Ep #58: Mindset Lessons from 4 Different Styles of Coaching

Hi, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 58.

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.

Well hello, I am so glad you’re here. Today, I have another panel of coaches for you. The amazing Monica, Katy, Kylie, and Sabrina. I will have them all introduce themselves and tell you what they do. But I want to encourage you to stay on the whole time, they drop some serious knowledge, it’s so fun.

And one thing that I–  You know, I knew I wanted to do these panels and really talk about the importance of mindset and emotions and how that mixes with strategy, especially in business.

One thing I didn’t know that was going to happen that I love so much, especially in this episode, because there are four of them, you really get to see different styles of coaching and how they all work. How they are all perfect. How it can be so amazing to develop your own personal style and really lean into what you are naturally good at and how that can help your clients that will come to you.

So stay on, listen to what they have to say, they even drop some business tips at the end that will be useful for you, and enjoy.

Lindsay: Hello everyone, I am so happy to have you all here today. What I forgot to tell you before we started recording is that I will record an intro for this. So we’re just going to dive right in, you’re not going to listen to me do the intro.

So the first thing I want you to do is we’ll just go around and I would love for everybody to introduce themselves. Katy, you go first.

Katy: Okay, cool. Hi, I’m Katy and I’m an artist and I’m a life coach for artists and I help them with creating their most recognizable work and getting that money.

Lindsay: Love it, getting that money. Sabrina.

Sabrina: Hi everyone, I’m Sabrina. I’m a coach who helps professionals and entrepreneurs create the life and the businesses that they love. I have a background in tech and I’m so happy to be here today.

Lindsay: Love it. Monica.

Monica: Hello. So happy to be here, thanks for having me on, Lindsey. I am a business coach. I work with female leaders, I help them overcome self-doubt, eliminate overwhelm, and gain control their time so they can love and excel in their careers.

Lindsay: So good. Kylie.

Kylie: Hey everybody, thank you for having me on, Lindsay. My name is Kylie Clayborne and I’m a life and business coach for women. I help them love their lives. I help them feel lit up about their lives so they can go do the work they’ve been called to do and make money doing it.

Lindsay: So fun. Okay, so for everybody listening, one thing you can probably tell already is that everyone that’s on today is either some type of business coach or is a life coach that coaches their clients occasionally on business or coaches clients maybe in their life, but all of their clients are in a particular field or in a certain area of business.

So, one question that I just want to start with, because I think that I talked about this a little bit on the podcast I did with Sarah and Cindy, but I think it’s something that comes up for so many business coaches.

No matter what kind of business coach you are, so often our clients come to us wanting us to just tell them what to do. Like I’m building a business, just tell me what to do. Just tell me step one, through step 20. I will do them. If that is what it takes, I’ll just do them. Tell me, whatever.

First, I want to know, do you experience that? And if yes, what do you think is the importance of combining kind of that mindset piece? Looking at the thoughts, the emotions, all the other things besides just all the actions that they want to take? Katy?

Katy: Okay, so, yes, that does happen, and in many ways. I often get just clients being like, “What do you think? How do you think I should do this?” And trying to get my thoughts and opinions as if I’m the one that knows the answer, or like I’m the expert and then I just tell them what I think and then they go do that. So that’s how it shows up in coaching for me.

So why I think it’s important to involve the mindset side alongside the action is because the way that I think about it is like it’s kind of like without the mindset and the investigating of the thoughts and the feelings, it kind of feels like you’re trying to move this machine, but it’s very clunky.

And you’re doing it without lubrication. And you’re doing it without the tools to really get this machinery going. And then the coaching and the mindset is really what helps it go smoothly, or really helps you make that progress so much faster. That’s the way I kind of see it in me and in my clients.

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s so good. Sabrina, what do you think? What do you have to add to that?

Sabrina: Yeah, for sure, I definitely also see this all the time. And I think it’s so important to take a pause and recognize what’s happening. Because I think it’s almost like dating, we can’t go out dating and be like, “What are other people doing right now? What is popular out there in the world?”

You really have to think about first, why are you asking those questions? So when this comes up, I first help kind of resolve it in the first session where we establish what is a coaching relationship. And I always say that it’s collaborative, we are peers, and I will provide you my personal opinion when appropriate.

But at the end of the day, the goal is for us to find out what is true for you and for you to make these decisions. So when it comes up again and again, I will often say, “Wait a minute, what are the emotions that is driving you to asking these questions? Is it coming from curiosity? Or is it coming from anxiety and confusion?”

