Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 278.

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’m so glad you’re here. And today, I am sharing an episode that I’ve been wanting to record for you for a while. And I’m calling it Confessions of a Successful Coach.

And here’s why, because I know many of you and a lot of my clients, sometimes they say things to me like, yeah, but you don’t do that, or yeah, but you don’t have that problem, or whatever. They just say something that I can tell they are assuming that my life is just amazing and perfect, and I’m just totally pulled together and organized all the time.

And I know I’ve shared a lot of the behind the scenes and some of the messiness on this podcast before, but I thought it could be fun to just kind of do a countdown of 10 things that I do behind the scenes that might surprise you. Or a count up, I’m going to go from one to 10.

So, I’m going to pull back the curtains a little bit and give you just a little bit of what actually goes on behind the scenes of my business because I have a feeling some of it will not be what you think. And I want to be very clear, this is not a, “Oh, look how messy I am,” kind of episode, right? This is not just a, I’m just a mess all around, wah, episode. It is a, I have a successful business, and I’m also a real human.

And my business still works. I think that distinction is very important because there are, of course, a lot of things that I’m very consistent with, that I’m on top of, that I’m doing all of the time, that does make my business keep going and keep running. So I don’t want it to sound like everything is just a mess, because over the years, I have learned how to show up and get the things done that I need to get done in order to be here for you.

These are going to be a little more just like funny confessions. Okay? So, confession number one. I often tell my clients to slow down and do one thing at a time in order to move faster. And in the fall, I did a complete rebrand, built a brand new website, launched a new membership, and also had planned to launch a newsletter and a new podcast.

You’ve heard me talk about it on here. All at the same time. This one really cracks me up because when I was in the middle of it, I really didn’t see that that’s what was happening, even though I teach my clients all the time, one project at a time, one big project at a time. All of those things that I just mentioned are pretty much all big projects.

Now, I did hire someone to help me with the rebrand and the new website, but the rest of it, I was doing mostly by myself. With my business manager, of course, but it’s not like I have an entire team just doing all of the things for me, right?

So, what happened is I proved myself right. One thing at a time is actually so much better, because you may have noticed, I haven’t actually launched the newsletter or the podcast yet. They had to take a back seat for a minute while I finished up everything else and learned to run a new membership.

Now, that being said, the new newsletter is launching this week, and I will add some information for that at the end of this episode. But I just want you to hear me say that sometimes, I get it. Your ambition might outrun what you can actually get done. And that’s okay. But the advice still stands. And I’m also still human.

Confession number two. I have been telling myself for the last maybe one to two years that I’m going to start meditating regularly again. I literally never do it. I used to meditate regularly when my kids were quite young. This was prior to coaching when I was feeling anxious all the time. Meditation was a tool that I learned that was super helpful for me.

And honestly, I’ve been feeling a little more anxious than normal over the last year or two, and I absolutely know it would help. And yet, here we are. I keep not carving out the time and not doing it. Hopefully this feels relatable.

I know that a lot of you think, “Oh, I should be doing this thing or I should be doing this thing for my growth.” And I just need you to know, sure, do it if you want to. Maybe get coaching on it if you want to. But also, your business isn’t going to burn down because you’re not doing that one thing every morning that you keep telling yourself you’re going to do. There are times that you can know what works and just not be doing it right now and still be great at your job.

Okay, confession number three. I almost never pay attention to things like social media algorithms, or my email stats, or just any stats, unless I’m specifically focused on maybe a growth strategy in that area. So I don’t often check Instagram likes. I don’t track my podcast downloads regularly. And I just don’t obsess over metrics, especially on social media, because I feel like the algorithm is constantly updating, and if that’s the road I’m going to go down, it is like a constant job to stay on top of all the changes.

So, case in point, recently, I logged into Libsyn, which is where I host my podcast, because I had to update my payment method and discovered I am literally just so close, like a hair close, to one million podcast downloads. And I had absolutely no idea. It never even crossed my mind to check for a really long time.

Now, I feel excited about that, and that’s amazing, but more than anything, that just really makes me laugh. It just really sums up how I just think about numbers and metrics when that’s not the thing that I’m currently paying attention to.

Now, if I was actively using some sort of podcast growth strategy, then of course, I would be looking more at those numbers and just kind of seeing, is it working? But that’s just not what has been going on here lately. I’ve had a couple other things on my plate that I was doing all at the same time, right? Confession number four. Some days I get 500 things done in my business, and other days, I get about zero to two. And there’s not a lot of in between.

So I’ve shared before, I don’t typically follow a strict schedule. I prefer to schedule things in kind of blocks and kind of knowing here’s in general all the things I need to get done this week, and I’ll kind of block off my week to get those things done. But every once in a while, there is just a day where my brain is just like, “Not today.” Maybe I didn’t sleep very well, maybe it’s hormones, maybe it’s stress, like who knows?

And I’ll tell you what I do on those days. Of course, I show up for my clients and for coaching sessions, but other than that, I might do the couple things that absolutely have to be done, and then I might go do something fun. I might take a break, take a nap. I don’t actually often nap, but I might lay down, or even watch a show.

