying to demonstrate how it’s not a sure thing to be betting your money. This is amazing. This is my dad all over.

But I could see the lesson that he was trying to give. And the lesson that I took from that was that gambling was wrong. But then I had somehow meshed it with I’m spending money, I’m investing in these containers and I’m not showing up. And I’m really just burning my money. I’m gambling my money. And so the two were so linked and entwined, I couldn’t separate them on my own.

But because we were doing that work, and it was so important work, it was still only one piece of a thousand other thoughts that were not helpful in slowing me down. So even though I was getting coached in the one-to-one containers, I just I still felt like there’s just too much here for anyone to be, you know, making headway with. And the thing that did not help me was that I would leave the coaching session and then I wouldn’t take it any further. I wouldn’t make the coaching work for me.

And I think sometimes you can have a shift in a coaching session and be done with it. You never even have to look at the thought again. You never even have to consider it.

Lindsay: Yeah, like it’s just shifted. And it’s like, I had just never even considered that that could be a thought and now it’s here and it just is like integrates pretty quickly.

Kirsty: Amazing. But sometimes I think, and particularly for me, when I was in the hole that I was in, I did not think that I should take it from the session and then go actually actively work my brain around it. And that is actually what I needed to do because one of the things that I did do in your container at the end, you asked us to do an evaluation. I don’t know if you remember, but I think it was supposed to be a couple of pages and mine was like 32.

Lindsay: Oh, I do. Yes. Oh my gosh. I had completely forgotten about that. But I do remember now that you say it and I was like, Whoa, this is, you like did the work.

Kirsty: I did that and I’m so glad that you asked me to do that. That was one of the things I was so grateful for because I wasn’t aware of how much I had shifted and how, and it made me do the work that I needed to have done to integrate all the stuff that I’d been coached on. I just wasn’t looking at it and wasn’t doing that work before that exercise. And I think that was one of the things I could have done in the moment is actually just ask for coaching on why I wasn’t self-coaching, like why I wasn’t taking this away and actually doing a bit of work on it. I was just letting it come back and just be there.

I was like, oh no, still there, and just expecting it to disappear.

Kirsty: Right, like a magic trick.

Lindsay: Yeah, and so that was one of the things I was like, oh, God. The evaluation really helped me see that I had shifted some things, which I think was the catalyst to me then actually looking for more ways in which I shifted and then finding and then creating more shifts within myself.

Lindsay: Yeah. I’ve recently been talking about evaluations a lot and kind of geeking out over them because I think they can be so powerful. And one thing I say is like, don’t do it like performatively, right? Like just to do an evaluation, That is such a waste of time. If you don’t have time to do it or you don’t want to do it, like, boo, don’t do it.

But when you do – now, I don’t know that they have to be how many, 30 something pages?

Kirsty: There’s two pages. I know.

Lindsay: Which is fine. I mean, it sounds like maybe that’s what you needed in the moment, but not to scare anybody. I don’t think they need to be like that, right? But it’s like the whole purpose of doing it isn’t just to be like, oh, ta-da, like I did it. Here’s what I did great. Here’s what I didn’t do great. And then now I’m gonna judge myself for it. No, it’s like, let’s find some awareness that we didn’t have before, like how to move forward.

Kirsty: Yeah, it was really like, okay, why am I thinking this? Like, where did this come from? Like, it was like looking at like cause and effect over the whole year, which just really helped give massive awareness as to what the hell was going on with my messy brain. And just incentivized me to do more actual self-coaching. Like if you’re a coach and you can coach other people, you can coach yourself. And so, yeah, I don’t know why I wasn’t doing that. I do know why. I was thinking like, oh my God, I’ve got a jungle here and it’s too much. Yeah, it’s too much to look at. Yeah.

Lindsay: Yeah, which is actually so interesting, that thought and then the way I remember you coming to coaching and so me not being aware of so much of this, it actually – I think the experience would have been so different if you hadn’t had that thought and you were like, here it is. I’m just going to like lay it out there. We probably could have worked through some of those things even in a group container. I don’t even think it would have taken – I’m not saying you should have done that, right? But had you had different thoughts around it, I think that it would have been totally something that could be coached on in a group container and that other people may have been like, oh yeah, I think that too, or I’ve been thinking about that or feeling that as well. So I just think it’s interesting to hear that.

