Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf, and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills episode 279.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hey coach, I am so happy you’re here today. And before I get started, just a couple of things of housekeeping.

First of all, The Complete Coach, my membership is reopening soon. So, in a few weeks, you will be able to join if you have been waiting. I know I’ve been getting some messages from some of you asking me when it is opening, and I just want you to know it is opening towards the end of March.

The second thing is, if you’ve been around here a while, you might know, every year I host something called Coach Week. And it is back.

Coach Week is happening the week of March 16th through the 20th and we will put the link in the show notes. I’ll talk more about it at the end. But we will put the link in the show notes. So, if you have been waiting, now’s your chance.

Now, on to what I want to talk about today. So, first of all, I have been running The Complete Coach, the new membership for almost about four months now. And there are a few things that I keep watching happen that are blowing me away and I decided I have to share these with you because there’s a really important message in each of these things that I’m seeing happen in the community that I think is meant for you. So, let’s talk about them today.

These are three of the main patterns that I keep seeing in the community and in coaching my clients in the membership that I thought are important to share because I think they might challenge possibly something you might be believing about what it takes to build a coaching practice.

And these will be applicable to you no matter where you are in your coaching journey because these are the things that just keep popping up. I see them happen at every level.

So, the first one, the first observation I am having is that coach after coach are discovering that they actually really can do things their way. That they can figure out what is their way and then make that work, especially when it comes to their marketing. And I have been lately obsessed with watching the relief that comes over them as this is happening. So, I’ll give you a couple of examples of what this looks like in real life, in real time.

So, for example, coaches just letting go of business activities that maybe they’ve been doing for a long time because they thought they had to, or taking them and revamping them, mixing them up, making them more theirs.

Also, I’ve been watching them shift into something that feels more fun and aligned to who they are. Those two things are probably related, right? Letting go of things that they thought they had to do and shifting into something that feels more fun and more aligned.

And here’s the best part. It isn’t just about, “I’m not doing this thing I don’t want to do anymore.” What happens is, it creates an entire ripple in their business and in their life. When they’re doing things that truly feel more fun and light them up when they’re working, their confidence completely shifts. Their energy shifts, the way they talk about coaching shifts, the way they show up for whatever it is that they’re doing shifts because they’re having fun instead of dreading it.

And that doesn’t just ripple into their business, but it also ripples into everywhere else in their life because when they’re enjoying their business more, they also get to stop working and go enjoy their life without being stressed about all the things happening in their business.

Here’s one of the things that has really surprised me as I’ve been coaching my clients is how deep, how deeply ingrained the, I’m going to say like best practices have become for some of them. Those things that they thought they had to do or that they’ve been learning over and over and over and they’ve been doing in their business that they don’t love, it’s so fascinating to watch how even when they make a decision that they’re going to shift it or they’re going to try something new or they are no longer available for this thing, which by the way usually isn’t working anyway.

It’s so fascinating to see how many times the default kicks back in and they come back to that thought of like, “but I’ve been told this is the right way to do,” or “this is just the way that I’ve learned over and over.” And I’m just noticing sometimes it takes a while to unlearn some of those patterns.

And I completely get it because I can think of areas of my business where I have been the exact same way. So I get it. But when something does shift, when they really do make a change, or they really do try something new and it works and it works so much better than this thing they thought they had to do, it blows their mind. It shifts everything.

Recently, one of my clients said this thing on a call that I thought was so fun. So, for a little bit of context, inside the membership, I teach something called Coach Archetypes, which helps the coaches identify what their archetypes are, which help them market and help them know how they just kind of naturally show up in the world. There are five archetypes.

And recently we did something called Archetype Week, which was super fun. We did all things for the whole week marketing around their archetypes. And then each month we also have a, one social event. So, this past month’s social event was based around archetypes, and we just had some fun with them. We explored some things, I asked some questions and just in general, it was a really fun call.