So that actually opens up a whole new world for us to explore to really understand where the client is coming from. And then if we actually arrive at a place of neutral emotion, or curiosity, when appropriate I’ll say, “Hey, these are the steps that I’ve taken. This is my personal opinion.”

But often, I’ll also throw out a complete opposite example intentionally, just to show them that there are so many ways of doing businesses out there. And it’s important for us to look at this client as an individual, their financial kind of background, their actual skill sets and help them make the decision.

So as a result, all of my clients say, “Hey, I’m able to foster some kind of discernment. I’m able to find the ways that really work for me, and really, really easily.” So I think by going through this process, it really makes them the boss of their business and gives them that confidence.

Lindsay: So good. Monica, what are your thoughts?

Monica: Yeah, I love this question because I used to be that person. And I seem to attract a lot of people who are very keen on the action, the how-to. As lawyers, I’m a former attorney, we bill by the hour so there’s a lot of emphasis on producing as much as you can in the billable hour. And there’s a lot of impatience, give me the how and I’ll do it and I’ll succeed. We’re very disciplined in executing a strategy.

So yes, there is a place for strategy. I do teach some frameworks around delegation and feedback and things that I’ve gone to school for and studied for 20 years. But the bigger component, I think of it as a puzzle piece, you absolutely need to know the mindset that will help you execute the strategy, apply it for yourself and have sustainable success.

It’s almost like, if it was only about the how or the actions, the diet industry would dry out, because we all know how to lose weight but there’s so much challenge and struggle with applying it for yourself. Or even writing a dissertation. We all know what you have to do, sit down and write your topic. But there’s a lot of challenge to actually having that take place.

So the beautiful piece about coaching is that it’s different than training when you’re just getting passive knowledge, you look at the client’s individual challenges to applying what they already know how to apply. So for me, it is a combination, a beautiful combination of strategy and mindset.

And I think that’s very surprising to clients when they first come to me like, “Give me all the how. You’re so good at it, you’ve done this.” And when they recognize there’s a much more intangible, subtle component, which is the key to sustainable success, ultimately.

Lindsay: So good. I just got chills when you gave the example of writing a dissertation. I just thought if I’d had a coach in college or in grad school, because it’s like I knew how to write the paper. Of course, I would sit down and write the paper, I would do it at 10pm the night before it was due. And I would be up all night, I would be miserable. And it worked, my grades were fine.

But I think that is such a good example. Obviously, it just struck home for me, but just such a good example of if I’d had a coach questioning that, questioning like well, why are you doing it at 10pm? Why are you putting it off? What are your thoughts? How are you feeling about it? Whatever, it just could have been such a different experience of maybe not being so miserable because I stayed up all night writing.

Kylie, What are your thoughts?

Kylie: Yeah, I love this question too. And I feel like I definitely agree with what everybody shared. But also just to build a little bit on what Sabrina was sharing, I think the question of just thinking about so often when clients come to us, they want to fast forward to the end. They want to fast forward, they just want the result.

And so slowing down a little bit and letting them know that the journey is also important, the unfolding, the unlocking of what their gifts are. The unlearning of a lot of the programming that has maybe kept them small, because I work with women, that’s a thing. Some of the good girl conditioning that has been keeping them boxed in.

Just slowing that down and letting them know that those are the pieces that are going to help them build a successful, sustainable business. Like Monica was just saying, those are the key pieces that are going to help them do that.

And I like to do that by focusing on who they’re being. Really just like I work a little bit in what people call woo. So I like to talk about manifesting and use some of those principles in my coaching. And I like to say that the what and the when is up to the universe. The who and the why is what we focus on. Like who we’re being and why we’re doing what we’re doing, and that is what drives and moves us forward.

Lindsay: So good. So I have a question for Sabrina and Kylie. And Monica and Katy, you can chime in on this too. I just happen to know that Sabrina and Kylie, both of you do tend to a little bit, I’ve seen this even just on social media, both of you tend to a little more towards– I don’t love to use the word woo, but just a little bit.

Like Sabrina, you talk a lot about emotions, not that emotions are woo at all. But sometimes I think, especially in business, when people see that they think, “Oh, this is like, who cares about emotions? Let’s keep that out of here. We just need to do the things and make the money and whatever.”