Kirsty: Yeah, I do agree. I think the other thing, I mean, that was stopping me from showing up just in a group container in general is that I had a major fear around being vulnerable publicly. I just really found it really hard, even though the people were lovely and It was a small enough group that I could have done that. And it’s so funny because now I see vulnerability breeds connection. It’s like, but your fear is the opposite.

Lindsay: It’s like, if I share these things, no one’s gonna like me or I won’t fit in.

Kirsty: I think it was almost, It wasn’t that I was thinking that these people were going to become my clients. It was the weirdest thing. Like these are my peers, they’re not going to be my clients. Like I could have shown up in that space. But I think that somehow there was this feeling linked to the money-making, linked to the growing of my business that if I show up as a complete hot mess, they will never ever refer me to someone else as somebody who can help you with this.

They would sort of question my skill level as a coach. And I think that was actually what was going on. It wasn’t like, oh, these people won’t become my clients if I share what a hot mess I am. It was really like the steps removed from that that I was really subconsciously resisting. And so I found it very hard to share vulnerably and openly and honestly.

You know, so only a couple of people really knew what was fully going on in my head. Which is such a shame because it would have been so helpful in the moment if I had actually felt brave enough to do that.

Lindsay: Maybe, I mean, we can’t know for sure, right? It also could have felt like a vulnerability hangover and like, I didn’t wanna do that. Like, who knows, it may have been helpful. I just think it is just interesting to see that thought that’s like, this is all too much just kept you from getting help on any of it and most – like from yourself, from me, from anyone.

Do you think looking back, because I’m sure people are wondering about this as they’re listening, do you think that you were in too many coaching spaces at the time for like what you maybe needed instead?

I will not take your answer personally, right? If you’re like, yeah, I absolutely shouldn’t have joined like some of the things. This isn’t about like my container or whatever. I just – because this comes up for some people, right? And because it almost sounds like like if I wasn’t involved in this story, I wasn’t one of the coaches and I just heard you telling me this and I was just your friend maybe, didn’t even know what coaching is.

My thought would be like, especially because you brought up the gambling, I’m like, it’s almost like you kept doubling down.

Kirsty: I know.

Lindsay: So let me invest in this. And I don’t think I realized at the time that that was happening so much, but now hearing you tell it, I’m like, oh, like you were like, oh, well maybe just paying more for coaching is gonna be the thing that solves.

Kirsty: Yeah, you nailed it. It was a couple of things. I really wasn’t in the space where I was trusting my own intuition, like my gut. I was so out of that self-authority space that I was totally looking outside of me to get fixed. And I think that came from like, okay, I’m broken.

But also, it came from a desire to achieve that again, linked to my childhood. But it was very much like I had put so much of my worthiness in my coaching business. I had created my 100k goal. I was like, oh my god, amazing. But then even then I was telling myself, oh, it was a bit of a fluke. I didn’t even feel like it was, oh, yay, now I’m, you know, complete and I’ve done that. So I just hadn’t done that work to get rid of that at the time. And so when people were presenting me with like, okay, you’re broken, but this can help you, this can help you, this can help you, clever marketing.

And also I genuinely was like, oh my God, I’m looking for the solution. Mixed in with I really believe in coaching and coaching is the solution.

That was like a very potent compound, if you like, a potent mix that drove me to invest heavily. It was like, okay, I believe in this and this is a solution and I’m willing to put, you know, skin in the game because I really want to create this goal, partly because I’m telling myself that I’m going to be worthy as a human if I achieve this goal. And the faster I get there, the better, you know, all of that.

Lindsay: Well, feeling unworthy is very uncomfortable. So the faster you can fix that, the better it’s going to be for sure.

Kirsty: Exactly. And I was, I was in so many containers that it was making it more confusing, not less. I was like, oh, this person said this, and this person said this. That’s completely contradictory. And then now I don’t know what the hell to do.

And add that to my personality, which is pretty much like, I need to do it my own way, which is so challenging. Because then it’s like, oh, I’m these containers, they teach me these processes and things. And then I’m like rebelling against them or like rejecting them because actually I really want to just figure it out for myself. But I’ve paid all this money. So it was totally, yeah, it was like the slowest road to building my business.