And one of the clients on that call, when we were kind of talking about what they’ve noticed after a full week of really leaning into their archetype, my client said one of the things I love the most is knowing, and then my client was sharing something about archetypes and she said, and I’m obsessed with this.

She said, “One of my favorite parts about knowing my archetype is that it also helps me navigate marketing that is for me and that isn’t.” As in, when she is maybe on social media or consuming content of some form, not only is knowing her archetype helping her in her own marketing, but it’s also helping her witness marketing that’s happening in the world that technically is probably directed at her and notice, “Oh, this is for me or it’s not.”

And she said, “I can usually see which archetype this like proven method is geared towards. So, I get less distracted and I spend less money and I stay on course more often.” That blew my mind. Honestly, I hadn’t even considered that side of the coin, and I think that that is the most fun. I love it.

And then the other thing that I see happening often is when the coaches lean into, again, marketing, the way they want to do it, they are putting out into the world drastically more content, right? Because they’re having so much more fun making it. So, when they’re having more fun, it means they’re more likely to show up and actually do it.

And most of them thought like more marketing, more in quotes, is impossible because it’s so draining, it’s so soul-sucking, and it turns out they were wrong. They were just trying to implement strategies that just weren’t for them and they were draining them. Because the wrong marketing strategy for you is draining. That’s just a fact.

And then one last thing that I’m really starting to notice and consider is that you have to think about like right now we live in a time in a world where AI is helping everyone create so much more content, right? Especially big name coaches who already have tons of content, now they can use AI and they can turn it into 100 more pieces of content. And so, all of that expert content is coming at you 24/7, which means there’s never a lack of information, right?

Like you don’t need to learn the skill of where to find expert information about building your coaching practice. The skill that you need is learning which of these things is for me. You have to develop a filter, right? It’s almost about consuming less and consuming smarter and knowing this is for me or this is not.

So hopefully your takeaway from this is just if something ever feels forced, that’s just information that’s worth paying attention to. It’s not always a sign that you need to just push harder, that you need to burn yourself out. It might be a sign that you’re kind of working against what comes more naturally to you.

Okay, here is my second observation, which is really fun. First, I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t totally sure how this membership was going to work. I knew that it would work. I knew I would get it to work, but I also knew I was building a membership based around the idea that coaches are wired differently and that they have different archetypes and different approaches.

And honestly, I was a little, not worried necessarily, but I was a little curious about how am I going to make this work in a community where lots of different coaches are coming together. And here’s what has been so fun. This one’s a little selfish. It has created the most supportive community that I’ve seen.

And here’s why I think that is, because members actually become so invested in each other’s archetypes and in supporting each other that they are understanding, “Oh, your archetype is different than mine and mine is this and here’s my mix of archetypes and it’s different than yours and you know, that, oh, turns out, we’re just all completely different humans.” And they get genuinely curious about their coaching colleagues.

And instead of being in their head and obsessed with their thing, they do kind of jump in and help each other. And one way, one huge way I think this happens, and I see this often in my mastermind as well, is when you give people, when I give people the permission to be themselves and to be different, it really removes competition. Right? It’s really hard to be in competition when everybody is running a totally different race. It just makes it a very different experience.

No one is trying to prove that their approach is best because it’s literally part of like built into the membership is that none of the approaches are best, they’re just different. And you just have to figure out which one yours is. So, because of that, they just get in there and help and support each other.

And when I think about that, I’ve, I’ve built communities for years, even prior to coaching in different ways. And when I think about what it takes to build a real community, like real supportive community isn’t putting all of the exact same humans in a group together.

What community, great community, what it typically looks like is putting humans together that are there rallying around one cause or value or similarity, but then making sure that they feel safe to be different and not only feel safe, but are actually valued for those differences.

And again, in a world of AI that we’re living in now, which let’s be clear, I love AI, you know this, but that can never replace being in a room with real humans who are genuinely curious and care about you and they’re to do their own work that you get to witness. Nothing can be more powerful than that.