And what are your thoughts about that? Kylie, I know you use stuff like breath work and things like that, we’ve talked about it within the mastermind. Either of you, whoever wants to go first, just what are your thoughts about that? Why is it important? Why are emotions important in business when it feels like it could be, to a lot of people, a very logical game? Like, this is just like you just think about it and do the things. That’s not actually true. What are your thoughts?

Sabrina: All right. So I mean, if I think about the main problems of kind of the business clients that I have and the leader clients that I have, they have like a group of maybe three issues. They’re suffering from some kind of operational inefficiency, some kind of imposter syndrome, and some kind of not being able to let go. Especially if they’re kind of the leader of the company, or the leader of their team.

And we would look at those things, sure. There are very good frameworks that sometimes I will show them to move through. But at the end of the day, when we look at what’s underneath the hood, there are often one or two emotions for an individual that’s driving all of those things. So I like to think we’re going down like underneath a tree and look at its roots.

So for one of my clients, we’ve discovered that most of her actions that’s happening at her company, in her work is driven by the emotion of loneliness. So when we examine the emotion of loneliness, it’s coming up also in dating, it’s coming up in her friendships. So without discovering this, we’re not able to really connect the dots and see how her feelings are affecting really everything that she does.

The way that I work with her on this is actually through mindfulness, and we do a lot of embodiment. I’m also a Reiki Master, so sometimes we would pause and I would send her a little bit Reiki, which is just holding that emotion a little bit more to make it feel safe in her body.

So if we’re able to work on the emotion, then all of a sudden, she feels a little bit safer when looking at her operational stuff. She feels a little bit safer to say, “Hey, let me rely on my teammate and delegate some of these things to her.” And as a result, we’re able to work on not only her career goals and her business goals, but also, we’re able to unravel some of the things that we’re seeing in her relationships.

So I really see emotions to be a key to all of our behaviors. And it’s a shortcut, really, because at the end of the day we’re going to uncover a lot of these side results that’s not even been said, it’s just going to be easily achieved because we’ve uncovered the root cause.

Kylie: Yeah, I love that. I also love to think that the body has a lot to tell us and to teach us. There is so much that our subconscious, you know, our subconscious mind has a lot to offer. It rules a lot of what we’re doing or not doing and how we’re limiting ourselves and our nervous system, you know, regulating our nervous system.

And like Sabrina was just saying, so much of that is feeling safe. And feeling safe is keeping your nervous system regulated and calm. And I think for so many women, I’m going to refer to women because that’s who I work with, but feeling safe in their bodies, feeling safe enough to show up online, feeling safe to earn money, feeling safe to go after what it is they want to go after. And for so many of us we land and feeling first, and we aren’t really sure what we’re thinking.

And so I think sometimes it can be the best place to start is to look at like, “Okay, what am I feeling?” I’m such a feeling person. I’m a Pisces, and I’m a fish, I’m going to go with the flow, but I’m such a feeling person. And so for me, figuring out what am I feeling in this moment? And what is the thought that’s tied to this? And kind of follow that trail and see how it’s feeling in my body, that is really helpful for me. It’s helped me in so many ways.

Lindsay: I love that. And Monica, I have a separate question for you. But I think you wanted to add something to this too.

Monica: I did and I’ll be very quick. But I think I totally agree with Sabrina and Kylie. It’s so interesting because the clients that I do attract are very focused on give me the how and the strategy, but 90% of the time when they launch into a session they will say, “I feel overwhelmed, I’m anxious, I have a lot of self-doubt going into a particular presentation.” So these are all feelings.

And so while they really want to focus on how do I get out of this, they start with emotion. It’s a part of who we are and so to say that we are only going to focus on the actions, it’s a disservice to everything that’s happening and what we need to look at to get the results we want.

I don’t necessarily do a lot of thought work, I’m sorry, feeling work, per se, but it’s an inevitable part of what we look at and what we sell for in a coaching session.,

Lindsay: So good. And here’s what I love, this is why I kind of have separate questions for you. And I have a different question for Katy as well. I just love like thinking about how as coaches we can be so different. And some of us are really into feelings, like Kylie is like, “I’m a huge feeler.” But if you ask me, I’m like, “No, no, thank you. That’s not for me.”

But that’s also the work I’ve had to do. I’ve done a lot of work on that side of it. And, Monica, I think out of a lot of my clients in the mastermind, and the mastermind that’s happening right now that you’re in, I relate so much to a lot of what you say. I think you’re very analytical, you have a very like, tend to be a little up in your brain in, I think, the best way because I can totally relate to it.