And it was killing me. And also, you’re right, on some level, like not consciously, but on some level, I really thought that like just investing the money was gonna save me. That was the thing that was gonna create my goal, that was gonna get me, you know, where I wanted to be. Which is another reason why I wasn’t like, okay, I’m going to make this coaching work. I’m going to do the work of the self-coaching.

I’m going to really integrate this. I’m going to then go out and try it. I was just hoping that if I just spent the money, which yeah, it’s like gambling. It’s so funny. And then I had so much shame around it.

Like, oh God, I’m not even showing up in these spaces that I’ve paid for. It’s like such a, such a hot mess of a moment for me. But yeah, it’s kind of funny now. I mean, it is funny now, but at the time I was just in it and I was in way too many containers and trying to hustle my way to the next goal.

Lindsay: I think what’s interesting for me to hear some of this is that my experience, I’m thinking, I’m like, some of it’s coming back now because it’s been a little bit, right? And I’ve run a bunch of containers since then. And, but you were doing great work. I think that’s the like one reason why maybe I didn’t notice that this was so big. Like what was actually happening in your inside world versus like on the outside because you did so much work on creating your process and we coached a lot on that piece.

Do you remember this?

Kirsty: Like, okay, actually that is one amazing. It’s so difficult, right? Because this is one of the lessons that I sort of took. I mean, the lesson isn’t like sign up for a million containers because you think that just investing is going to…

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s definitely not the message.

Kirsty: Don’t do it from the space of like, I’m broken and this is going to fix me either. But one thing I will say is that I don’t have any regrets about any of the investments I made. And I don’t know if that’s just the way that I go through life. I genuinely don’t regret anything, which I think is the skill of coaching. It’s amazing that you can have that perspective.

But yeah, one of the things that came from me being in all those containers is that I actually, and one of the lessons is that it’s okay if you don’t take everything from the containers that you’re in. Because I wasn’t utilizing all the connections and you know I had access to so much in the business mastermind and I wasn’t getting peer coaching, I wasn’t using all the resources, I wasn’t doing all the exercises. There were tons of things that I wasn’t doing but looking back there were a couple of things like I actually did nail my PSPR, my process for selling, my marketing concept, if you like, in your container. I absolutely nailed what I can help my clients with, why they are struggling with the solution. I really did that and that was amazing.

To be honest, if I just come in and just done that, just created that, that would have been worth the investment anyway. But then I also made a lifetime business best friend in your container. There was also something else that you taught us or you got us to do, it was like an exercise on how you want your coaching business to feel. I remember at the time, like coming up with the idea and then I didn’t really do anything with it then, but now, I mean, I’m in like such a better space in my business now. And now I’m really just playing and experimenting and I trust myself and I’m not following anyone’s plan, I’m doing my own plan.

Lindsay: Yeah, I can tell just by the way you talk about it, it’s so different.

Kirsty: I know, and I feel so good about it. So I was thinking about how I wanted my business to feel and it feels amazing right now because I’m playing in a season of experimentation. And one of the things that I came up with in the coaching with you was I want my business experience, my clients to feel, it’s a bit like a ski chalet.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a ski trip where you have a catered chalet and that moment where you walk through the doors and it’s so warm and cozy and the host is there, or the chalet host is there, and they’re so friendly and warm and approachable. But there’s a little bit of anticipation and apprehension and excitement because you know that you’re going to be skiing the next day and there’s going to be parts that are going to be really hard and scary, but you know there’s mountain rescue if you go too far.

I genuinely think about this all the time and I’m like, oh my god, I want my containers to feel like that. So when they come in, like I’m the approachable, friendly, warm host.

Lindsay: I love that. Okay, also, I just said yeah, like I’ve been on that vacation. I have not. It sounds incredible. I need to go and I want to have the person there that’s welcoming me and the chalet, all the things.

And definitely the medics because I’m not a skier.

Kirsty: But it’s okay. You can have lessons. They’re going to take you slowly at your pace, but you can have some days which are a little bit more challenging. Yeah. And so I take that like concept, and I just think about it all the time in my business, because like my containers now, like I’m experimenting with them, but one of them is like the productive quarter.