Here is my third main observation so far after running the membership. I keep seeing members celebrate things like taking a day off or not checking their phone on the weekends or not checking their business notifications on the weekends or going on vacation and not thinking they have to work or not bringing their laptop.

And I think these are some of my favorite celebrations because I think this is so important. These celebrations are not just like good for you and like yay, way to go, but I’m actually watching coaches in real time live lives that are more fun, that they’re enjoying more, that they’re able to put those things aside and even be a better coach for their clients.

They’re more present just all around. They’re holding space more effectively. And just in general, they have more to give to themselves, to their clients, to their family, to their friends, to everybody because they’re not constantly running on empty, because they’re not feeling exhausted.

And I think so many coaches believe that success requires lots of sacrifice. And sure, there are times where that has been true for me and that I have had to show up or maybe put out fires in my business every once in a while.

But that’s very different than thinking that it takes constant sacrifice and that you always have to be on and that, you know, your business is always first and your life and taking care of yourself comes second. I actually think it is the exact opposite. You have to take care of yourself first in order to make all the other things happen.

Your capacity to coach your clients, your capacity to enjoy a vacation that you paid lots of money for, and your capacity to show up and be with your family, it is all connected to how are you treating yourself when it comes to having boundaries between your business and your personal time.

How you treat yourself isn’t separate from how you build your business. It is how you build your business, or at least a very integral part of it. If you’re constantly running on empty and wondering why your coaching sessions feel flat or why your marketing feels exhausting and impossible, and everything feels harder than it should be, consider that the answer might not be doing more, more, more. Sometimes it might be rest or taking a walk or taking tomorrow off because you need a reset or going on vacation and really allowing yourself the entire week off.

I love these celebrations so much and if you are not in the membership, just know that if this is something that you’re great at, amazing, I’m celebrating you. And if it’s not, I just challenge you to add in something small this week that you know is a boundary for you.

That you are, you know, stopping working each day at a certain time or giving yourself a few hours to yourself in the mornings or taking a long lunch and going for a walk, whatever it is. Just add it in, start with one thing. It can even be small.

So of course, there are multiple reasons I’m telling you this. First of all, so that you can hopefully learn something from one of those things I just shared. They are all super important for all coaches. The other reason is, these three things, doing business your way, a real community with coaches who are like-minded and who get it and who get you, and building a business that actually supports your life. These are all things that I’m super passionate about. I’m sure you know that by now if you listen to the podcast.

And coming up, I am hosting something called Coach Week for one full week, starting on March 15th or 16th. And this is where you will get to experience small doses of this, what it actually looks like, not just in theory, but to actually be in my world for a full week.

It will be live coaching where I’ll coach you on some of the things that you are working through. It’ll be a community of coaches who are in it with you for the whole week. It’ll be a chance to discover maybe your archetype and how you are wired and build what it could look like to build your business through the lens of the Business Archetype system.

It will look like member interviews where you get to just hear real coaches sharing their real unfiltered experiences and giving you so many incredible tips that I cannot wait for you to hear and even some evening sessions and some what I would call like fireside chats and some social hours.

So, it’s not a course and it’s not a workshop. It’s a full week of just coming into my world and getting to experience what this might look like for you. You will learn a ton. I promise you will have a lot of fun. And you will certainly get some coaching.

So again, the details are March 15th. It is only $27 to join us for the entire week. There is an optional upgrade on the registration page when you’re registering for Coach Week. You can read the details about that if you decide to join us.

And I again, we will put the link in the show notes. And if you are already in The Complete Coach, just know you are invited. Please come, come hang out, bring all the energy. You get to come for free, of course. And I cannot wait to see you there.

So, over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be bringing you some real conversations with a few of my clients who are kind of living and breathing everything I was just talking about. You’re going to hear some of their real stories and you’re going to love them. I already know. So, stay tuned for those. Thank you as always. Thank you so much for being here and I’ll see you next week.

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.