So one thing, one reason that I love having the four of you on and I kind of have some different questions for each of you is I think that it’s so fun to see, with like Sabrina and Kylie, how they just answered it. And then the question I have for Monica is a little different. Because I think that it’s so fun to see kind of different personalities in coaches, and different ways that we as coaches think about things or feel about things.

Like Kylie just expressed that she is such a feeler. And, Monica, I know you work with a lot of lawyers. And I also know because I coach you and you’re in my mastermind, that you remind me a lot of myself where you’re not the first to go to like, “Let’s just dive into all the feelings.” But I wonder, I’m curious about how do you think that makes you a great coach for your clients?

Monica: Yeah, that is a great question. And I think everything that we do as coaches is so meaningful when we can relate to the experience the client has had because we’ve been through it. And we’re currently going through it, we’re a couple of steps ahead, a couple years ahead.

And I am very much, like you said, in my head analyzing a problem and rarely dropping into the feeling. And finding coaching and being certified in a couple of different certifications has forced me to look at my feelings to understand the message that they have, the place they have in my journey in becoming better as a coach, as a businessperson, and helping my clients.

And I’m evolving in how I use it. And I rarely focus on let’s talk about feelings and process them in my coaching session. But I’m able to see the resistance that my clients have, because I have had it myself, I currently do. And I’m able to make sense of what they’re not able to verbalize and what they’re experiencing and find a way to speak to them in their language and still understand the emotion, process it as needed, or help them make sense of the physical sensation that they feel that they don’t have a word for.

And so it’s an evolution of only a few steps ahead, which is so helpful for me to be able to get into their brain and know exactly what’s happening when they’re not able to find the right words.

Lindsay: I love that. I just think it’s important for everyone listening to hear, whether they’re a business coach or whatever kind of coach they are. Because I think it’s just so common for coaches to hear someone else say something and think, “Oh my gosh, I need to be better at that. I need to have that skill that doesn’t come natural to me at all.

Like Sabrina just said she does Reiki, and my clients probably need that. And I probably need to know. It’s so easy for our coach brain to go there and think we have to know all the things for our clients.

But I really think, Monica, your answer was such a good example of this of how what we are naturally good at is useful for our clients, right? Because, Monica, if you went to your clients who are, I think mostly lawyers, right? And you were like, “Okay, listen, today, this is what we’re going to do, we’re just going to sit with our emotions.”

They’d be like, click this call is over. Maybe not all of them, but I just know because we’ve talked about it a little bit. I don’t think that they would love that approach. What do you think?

Monica: 100%. And it’s interesting, because the more we evolve into the coaching journey, they do ease up about the concept of feelings. We don’t talk about it in the same terminology as Sabrina and Kylie certainly do. But it’s part of everything that they go through in the solution that they’re seeking. And so it’s super helpful for me to have struggled and resisted it myself to be able to spot it in my clients.

Lindsay: Love it. Okay, Katy, so right before we started this, you sent me photos to use for the podcast. I was going to ask you this question anyway, but this just blew my mind. You sent me two photos. And you said, the first one is, it feels a lot like more who I am now. And the second one is a little more tame. And I forget the words you used, but basically if you want a vanilla photo, here’s the other one just in case you don’t like the first one.

But one of my favorite things about you, about following your journey and I’ve followed you on Instagram probably for a couple years, even before I worked with you. And I have just noticed over the last probably year how you have really stepped into like this is who I am, I own it. And I think it’s part of your process and part of kind of what you teach your clients into making their best art.

I’m curious, like you’re just such a good example of your own process, right? And I’m curious, how did you do that work? How did you decide, “Oh, this is what I really need to do in order to sell my art. In order to make more money, to make more money as a coach, whatever it is. To teach my clients to sell art, I need to be more of me.” How did that happen?

Katy: So the way that happened was actually that came first. I guess I used the tools to get what I wanted first, which was to feel full and total liberation to be me. And it’s literally what my clients are asking, like asking the same, right?

And so I guess doing that myself first really helped me understand exactly how I did that so I can teach my clients to do the same. And yeah, so it’s more like I started first. And it wasn’t like, “Oh, this is how I’m going to make more money.” It’s more like this is what I really wanted. And I also know that making money, or standing out, or being full you is literally the opposite of hiding or people pleasing. And so that’s what I did.

Lindsay: I love it. And do you have any thoughts about kind of what I was asking them? Or the difference between speaking a lot to emotions in coaching versus thoughts? I’m not really sure which side of that you fall on. So I’d just love your thoughts on it.