Every single time I allow myself that space, the next day, I almost always come back with energy and creativity, and it’s so different than if I had forced myself to power through. So I just need you to know, you do not need to have a perfectly optimized CEO schedule to run a successful business. Sometimes one of the most productive things you can do is just stop producing and give yourself a little bit of a break.

Okay, and here are a couple that I’ll just go through quickly. Confession number five, I’m almost always wearing soft pants. I know that’s not weird. A lot of people do it, but specifically joggers, sweatpants, something cozy, and I’m always wearing really soft socks and slippers because, for real, why would anyone wear real shoes inside?

I know coaches who’ve told me they put their heels on and they just dress up to do their you know webinar or whatever it is that they’re doing or to do their coaching on Zoom. And that honestly blows my mind. Like, I don’t even know. I cannot imagine. I would be so distracted by that.

Confession six. The second I’m off camera after I host a coaching call or a workshop or whatever it is, I always take off every piece of jewelry and anything that’s itchy or just not soft, basically, that’s on my body and I put something else on.

My hair goes up in a clip and it always makes me laugh because the version of me that you see on Zoom is the more put together, polished version, and the real version is a little more feral about 30 seconds after that call ends. It is like just an immediate reaction. It’s like, okay, I don’t notice it while I’m on the call, but the second I’m off, it’s like everything must go.

Confession number seven, I keep it out of camera, but I almost always have a fidget in my hand when I’m coaching. If you’re in my coaching spaces, you might know this because I’ve taught it and I’ve talked about it, and it often surprises my clients when I tell them because they never see it, right? So I do be sure that it stays off of camera, but it always just really helps me focus.

So if you’ve ever been on a call with me and thought I was giving you my complete, undivided attention, I absolutely was. But I was able to do it because I had a little fidget in my hand most of the time. Next one, I do not sit at my desk all day. Actually, I pretty much only sit at my desk when I’m coaching. And I know that my clients sometimes picture me sitting at my desk for hours like they see me on calls, but the reality is I actually move around all day. I walk around my house. I have a standing desk, so I’ll move it up and down. Sometimes I even lie on the floor of my office or on the couch with my laptop.

And I also eat the same lunch almost every day, actually one of about three options. So just know that picture of whatever polished CEO working at the desk, it’s just not often my reality. I am just a person who’s moving around her house, eating the same orange soup is what I call it, most days, helping coaches build the businesses that they love.

Confession nine. I often go over time in my group coaching sessions, and I’m not even sorry for it. Because here’s the thing, I know some coaches will say you cannot do that. You have to end calls right on time, you have to respect your clients’ time. I absolutely respect my clients’ time.

I will never teach or announce anything important after the said end time of a call, but if I’m coaching in a group, and there are maybe a couple people that still want some coaching and they have their hand up, I will ask them if they have time. I will acknowledge that I have time, and then we will stay on and coach.

And I will also say goodbye to anyone that needs to sign off and tell them I will see them next week. It’s something I’ve done for a while, and it’s never an issue. I even do it sometimes on one-on-one calls. If we’re right in the middle of something, I might ask about five minutes before the end of the call, “Hey, do you have five extra minutes?” because I just know, like, we’re going to need 10 minutes to finish this up. And if they say no, obviously, we’ll finish next time.

Confession number 10. This one feels actually the only one I’m almost a little embarrassed about. My office is currently a disaster. So during the rebrand in the fall, late fall, early winter, I decided, and some of you saw me do this, I decided to paint my office and rearrange everything. I got a new desk and painted my walls and basically got my Zoom background looking great. And then I stopped because, again, remember, I was in the middle of launching 10 different things.

So there are still things out of place, furniture I need to buy, so much stuff that needs to be put away. And it just has a general vibe of work in progress. Now, the part that you see on camera looks great, but the rest, a little messy. And sometimes that’s just what happens in business.

Sometimes it’s like, some of the things just need to be done and done is better than perfect. And sometimes done, like in this case, just means done for right now. So don’t worry, it is coming up soon on, okay, something has to be done with this. But for right now, it’s fine and it’ll get taken care of sooner or later.

So I just want to bring you back to the bigger point. I know none of those were huge revelations. Some of them are kind of silly, but I just want you to hear me say that none of these things stopped me from running my business or building a business I love or helping my clients get real amazing results. Your business does not have to look like any kind of highlight reel to work.

And the coaches who build the most sustainable, enjoyable businesses are the ones who stop performing for others and just start being really honest about who they really are and how they love to work. So, a couple CTAs, calls to action, if you choose to accept them. The first one is that newsletter I was talking about. I am so excited. It’s finally launching. It’s called Full Disclosure, which is kind of perfect for this episode.

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love what I’m sharing in the newsletter. It’s going to be a really like behind the scenes, what I’m working on, what I’m loving, stuff I see working, things that aren’t working, just kind of a full behind the scenes. Come join me. I will put the link in the show notes. You can opt in today and immediately get the first newsletter.

And the next thing is, if you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I’ve hosted Coach Week the last few years. And that is coming back. We skipped it in the fall because again, I had a few things going on. But I’m coming back. It’s happening in March, and we will announce the dates in the next episode and in my newsletter. So be sure you are subscribed to the podcast and the newsletter so that you know when it is, so that you can sign up right away.

Thank you so much for being on today. I hope some of these made you laugh and helped you feel a little more human. And I will talk to you again 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.