And it’s basically like setting up a challenge to be productive and take bold, scary actions in your business, but again, come for warm, cozy coaching. And so it’s just really nice. And so, I mean, the lesson really is that they were like, even though every session that I got coached with you, even though I didn’t get coached, I was just watching coaching, I didn’t necessarily take it and use it.

There were a handful of sessions in all of the containers that I was in or something in all of them that I found that has helped me get to where I am now. And so I’m so grateful for that.

And I think that’s a good lesson because I think otherwise, if you’re in a container, I mean, definitely don’t sign up for too many at the same time, but if you’re in a container,

Lindsay: But if you accidentally do.

Kirsty: But if you’re in a container and you’re not taking everything, don’t add the layer of shame around I’m spending this money and I’m not getting what I came for because there will be, even in the business mastermind, one of the things we had to do was post our figures every month. And it was a 12-month rolling total. So because I wasn’t selling anything, because I’d frozen in my business, I was like, oh God, I’m not selling any group and I’m not selling one to one. My total was getting less and less.

Lindsay: Yeah, just kept going down as you kept not selling every month.

Kirsty: Everyone else is going up, mine is getting down. I mean, it got to the point where, I mean, it should have, not should have, but for anyone else probably would have been absolutely so humiliated, so embarrassed by that figure by the end. I think I made like $6K something. But bear in mind that the year before that I’d made like $120, whatever. So I’d made like $6K coaching business and I was in a high level container supposedly you know trying to sell and just that exercise of posting my figures was so amazing because it meant that I had to do so much of the work to basically regulate my nervous system and feel okay around my money. And it made me look at my money and it made me create actual safety around my money and feeling safe around my money.

And it made me completely detach my worth from my goal. And it never once made me think I don’t belong here. I actually felt like at the end of that whole year, I belonged more in the room than I did at the start when I came in. It’s just so bizarre. But like the lessons and the growth that you can have in a container, even if you’re not, you know, ticking the boxes and getting all the things, was one of the most amazing things.

I’m so grateful for your container. I’m so grateful that I was in that container, like all the things that I was in, even though I probably did sign up too much.

Lindsay: Okay, so for people listening, I’m curious how, if they’re like relating to what you’re saying right now, how did you get yourself on the other side of it? I think you dropped some things in here and there, but is the answer just having a baby?

Kirsty: I mean, I did think that that was an easy way out. So I was like, yeah, this is good because I’m not working in my business anyway. This is the perfect time, probably not the perfect time to have a baby when you’re rebuilding your business from scratch.

Lindsay: Right. No, I was obviously kidding. I feel like it may have, although, who knows, like maybe some we got some oxytocin in there, but whatever. That may have helped. But no, really, if someone’s listening and they’re relating to what you’re sharing, what can you even say? Is there something specific or is it just over time?

Or how did you kind of, cause you’re such a different human now. How did we get here?

Kirsty: Okay, so a couple of things. One, I actually got deeper coaching on some of the stuff that was clearly like a childhood thing that I didn’t even know was a childhood thing. So if you’re not able to shift something, you know, on a lighter level, if you can find someone who can actually do some of that work.

Lindsay: So it’s like, maybe consider there’s something deeper or something else going on. Maybe it’s, we need something that goes a little deeper than what you’re used to.

Kirsty: Yeah, for sure. So yeah, that’s one thing. The other thing that really helped me was I was so, and this was just from being coached, but I, and also seeing like how you showed up, Melissa’s coaching style, things like that. I think being coached on the things that you can feel safe to show up for, for sure, but then going away and doing the work to integrate it, actually like take the coaching and be like, how could this be true? Not just be offered the suggestion that it might not be true and then you’ll be like, oh, I suppose, and then you go, you leave.

Lindsay: Didn’t stick.

Kirsty: And then, yeah, don’t expect that that’s going to change it for you. But then also offering the same level of tenderness and self-compassion that your coach, if they’re a nice coach, gives you, but to yourself. It sounds so cliche, but I’m my own best friend now. I didn’t even realize how mean I was to myself at the beginning of the year.