Katy: It’s interesting to me that a lot of clients do want the how, the strategy, what to do. But it’s our emotions that dictate whether we do them or not, or how we do the strategy and whether we quit on it, or how consistent we are with it, all that kind of stuff.

So to me, it’s very logical to take a look at the emotions and to use and work with the emotions, which is literally what allowed me to do all the things that I did in order to feel fully me. So yeah, that’s my take on that.

Lindsay: I love that. That’s a lot how I think about emotions too, is like, yeah, emotions are just logic, right? Like wait a minute, okay, hold on, let’s explore that a little bit. Because they can be, right? We can think about emotions and then there’s also the piece where it’s like we experience the emotions in our body. And I think that’s the part that at least I know I resist for sure.

Katy: Yeah, and I think I definitely would not fall into the category of give me all the emotions and let me stew in it. But I actually for a long time thought that I was bad at feeling my emotions and like I didn’t know how to do that, or I was calling myself bad because I had the resistance. Because I was feeling like I’m not super excited to name it, and call it what it is, and describe it and things like that.

But I decided that that’s just impossible. Like that just can’t be true that I’m bad at it. And same with just everyone, I don’t think anybody is bad at feeling their emotions just because they feel some resistance.

Lindsay: I love that so much, that is such a good point.

Okay, I have a question that I get a lot from business coaches, and really from all coaches, but it comes up a lot in business. And I would love to hear one or two answers. What do you do when you have a client who comes to you for business, or even for a different goal, maybe in their life, and they are not taking action at all?

There’s just no action, they are doing the coaching and they’re not progressing, they’re not moving forward because they’re just kind of stuck or like scared to even take that first thing. Who has anything to share on that?

Katy: My first thought with that is that we just keep going. They keep coming to the call, nothing’s gone wrong, this is not a problem. We just continue to take a look at what’s going on. And it doesn’t have to be like, “Oh God, that means they’re never going to change.” Or this isn’t ever going to work, or they’re never going to take the action. It’s like, I keep myself in this place of like total calm that like, of course they will, they totally will.

And we just continue every single call helping them create even more awareness around why they are scared and how they can help themselves do it even when they are scared, and how to have their own back when they do the thing that’s scary. And then really take a look at that. The thing that makes you feel so bad after you do the scary thing is your thoughts, it’s not the thing. And just continuing to develop that safety for them. And total belief that they totally will, not a problem.

Lindsay: Love it. Monica.

Monica: I love what Katy just said. I see that a lot with my clients, a lot of them are perfectionist, type A personalities. And they’re used to taking the advice and then executing it and seeing the result right away. So what I see happen is halfway through the coaching, they are not seeing the ultimate result yet. And they think in very black and white terms. Oh, I’m not doing it right if I don’t have the results.

So rather than looking at the continuum of progress in coaching, they’re so used to executing and then seeing the result. And so there’s a lot of moving forward, then maybe taking a step back as you progress into a coaching engagement and they’re not liking the taking a step back. They don’t trust themselves because there’s so much intangible movement in a coaching engagement and in self-development that they decide, “Okay, this is not working.” And they stop taking action.

Or they’re just so hard on themselves in the expectation of being perfect at it that they drop out. They’re like, “Okay, this is just not what I expected. I’m not good at this. I’m not getting it.” That’s when I see it happen with the majority my clients. And we just talk about it, look at it, and are able to uncover what’s causing that procrastination or inaction.

Lindsay: Love that. Kylie?

Kylie: Yeah, I love what both Katy and Monica shared. I also like to think about how are we agreeing with the result that we have right now? Like when someone’s really stuck and they’re not able to kind of move forward and create the result that they want, looking at what they feel like they might be protecting themselves from. Like what seems sort of like protective patterns that they might be in and how they might be agreeing with the result that they have right now.

Whether that’s conscious or unconscious. Whether they know they are agreeing with it or not. And being willing to kind of investigate without judgment, take responsibility without blame or guilt, which feels so good. It feel so good to take responsibility for where you are without feeling like you have to feel bad about that or feel guilty. I think it’s mind blowing for people to have that experience. And I think just getting that awareness can alone start to shift things toward where they do want to go.

Sabrina: Yeah, so I agree with everything that’s been said, it’s so good. And I just wanted to add kind of two variations. So I hear this a lot too, first of all, if I hear from my coach friends if someone’s not having progress, the first thing I want to find out is, is it in our head, or did the client actually say that? Because that’s very, very different.

Sometimes we can’t really know if there’s been progress or not because the client experience can be completely different. So if we are thinking that as a coach, I would really just review all the notes and think about, “Hey, maybe it is progress for them to continue to show up and face the fact that they’re stuck, or face their procrastination, or face their inaction. They might have never been able to do that before.” So I would just hold kind of that possibility for them.

But if the client actually is also noticing that or there’s evidence of them being frustrated with their lack of progress, I would actually just call it out and investigate it. Because a lot of times, we as coaches feel like it’s our fault. And we are scared to open that can of worms, like why are you not taking action?

But I just usually say the questions that I’m afraid to ask. I write them down and I say, “Hey, what is going on here?” And I bring it up again and again, in different perspectives with kindness and love. And I invite them to look at this. Like why are you procrastinating? Why isn’t this happening? Is there anything that we haven’t talked about before?

And there’s usually, like Kylie said, there’s usually something else to be discussed there to be uncovered before we can move forward. So it turns into a pretty fruitful conversation.

Lindsay: I just love this. I think what’s so fun is you all gave different answers, and they all work. These are all amazing strategies to do, to use  when you kind of feel like your clients are frozen. And I think part of it always comes back to kind of knowing your client. It might be dependent on well, is this client just always frozen? Or is this new? The way you explore it might be different.

And I think one thing I would add that I don’t think anyone said is one thing I notice, especially in business, especially when I used to do one on one coaching is that my clients would decide something like, “Facebook as the only way to build my business.” And then they would also decide at the same time, “I hate Facebook.”

So it’s like they would be holding on to these two opposites and not wanting to let go of either. Which would just keep them completely frozen. Like every time their thought was like, “The only way this is going to work is if I’m really good at posting on Facebook.” But then they have these thoughts about Facebook that aren’t amazing, that aren’t useful. They might be true, they can keep them. But they aren’t useful when they’re thinking that the only way to do it is through taking those specific actions.

So I think that’s just one more thing to add to the list of the amazing answers that you all gave is just noticing like when are your clients holding onto the two opposites because it can be likely they’re just sitting right in the middle, just looking at both of them like, “Well, this is an impossible situation. I’m just stuck right here.”

Okay, what is one tip you would have for a coach, most people that are listening are coaches, they probably have their own business. What’s one tip you have for a coach who is a business coach, or who really relates to what we’re talking to today, who’s listening and just like nodding their head along like, “Yes, this is so good. Someone help me.” What’s one tip you have for them like your best off the cuff business coaching tip?

Monica: To me, what has been most helpful in the last few years of developing my coaching business is to understand that there’s more than one right way to do it, to be successful. There is a diversity of style, diversity of coaches, diversity of modalities. And this is probably just mostly me, but as a lawyer, I was always looking for the one right answer. That was my expertise. That’s what I was hired to deliver.

And understanding that there’s so many ways to succeed and be authentically you and serve your clients was so foreign and not refreshing. Trust your gut, lean into what feels good for you, what you want to serve on. That’s true for finding my niche and now how I serve my clients is there’s so many ways to do it. And I have to find my way without looking to everybody else. And that’s what has been most successful for me.

Lindsay: I have to say, you might think it’s just you, but I feel like at least 95% of my clients that come into coaching masters have the thought there is a right way and I am here to find it. Someone tell me. That is why I’m here, I need to know the right way. And then I always have to break the news that there’s not, that there’s 100 right ways. So I love that answer. Kylie?

Kylie: Yeah, I feel like this kind of builds on what Monica was just saying. But for me, I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned and what I would love to pass on is just to let it be an evolution. Let it be a reflection of how you’re evolving and changing as a coach and as your skills grow, as your awareness grows, as your ability to coach grows. That will also evolve and show up differently in the way that you’re putting yourself out there and the way that you’re showing up online and that that is totally okay. That is part of it.

And again, I feel like it’s kind of like what Monica was saying where we get in our head there is this right way to do it and I need to find the right way. Or I see someone else’s business that really inspires me that I want to emulate, and not realizing that we have to kind of figure out what our right way is.

And we have to commit to making it the right way and letting it evolve and shift in little ways. And maybe in big ways. I mean, I think that’s important, too. And that’s how it works. And that’s how you’ll build your business. That’s what comes to mind for me.