And at the end of the year, I really was just giving myself so much self-compassion and so much grace to be in the whole, like not rushing myself out of it. And also like proper self-care. Again, sounds cliche, but not like, oh, you know, give yourself an evening on the couch with Netflix, like actual go for walks outside in the woods and listen to some music that you really like and, you know, go to bed early. And I even, I was so depressed at one point, I literally felt depressed at one point,

I got in a cold, like an ice barrel bucket thing, because that’s supposed to be good for like actually getting…

Lindsay: Totally.

Kirsty: But do you know what? I felt amazing after I got out of it. I was like, I’ll do anything at this point. And so I just started doing things like that were actually really nourishing to my body. I went for a run, I ate healthy, I just really took care of my body and offered myself tons of nice, gentle, kind thoughts about myself and the space that I was in. I processed my emotions, I let myself be in the state and then actually processed it with other coaches. That was so helpful.

Lindsay: To me, what I hear you saying is, it’s fairly simple, but also not, maybe when you’re in that space, is that you had compassion for yourself. You started talking to yourself differently and loving yourself. You took care of, which I think these are connected, right? Like, okay, now I’m being nice to myself. What does that look like?

Not just like what I’m saying to myself, but also how I’m taking care of myself. So you’re taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, all the things. And it probably wasn’t an overnight shift.

Kirsty: No, and yeah, and allowing myself time. Like I made no rash decisions. At one point I was like, I’m selling up, I’m traveling in a van, only because I was pregnant. I was like, it’s probably the best idea. And Teresa coached me not to do that.

She was like, how might it be the best thing that you just stick with this and not sell out? I was like, I’m starting a new business. I’m selling saunas. So yeah, I think that just giving myself grace and time, not doing anything rash, just allowed me to come out of my funk, but also doing the evaluation, which felt like heavy at the time. But just to look for really what it was, it was just looking for ways in which I had shifted something, like ways that felt better.

So yeah, sorry, you’ve wrapped it up beautifully, much more beautifully than or more articulately than I was saying.

Lindsay: Well, I mean, I just condensed it down into the simple things, but I love that you gave specific examples for people that are listening if they are feeling this. You just gave so many different, like, look here, look here, try this. But I think it really starts with having compassion, probably, for yourself. It’s okay where we are right now.

Kirsty: Yeah, 100%. And believing also, I think the last thing I’ll just add, believing that this was not where I was going to stay. Like, I really had belief that like, I’ll come out of this at some point. Like I’ll be reinvigorated about my business again. I will be more excited.

And then I got to that place where I was like, oh my God, I believe in coaching, I believe in the industry. Like I’m so much more confident in my coaching. I went through a real confidence crisis at the time. And now I’m like, oh my God, it’s like, I’m worlds apart.

Lindsay: It makes me so happy. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for doing this.

Kirsty: Thank you for having me. I hope it’s being helpful

Lindsay: As I think gonna help a lot of people.

Kirsty: I hope so I mean, I’m a bit of a rambler.

Lindsay: So no, it was so good. I always say like I’ll jump in if I need to. Don’t you worry. But I didn’t even have to, you were amazing. So if people are listening and they wanna come find you, now see all the magic you’re creating in the world, where do they do that?

Kirsty: Probably the easiest place is my podcast. That’s probably where they’re gonna get the most help if they’re struggling with time and productivity in their business. So that is the Time and Productivity Podcast for Entrepreneurs.

Lindsay: Okay, we will link that in the show notes. Anything else you want to share?

Kirsty: I mean, I’m on IG, you can find me there @KCKnightCoaching. But yeah, no, apart from that, I hope that if you are in the hole, like I was, if everything is a hot mess, that yeah, you just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, which feels amazing when you step into it.

Lindsay: And you’re probably really good at coaching people in that space now because you went through it. Quite probably,

Lindsay: Maybe I would rephrase that as like, because of what you coach on, like starting to see if people are kind of overwhelmed, taking on too many things, committing to too many things, like all of that is probably – you’re probably really good at coaching on it, I would think.

Kirsty: Yeah, I could probably see that be true.

Lindsay: Yeah. Alright, well, thank you so much. I appreciate you. This has been amazing. Thank you for sharing and being so open.

And can’t wait to have you back again someday.

Kirsty: Thank you for having me. Of course.

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.