Lindsay: That’s so great. And that’s so much of what we teach our clients, right? When you’re coaching them in business, it’s so good to see that yourself as a coach that there’s no right way. Because in business and even in life that is so much of what we teach our clients, it’s just, yeah, there really is no right way.

So for you to work through that discomfort for yourself, as the coach, makes you such a more powerful coach. More powerful? Whatever. A more powerful coach for your clients. Sabrina?

Sabrina: I think what comes to mind is you come first. We always have to come first. For the coaches that I know, we are so naturally willing to help others and be helpful and be there for others, but we sometimes forget ourselves.

I really believe we are in the industry of magicians. We’re literally coming up with multiple ways to help someone’s business, help their lives, and we hold space for their emotions. That is a big job. And when we’re not feeling good, don’t push it.

When we’re feeling sick, cancel the meetings because at the end of the day, the quality of our coaching is the same as the quality of our physical health, our emotional health, and everything around us. So please do take time and please just take it slow.

And yeah, we always have to come first. And that’s something that I am still working on myself. And that’s the most important thing that’s been effective for me.

Lindsay: I love that. I did not expect you to say that, but that is such a good point. That is like, yes, I completely agree. And it’s one of the hardest things to do sometimes, especially in the beginning of your business or in the first even couple years where you’re really working on growing it and you have that drive like I want to make money, I want it to work. It’s one of the hardest things that I had to learn was, I’m actually really sick, I should take the day off.

It’s hard, especially when you have a lot of clients and you’re like that means canceling on what, like six people, or however many it is. And it just can sometimes feel like a lot. But guess what? Being the example for your clients is going to teach them so much. I love it. Katy, what are your thoughts?

Katy: I have so many to choose from. Okay, so I think I’ll talk about the thing that I got, like the biggest breakthrough, or the biggest shift that I got from being in the mastermind that I feel like has really, really helped me. And it does tie with what Monica and Kylie were talking about. But pretty much, really from a coaching session that we had, I really got to see that awareness really is not enough, but it’s important. And it can do so much.

And it makes me think about what Monica said about there’s no right way. Really accepting that the client knows what is best for them. They know themselves better than we do. And so our job is just to help them create that awareness for them to find what is best for them.

And then also, I think what that does for me too, is that it helps me be in curiosity so much more when I am not believing I know what’s best for them, and I’m believing that like all we need to do here is create awareness. That’s like the only thing.

Lindsay: So great, A plus, A plus student.

So we’re going to wrap it up. What I would love you to do, we’re just going to go around and tell people where they can find you. If they heard you today, and they’re like, “I have to check this out. I have to see what’s happening.” Where can they find you? And we will have all of this linked in our show notes as well. Kylie, you go first.

Kylie: Yeah, okay, you can find me on Instagram, which is where I love to play, it’s bizcoach.Kylie. Or you can snoop around my website, which is www.kylieclayborne, C-L-A-Y-B-O-R-N-E .com. So not the famous spelling, but I’m hoping fame is on its way.,

Lindsay: I love it, it’s going to be the new famous spelling.

Kylie: That’s right, that’s right.

Lindsay: And again, we will have all of this linked in the show notes on my website. So if you’re driving and you’re like, “Oh no, I didn’t get it.” No problem, just go to the website, it is all there. Sabrina, how about you?

Sabrina: So you can find me on Instagram at lightofmori L-I-G-H-T of M-O-R-I. And you can find me on my website, www.morilight.com.

Lindsay: Can you tell us what mori is?

Sabrina: Oh, it means the florist in Japanese. I’m Chinese actually, but I just love this word. And I actually started my website a few years before I started my business to upload my meditation content and blog posts. And it was inspired when I was hiking and the light was coming through the forest. And I just felt so grounded and present and so much more like myself. And I was going through a hard time back then, so I decided to keep the name.

Lindsay: I just love that so much. I’m so glad I asked. I’ve been wondering, I just asked and then I thought I should have probably asked her before. I’m just going to put her on the spot. But that’s such a beautiful answer. I love it. Monica, how about you?

Monica: Yes, before I answer that, I just thought of a question that I thought you were going to ask and you didn’t. But I am a huge fan of the mastermind. I wanted to say that just so many reasons, but one of the things that stands out for me is you do an evaluation of an actual coaching session.

And to me that was worth all of the money in that one evaluation. It was so practical, doable, actionable and meaningful for me. I was hoping that you would ask. I love it. I’m a huge fan and super grateful for that. And having met amazing, amazing coaches who I would probably not have met outside of that opportunity.

I can be found on LinkedIn, I am very active. I love the platform. There’s so much value and content that I love to post, and Monica Levi with an I, and then my website, monicalevicoaching.com.

Lindsay: Love it. See this is the analytical in us, we’re like just the name .com, that is going to be perfect.

Monica: I knew you were going to call me out, I’m going to be more creative the second iteration.

Lindsay: Listen, my website is lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com, so I’ve got nothing to say.

Monica: One brainiac to another. I do love my name, so I thought I’d keep it. But yes, I may come up with a second version of it.

Lindsay: I also think there are lots of practical reasons that that works really well for your business. But when someone is very connected to a name, like what Sabrina just shared, I also just love that so much. For me, it would have been just something completely made up and I would have probably wanted to change it at least 12 times between when I started my business and now. So I probably did the right thing, just picking my name.

Katy, how about you?

Katy: Yes. Okay, if you are an artist, or artsy, or musician of some kind or love to create, you can follow me at Katy Arrington on Instagram. That’s the only place and it’s a lot of fun there. I recommend 10 out of 10.

Lindsay: 10 out of 10, I also highly recommend. And what if they’re not and they’re just like, “I don’t know, I mean, I’m a coach, but I just want to see what’s what she’s doing.” That’s okay too, right?

Katy: Oh, go for it. And you’ll be very entertained.

Lindsay: Yes, your Instagram is one of my favorites because it truly is just, like I said earlier, just watching you over– I don’t know the timeline, maybe the last year, the last couple years, just really watching you step into like really owning who you are. And just being very out there and powerful about it is so fun.

Katy: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Lindsay: I just love it. Okay, my friends. Sabrina, did you want to say something else?

Sabrina: Yes, I also want to talk about the mastermind.

Lindsay: I love it. Okay, hold on. I didn’t ask because I was like, well, we’re at almost an hour and whatever, they don’t really need to talk about that. But you are more than welcome to, go for it. I love it, of course.

Sabrina: Okay, so I think some people might think that to get coaching mastery, at least I did, I thought it was going to be really hard and complicated. And there would be a lot of things that I have to learn. I did learn a lot of things, but I didn’t feel like that at all.

I think, Lindsay, your magic is just like you’re super chill when you’re imparting on wisdom. So when I’m taking that wisdom, it feels super chill and simple as well. So before I knew it, I’m like wait a minute, I went from literally, I would be taking on clients and I would be worried all the time if I could coach them, to now I’m like, “Throw me anyone, I don’t care. Any type of issues, even if I’ve never personally encountered them before I can do it.”

To be able to have that level of confidence slowly and simply, it’s just really cool. And I definitely echo with what Monica was saying, having this community and being able to see this different kind of variety of coaches is also really, really amazing to have this community. But I would say the number one thing is this confidence and ease that I have with my coaching sessions, that’s so valuable for me.

Lindsay: I love it so much. I’m just going to have to go get coaching after this on just receiving compliments and just saying thank you. Sometimes that gets a little uncomfortable for me. Kylie, did you want to say something, too?

Kylie: Yes, I’m so glad you brought this up, Monica, because I actually had something written down this morning where I was like, “Yes, I get to tell Lindsay how much I love her and how much I love this group.” And all these women literally echoing the same as what everybody else has said. But I think what I underestimated was being in a room full of women who are also really focused on wanting to be the best coach in their niche that they can possibly be.

And just in being in that energy, how it’s kind of an all boats rise kind of mentality. And that has helped me a ton. What I love, loved is discovering that I actually have many strategies and processes. When coming into this I felt like, I mean, I guess I do, I’m not so sure. Or not even really knowing that they could be super simple, or they could be really complex.

You just opened my brain up to so many ways that I am working with my clients that I didn’t even realize. It just felt so automatic and it really helped me step into a different level of confidence as a coach that I was not able to kind of get my brain around and my confidence and my self-concept around prior to this group. So yes, love, love.

Lindsay: You guys are the best. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. I had so much fun here today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking time out of your day. What we didn’t say at the beginning is for some of you it’s like 11pm, for some of you it’s 7am. So I’m just so grateful that you were willing to come here at crazy hours and do this with us. So fun.

Bye, everyone.

Thank you, thank you. I hope you loved that as much as we did. We had so much fun. They are just all geniuses and I hope that you really learned a lot from them. I will see you next week, bye.

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